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Its not slippery at all, they're banning hate speech which is nearly always from conservative and fascist retards which is completely rational.

It obviously isn't working because fascism is actually gaining ground in the EU, where it isn't in the US, which doesn't ban any speech that doesn't advocate violence. By that I mean there isn't a single politician who openly identifies as such in the US, yet the combined EU has many of them, with up to 25% of the votes in many EU states going towards the local fascist party, and in some that party is actually the governing party:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

At any rate, here's why it's slippery:

https://yro.slashdot.org/story...

Effectively what the EU is doing is saying that it must be up to private entities to censor speech, and that they must do it quickly, which opens up a gigantic can of worms: They're inevitably going to have to develop automated filters that will delete posts before a human can review them, which means many will just get deleted outright, and in the case where human review is required, you're just asking for somebody with a particular political view to delete content that *they* don't like, which would be perfectly legal, or even content that is really benign from any perspective at all, but was deleted because it was reviewed by somebody who just likes to quickly press the delete button so they can leave work early.

Even in the case where the police are the ones permitted to do the deleting off of these sites, they still go overboard for all of the above reasons, especially in cases where the difference between right and wrong is purely subjective.

Even as it is, it's already bad, and for no good reason. In the US, people are allowed to talk about their thoughts on subjects like immigration and openly debate it so that cooler heads can prevail, but the EU just hamfisted tells them what they will think on the subject as if they can just force cooler heads to prevail. One approach is going to draw less resentment and give less people an excuse to join clubs that are far off of the deep-end, and the other approach will encourage that environment while appearing to be the most tolerant group of people on the planet, even though it's a lie.

But that's not all! France seems keen to the idea of a Great Firewall of Europe to filter speech that has nothing at all to do with hate:

https://cdt.org/blog/global-ap...

The US has been doing this a lot longer than the EU has, so we've had a lot more time to get it right. The EU has still yet to learn that censoring speech and being highly dismissive of certain portions of the population doesn't work, and then they wonder why they started two world wars. The US just received its reminder of this last November when the political elite were constantly dismissive instead of engaging towards relatively small yet still very important segment of the population, which resulted in a turd being planted in the white house. But fortunately it's not outright censorship, so we'll come out of it smelling like roses in the long run.

There's more information at Wyden's press release.

In addition to Senators Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Rand Paul, R-Ky., the original cosponsors are Sens. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., Steve Daines, R-Mont., and Jon Tester, D-Mont. I would hope Bernie Sanders would support the bill but I don't personally know how much one can read into him not being an original cosponsor.

The above press release includes a link to a readable (warning, PDF) 1-page summary. The last sentence lists other supporters/commenters of the bill:

For more information, see comments by ACLU, Google, EFF/Access, OTI, CDT, NACDL, the security researchers Bellovin, Blaze, and Landau, and the Agenda Books from the U.S. Courts.

One option I've heard is a property right, such as ownership (similar to copyright) of personal information. Joe "owns" his name &* address, and he'll loan a copy to Time Magazine for the purpose of delivering the periodical he has paid for. Any other use of Joe's information by Time Magazine is a violation, unless Joe & Time have come to some other agreement. This is very similar to copyright, so let's just call it personal copyright.

Copyright might be too blunt an instrument though, because remedies mostly involve (expensive) civil suits. A number of European governments passed legislation called Fair Information Practices. These laws basically say that personal information can only be used for the purpose for which it was given, and cannot be repurposed without consent of the person involved. Probably the governments involved have given themselves a loophole for national security, but I haven't investigated the details. This option reduces the cost to the individual, and makes it the job of the government to enforce the law. I see this as a benefit, though some may not.

Writing Fair Information Practices into law would probably explode the business models of the currently most successful tech companies in the USA, so maybe there's a way to ease into the laws and allow the tech companies time to adjust their business methods...

Oh geeze. So the question is which source to trust? Looks like the original source is the last link. Reads like the author of the second link looked at slide #45 of the above and paid more attention to the right-hand side. I guess I must concede, they're referring to the equivalent of 128 or 256 bits of security due to the hash being 256 or 512 bits long.

This does leave the potential for nasty things being done in the other tweaks.

Requiring software vendors to build intercept functionality into their products is unwise and will be ineffective, with the result being serious consequences for the economic well being and national security of the United States. See https://www.cdt.org/files/pdfs/CALEAII-techreport.pdf for more details. http://wh.gov/Skyk Please go to link and sign,

Bullshit - my papers and effects are my papers and effects, regardless of where I keep them.

This should not be labeled informative because it is likely to get people into serious shit.

Under the third-party records doctrine, a person cannot assert a Fourth Amendment interest in information knowingly provided to a third party. If strict application of the doctrine ever served us well, it no longer does, leading to absurd results. This is particularly true in an age where so much more information is communicated through intermediaries. ....

http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/article/the_data_question_should_the_third-party_records_doctrine_be_revisited/

The doctrine holds that law enforcement does not need a warrant to search and seize information lawfully held by third parties, such as online file hosting services like Dropbox or online email providers like Gmail. Nojeim argues that the third-party records doctrine is outdated and an ill-suited legal standard for today's digital world. For example, people can use physical storage lockers rented out to them by a third party -- that is, a locker rental company -- and retain a warrant protection for their property stored in the lockers. However, if people use an online storage service provided by a third party, their warrant protection is lost.

https://www.cdt.org/blogs/suchismita-pahi/0108whats-wrong-third-party-doctrine-and-einstein-30

This is nothing about DNS. The slippery slope argument (for good or ill) the major Internet powers used to justify refusal is that treaty language implies that signatory governments have a mutual international obligation to do content monitoring (e.g., deep packet inspection). These clauses were argued to be non-content-neutral, and (for instance) coud allow Iran to insist that the US prohibit blastphemous content (for Shiite Muslim definitions of "blastphemy").

As per this post at the Center for Democracy and Technology, there's an ITU-T Recommendation "Y.2770: Requirements for Deep Packet Inspection in Next Generation Networks", which is "restricted to TIES users", where "TIES (Telecommunication Information Exchange Service) is a set of networked information resources and services offered by ITU without any charge to ITU Members (Member States, Sector Members, Associates, and Academia) to support their participation in the activities of the Union." Not being a Member State, a Sector Member, an Associate, or a member of Academia, I have no idea what that recommendation says; it might be Very Nice if somebody who did have access to it were to upload it to wcitleaks.org.

Sure:

https://www.privacyrights.org/fs/fs9-wrtp.htm

https://www.cdt.org/wiretap/wiretap_overview.html

...this isn't even controversial, though -- it's been this way for many years. They even made it illegal to sell a radio that could receive in the bands where the cellphone transmissions are made.

Well gosh, I guess I can do your research for you. I'm a bit busy, but you can start here:

http://www.privacy.ca.gov/privacy_laws.htm

http://www.ftc.gov/privacy/glbact/glbsub1.htm

http://www.law.state.ak.us/department/civil/consumer/4548.html

http://government.dc.gov/DC/Government/Data+&+Transparency/Consumer+Protection/Consumer+Information+101/Consumer+Personal+Information+Security+Breach+Notification+Act

http://data.opi.mt.gov/bills/mca_toc/30_14_17.htm

http://codes.ohio.gov/orc/1349.19

http://www.cdt.org/privacy/guide/protect/laws.php

Telecommunications Act (1996) Customer Proprietary Network Information (CPNI)

Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act of 2003

Shall I keep going? or are you prepared to admit that in this very same universe that we share, here in America, there are in fact laws governing the use, protection, and sharing of personal information? The laws aren't what I personally want them to be, but they exist, and the whole point of what I was saying is that the current hands-off free-market approach is BAD, and would be LESS BAD if there were MORE LAWS in this area -- a point which survives your assertion that the laws don't exist. Actually I don't have time to keep looking things up for you, so if you aren't prepared to admit it, then your denial will have to be the end of the discussion.

My final point, as a question to you, would be why would Borders even have a contract, if the contract didn't expand its rights beyond the legal defaults? Why would it bother to pay a lawyer to make up such a contract? Why would it bother to present the contract to consumers? If there were no laws governing it, and they could do whatever they want, then they would, no contract required. It doesn't even make sense that they would tie their own hands with their own contract, resulting in a lesser ability for them to do what they want to do.

The CDT has a really good summary of the Comcast/Level3 spat, & why it isn't a net neutrality issue....

Perhaps you shouldn't sit idly by while corporations take over the government, like you're so willing to let them do.

too late...

This is what I get for not reading the article first. Faux News. Where's my salt lick?

This will cause me mod damage, but I'm going to dive in here one more time: numbski, don't be a jerkwad.

There are several other sources for this same story. And yet, you are going to deny that it is true because the single link above is from 'Faux News'.

Forget Google, logic, or even a mild interest in the actual article itself, it's FOX BASHING TIME. WHOOOAAAAHHHHH!

Partisanship is a disease of the mind, and it just made you do something stupid. Reflect on that.

- They where the first to introduce "3-strikes-and-out" Internet connection. Meaning if you download something from piratebay, 3 times - then you lose your internet connection by law.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8436745.stm

- They where imposing restrictions on content on personal homepages
http://www.cdt.org/pr_statement/french-court-imposes-speech-restrictions-beyond-its-borders-0
(and much more)

- They always stand in way of internet innovation, if something isn't checked with them, it's illegal:
http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=22103516

Needless to say, this NEW restriction doesn't come as a huge surprise when it's from France. It's the same country that wanted the entire world to speak French instead of English, remember EuroDisney in the beginning, where you were nearly chased out of the country if you couldn't speak French (it's not like that anymore...experience dawns on them eventually) ...but come ON FRANCE...

I've never understood how targetted advertising == invasion of privacy.

When you frequent a bar regularly, the barman gets to know your favorite drink(s). You'll arrive one everning, and he'll say "Hello Dave, the usual ?". I have never felt the need to respond "How dare you invade my privacy with your targetted sales".

If we have to endure adverts on the web, then at least let them be relevant to what I enjoy.

It's not that I am against advertisement being relevant in general, but if you need to break into my house and kidnap me for an MRI to deliver a relevant ad then I will take offense.

Your barman analogy would be apt if Google did that only on their sites. That's what the original idea behind tracking cookies was supposed to be about. I'd still be concerned if todays search for Airfare, combined with yesterday's search for composting chemicals, combined with the day before that searching for a gift for my muslim girlfriend lead some overzealous data analyzer to put me on a terrorist list: but that's peanuts compared to the real issue.

The real issue is that a huge portion of the web is served by Google's ads, and Google is collecting demographic data about you EVERYWHERE YOU BROWSE where you tread past one of their ads. The huge issue is that ad publishers can elect not to display targeted ads, but they CANNOT ELECT not to collect data on Google's behalf.

This puts Google on equal footing with Facebook in terms of disregard to user privacy. You see, it's one thing for Google to be capable of collecting this volume of data on it's users. So's my ISP, for example. However my ISP would be violating Federal Wiretapping laws if they tried to take any action based on such data, or in any way made clear they had been snooping. Google somehow skirts beyond such protection, and can ostensibly not only know nearly every website you visit (including referal data when you arive in their sphere of influence from non-participating sites) via adsense *and* urchin beacons, but openly share this data with unknown third parties to deliver their "service".

"Luckily", you can opt out of this profiling program by being branded with a special "cookie" that stores a unique hash, indexed into their black box database, which they promise only tells their data miners to stop mining. (despite the fact this is a hash, similar to a UPC code, not a simple directive such as "google_tracking=no") They also have a clearinghouse where you can view the data they (admit to) keep on you, and you can even erase or prune it... that is, if you are man enough to log into a google account, tying your activity to your Gmail account et al, and then you still can't see data tied up in cookies on browsers that have not yet been cross referenced to your google account.

So, in short, in case you don't trust their intentions with your data, you are asked to instead trust their flimsy opt-out policy and trust that they honor it, and will continue honoring it in perpetuity instead of "accidentally" forgetting and collecting your data anyhow.

> ...the courts already declared that email stored on a third party server is
> not covered by the 4th amendment.

They have done no such thing.

c.f. Email Privacy Rights

Stored Communications Act

but also http://cyb3rcrim3.blogspot.com/2009/11/cioffi-email-search-warrant-residual.html

I wasn't the original person who misunderstood. There was a misreading of the court opinion by the article's author. Yes, I should have gone to original sources, but going to the original article as originally written wouldn't have helped at the time I wrote my comment, AFAICT.

That said, Warshak v. United States covers the question of warrants, and 18 U.S.C. 2703(c)(3) covers the question of notice. Yes, a warrant is required. No, notice is not required. Not even delayed notice, disturbingly. Just another reminder that in the U.S., we have only the illusion of privacy except insofar as we take deliberate steps to guarantee it.

Techdirt is regurgitating from an interest group ... blog. *palmface*

Techdirt is regurgitating from an interest group ... blog. *palmface*

two quick things.

The other reply is good advice to reduce junk mail and such I have been on it for a while and I can say it helps. Unfortionatly companies that have prior business with you will still sell your info so your treating the symptom not the cause.

Having been closer then I wish to admit to a group of spamming a-holes for my first job out of college "think senior citizen groups" I learned the magic phrase.

"Do not rent, sell, or trade any of this information, & please put on your do not mail list"

This tells them in clear terms they can't weasle out of that you don't want your info sold or traded, and you don't want junk mail catalogs. They trade, rent, and sell your name like a commodity, with competitors lists for more names so don't forget this part!!

I have also had people recommend and tried although I haven't caught anyone yet, to change your middle initial to something odd as if you had a typo. That way if they do sell your info you will know who the offending party is. FYI the bad guys do this (seed their list) to make sure when they rent or sell your info the list only gets used once.

You can also contact the post office and let them know you don't want any 3'rd class mail.

Get your name on the Do Not Call Registry, the Opt out List, and the DMA do not mail list. Inform all the companies you do existing business with your wishes by writing the magic phrase or all your mail correspondence or checks for a few times. This with all for about 6 months and you will notice the difference. Here are links for the Google impaired.

https://www.donotcall.gov/
http://opt-out.cdt.org/online/
http://www.thedma.org/

Dale (K.O.T.H.) was right in some ways and I always get a laugh at that episode... remember people....DON'T FEED THE BEAST!!

DP

The main part of the argument is that Craigslist has done nothing wrong to begin with.

They are protected by section 230. The threats and allegations are unconstitutional and IMHO slanderous.

Craigslist is obeying the law.

Section 230

We however have grown concerned over your ability to operate our traffic as a neutral controller, as some of your states believe they can hijack and disable our traffic lights, if it bothers their locals. They have not been entirely successful yet, but they have caused disruptions that should never of been possible in the first place.

http://blog.cdt.org/2009/01/24/kentucky-court-rules-that-domain-names-arent-craps-tables/

>

"...have not been entirely successful yet...?" That's some Fox News-worthy spin if ever I've heard one.

Have you even read the URL of the link you posted?
The state of Kentucky itself decided it could not do what it thought it could. See, Kentucky has an appeals court system, whose primary job is to prevent idiots in government from running amuck. And in the case you pointed, it did its job, on its own, without any outside help, before it could cause a problem for anyone. Even the people of Kentucky.

That's about as shining an example of how oversight is supposed to work as I can think of. (And by the way, there are several other levels of oversight above that. Namely, higher state courts and federal courts.) Yes, the US has idiots who will try to seize power, but the it also has a governmental system designed from day 1 to keep those idiots in check.

(Never mind that the state of Kentucky has about as much jurisdiction over ICANN, or the broader Internet, as I do.)

Lets consider a better analogy.

We build at OUR EXPENSE an entire series of roads, spanning both countries and continents, and we tie the traffic system into YOUR control system.

We REIMBURSE you for your troubles, paying you a small fee for each traffic light you operate (DNS Registration), resulting in cheaper operational costs for everyone.

We however have grown concerned over your ability to operate our traffic as a neutral controller, as some of your states believe they can hijack and disable our traffic lights, if it bothers their locals. They have not been entirely successful yet, but they have caused disruptions that should never of been possible in the first place.

http://blog.cdt.org/2009/01/24/kentucky-court-rules-that-domain-names-arent-craps-tables/

The options we have available to us to minimize US laws/regulations on both our local and international traffic, we have the following options:

1. We leave the system in your hands (and whim), and hope for the best.
2. You hand over the control to an multinational committee
3. We sever our dependence on your system, and create our own. This however will more then likely cause international traffic crashes.

Anyone who thinks that its America's right to retain control over the entire INTERNATIONAL internet will suffer when countries develop their own control system in disgust.

Anyone who thinks America is more reliable then a committee might have a point, but 'because were better then you', is never going to be an accepted reason.

Or just challenge it in the European Court of Human Rights. They're likely to view such a change as a clear violation of the Data Protection Directive unless they think they can seriously walk such broad lifting of protections under the exemptions.

PEDANT WARNING: It would be the European Court of Justice, not the European Court of Human Rights, since the Data Protection Directive is part of EU law. Although the ECHR may have a view on the effect on the right to privacy enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights, and the UK's own Human Rights Act 1998.

ECJ and EU != ECHR and EC. Two completely different bodies.

If half of the "UK is out to get it's citizens" articles here are to be believed - you might as well give up and get out as it appears that the fascists have taken over the UK government and nothing you can do will make it otherwise short of a revolution.

Or just challenge it in the European Court of Human Rights. They're likely to view such a change as a clear violation of the Data Protection Directive unless they think they can seriously walk such broad lifting of protections under the exemptions.

I guess is depends on how you look at it. I was paying more than 12% of my gross to various taxes each paycheck, and I tended to bitch about that. But like I said, my biggest expense was my truck, then my house, then maybe monthly bills (we had no unsecured credit payments), then food, then insurance. While seeing $500/month spent on anything unexpected stings, it's not like someone making that much money can't handle the payment, and quite easily given proper money management.

Look, I'm not saying that an extra $500/month doesn't suck, especially for something like medicine, which is essentially flushing the cash down the commode. I was merely backing up the other poster's (great grand parent post?) assertion that either the OP has no idea what "middle class" means or he can't manage his money. That's all.

I've trimmed down a lot since my peak of earning (the aforementioned $52k/yr) down to a hair over $1000/month gross income. Still married, still w/ 2 kids. I'm not saying it wouldn't totally suck ass, but even now I could rearrange the cash flow to piss away $500/month on medicine if one of my family members needed it. Sure, we'd be eating beans and rice for every meal (as opposed to maybe 2 times a week now) and Flintstones vitamins to take up the slack, but we'd pull through.

As nebulous a term as "middle class" is, anyone who is in that bracket should be able to find $500/month by a modest amount of sacrifice. If they can't, they're overextended in some way and that's nobody's fault but their own (unusual circumstances notwithstanding). This has nothing to do with the state of crookedness of Big Pharma Co and their over-priced drugs.

Can anyone comment on "The Center for American Progress" and "The Center for Democracy and Technology" I've never heard of them before and they sound like the sort of names church groups give themselves when they want to sound credible.

There's a lot of think tanks and policy advocate groups with high minded names.
Some of them are more descriptive than others.

http://www.americanprogress.org/aboutus (2003)

"Founded in 2003, CAP is headed by John D. Podesta, former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton and professor at the Georgetown University Center of Law. CAP is designed to provide long-term leadership and support to the progressive movement. Our ability to develop thoughtful policy proposals and engage in the war of ideas with conservatives is unique and effective."

http://www.cdt.org/about/ (1994)

"The Center for Democracy and Technology works to promote democratic values and constitutional liberties in the digital age. With expertise in law, technology, and policy, CDT seeks practical solutions to enhance free expression and privacy in global communications technologies. CDT is dedicated to building consensus among all parties interested in the future of the Internet and other new communications media."

It doesn't look like either of these think tanks are church groups trying to sound credible.

Google is your friend.

Center for Democracy and Technology:

http://www.cdt.org/about/

Center for American Progress:

http://www.americanprogress.org/aboutus

I have read Philip Zimmermann book when It came out and clearly remember the remark.

Problem is several fold.

1.) SMTP is by default clear text.
2.) POP3 & IMAP are also.
3.) There is a shortage of good mail clients that can support PGP or any encryption.
4.) It was probably too lated to change things when Philip wrote those words in 91.
        I remember the resistance and confusion with getting Kerberos, SSH, SSL and IPSEC out there.
5.) Key exchange has always been awkward at best, and has it's problems.
6.) When I started to work on massive arrays parallel small fast processors with Chuck Moore, I very quickly learned there had been other before, it all went black, and it would be excellent at cracking PGP, DES, MD5, AES etc.
7.) Why do you think the governments restriction about encryption suddenly ended so abruptly in 1996 and 1997? http://www.cdt.org/crypto/clipper311/961230_ear.txt &

  When 386BSD was released internationally 1992 libcrypt was just a dummy that did nothing, so the systems master password file had passwords in clear text. If it didn't it do this it would have violated munitions export laws with very severe punishments.

I can only assume either they had a sufficient way to break these codes in 1997 or there was too much critical mass to change clear text systems to encryption. Maybe both.

I'd be packing my bags if I thought there was a place to run. The only option is to crank up resistance and vote these evil bastards out of office. It's time to dismantle the police state.

Great idea, but 'voting these evil bastards out' only gets rid of the bosses. Problem is, every government bureau is a hotbed of bureaucrats who aren't elected and be voted out. Add to it the concept of the administrative subpoena:

What is an administrative subpoena?

An administrative subpoena is essentially a piece of paper signed by an FBI agent that requires any recipient to disclose any documents (or any other tangible things). The proposed administrative subpoena would also compel a person to give testimony, essentially forcing anyone to talk to the FBI. Administrative subpoenas are issued with no prior judicial, prosecutorial or grand jury approval. Under the current proposals, failure to comply with an administrative subpoena could result in civil and criminal penalties, and the subpoenas would be executed in complete secrecy. In fact, under one of the proposals, anyone who disclosed the existence of an administrative subpoena could be subject to up to five years in prison.

Technically, a person getting an administrative subpoena could ask for judicial review. But, in the case of subpoenas for documents, why would they? Most - if not all - administrative subpoenas for records would be issued to third-party businesses to get information about their customers. The business has immunity for complying with the subpoena and little incentive to spend its money challenging a subpoena for records that pertain to someone else. And since the business is prohibited from notifying its customer of the existence of the subpoena, the customer can never exercise his right to challenge the subpoena.

So, now our JEdgar can pull out a handy form, fill in the blanks, and hand it off to whomever and aquire any information he desires, without the benefit of a search warrant. In the case of this 'kiddie porn' site, I'd think, since kiddie porn is such a hot button issue, that getting a real live honest-to-God search warrant and subpoena wouldn't even be a minorleague speedbump. The question in my mind is, why settle for something of dubvious legal value when you can get something that stands up in court, unless of course, you're on dubvious legal ground to start with...

How can they call this a legitimate request, given the recent outrages by the companies involved?

Shame on Wired for repeating the propaganda phrases, "illegal file sharing" and "piracy". It's not against the law in many countries and sharing should not be considered damaging or wrong anywhere. Giving someone a copy of a book is not the same thing as feeding them to the fish. I'm used to better things from Wired than this.

While it sounds promising, it still raises the little hairs on the back of my neck. Danger Will Robinson, danger!

Under the terms of the law an organization may not share personal data to another party without your consent. It's a pretty decent law, I don't know how the hell it got passed.

By EU directive.

The report is actually here:

It looks like the most privacy-friendly, hands-down, is ask.com with their opt-in "ask eraser". A distant second is aol.com. But both of them share their data with Google, which appears to have the worst policy.

Everybody seems to hang onto most everything for more than a year; better than forever I guess, but a pretty big window for, say, subpoenas.

For example, information about the telephone numbers that I dial ought to be considered my property. I implicitly grant access to that information to the telephone company for the limited purposes of connecting my call and billing me for it. For any use of that information beyond those I've granted, the telephone company should have to seek my permission.

We (the public) lost the rights to this particular information to the telcos years ago. There was a court challenge of FCC privacy regulations and they were thrown out See this. As far as I can determine, the regulations have never been rewritten.

This is one problem with our (theoretical) rights to privacy. What we actually have is a right to be secure from search and seizure by our government. There is nothing in the Constitution that extends this protection to cover private entities behavior.

I think you're mistaken. First, you're thinking of a particular portion of the Telecommunications Decency Act of 1996: Title V, the Communications Decency Act.

When asked what he thought about the ban, Gingrich said "It's probably illegal under our Constitution." He goes on to say that it's perfectly acceptable for advertisers to refuse to do business with radio stations that broadcast songs glorifying violence against women.

Later, in another interview, he also said "[The Amendment] is clearly a violation of free speech and it's a violation of the right of adults to communicate with each other. I don't agree with it."

It appears that your conclusion - "Newt Gingrich doesn't believe in free speech" - is not supported by the details you provided.

I think you're mistaken. First, you're thinking of a particular portion of the Telecommunications Decency Act of 1996: Title V, the Communications Decency Act.

When asked what he thought about the ban, Gingrich said "It's probably illegal under our Constitution." He goes on to say that it's perfectly acceptable for advertisers to refuse to do business with radio stations that broadcast songs glorifying violence against women.

Later, in another interview, he also said "[The Amendment] is clearly a violation of free speech and it's a violation of the right of adults to communicate with each other. I don't agree with it."

It appears that your conclusion - "Newt Gingrich doesn't believe in free speech" - is not supported by the details you provided.

I don't think spammers crawl the net looking for addresses so much.

http://www.cdt.org/speech/spam/030319spamreport.sh tml

I try to run any mailtos through an email obfuscator .. as the link says, a 6 month study showed that obfuscated emails "do not receive junk mail."

My theory is that harvesters have enough email addresses out there to gather and that the spammers are too lazy/have no need to write algorithms that interpret these types of mailtos.

The article points out that there isn't agreement in the tech community for net neutrality. See this article:

"Tech manufacturers rally against Net neutrality"
http://news.com.com/Tech+manufacturers+rally+again st+Net+neutrality/2100-1028_3-6117241.html?tag=nl

It says that some companies support it and some don't. We know Google and Ebay support net neutrality, but the article states, "more than 100 companies from the networking and communications sector, including Cisco Systems, Nortel Networks and Qualcomm, [said it was] too soon to enact network neutrality legislation."

One of the reasons this issue isn't so cut and dry is because a lot of us in the tech industry fear that by regulating the Internet we could be creating an environment that does has the opposite effect of the positive benefits of requiring neutrality. The argument goes that since corporations have such a large stake in the outcomes of regulatory control, they will over time turn the regulation to their favor through political pressure, lobbyists, and other means. I fear that creating so-called net neutrality through regulation could ultimately turn against us. There is a very good essay I would recommend to get a better idea of the potential dangers of regulating net neutrality:

"Net Neutrality" - Digital Discrimination or Regulatory Gamesmanship in Cyberspace?
http://www.cdt.org/speech/net-neutrality/20040112t hierer.pdf

In summary, there isn't unanimity among techs about whether regulating net neutrality is good or not so it makes sense that it wasn't included as one of the issues.

http://cdt.org/security/20060109legalexpertsanalys is.pdf See Section II of this for the response. It has to do with the difference between inherent and exclusive authority.

But I thought the place to be if you wanted to make a difference in Internet legislation was out in San Francisco?

That's what the EFF told me...

Hey, wait a minute! Didn't the EFF *used* to be based in DC, but then moved to the west coast? That can't be right, makes no sense, I must be confused...

Anways, I guess we're all lucky these guys stayed behind.

Still, by concentrating on technological issues, the EFF calls attention away from the fact that the rights being fought over in court today concern not just internet wiretapping and music downloads, but are in fact a facet of the overall struggle for more basic rights like the right to free speech and the right to privacy.

So, join both the ACLU and the EFF. Problem solved. As far as your Internationlist Revolutionary approach, well, let's just say that I care more about shoring up and restoring the rights that are under threat in my own country *right now*, rather than sinking more cash into causes that may or may not benefit others elsewhere. The EFF, ACLU and the Center for Democracy and Technology are just the ticket for me right now.

So why would we ever seriously consider an article by a new organization owned by Microsoft about the EFF anything less than horribly biased?

Because:

(1) *I* have more editorial control over what happens at MSNBC than Microsoft does, and I don't even work there, and

(2) The EFF is vastly over-rated on slashdot, the result of their fete'ing the editors early on and keeping those wheels greased. Their periodic well-promoted 'crises,' timed to coincide with their fund-raising drives, make them the cyber version of PETA, which I guess makes the Real Players -- The Center for Democracy and Technology -- the Humane Society.

The long-term solution here people, is to get a god damn law passed.

A starting point might be the EU Directive on Privacy: http://www.cdt.org/privacy/eudirective/EU_Directiv e_.html

Somehow all this trouble with identity theft seems to be a uniquely US problem.

The EU directive establishes rules for:

• how much data can be collected on private persons (as little as possible)
• how long it may be kept (only as long as needed)
• whom it may be given to (nobody)
• guidelines for technical measures to be taken to protect any personally identifiable data collected (stringent - believe me, I worked on fulfilling this for decode genetics and their fabled genetics database)
• a national agency to monitor that these rules are followed

But that's really only half the problem. The other, and in my opinion more serious, problem is that this information should be of financial value at all. There simply should be no way to set up a line of credit or make other financial use of an SSN and your mother's maiden name. It's, frankly, preposterous that this is the case.

Your searches may vary -- this is enough to get the ball rolling.

The Court found that Article 95 EC, read in conjunction with Article 25 of the directive, cannot justify Community competence to conclude the Agreement with the United States that is at issue.

No, they really don't like it. They really want to listen in. The Clipper Chip was proposed by the Clinton administration.

Geist:
there are many groups (EFF, CDT, Public Knowledge, ACLU, EPIC, IP Justice, etc) that work in the area.

Electronic Frontier Foundation

Center for Democracy & Technology

Public Knowledge

American Civil Liberties Union

Electronic Privacy Information Center

IP Justice

etc