Congress Critters In Action

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P2P bill could regulate Web browsers, FTP clients

by  Declan McCullagh

The U.S. House of Representatives has scheduled a hearing Tuesday to examine a bill that would force peer-to-peer applications to provide specific notice to consumers that their files might be shared.

The hearing before a House Energy subcommittee comes about a month after reports that specifications about the helicopter used as Marine One may have been leaked through a P2P network. Meanwhile, a second House committee is probing whether LimeWire or another P2P application was responsible.

Tuesday's hearing is expected to focus on a bill introduced in March by Rep. Mary Bono Mack, a California Republican. The catch: while it appears intended to target only P2P applications, the measure sweeps in Web browsers, FTP applications, instant messaging utilities, and other common programs too.

Bono's Informed P2P User Act says that it will be "unlawful" for P2P software to cause files to be made available unless two rules are followed. First, the utility's installation process must provide "clear and conspicuous notice" of its features and obtain the user's "informed consent." Second, the program must step through that notice-and-consent process every time it runs.

Her bill defines P2P applications as software that lets files be marked for transfer, transferred, and received. (The exact wording: "to designate files available for transmission to another computer; to transmit files directly to another computer; and to request the transmission of files from another computer.")

Every copy of Windows, GNU/Linux, and Mac OS X sold in recent memory includes a command-line FTP client fitting that definition but lacking the proposed warning. Does that mean that Microsoft, the Free Software Foundation, and Apple could be fined for "unlawful" activities? If the definition stretches to include the rsync utility and open-source software too, will volunteer maintainers and foreign citizens have to comply?

Another example: Web browsers could also be regulated and subject to Federal Trade Commission enforcement action unless "informed consent" is obtained each time the desktop icon is double-clicked. (Every Web browser allows the user to "designate" files to be uploaded--ever post a photo?--and request that files be downloaded.)

It's true that forcing compliance--at least for those programmers who are paying attention to legislative proclamations from the U.S. Congress--shouldn't be too difficult. A few warning messages and click-here-to-continue dialog boxes would suffice.

Still, the argument that a particular piece of proposed legislation could be worse is no argument at all. What the bill's drafters may not appreciate is that the Internet is, by definition, a peer-to-peer network. Restricting its P2Pishness, for lack of a better term, is difficult to do with restricting Internet access completely.

The point here is not that LimeWire and its rivals are without risk; misconfiguration probably would expose sensitive files to the public.

It's more that software is uniquely malleable, difficult to define, and better overseen by West Coast coders voluntarily adding warning messages than East Coast lawyers making it illegal not to do so.

The U.S. Supreme Court failed to reach a consensus about regulating obscenity a generation ago; do we really think that computer code today won't be equally slippery?

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10233419-38.html

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Protesters Blast Congress for Axing D.C. Vouchers While Sending Own Kids to Private School

Supporters of a celebrated school voucher program in Washington rallied near the mayor's office Wednesday to save the scholarships from being slashed by Congress -- nearly 40 percent of whose members send their own children to private schools.

An estimated 1,000 parents, children and community leaders attended the afternoon protest in Washington's Freedom Plaza, where they called on D.C. politicians to help preserve a federal school choice program that currently assists more than 1,700 students with scholarships worth up to $7,500.

"Several years ago many of us in this good city worked very hard to get a program going with the federal government so that children could go to the schools of their choice. This program has worked," said Kevin Chavous, a former D.C. councilman, but "right now some folks in Congress want to end this program."

The D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program is slated to end next year because of a provision slipped into Congress' $410 billion omnibus spending bill by Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., whose children attend private school.

The amendment has angered parents who say the vouchers have raised performance and rescued students from one of the country's worst public school systems.

"I saw dramatic change. The change is not even comparable to what a parent could do alone," said Ingrid Campbell, a single mother of three who has two daughters in the opportunity program.

"I'm going to have to get a part-time job" when the funds are cut off, she told FOX News Wednesday morning before the rally. "I'll do anything, anything in my power and my will to keep my two little girls in their schools."

Rally organizers blasted members of Congress for opposing vouchers but choosing private school for their own families, a choice they say is denied the poorest residents of Washington.

"Your tax dollars also go to pay the salaries of Congress, 40 percent of whom send their kids to private schools," said Joe Robert, a board member of D.C. Children First, a pro-voucher organization.

"Right now we have choices around America but we only have it for people who have some money. We don't have it for people who are struggling."

Thirty-six percent of U.S. representatives and 44 percent of the senators with school-age children have sent their kids to private schools, according to a study by the Heritage Foundation.

Just 11 percent of American schoolchildren attend private schools, according to the study.

Click here to see a breakdown of that study.

The rally, which was held just blocks from the White House, ratcheted up pressure on the Obama administration to address the axing of the program, which would remove two black scholarship students from Sidwell Friends, the private academy that President Obama's daughters attend.

Some parents wondered how Obama would explain the absence of Sarah and James Parker from Sidwell Friends next year.

"I wonder how he feels when his daughter says, 'Hey daddy, my best friend is not coming back next year.' How would that feel?" said Campbell, whose young daughter has pledged to work after school to help pay her own tuition at Georgetown Visitation Preparatory School. "Maybe he can feel what we parents are feeling right now."

Parents with children in the program have been enthusiastic supporters of the vouchers, but a government review released in March offered a less sanguine view of the scholarships.

The program improved reading but not math scores, and while parents were pleased with the increased safety at private schools, students did not report much of a change. The study included both students who used the scholarship and some who were only offered the funds.

Click here to read the report.

The rally was attended and addressed by prominent D.C. politicians, including former mayor Anthony Williams, who credited his success to an excellent education, and former mayor Marion Barry, who said he was a strong supporter of choice.

"We've got to tell Congress to fund this program and not let local people down," said Barry, who currently sits on the city council.

Barry and others pledged to push to rescue the program before it ends this year.

"We're here today to express our full support for the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program. We want the city council, the mayor, we want members of Congress, we want all of the decision makers to know that our kids come first," said Benjamin Chavis, co-chairman of the Hip Hop Summit Action Network.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/05/06/protesters-blast-congress-axing-dc-vouchers-sending-kids-private-school/

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Bachmann Calls on Congress to Block Funds to ACORN

Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann called on Congress Thursday to block ACORN's access to federal housing funds, citing repeated charges of voter registration fraud against the low-income advocacy group.

The Republican congresswoman, flanked by an ACORN whistleblower and an attorney who worked on an ACORN case in Pennsylvania, escalated a media offensive against the group, which is a favorite target of conservatives who claim liberals are unjustly protecting a dysfunctional organization by allowing it access to taxpayer money.

"ACORN, as you know, is no stranger to the spotlight," Bachmann said outside the Capitol. "Yet no matter how many times prosecutors investigate and even indict ACORN and their employees, they emerge unblemished as far as the federal government is concerned from having access to federal tax dollars."

Bachmann, who hit the same themes in an op-ed in the Washington Times on Wednesday, complained that House Democrats killed her amendment to block organizations indicted for voter fraud from receiving federal housing money. She said ACORN has received at least $53 million in tax dollars since 1994, and that she will have new legislation in the coming weeks.

"We simply believe that the bar needs to be very high," she said.

The call for congressional action comes after Nevada officials filed voter registration fraud charges against ACORN last week, and Pennsylvania authorities charged seven local ACORN workers with forging voter registration forms.

In the Nevada case, officials alleged the group illegally based employment and compensation on a quota system for voter registration. The group required canvassers to register 20 voters per shift or be fired, officials said, and gave bonus money to canvassers who registered more than 20 people.

ACORN issued a response to Bachmann Thursday accusing the congresswoman of "partisan witch hunts."

ACORN spokesman Scott Levenson also recently told FOX News that the group does not institute a quota system as a matter of national policy, but that in Nevada, "We had a bad employee."

But Anita MonCrief, the ACORN whistleblower, echoed Bachmann in describing the advocacy group as a sham. She said senior staffers train employees to avoid asking whether people are already registered to vote when they sign up residents, resulting in "thousands and thousands" of duplicates, and criminal problems for the employees.

"The employees were being thrown under the bus," she said. "[Senior staff] stood on the backs of the poor in order to make money for their organization."

Attorney Heather Heidelbaugh, who appeared with Bachmann, accused lawmakers and the mainstream media of avoiding the ACORN issue.

"We've had a swine flu scare here in the United States. I think there's denial flu in Congress," she said. "It's either a case of serious denial or complicity."

In its written statement, ACORN said MonCrief worked for Project Vote, not ACORN (the two groups often work together). And the group said MonCrief "was fired by Project Vote in 2008 for stealing money from the organization."

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/05/14/bachmann-calls-congress-block-funds-acorn/

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Hoyer Declines to Back Up Pelosi's Claim That CIA Misled Congress

Speaker Nancy Pelosi's deputy in the House declined to back her up on her stunning claim Thursday that the CIA misled Congress about its use of enhanced interrogation techniques.

Rep. Steny Hoyer, the House majority leader, panned the recent criticism of Pelosi as a "distraction" during a verbal tangle with Republican Whip Eric Cantor on the House floor.

But when asked directly whether he shares Pelosi's belief that the CIA misled Congress, he backed off.

"I have no idea of that. I don't have a belief of that nature because I have no basis on which to base such a belief," Hoyer said. "And I certainly hope that's not the case. And I don't draw that conclusion."

Hoyer was challenged on the issue after Pelosi, facing questions over how much she knew early on about the Bush administration's interrogation policies, told reporters Thursday afternoon that the CIA misled Congress. She adamantly insisted that she was not aware that waterboarding or other enhanced interrogation techniques were being used on terrorism suspects.

"Every step of the way the administration was misleading the Congress, and that is the issue and that's why we need a truth commission," she said, referring to her call for a congressional investigation into such Bush-era policies.

But Republicans stirred skepticism over her accusation against the CIA.

Hoyer, who won the role of majority leader despite lacking Pelosi's support, is in an awkward spot with the latest controversy swirling around the House speaker.

Hoyer said the issue is "not irrelevant" but is still a distraction.

"I think there is far too much discussion about what was said as opposed to what was done," he said Thursday.

The Maryland Democrat generally has tried to quiet the controversy while at the same time declining to attempt to shut it down.

He acknowledged earlier this week that the issue should be resolved.

On the topic of Democratic-led hearings, he said that the latest controversy over "what was said and when it was said, who said it ... is probably what ought to be on the record as well."

Hoyer also was asked whether he believes Pelosi's support has been undermined among Democrats.

"No, I don't," he said.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/05/14/hoyer-declines-pelosis-claim-cia-misled-congress/

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Cyberbullying Bill Could Ensnare Free Speech Rights

By Steven Kotler

A bill introduced in the House of Representatives last month by Rep. Linda Sanchez, D-Calif., is designed to prevent cyberbullying, making it punishable by a fine and up to two years in prison.

But at least one blogger is calling the Megan Meier Cyberbullying Prevention Act the "Censorship Act of 2009" -- and many free speech advocates say its language is too broad and that it would act as judge and jury to determine whether there is significant evidence to prove that one person "cyberbullied" another.

"We have existing harassment statutes in all 50 states that already cover this problem," says Parry Aftab, a lawyer and Internet security expert who's at the forefront of the anti-cyberbullying movement. "We don't need Linda Sanchez's law."

Even Sanchez's attempt to define the term "cyberbullying" poses problems, said UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh.

"The bill defines it as 'using electronic means to support severe, repeated and hostile behavior,' but what does 'severe, hostile and repeated behavior' mean?" he asked.

"I've written articles opposing the bill that have appeared online. That's electronic and -- because I've written a few of them -- repeated. I was also severe and hostile in my criticisms. Under her law, I can now go to jail."

And so could many political commentators and Web bloggers who earn their keep by being confrontational and inflammatory. A TV host like MSNBC's Keith Olbermann, who's been openly and repeatedly hostile to former Vice President Dick Cheney on his Web site, would not be safe from prosecution, the analysts say.

Even advocates of child safety on the Internet say the bill is impractical, at best.

"Even if you wanted to, you can't legislate against meanness," said Larry Magid, co-director of ConnectSafely.org. "It's contextual. If I call you fat, maybe I was bullying, or maybe I was concerned about your health, or maybe it was a relatively innocuous slight."

The bill's critics also note that the law is intended to protect minors from minors, but that doesn't show up in its language.

As written now, the bill would also apply to adults, says John Morris, general counsel for the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Democracy and Technology.

And, he said: "It's not clear from any of the data that cyberbullying among adults is an issue."

Morris said cyberbullying is a local problem best solved at the local level.

"Most research suggests cyberbullying is most appropriately handled with more education, in school. It's hard to imagine how federalizing the matter accomplishes this," he said.

The bill is named after Megan Meier, the Missouri 13-year-old who committed suicide in 2006 after a classmate's mother, Lori Drew, pretended to be a teenage boy and tormented her on the MySpace social-networking site.

Drew was convicted in November of three misdemeanors in federal court and awaits sentencing. She faces up to three years in prison.

But using Megan Meier as a proxy for the typical cyberbullying victim is a mistake, some experts say.

"Megan Meier had been taking psychotropic drugs," said Aftab, who founded WiredSafety.org and Wiredkids.org. "She was emotionally fragile."

"This was a rare case, an anomaly," agrees Justin Patchin, co-founder of Cyberbullying.us and associate professor of criminal justice at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. "Megan shouldn't be the basis of a new law."

Marsha Catron, communications director for Congresswoman Sanchez, argued otherwise.

"Megan is the right poster child for this. She was happy. She had plans for the future. Nothing suggested she was going to kill herself until Mrs. Drew created that fake MySpace page," Catron said.

The problem of cyberbullying clearly exists. A 2006 study in the journal Pediatrics reported that the incidence of cyberbullying among teens and pre-teens had increased by 50 percent in the previous five years, and 38 percent of those affected reported being "very or extremely upset or afraid because of the incident."

In an article defending her bill on the Huffington Post, Rep. Sanchez wrote that "a young person exposed to repeated, severe and hostile bullying online is at risk for depression and suicide."

She cited a U.S. Secret Service study that shows bullying puts kids at risk for becoming perpetrators of school violence, such as those behind the Columbine massacre, and said that her legislation would no longer let cyberbullies hide being the "emboldening anonymity of the Web."

Her spokeswoman, Catron, was even more emphatic.

"We need this law," Catron told FOXNews.com "Anyone who feels differently greatly underestimates the importance social networks play in teenage lives."

But even if the bill makes it through Congress, most of the experts interviewed for this article were uncertain it would hold up in court.

"Not only is Sanchez's bill unconstitutional," Volokh said, "but with our existing laws, criminal harassment (as opposed to sexual) is not a well defined term. Definitions vary from state to state, but generally it's threatening, persistent communication. There are no anti-mind-game-harassment laws out there."

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/05/14/cyberbullying-ensnare-free-speech-rights/

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Gingrich: Pelosi could be ousted as House speaker if she lied

From CNN's Ed Hornick

WASHINGTON (CNN) – Newt Gingrich continued his attacks on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi Saturday, saying she "defamed everyone" in the intelligence community and he can't "see how she can serve as speaker if it turns out that she has lied about national security both to the House and to the rest of the country.”

"I would expect at that point a motion of censure, and I think under the rules of the House, you can't serve for the rest of that term if you've been censured," Gingrich, a former Republican speaker of the House, said in an interview with CNN.

Pelosi has been under fire from critics who say she was fully briefed on the controversial waterboarding technique — now deemed torture by the Obama administration — in 2002 and 2003. On Thursday, the California Democrat accused CIA officials of misleading her, reiterating a claim that she was briefed on such techniques only once — in September 2002 — and that she was told at the time the techniques were not being used.

Pelosi said the briefing she received from the CIA was incomplete and inaccurate, and she called on the CIA to release a full transcript of the briefing.

The dispute over intelligence prompted CIA Director Leon Panetta to stand up for the agency Friday in a letter to CIA employees and challenge Pelosi on her assertion that the CIA had misled her.

"There is a long tradition in Washington of making political hay out of our business. It predates my service with this great institution, and it will be around long after I'm gone. But the political debates about interrogation reached a new decibel level yesterday when the CIA was accused of misleading Congress," Panetta said in a letter to employees.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/05/16/gingrich-pelosi-should-be-ousted-as-house-speaker-if-she-lied/

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Critics Deride Bill Designed to Keep Weapons Out of Terrorists' Hands

A bill designed to keep weapons out of the hands of terrorists is drawing fire from gun rights advocates who say it could infringe upon regular citizens' constitutional right to bear arms.

The Denying Firearms and Explosives to Dangerous Terrorists Act of 2009 would authorize Attorney General Eric Holder to deny the sale or transfer of firearms to known or suspected terrorists -- a list that could extend beyond groups such as radical Islamists and other groups connected to international terror organizations.

Critics say the names of suspected terrorists could be drawn from existing government watch lists that cover such broad categories as animal rights extremists, Christian identity extremists, black separatists, anti-abortion extremists, anti-immigration extremists and anti-technology extremists.

"It doesn't say anything about trials and due process," said Larry Pratt, executive director of Gun Owners of America. "This is one of the most outrageous pieces of legislation to come along in some time. It's basically saying, 'I suspect you, so your rights are toast.'"

Terrorist watch lists came under fire last month after a Department of Homeland Security report warned that right wing extremist groups may be expanding their membership in the midst of current economic upheaval. While the report stated that such groups were not believed to be planning any terrorist attacks, it went on to state they might do so in the name of issues like abortion, immigration and gun control.

The report sparked outrage from conservative groups and politicians, including Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, the ranking Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, who called it "political profiling."

A similar DHS report on left wing terrorist groups, such as Earth Liberation Front and Animal Liberation Front, was released in January.

The proposed gun control bill, which was introduced by Rep. Peter King, R-NY, last week and has bipartisan support, is currently before the House Judiciary Committee.

A spokesman from King's office said his decision to propose the bill had nothing to do with either DHS report. This is at least the second time the congressman has pushed a bill designed to restrict gun sales to suspected terrorists.

But, while nobody wants domestic terrorists to have easy access to guns -- King called the bill a "no-brainer" in a statement released by his office Tuesday -- some critics say it could be treading a thin line constitutionally.

Taking away an individual's constitutional right without giving him the opportunity to stand trial would likely open the federal government to legal challenges, said Robert Cottrol, a law professor at George Washington University.

"There is a Second Amendment right to hold and bear arms," he said. "That right is not absolute, for instance with convicted criminals. But there would have to be an individualized determination, as in a trial, to prove someone is guilty of something before they are deprived of such a right."

Under the proposed law, those denied access to firearms would have the right to challenge the government's ruling in federal court.

"Common-sense laws that protect us from terrorism must be put in place," King said in his statement. "Our role in Congress is to create laws that protect the American people, not to uphold those that give terrorists the right to bear arms."

The National Rifle Association, the nation's largest pro-gun lobby, said it was still reviewing King's bill, but a spokesman said the organization had opposed similar efforts "in the past due to the serious inaccuracies within the terror lists that affect the rights of law abiding citizens."

Since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorists attacks, the U.S. government has undertaken a number of domestic security programs in the name of national security. But those programs have at times invited criticisms that the government was intruding on citizens' rights.

"You have to exercise very strong judgment through the courts," said Herb London, president of the Hudson Institute, a Washington, D.C., think tank. "The big question is, can the U.S. protect itself and maintain the its civil liberties?"

Some conservative bloggers see a clear connection between the DHS reports and the gun control bill, fearing that citizens' Second Amendment rights could be infringed upon due to their political leanings. But otherwise, the bill has raised little protest.

The American Legion, the largest veterans group in the country, harshly criticized DHS officials last month after they reported that veterans would be likely recruits for right wing groups looking for "combat skills and experience."

But when contacted Tuesday, a Legion spokesman said the group had no intention of fighting King's gun control bill.

"I don't see anything in the bill we'd be concerned about. It all seems pretty logical," the spokesman said.

Since the outset of the 2008 campaign, President Obama has stated that he will push for greater gun control measures. And while it doesn't appear the president will be taking on the controversial Clinton-era ban on assault weapons anytime soon (the ban expired in 2004) gun rights advocates are concerned, Pratt said.

"This is a very dangerous time. The president has a voting record in the Illinois Senate of voting for gun bans," he said. "Hopefully, he's not going to have the votes."

Last year the Supreme Court upheld an individual's right to bear arms when it struck down a decades-old ban on firearms in Washington, D.C. The decision was the Court's first Second Amendment ruling in over 70 years, Cottrol said.

"We had this vacuum where the lower courts discussed it, but the Supreme Court remained silent," he said. "The jurisprudence on (gun control) is very much in its infancy."

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/05/13/critics-deride-designed-weapons-terrorists-hands/

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Tracking Your Taxes: Park Pork?

by: William La Jeunesse

If you are hoping to visit the newest crown jewel in America's park system chosen by Congress, throw away the car keys and open up your wallet. The 2,900 pristine acres of beachfront property were not cheap -- or even in the United States.

The property soliciting accusations of "pork" from critics is the Castle Nugent National Historic Park. It's in the U.S. Virgin Islands, about a thousand miles from Miami and an expensive jet ride to get there.

Two weeks ago, on a near party line vote, a huge Democratic majority in the House agreed to spend $50 million to buy the former cotton plantation on the island of St. Croix.

"This is a beautiful and important natural and cultural resource that is in danger of being lost forever," Virgin Island delegate, Donna Christiansen, told House colleagues in January.

"The site to be designated as the Castle Nugent National Historic Park continues to be heralded as one of the last pristine areas in the region."

The mixture of dry forest and rangeland offers picturesque views of the Caribbean Sea, but good luck getting there. Critics in Congress say the purchase is wasteful and irresponsible, especially with unemployment at 10 percent and the nation in debt.

"Now is not the time to spend up to $50 million dollars of the taxpayers’ money to buy nearly 3,000 acres of beachfront property on a Caribbean Island," said Rep. Doc Hastings, (R-Wash.), ranking Republican on the House Natural Resources Committee. "We can't afford a price tag for a new park in St Croix, just as many Americans will never be able to afford a visit there."

Democrats approved the purchase, even though the National Park Service has yet to complete a study on the purchase.

"We don't have the money to do this," said Rep Jason Chaffetz, (R - Utah). "Currently the National Park Service has an estimated $9 billion in backlog maintenance on existing parks. Why should the people of Iowa, Rhode Island or California or Utah have to continue to pay and supplement the people there on St Croix for this property?"

But a majority on St. Croix, where the economy depends on tourism, support the purchase.

"It allows us to maintain the natural beauty of St. Croix and also at the same time it allows for the historic nature of the property," Virgin Islands Governor, John de Jongh Jr., told Fox News.

The land is currently used as a cattle ranch. It includes an estate house and two row houses where the owners kept slaves that worked on the plantation. Most of the land is owned by the Gasperi family, who bought the land in the 1950's and approached the U.S. Government about four years ago about buying it.

"It's beautiful, it's lush, it's green," Mauro Gasperi said. "It contains a beautiful reef in front that we want to maintain as clean and as pristine as when we first bought it."

The Gasperi family maintains it wants to sell the land to the U.S. government in order to protect it from developers. Critics in Congress say there is nothing stopping them from doing that. They don't have to sell, or the family could impose a conservation easement on the land, preventing development forever.

"Sometimes you have to say, enough is enough," Rep. Rob Bishop of Utah told the House in January. "We heard it is (the Gasperi's) desire that this land not be developed, but preserved in its current condition. It seems to me they are in the perfect position to accomplish that goal as landowners."

The Senate is now expected to take up a similar bill.

Here's the final passage roll call vote on H.R. 3726:

http://liveshots.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/02/09/tracking-your-taxes-park-pork/

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Black farmers: Government to fund racial bias settlement

By Paul Courson, CNN

Washington (CNN) -- The head of the National Black Farmers Association said Thursday the U.S. government has agreed to pay qualified farmers $50,000 each to settle claims of racial bias.

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said those farmers may also pursue a claim for actual damages from the bias, and potentially receive up to $250,000.

The settlement, which covers as many as 80,000 black farmers at a price of more than $1 billion, still needs to be funded by Congress, both sides acknowledged Thursday.

The 2010 farm bill, still pending in Congress, includes more than $1 billion to cover the compensation claims.

In a written statement Thursday, President Obama said his administration "is dedicated to ensuring that federal agencies treat all our citizens fairly, and the settlement in the Pigford case reflects that commitment."

The Pigford case was decided in favor of black farmers by a federal judge's ruling in 1999.

The head of the farmers group, John Boyd, said: "It's really the Department of Agriculture agreeing to pay, the Justice Department agreeing to pay and our lawyers agreeing to the process."

In a conference telephone call with reporters, Vilsack said racial bias unquestionably took place in his agency over many years.

He gave an example of two farmers, one white, one black, applying for a farm loan with an office of the USDA.

The white farmer's application "was processed rapidly, it was approved, and resources were quickly available to enable him to put a crop in," Vilsack said. The application from the black farmer "was denied without due diligence on whether he had the capacity to repay, or else he or she was strung out over such a long period of time that they couldn't put in a crop," Vilsack said.

The result, Vilsack said, was that "in some cases they lost the farm."

This month Boyd's group organized demonstrations throughout historically black agricultural areas of the South, including areas in Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi, Virginia, Alabama, South Carolina and Georgia.

The rallies wrapped up Monday as a small group of activists gathered outside the Agriculture Department in Washington. Boyd and other demonstrators expressed frustration that Congress has yet to approve a budget that would pay for the 1999 class action settlement in the case.

Part of the reason lawmakers were reluctant in the past to provide funding, Vilsack said, was their concern that no agreement -- such as the one announced Thursday -- was on the table.

He described a two-track process in which black farmers could receive a flat $50,000 payout with minimal proof linking discrimination to the denial of federal farm support.

A more rigorous system of proof could establish actual damages and yield a potential payout up to $250,000, depending on how many other claimants also prove their cases to draw from the funding provided by Congress.

Boyd acknowledged "not everyone will qualify" for the payments.

"It's still a victory that their claims will be reviewed as a result of this agreement, which at least gives them a chance and keeps this out of courts, where no one gets any money," he said.

Vilsack, noting the farm bill is still awaiting approval, said he didn't think "anybody in Congress doubts there's a responsibility to settle." However, if no funding exists by the end of March, farmers can walk away from the agreement if they desire, he said.

Boyd said he will meet Friday with the staffs of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to affirm that the agreement should be funded.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/02/18/black.farmers.lawsuit/index.html

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Google-China flap spurs federal plan to bypass censors

 by Declan McCullagh

For at least seven years, a handful of politicians in Washington, D.C., have been unsuccessfully trying to make it more difficult for countries such as China or Iran to censor and monitor the Internet.

There was an failed 2003 bill directing the U.S. State Department to develop anti-"jamming" software, and another two years later. A 2007 effort by Rep. Christopher Smith, a New Jersey Republican, to ban Internet companies from storing personal information about users inside a "designated Internet-restricting country" never came up for a vote. Neither has a bizarre new proposal allowing the Federal Communications Commission to regulate Internet search companies.

Now Smith and his political allies, pointing to the recent disclosures about the Chinese cyberattacks aimed at Google, are hoping that a more straightforward proposal will spell legislative success. They're not proposing new regulations or new FCC authority. Instead, they just want to spend money.

Smith and Oregon Rep. David Wu, a Democrat, announced a bill to give federal grants and prizes to corporations such as Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo to develop "deployable technologies to defeat Internet suppression and censorship." The money will also be available to university researchers.

During a press conference in Washington on Tuesday that included an announcement of a Global Internet Freedom Caucus in the U.S. House of Representatives, Wu said his bill would target countries that act as a "handmaiden in repression." The Internet Freedom Act of 2010 would create a new bureaucracy called the "Internet Freedom Foundation" inside the National Science Foundation.

"Peaceful expression of political belief and opinions is coming under concerted attack," Smith said. He said that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi "wants to see Internet freedom legislation on the floor of the House and soon."

Because 2010 is an election year, and one that is more distracting for Democrats than might have been expected a year ago, the odds of a major new Internet rights bill being adopted seem poor. What the New Jersey and Oregon duo seem to have concluded is that a smaller bill that gives U.S. corporations money--instead of slapping new regulations on them--stands a better chance of success.

Separately, on Monday, the Treasury Department announced new rules that make it easier to export instant messaging, chat, and e-mail software to Iran, Sudan, and Cuba (and provide Web-based services as well, as long as no fee is charged). Of course, open source and free versions of those products have long been available from other countries.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10466272-38.html

[Carnut]

It's time to fight the copyright police state

by Molly Wood

Ok, nerds. It's time to mount up. We're going to war. We're living in what is increasingly becoming a copyright and intellectual property police state, and it's time we self-organize and do something about it. Here's the deal.

Recently, the office of the Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator (a new post under the Obama administration) asked for comments as it puts together its "Joint Strategic Plan" for intellectual property enforcement. Yes, you the public are also invited to comment, and that's what I'm hoping you'll do after you read this. Or during. Or both.

See, the RIAA and the MPAA submitted a joint commentary that the EFF refers to as a "wish list" and, most accurately, a dystopian view of a future in which most government and police resources go toward stopping intellectual property theft and illegal downloading.

This Gizmodo post describing the comments reads like something only hyper-overreactive, FUD-spreading free-stuff-loving Internet types would come up with as a paranoid nightmare: the RIAA and MPAA want spyware installed on your computers that would automatically delete "infringing content." They want network-monitoring software that would halt an illegal download in its tracks. They want to deputize the FBI, Homeland Security, and border crossing guards to examine and seize MP3 players and laptops (something so egregious it even came out of the wildly over-the-top ACTA agreement). Crazy talk, I know.

But read the comments for yourself. It's all in there. And there's more: the MPAA wants blockbuster movie releases to be treated with the same kinds of security measures and law-enforcement mobilization that might occur when, say, a head of state comes to visit.

The comments call for bandwidth throttling and shaping, network filtering and deep-packet inspection (especially on college campuses), and accelerated federal investigations into the theft of "pre-release music and movies...as this is one of the most damaging forms of online copyright theft and requires immediate attention and swift action." Dive in anywhere. It's a minefield of overreaching, unbelievably punitive, alarmist language.

And this is just insult to injury, considering the other things the music and movie industry have either asked for or forced on us over the years, as they become increasingly paranoid about digital piracy and increasingly panicked about their outmoded, pre-Internet business plans. And let's not forget their historic unwillingness to make any sort of actual business changes and instead try to rely on government to keep them in business. Let's review.

Thanks to the DMCA, it is illegal for you to make a digital copy of a DVD that you have actually purchased. That's because, under the law, you are not allowed to break the technological DRM that keeps you from ripping the DVD. It's also because you have no explicit right to fair use with the content or devices you own. The RIAA has spent years flirting with ways to stop you from ripping CDs, hinting that they don't think making digital copies of your own CDs is, in fact, fair use. Several labels briefly issued widely despised copy-protected CDs, until consumer outcry put a stop to it because the crippled CDs frequently wouldn't even play. And of course, when that failed, they resorted to dirty tricks like embedding rootkits in CDs that would essentially break your computer when you ripped one.

When, after years of fighting the very concept of digital distribution tooth and nail, the labels finally found themselves willing to dip a toe, they wrapped everything in such restrictive DRM that consumers found themselves locked in to devices with hundreds or thousands of dollars worth of music that would only play on one platform. And even as music DRM gradually faded, we learned to live with artificial technological restrictions, like the idea that you couldn't transfer your own, legally purchased music from one computer to another; that you would gradually lose the ability to mount your music player as a drive and simply transfer music to and from it; that you wouldn't be able to sync a device with more than one computer, just in case you were trying to offload music to a friend.

And when all of that failed to stop the flood of business-destroying pirating (never mind that the industry took 10 years to even enter into the business of digital distribution, a move that frankly could have headed off all this agony from the outset), the RIAA resorted to a campaign of legal terror.

It fired off indiscriminate lawsuits, often without anything even remotely resembling proof, and used patently ridiculous math to assert the "value" of pirated songs and the amount it was owed. And our legal system, terrified by the sight of this powerful industry lying in smoking ruins at the hands of the pirating hordes (never mind said industry's complete refusal to adapt to changing market conditions or come up with a technologically appropriate solution when the "problem" of downloading reared its head more than a decade ago), let it happen.

The movie industry, on the other hand, decided to start from a different position: nuclear. And it's never backed down. No DVD ripping. Period. Technological barriers that, if breached, will land you in jail. They forced "zero tolerance" policies on movie theaters so that teenagers taking 20-second movie clips to show their little brothers end up arrested and facing a year in prison. The industry sued RealNetworks straight out of existence for trying to bring DVD ripping to the masses.

Plus, the MPAA has been front and center on the lobbying lines from the get-go, has steadfastly refused to engage in widespread digital distribution, and even as it creeps into the idea of streaming video content, it only gets there by extracting consumer-unfriendly delays in actual DVD rentals. Its approach? Keep it on the disc at all costs and beat into submission anyone who suggests otherwise--no matter how archaic the disc and how digital the consumer.

And all the while, the entertainment industry has been pushing copyright protection laws that got steadily stricter, and whose unintended consequences now impact everything from coffee-house performances to libraries to security research. Its rhetoric and PR attempts have gotten so wildly distorted that the RIAA's CEO recently tried to associate China's hacks against Google with Google's own attitudes toward IP, and claimed that file-sharers were actually harming the Haiti relief effort. At this point, the Internet is littered with writings and stories about how the misguided attempts to lock down every single idea, piece of content, and emerging technology are harming individuals, wasting time, costing us money, and just plain pissing us off.

In short, these industries have done everything they possibly can to stop the forward march of technology, and, failing that, they're now turning to the government and the police to enforce their business plans for them. And that, as my colleague Tom Merritt points out in today's Buzz Out Loud podcast, is now threatening to spill over into our personal safety--the RIAA and MPAA's joint comments to the IPEC office essentially ask border crossing guards to prioritize pirated music or movies alongside bombs, and would pull federal resources out of serious criminal cases and focus them on illegally downloaded movies.

And some of that might make sense if the industry could back up the claims it's made for all these years that the economy is suffering billions of dollars in lost jobs and sales due to piracy. But here's the thing. This week, also in response to IPEC office requests, the General Accounting Office issued a report saying that most estimates about the impact of piracy AND counterfeiting on the economy are either totally made up or are simply wild assumptions.

For example, the FBI said in 2002 that U.S. businesses lose $250 billion to counterfeiting. When asked by the GAO, according to the report, the FBI could not provide any proof, methodology, or source data for that number. The Business Software Alliance said it lost $9 billion to piracy in 2008. The GAO said there's simply no evidence to back that up. The MPAA, which has already been busted for wildly exaggerating the number of illegal downloads happening on college campuses, gets dinged for making convenient assumptions that make piracy look worse than it is, but again, have little quantifiable basis in fact.

We are being bullied into a technological police state because these industries failed to see the technological writing on the wall, to innovate appropriately, or to follow the most fundamental rule of business: give the consumers what they want. And they have used bogus numbers, scare tactics, and the worst kind of legal intimidation to get it done.

And yet our own government is still leading the charge on negotiating the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement in secret, saying its contents are national security-level secrets. And we know that those contents happen to include, say, just the kind of three-strikes ISP enforcement that's already been stricken from previous global agreements and swatted down by the EU, and the type of warrantless search and seizure of your personal property the industry is clearly so excited to have happening at borders.

Now, I sincerely hope that Victorial Espinel, the U.S. Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator, is taking into account the GAO report right alongside the crazy house of horrors that is the entertainment industry's wish list. But the fact is, the MPAA and the RIAA are well-heeled, well-organized machines that have made it their business to drive piracy and intellectual property theft (no matter how overblown their interpretation of the threat) into the ground at all costs. It's time we lovers of a free and open Internet (and, what the hell, society) became just as vocal and determined.

Please, write to Victoria at intellectualproperty@omb.eop.gov. Tell her no intellectual property legislation is complete without explicitly defined legal exceptions for personal fair use of your property, including ripping CDs and DVDs, limited personal sharing of music, movies, and other digital property, and protections for device and network innovations. Tell her ISPs aren't cops, and we'd rather have our cops solving murders and stopping terrorist attacks than checking MP3s at the borders and securing movie theaters on release day.

And most of all, tell her the entertainment industry needs to prove that it's after more than a bailout, that its claims of monstrous economic damage are based on actual fact, and that it hasn't just plain failed to get its digital act together. The Internet is not a giant, flag-waving pirate ship, and it's about damned time this industry stopped treating it like one.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-31322_3-20002541-256.html

Carnut - - I so totally agree with this or I wouldn't have brought it here.

[Carnut]

Feds hampered by incomplete MPAA piracy data

by Greg Sandoval

Last summer, not long after the U.S. government began a review of how piracy affects consumers and the nation's economy, the feds went to the major movie studios for help.

Representatives from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), Congress' investigative arm, asked the studios for information about a survey the studios had commissioned that concluded piracy and counterfeiting cost the film industry $6.1 billion in 2005.

But the GAO never got all of the information it requested from the Motion Picture Association of America, according to GAO administrators, including Loren Yager, the author of the summary report that ensued and director of the GAO's International Affairs and Trade efforts. The agency said as much in the report: "It is difficult based on the information provided in the study to determine how the authors handled key assumptions."

Without the materials, government analysts couldn't properly evaluate the MPAA's 2005 survey. Last week, the GAO issued the results of its year-long study. Researchers there found that many of the claims copyright owners have made about piracy's effects on their businesses were based on unreliable research. The findings sent shock waves through tech and media circles and may have damaged the credibility of the MPAA, the trade group of the six largest film studios as well as other copyright owners.

And it doesn't get any better the deeper you dig. Had the GAO's analysts looked under the hood of the MPAA's research, they would have discovered that the findings were problem plagued almost from the start.

Fred von Lohmann, senior attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation challenged the film industry to reveal its data and, once it has done so, to then bankroll independent analysis.

"I think this shows the film industry is unwilling to stand behind their numbers when they are called into question," von Lohmann said. "I thought the GAO's report was very well done because it was willing to admit this kind of data is hard to get. The GAO didn't say that piracy didn't cause any harm. They just said the data was pretty inadequate. It's a much harder problem to solve than copyright industries have pretended."

A spokesman for the MPAA said that the group turned over everything the GAO requested and fully cooperated with the study.

"The MPAA met with the GAO last summer and had extensive, detailed follow-up conversations," said Howard Gantman, an MPAA spokesman, about the 2005 piracy study. "We believed it was extremely important that the GAO understand the serious threat from piracy to job creation, innovation, and economic growth."

Yager wanted to note that the agency received extensive cooperation from the studios and that they were under no obligation to cooperate. And why wouldn't the MPAA want to cooperate? The GAO's study on piracy was a result of a congressional plan to help improve antipiracy efforts. The GAO was there to help groups such as the MPAA and Recording Industry Association of America.

A shaky foundation
When the MPAA released the results of its survey in May 2006, it said that in addition to the $6.1 billion that piracy cost the U.S. film industry, piracy cost the worldwide film sector $18.2 billion. The study claimed college students were responsible for 44 percent of the film industry's losses. LEK Consultancy, the "international strategy firm" that conducted the survey, reported that the study was done over 18 months and surveyed more than 20,600 consumers in 22 countries "using focus groups and telephone, Internet, and in-person interviews."

But missing from the report was how LEK came to the dollar figures. The report did not detail the methodology or what assumptions LEK researchers made. Apparently, the GAO wasn't the first to ask to see the MPAA and LEK's details about its report. Ken Fisher, a reporter from the blog Ars Technica, noted in 2006 that the MPAA hadn't disclosed important background about the research.

"Normally you'd check the study, but in this case, the study can't be studied," Fisher wrote.

In 2008, more than 18 months later, the MPAA acknowledged that because of human error, the study had made erroneous statements. Instead of 44 percent, the films pirated by college students were responsible for only 15 percent of the film industry's revenue losses.

Coming up with more credible research might not be a simple matter, according to the GAO's Yager.

Yager said in an interview with CNET that the GAO received a lot of pressure from Congress to do its own study but leaders there concluded it just wasn't feasible. They focused on mining the available research for answers. He said the GAO was concerned that many of the most widely used numbers about the size of piracy in the United States were "wildly inaccurate."

"I think you can do a pretty good job of measuring piracy on a product basis," Yager said. "But from there to go to an industrywide problem you have to make assumptions. And from there to go to a national number...I think that may be impossible."

The GAO said the problem of quantifying piracy over multiple industries across broad geographic boundaries has stumped great minds in Europe as well.

He said the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development took a stab at doing its own research and was thwarted. "They've got a lot of top economists and, frankly, they came up pretty empty," he said. "I think they were all a bit surprised and disappointed about how much they put into it and how little they got out."

Meanwhile, the Obama administration has already promised the entertainment sector antipiracy support and is looking to move forward with the proposed global Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, or ACTA. The president and Congress could conclude that there's plenty of anecdotal and other evidence to support increased efforts in this area.

But there's no getting around that any entertainment company or industry that attempts to put a dollar figure on piracy or tries to tie piracy to the country's larger economic woes now has a high bar to overcome.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-31001_3-20002837-261.html

[Carnut]

ACTA treaty aims to deputize ISPs on copyrights

by Declan McCullagh

Internet service providers could become copyright cops encouraged to block access to suspected pirate Web sites, according to a previously secret draft treaty made public on Wednesday.

One section of the proposed digital copyright treaty says that immunity from lawsuits would be granted to Internet providers "disabling access" to pirated material and adopting a policy dealing with unauthorized "transmission of materials protected by copyright." If the ISPs choose not to do so, they could face legal liability.

Both the Obama administration and the Bush administration had rejected requests from civil libertarians and technologists for copies of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, or ACTA. Last year, the White House went so far as to invoke an executive order saying disclosure would do "damage to the national security."

But after the European Parliament voted last month by a 633-to-13 margin to demand the release of ACTA's text, keeping it secret became too politically problematic for the countries represented in the closed-door negotiations. Besides the United States, the European Commission, Australia, Canada, Japan, and New Zealand are among the nations participating. They've been egged on by copyright lobby groups.

Much of the language in ACTA has been anonymously proposed by one nation or another but is not final, and it's not clear whether the "disabling access" section will remain. Another nearby paragraph does say, in a nod to privacy concerns, that governments should not "impose a general monitoring requirement" on broadband providers. The language does appear to go further than U.S. laws governing broadband providers and copyright.

The wording is slightly different from an earlier draft, which talked about yanking the accounts of "repeat infringers" and was leaked last month by a French digital rights group.

The European Union published the draft text of ACTA on its Web site on Wednesday, along with a statement from EU Trade Commissioner Karel de Gucht saying concerns about the document's sweep were "unfounded."

De Gucht noted, for instance, that suspected language such as a "three strikes" rule for broadband customers and a "gradual response" for suspected infringement was not in the ACTA draft.

In general, ACTA's proposals seek to export controversial chunks of U.S. copyright law to the rest of the world. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act's "anti-circumvention" section, which makes it illegal to bypass copy protection even to back up a Blu-Ray disc, is in there. So is the No Electronic Theft Act's concept of making it a crime to copy a sufficient quantity of software, music, or videos -- even if no money changes hands.

While the public draft version of ACTA wouldn't prohibit border guards from searching travelers' gadgetry for infringing files, nor would it appear to require that action. That has been one of the concerns of groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Public Knowledge, which have criticized the draft treaty.

The U.S. Trade Representative said in a statement last week that recent ACTA negotiations in New Zealand were "constructive." The next meeting is in Switzerland in June.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-20003005-38.html

[Carnut]

Senate Rejects Pay Raises for Congress in Election Year

Yielding to election year reality, the Senate passed a bill Thursday to deny members of Congress a built-in pay raise next year.

Russ Feingold, D-Wis., engineered the surprise passage of the legislation, which would deny senators and members of the House an automatic pay raise of about $1,600 next year. Members of Congress make $174,000 a year.

The Senate passed the measure unanimously without a roll call vote. The House has yet to act on it, but probably will go along given election-year pressures.

Lawmakers receive an automatic cost-of-living pay hike unless they pass legislation to block it -- as they did last year. The last time they opted to take the pay hike was in 2008, which meant they received a $5,000 raise last January.

Automatic pay raises were part of an ethics reform bill in 1989, and Congress at that time gave up its ability to accept pay for speeches and made annual cost-of-living pay increases happen unless the lawmakers specifically voted to stop them.

In the early days of GOP control of Congress, lawmakers routinely denied themselves the annual COLA. But they accepted the raise during most of the past decade.

Now, with unemployment at double-digit levels nationally and with Congress suffering from abysmal approval ratings, it's a no-brainer to decline the pay hike.

"Not many Americans have the power to give themselves a raise whenever they want, no matter how they are performing," Feingold said. "Yet Congress has set up a system whereby every year members automatically get a pay increase without having to lift a finger."

Most members, however, privately support the pay raise as a means of retaining experienced lawmakers and of making sure that Congress is not simply dominated by wealthy people. Many lawmakers maintain homes both in the expensive Washington housing market and back in their districts. On most days, they meet with lobbyists making far more than they do.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., makes $223,500 and Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, makes $193,400. President Obama makes $400,000.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/04/22/senate-rejects-pay-raises-congress-election-year/

[yapperz1]

IMO they all make more money than they are worth.