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Declan McCullagh | 1 Feb 2005 05:47
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More on congressional proposals to tax all Internet connections


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Proposals from JCT Staff to Modify Telecommunications Taxes
Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2005 15:26:47 -0500
From: James Maule <Maule <at> law.villanova.edu>
To: <declan <at> well.com>

Declan,

The staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation has just released its
report, OPTIONS TO IMPROVE TAX COMPLIANCE AND REFORM TAX
EXPENDITURES"</a>, providing an array of suggestions designed to
increase federal tax revenue. I'm in the process of blogging an overall
discussion on my MauledAgain blog (www.mauledagain.blogspot.com). I am
reading all 69 proposals and I reached this one, from page 368 of the
report, which is at http://www.house.gov/jct/s-2-05.pdf.

It's too long to cut and paste into this email. Who knows how far, if
at all, this proposal will get....

Jim

Here's the gist of it:

page 372

Description of Proposal

In general
The proposal is presented below as three options. Option 3 represents a
(Continue reading)

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Declan McCullagh | 1 Feb 2005 05:49
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Thomas Lipscomb on why NY, CA are anti-jobs and losing tech firms


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: RE: [Politech] T.J. Rodgers on how hostile California politicos 
are totech firms
Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2005 12:21:21 -0500
From: Thomas Lipscomb <tom <at> lipscomb.net>
To: Declan McCullagh <declan <at> well.com>

Declan:

Unfortunately, Democrats have caught the "European disease" and don't seem
to have developed a paradigm yet that incorporates the growth of wealth as
yielding greater returns. The Club of Rome made the same mistake back in the
1960s proposing that the limitation of resources required cutting smaller
and smaller slices of a diminishing pie to maintain a "socially just civil
society."

We have now had almost a half century of examples that lower taxes yields
higher returns, and that investment money follows real incentives rather
than scenic locations and lying local government. Real European businessmen
are now investing in plants in the United States and Europe is atrophying as
more and more of its capital and major corporations flee to more advantages
sites that remain competitive in the global economy.

New York is just as bad or worse than California. Having founded and served
as CEO of two companies based on my patents that I originally located in
NYC, both companies have now moved out of state, one to Pittsfield MA and
the other to Atlanta GA.

I would certainly never set up a company in either NY or California today.
(Continue reading)

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Declan McCullagh | 1 Feb 2005 05:55
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How much it costs to attend U.N. "WSIS" Internet summit meetings

I've taken the liberty of including a few paragraphs from Robert's blog 
below. Background on the WSIS process is here:
http://news.com.com/Should+the+United+Nations+run+the+Internet/2010-1028_3-5181327.html

-Declan

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: WSIS meetings - How much it is costing Civil Society
Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2005 12:35:55 -0500
From: Robert Guerra <rguerra <at> lists.privaterra.org>
To: declan <at> well.com

Declan:

I'd appreciate it if you could forward the following message to politech...

How expensive is it to participate  <at>  WSIS you ask?

Well, I've just put together a few numbers and posted them to my WSIS
blog.  URL is

http://www.privaterra.org/activities/wsis/blog/wsis_meetings-cs_cost.html

I look forward to comments, specifically on what the exact gains
(economic and otherwise) one we expect .

regards

Robert
--

--
(Continue reading)

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Declan McCullagh | 1 Feb 2005 05:56
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Analysis of new driver's license/national ID House bill [priv]


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: for politech - on Sensenbrenner ID bill
Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2005 15:20:51 -0500
From: J Plummer <jplummer <at> consumeralert.org>
To: declan <at> well.com

Declan,

I've been comparing the Sensenbrenner bill's section on driver's license /
national ID with the language in the 9/11 "intelligence reform" bill; and
noted a few things.  The Sensenbrenner bill would repeal the
license/national ID provisions of the 9/11 intel bill and create a
different system for turning driver's licenses into a national ID
card.    The 9/11 bill set up a "rulemaking" committee, which will be led
by DOT and staffed by DOT, DHS, NGA and AAMVA (American Association of
Motor Vehicle Administrators -- trade association for DMVs).  The
Sensenbrenner sets this aside with the following changes:

1) The minimum standards for information contained on licenses is the same
as those listed in the 9/11 bill.  In the 9/11 bill, the list of seven
requirements (name, address, gender, ID number, digital photo) is a floor
for national standrards. Sensenbrenner's bill would allow the states to
implement stronger biometrics than a digital photo, etc.  The intel bill
leaves the door open for the "rulemaking" to mandate stronger biometrics at
the national level.

2) Both bills require licenses to have a common machine-readable
technology; the intel bill leavs the exact defintion of that up to the
rulemaking.
(Continue reading)

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Declan McCullagh | 1 Feb 2005 05:58
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Warning about fake "tickets" from red light cameras [priv]


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: 	Red light cameras - fake tickets
Date: 	Sun, 30 Jan 2005 17:28:39 -0800
From: 	editor <editor <at> highwayrobbery.net>
Reply-To: 	editor <at> highwayrobbery.net
To: 	declan <at> well.com

For Declan -

I do a site about red light camera tickets.   Back in 2002 you had a
thread about the cameras, so I figured you might be interested in a
little update for politechbot.

There's been a number of prominent newspaper articles recently, but when
the commercial media discuss the cameras, there's a couple issues they
always leave out.

Issue # 1.  At least nine cities in California are sending out fake red
light camera tickets, to get you to identify the driver, so that they
can send the driver a real ticket.  It's a great con game - most people,
not having heard anything about it in the press, fall for it. And, while
the fake tickets are fully bilingual, I think that those not as familiar
with American courts (and such things as the 5th Amendment) are much
more likely to be fooled.

I have a section on my website about the fake tickets, in case you need
additional info.  The url is
http://www.highwayrobbery.net/redlightcamsticket.htm#Fakes and the fake
ticket info, including some sample fake tickets, is under "Police Going
(Continue reading)

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Declan McCullagh | 1 Feb 2005 06:00
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Will DMCA be America's latest export? by Michael Geist [ip]


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: 	Is Canada Headed Toward a Canadian DMCA?
Date: 	Mon, 31 Jan 2005 20:56:07 -0500
From: 	Michael Geist <mgeist <at> pobox.com>
To: 	declan <at> well.com

Declan,

Of possible interest to Politech -- my weekly Toronto Star Law Bytes
column examines whether Canada may be headed toward a Digital Millennium
Copyright Canada Act. The column explores the risks associated with
technological protection measures alongside anti-circumvention
legislation and the potential that Canada may adopt DMCA-like provisions
into its copyright law.

Column, posted in full below, at
<http://geistcanadiandmca.notlong.com>

MG

*`TPMs': A perfect storm for consumers*
*Michael Geist*
*Toronto Star*

During last fall's U.S. presidential election, CBS News featured a
controversial report on President George W. Bush's military service. The
report, which relied on unverified documents, generated enormous media
coverage, eventually leading to a public apology and the upcoming
retirement of veteran news anchor Dan Rather.
(Continue reading)

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Declan McCullagh | 2 Feb 2005 07:41
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Paul Levy on important new Net free speech case [fs]


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Important new Internet free speech decision
Date: Mon, 31 Jan 2005 17:04:55 -0500
From: Paul Levy <plevy <at> citizen.org>
To: <declan <at> well.com>

I want to call your attention to today's excellent decision of the New
Jersey Superior Court, Appellate Division in Donato v. Moldow, upholding
a citizen's right to host a forum for discussion of local affairs
without being held liable for offensive postings made by visitors to the
web site.   available online at
http://www.judiciary.state.nj.us/opinions/a5942-02.pdf.  You reported on
this case when it was originally brought back in 2001.

This is the case involving the "Eye on Emerson" web site, created by a
resident of Emerson, New Jersey to discuss local affairs in the Borough
of Emerson.  Several public officials sued over allegedly defamatory and
certainly offensive comments posted on a bulletin board that was part of
the web site.  The officials sued both the anonymous posters and Moldow,
the creator of the web site.  After failing to obtain enforcement of a
subpoena to identify the posters, because the plaintiffs refused to
submit evidence to support their claims, they dismissed those claims and
concentrated their efforts solely on the web site host, whom they held
responsible on the ground that he had facilitated the offensive comments
by creating the discussion site, and had failed to comply with
plaintiffs' demands that he take down every post to which they objected,
or require posters to identify themselves.

In the decision released today, the Appellate Division agreed with the
(Continue reading)

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Declan McCullagh | 2 Feb 2005 07:41
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More on economic conditions and tech firms leaving certain areas


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: RE: [Politech] Thomas Lipscomb on why NY,CA are anti-jobs and 
losing tech firms
Date: Tue, 1 Feb 2005 10:34:18 -0000
From: adam beecher <lists <at> beecher.net>
Organization: BEECHER.NET
To: 'Declan McCullagh' <declan <at> well.com>,        'Thomas Lipscomb' 
<tom <at> lipscomb.net>

 > maintain a "socially just civil society."
 >
 > We have now had almost a half century of examples that lower
 > taxes yields higher returns
 >
You might want to pop back up to the "socially just civil society" bit in
the previous paragraph there Thomas. Us "diseased" Europeans like to think
that there's more to life than "higher returns".

 > lying local government. Real European businessmen are now
 > investing in plants in the United States and Europe is
 > atrophying as more and more of its capital and major
 > corporations flee to more advantages sites that remain
 >
You mean major corporations like Google, eBay/Paypal and Amazon? Funny that
they all just moved major operations to Ireland then. Ireland's still in
Europe, isn't it?

adam
(Continue reading)

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Declan McCullagh | 3 Feb 2005 04:23
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LA city councilman says open source = more cops on streets [ip]


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: LA city councilman says open source = more cops on streets
Date: Wed, 2 Feb 2005 15:13:07 -0800
From: Xeni Jardin <xeni <at> xeni.net>
To: <declan <at> well.com>

BOING BOING 

Wednesday, February 2, 2005 

http://www.boingboing.net/2005/02/02/_la_city_councilman_.html

Los Angeles city councilman Eric Garcetti is proposing that the city convert
to open source software, and divert the anticipated savings into hiring more
police. That's a sore spot for the city -- the cop-to-citizen ratio in LA is
thinner than an anorexic actress. Garcetti believes the move could save the
city millions, and fund a long-overdue hiring expansion for the LAPD.

I'll be reporting on this for tomorrow's edition of the NPR radio show "Day
to Day." Here's a snip from Garcetti's announcement:

- - - 

The motion asks the Information Technology Agency to report on how the city
could forgo paying for proprietary software licenses and instead transition
to open source platforms and programs. "Open source" means that any
programmer can see the software code and propose changes; a community of
users creates, supports, and freely distributes applications. Some users pay
a fee for technical support, but free support is available on internet
(Continue reading)

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Declan McCullagh | 9 Feb 2005 06:38
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Dan Solove: ChoicePoint functions as spy agency [priv]

Dan is being a bit modest. He has a related book out, also dealing with 
databases and privacy. I reviewed his and Bob O'Harrow's book here:
http://news.com.com/2010-7348_3-5563897.html

-Declan

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: 	ChoicePoint Functions as an Intelligence Agency
Date: 	Thu, 20 Jan 2005 01:11:35 -0500
From: 	Daniel Solove <djsolove <at> comcast.net>
To: 	Declan McCullagh <declan <at> well.com>

Declan,

Washington Post reporter Robert O’Harrow, Jr., has just written an
eye-opening article about ChoicePoint, the company at the center of the
ongoing discussions on your list in the past few weeks.  In the article,
O’Harrow demonstrates that ChoicePoint is, in effect, functioning as an
intelligence agency.  Even ChoicePoint admits to such.  Government law
enforcement agencies are outsourcing their responsibilities, and thus
escaping from the accountability and protections of the law that
regulates the intelligence community.  Here are a few excerpts from the
article:

*Firm Quietly Finds Wealth In Information*

By Robert O’Harrow, Jr.

Washington Post, Jan. 20, 2005, at A1
(Continue reading)

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Gmane