Feds: We will search through your laptop files at the border

Following in the wake of February's news that customs agents were seizing electronics and making copies of all the files on cell phones and laptop hard drives, a federal appeals court has ruled on the legality of such searches.  Basically,customs can do whatever it wants to your computer when you come across the border, without a warrant, and without cause.  Additionally, and what makes this ruling even worse is that it was a unanimous decision by all three appellate court justices.  

However, what is most ironic about this ruling is that it was not made with intent to thwart terrorism but in fact was made regarding an American citizen returning from the Philippines with child pornography on his computer.  Now I'm all for this man rotting in jail for years but this sets a dangerous precedent.  For example, if one is an attorney with confidential attorney client privilege on your computer and now all of the sudden because you choose to leave the United States your information is subject to becoming not so confidential.  More interestingly, how will they handle companies that have government contracts that issue laptops with confidential information?  

This seems to me yet another violation of privacy and illegal search and seizures that has plagued the Bush Administration and the conservative justices that have been appointed by them or previous so called conservatives.  The prevailing wisdom being, if you do not have anything to hide than why worry?  Yet, as I pointed out above this is not simply the case and I can only hope that the Supreme Court realizes this as well.

I guess as always...big brother is watching more and more. 

YouTube's filtering issues still not 'moot'

Youtube has finally started to catch up to the rampant illegal copyrighted content that is uploaded to its site.  

"We are in the process of developing tools which are called 'Claim Your Content,'" Schmidt said at the National Association of Broadcasters 2007 conference. "If people tell us this is a licensed copy, our computers will automatically detect that an illegal copy has been uploaded and then automatically delete it."

This will go a long way in making the site less liable and its users more aware of the content that they post on the site.  Thus, Youtube has taken a positive step in limiting their legal liability and in preventing their users from making them liable as well.  

This is exactly what I would do if I were to run Youtube.  Unfortunately we like in an age in which many people will attempt to get around Youtube's barriers (for example post a movie in ten minute clips to get around the ten minute barrier Youtube originally implemented).  Therefore, this is a great step Youtube has imposed in an attempt to prevent lawsuits. 

Summary

In Robert O'Harrow Jr's article State Groups Were Formed After 9/11, he discusses intelligence centers instituted after 9/11 that, "have access to personal information about millions of Americans, including unlisted cellphone numbers, insurance claims, driver's license photographs and credit reports. Specifically, he cites the Washington Post as being his source in this matter. These centers, dubbed as "fusion centers" give their analysts access to all of this information in order to identify possible terrorist threats and to improve the way information is shared. However, the government refuses to elaborate on the centers activities, simply stressing that they are important to National Security.

Virginia first state to require Internet safety lessons

I went to high school in Virginia so this article immediately caught my eye.  That being said I completely agree with the program that is being implemented throughout the Virginia public school system.  That is, a program run by Web Wise Kids, a nonprofit group funded by the federal government and corporations such as Verizon and Symantec to provide schools with no-cost Internet safety lessons for 11- to 16-year-olds.  Though some of the older high school aged children may find it dull and obvious it is important to reach out and further one understanding of the amount of information that can be left available to anyone via MySpace and Facebook.  This is akin to the first day of class in which Professor Katsh showed everyone their current Facebook photos.  However, I would not stop at just warning children of the danger of child molesters on websites such as Myspace.com but would go a step further in making them aware of the current laws (or lack their of) surrounding such sites.  Much as it was a shock to many members of the class regarding information such as Facebook owns every part of your account, I am sure it would be a shock to these children.  

Thus, integrating internet safety is valuable but it must be expanded.  

Family of sexually assaulted girl pursues MySpace lawsuit

The family of a teenage girl who says she was sexually assaulted by a man she met on Myspace asked a federal appeals court Monday to revive their lawsuit against the social networking Web site.  However, the Federal judge in Austin, Texas, dismissed the $30 million suit in February 2007, rejecting the family's claim that MySpace has a legal duty to protect its young users from sexual predators.

I wholeheartedly disagree with this ruling.  Myspace markets itself to underage children with Facebook being its College counterpart.  Thus, Myspace has a responsible to do what it can to protect their users and deny sexual predators from access to its site.  As a social networking site that allows everything from bands to children accessing its site, Myspace has an obligation to assure that its users are alotted the same amount of safety they would expect at home.  Yes, there are certain degrees of inherent risk even in ones home but as long as Myspace is proving that they are making reasonable and not half-assed or non-existant attempt to project their users then they should not be held libel.  However, this is obviously not occuring and until this does, their feet should be held to the fire.     

Cuba Limits Access

Cuba appears to have limited access from within the island to the nation's most-read Web site, Generacion Y, a highly critical blog written from Havana.

The author of the Web site, Yoani Sanchez, complained in a post Monday that for the last few days, users on the island get an error message when attempting to access her site.

I have always found it fascinating that each country can have its own laws regarding something that is supposed to be the World Wide Web.  Understandably it is tough to regulate something on a global scale.  However, valuable information and potential freedoms are being violated repeatedly by restricting freedom of the press and freedom to post on a global scale.  This begs this question, in an arena without borders, is Cuba violating essential rights for citizens in the US by restricting this website for all to see, or just their citizens? 

Wiretapping Part Two

Ben Franklin once said, “They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”  Due to the aggressive White House stance regarding the war on terror, in particular, the controversy over warrantless wiretapping on American citizens, it is important to identify the value and use of rights. A right is defined as a political resource or a concept.  Therefore, citizens use rights as a resource to safeguard themselves from intrusion by the government upon essential liberty embodied within the Constitution.  That is, citizens combat this intrusion by using rights in various ways by looking to their representatives for protections or through suits brought through courts of law.  With this in mind it is important to beg the question of how the government should balance rights versus the safety of American citizens, particularly with regard to warrentless wiretapping in a time of war? The very premise of the American society is one based upon rights and these rights set it apart from the terrorists America is at war with.  America’s founders believed that society flourished when individuals’ “unalienable rights’ were made paramount to guard against tyranny.   By eavesdropping on Americans without a warrant, the Bush Administration is violating this essential liberty enumerated in the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution.  Their viewpoint that one has nothing to hide if they are not doing wrong violates the founders premise for America and ones individual liberty.  Therefore, by violating these rights the administration is destroying the very thing the government is sworn and trying to protect through the war on terror.  

French court says site cannot grade teachers

A French court ruled on Monday that the spin-off of American sites such as ratemyprofessor.com, Note2be.com is no longer allowed to identify teachers and professors by name.  Thus, essentially shutting down the website.  The teachers that brought suit had the support of their union and argued (I'm not making this up) that the website was an incitement of public disorder and a breech of privacy.

So on this basis the French court should stop all political op/eds that disseminate an authors opinion on the French Parliament.  After all, critiquing politicians too harshly could in fact incite public disorder much like critiquing teachers.  Hilariously enough the union also stated that it was not up to pupils to grade their own teachers effectiveness.  Seriously, the union representative said that.  My question for the court is whose job is it then?  Obviously any sort of critique of the teaching profession will be met with opposition.  Would an outside consulting firm that published their results be a breech of privacy and incite public disorder?  All and all this is a sad day for freedom of speech and press.  Maybe the union should go back and teach that.

Google to store patients' health records in test of new service

Is Google Inc really going to become the evil empire of the web? The motto "Do No Evil", which they employ will hopefully go with them as they seem to take over every facet of American lifestyles. From search engines, to word documents, to phones, to this very blog site, Google Inc has it's hand in virtually everything.

Now, Google Inc plans to unveil in the near future a system that will begin storing medical records. It will start small at the Cleveland Medical Center to work out the kinks in the system and the go larger and larger scale. "Each health profile, including information about prescriptions, allergies and medical histories, will be protected by a password that's also required to use other Google services such as e-mail and personalized search tools." Google is touting this new system a completely logical expansion of their ever popular search engine.

This sounds like a perfectly legitimate enterprise that Google is undertaking expanding upon their original idea of making search engines better and transferring it to making accessing patient records easier and better. However, I have doubts about the safety and security of the system as I am sure many others do. What will occur if the system is hacked into however and the patient confidentiality agreement is now broken and patient information is now available to all. This is not like when a hacker breaks the ITUNES code and makes songs available to steal for a small period until it is fixed. This instead is private information that once is out there it cannot be taken back. Thus, the ramifications for this brings up an interesting take on the the legal responsibilities Google has in their terms and services with regard to this use.

Bush says nation in more danger because Congress hasn't extended spy law

Benjamin Franklin once said, "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."  President Bush has obviously not kept up on his Founding Fathers history despite his strict constructionist views.  Friday, he stated that America is now in more danger of attack because congress has failed to, "adopt a Senate bill that would have renewed a law that made it easier for the government to spy on foreign phone calls and e-mails that pass through the United States.  The bill also would have shielded from lawsuits telecommunications companies that helped the government wiretap U.S. computer and phone lines after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks without clearance from a secret court that was established specifically to oversee such activities."

The 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance act in part created these secret courts for a reason.  In issues of National Security that are sensitive the government must still present probable cause in an expedited fashion to these secret court for approval.  Now this seems fairly reasonable; the case is expedited, national security secrets are not given to the American people and the loose standard of probable cause in this realm must be met.  

However, the President contends that sometimes information is missed and then the attack or attacks cannot be prevented.  Which in layman's terms sounds like, "We know there is going to be an attack but not sure where and have no shred of proof but if you allow us to illegally spy on Americans than we should know soon."  Furthermore, the article points out that the wiretaps can continue, the liability shield for certain private sector companies disappear.  Thus, I echo Congressman Rahm Emmanuel's sentiment that This law is not in fact about protecting Americans but protecting telephone and internet companies that are doing the spying for the government for quite a sum of money.  

Its hard for me to believe that the government should be allowed to illegally spy on American citizens via the internet and phone without a shred of probable cause.  This would be attune to a police officer stopping someone driving an SUV and searching their car because they could or could not be a drug dealer.  This is essentially what President Bush is saying.  We have no probable cause to wiretap your emails and/or phone but you could be a terrorist so we need to do it anyway. After seven years, using the terrorism and safetey card is getting old.  I wonder if the homeland security level went up because congress has not approved this law.  

Hotel California

“It’s like the Hotel California,” said Nipon Das, 34, a director at a biotechnology consulting firm in Manhattan, who tried unsuccessfully to delete his account this fall. “You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.”  So goes the newest problem with the multi-billion dollar peer to peer network, Facebook.com.  That is, many users are encountering immense difficulty when attempting to delete their Facebook user account.  

Its privacy policy says that after someone deactivates an account, “removed information may persist in backup copies for a reasonable period of time."  This is absolutely brilliant legal language.  What determines a reasonable period of time?  A week, month, years?  Furthermore, this is supposed to be a service provided by the site.  After all, Facebook is saving this in your best interest just in case one decides to reactive their account and their information can be left as it was before.  The idea that a user could simply recreate their Facebook profile without the help of Facebook is apparently too much for Mark  Zuckerberg and Co.  Thus, users are stuck with the annoyance of repetitively messaging Facebook servers with requests for deletion or following steps posted by someone else in order to delete the account.  

However, yet again Facebook seems to not be at fault.  Users in fact agree to this when they sign up for the site so legally speaking what seems to be the problem?  On the outside Facebook presents itself as a useful networking tool and it is.  Yet, the more and more I uncover certain dirty facts about it the more I question what other sites are similar with their terms and conditions and no one recognizes it because pictures and private (or lack thereof) information are not being dealt with. 

Unfortunately not much can be done unless Facebook begins to abuse this data.  But as in many cases, by the time the data is out there, irreparable harm is done to an individual and no monetary settlement or amending of terms and conditions can fix this.  So what seems to be the solution?  Be careful with what you put on Facebook.    

With Friends Like These...

I've always found it odd when I read a text that rails against the risks of hyper competitiveness. In his article, "With Friends Like These..." Tom Hodskinson makes apparent his dislike of Facebook, its founders, and in some parts, capitalism as a whole. Specifically, he discusses venture capitalist Peter Theil and his statement of, "Show me a good loser and I'll show you a loser." Hodskinson goes on to brand Theil as a neo conservative and an uber capitalist trying to make money out of friendship.
So what?
The founders of Facebook established a social network that is in high demand and does well because consumers choose to use it. Furthermore, in accusing three American venture capitalists of being "uber capitalists" in an economic system based upon the tenets of capitalism, Hodskinson comes off as yet another agitated communist or socialist symphathizer that does not necessarily have problems with Facebook but the American economic system as a whole. In stating that, "Clearly, Facebook is another uber-capitalist experiment: can you make money out of friendship? Can you create communities free of national boundaries - and then sell Coca-Cola to them? Facebook is profoundly uncreative. It makes nothing at all. It simply mediates in relationships that were happening anyway" Hodskinson detracts from his main point towards the end of the article that Facebook is more than just a social network but a way for one to be checked up upon and exploited. Instead, in railing against competitiveness, conservatism, and capitalism he hinders his point by sounding desperate and not at all like an op/ed journalist trying to convey information through opinion.

Ironically, Hodskinson has a problem with one staying in on a Saturday night on the internet but no problem with staying and reading Keats' Endymion.