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Declan McCullagh | 2 Nov 2006 00:27
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United Nations summit convenes in Athens: lots of talk, not much else [fs]

So I'm at this U.N. "Internet Governance Forum" outside of Athens, where 
there's plenty of talk (and overheated proposals) but not much else.

Kieren McCarthy has some coverage here:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/10/31/igf_day_one/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/10/31/igf_blog_tuesday/

And a BBC blog is here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6105496.stm

Some of my articles follow.

-Declan

http://news.com.com/2100-1028_3-6130549.html
ATHENS, Greece--A top United Nations official on Monday called for 
changes in the way the Internet is operated, taking aim at "self-serving 
justifications" for permitting the United States to preserve its unique 
influence and authority online.

http://news.com.com/U.N.+blasts+Cisco%2C+others+on+China+cooperation/2100-1028_3-6131010.html?tag=nl
ATHENS, Greece--Delegates to a United Nations summit on Tuesday assailed 
Google, Cisco Systems, Microsoft and Yahoo for cooperating too closely 
with China, suggesting that new global regulations of free expression 
might be necessary.

http://news.com.com/2100-1028_3-6131394.html
On Wednesday, delegates to a United Nations summit here complained that 
the ASCII-only choice was representative of an Internet culture that is 
far too English-centric and that fails to respect other languages.
(Continue reading)

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Declan McCullagh | 2 Nov 2006 16:40
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Tech voter's guide for 2006 election: How politicians voted

It's easy for politicians to claim to have done well by technology. 
Democratic Sen. John Kerry, for instance, made fundraising pilgrimages 
to Silicon Valley and claimed to have a reasonable tech platform. But in 
a scorecard rating tech-related votes that we've posted today, Kerry 
came in second-to-last in the entire U.S. Senate.

I don't mean to pick on Democrats (in fact, the Democrats did slightly 
better overall than Republicans in the House of Representative), just 
political hypocrisy. And of course most everyone failed. The details follow.

-Declan

---

Map:
http://news.com.com/2009-1040-6130830.html

Article:
http://news.com.com/2009-1040-6131719.html
Do politicos' voting records match their rhetoric? To rate who's best 
and who's worst on technology topics before the November 7 election, 
CNET News.com has compiled a voter's guide, grading how representatives 
in the U.S. Congress have voted over the last decade.
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Declan McCullagh | 17 Nov 2006 01:26
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Refuse to show ID, get Tasered by angry cops with an attitude [priv]

Based on preliminary reports, this is what seems to have happened on 
Tuesday evening: Mostafa Tabatabainejad, a UCLA student, was quietly 
studying in the campus library around 11:30pm. Campus police asked him 
for his ID, a usual procedure. Mostafa didn't have it with him and 
walked toward the exit.

While en route, one of the police officers laid a hand on Mostafa (which 
may well be simple battery) and he reacted by saying "Get off of me." 
That's when he was hit with a blast from a Taser, which can render 
someone unable to walk for 5 to 15 minutes.

But the cops, through malice or ignorance, kept demanding that Mostafa 
immediately stand up and walk to the door. He was screaming at this 
point and said he could not, at which point they Tased him again and again.

The cops also threatened to Taser bystanders as well if they persisted 
in asking for badge numbers. This, too, is on videotape and is in fact a 
crime. (Think that cop will go to jail? Right.)

The video is here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3CdNgoC0cE

Articles on this incident:
http://dailybruin.com/news/articles.asp?id=38958
http://dailybruin.com/news/articles.asp?id=38960
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/california/la-me-cellcamera16nov16,1,2951795.story
http://cbs2.com/local/local_story_319101652.html

Other amateur video that seems to show LAPD brutality:
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/dan_glaister/2006/11/candid_cameras.html
(Continue reading)

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Declan McCullagh | 17 Nov 2006 17:37
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Florida Supreme Court upholds "harmful to minors" e-mail law [fs]


http://news.com.com/2100-1030_3-6136534.html

[...]

The biggest difference was that in those earlier lawsuits, the 
plaintiffs were pillars of society including the American Library 
Association, the Magazine Publishers of America, the Association of 
American Publishers, and the Interactive Digital Software Association. 
Having top-tier law firms from New York and Washington didn't hurt either.

In the Florida case, though, the person unsuccessfully assailing the law 
was a far less sympathetic litigant named Michael John Simmons. He's 
currently on probation after being charged with trying to pick up a "13 
year old girl" named Sandi in an Internet chat room and arranging to 
have sex in a motel room.

[...]

The judge who wrote the unanimous opinion was Justice Peggy Quince.
Quince undertook something akin to legal gyrations in an attempt to 
differentiate the law that Simmons was charged with violating from the 
nearly identical laws that courts have considered before. The New Mexico 
statute, she said, was much more "broad." The Virginia law applied to 
"all" forms of electronic communication, she said, not just e-mail. The 
federal law targeted exclusively the Web, she wrote.

Then Quince ran into a second hurdle: the Florida statute explicitly 
covers only e-mail, and Simmons used instant messaging in his chats with 
"Sandi." So the justice decided the definition of e-mail should be
(Continue reading)

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Declan McCullagh | 30 Nov 2006 19:40
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Peter Junger, encryption law warrior, R.I.P. [fs]

I just learned from Case Western's law school that Peter Junger died at 
73 last week. The Plain Dealer's obituary is here:
http://cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/1164360994108030.xml&coll=2

I first encountered Peter during his courageous First Amendment lawsuit 
against the federal government over the constitutionality of 
anti-encryption regulations. When I taught a class at Case Western a few 
years ago, Peter was kind enough to be a guest lecturer.

When CyberPatrol made legal threats over software that decrypted the 
"secret" blacklist, Peter said on Politech that the software was 
"seriously useful" and "educational" and that the DMCA was a threat:
http://www.politechbot.com/p-01015.html

In addition to being a law professor (and, more recently, a professor of 
law emeritus), Peter was an active blogger, Buddhist, and system 
administrator. I recall Peter telling me he gave up his office (which he 
would be otherwise be entitled to) at the law school in exchange for 
being able to colocate his samsara.law.cwru.edu Red Hat Linux server at 
the law school instead.

Up until his death Peter was working on an article with the typically 
blunt title of "You Can't Patent Software; Patenting Software is Wrong." 
A draft is here:
http://samsara.law.cwru.edu/patart/index.html

And an excerpt: "As I argue in this article at what most of you will 
consider excessive length, the Supreme Court was right in holding that 
computer programs are no more patentable than are mathematical 
inventions like the calculus or logical truths like De Morgan's law that
(Continue reading)

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