Archive for the 'Governance' category

Paranoia will destroya.

by T. Colin Dodd

Bush Signs Law to Widen Reach for Wiretapping - New York Times

WASHINGTON, Aug. 5 — President Bush signed into law on Sunday legislation that broadly expanded the government’s authority to eavesdrop on the international telephone calls and e-mail messages of American citizens without warrants.

Congressional aides and others familiar with the details of the law said that its impact went far beyond the small fixes that administration officials had said were needed to gather information about foreign terrorists. They said seemingly subtle changes in legislative language would sharply alter the legal limits on the government’s ability to monitor millions of phone calls and e-mail messages going in and out of the United States.

Analysis: New Law Gives Government Six Months to Turn Internet and Phone Systems into Permanent Spying Architecture - UPDATED

By Ryan Singel August 06, 2007 | 2:11:02 AMCategories: Surveillance

A new law expanding the government’s spying powers gives the Bush Administration a six-month window to install possibly permanent back doors in the nation’s communication networks. The legislation was passed hurriedly by Congress over the weekend and signed into law Sunday by President Bush.

The bill, known as the Protect America Act, removes the prohibition on warrantless spying on Americans abroad and gives the government wide powers to order communication service providers such as cell phone companies and ISPs to make their networks available to government eavesdroppers.

The great thing is that there’s absolutely no possibility of abuse, and not a shred of a chance that anyone other than the most extremely guilty party will lose any of their precious privacy. If I were a blogger (Oh, wait a minute…no…must not doubt…must…shake it off…) or a journalist, or an academic, or a political activist, or someone with family overseas, I would worry extra-less than ever now!

Besides, what’s the big deal about privacy anyway? What? Are we a nation of teenagers who don’t want our parents reading our diaries? Grow Up.

Filed under Truth, The Law, Governance, Privacy, Surveillance, Domestic Espionage, Eavesdropping, Constitutionality on August 7th, 2007 | 1 comment »

Don’t even think about it.

by T. Colin Dodd

If a new bill becomes law, it may soon be illegal to attempt (even if you fail) to share copyrighted material.

“Attempted infringment” appears in new House intellectual property bill

One of the bill’s controversial features is the fact that people can be charged with criminal copyright infringement even if such infringement has not actually taken place. “Any person who attempts to commit an offense under paragraph (1) shall be subject to the same penalties as those prescribed for the offense, the commission of which was the object of the attempt,” says the bill.

Read the gory details here. (pdf)

Filed under Truth, The shame of downloading., Democratizing Content, The shame of sharing, The horror of streamripping, Governance, Copyright on July 30th, 2007 | 4 comments »