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Declan McCullagh | 7 Mar 2007 09:30
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Politech back from hiatus (and a quick note on the Free State Project) [econ]

Sorry, folks, for the lack of Politech updates recently. I've been 
traveling more than I'd like and haven't been as caught up on email as 
I'd like. One stop was speaking at a UNESCO conference in Paris also 
organized by the World Press Freedom Committee and the World Association 
of Newspapers, which I wrote about here:
http://news.com.com/2100-1028_3-6160323.html

Another stop was the Free State Project's Liberty Forum in Concord, NH. 
The Free State Project is, of course, the grassroots group that is 
organizing a political migration to New Hampshire in hopes of creating a 
freer society along libertarian lines.

That means activism of the most local and non-glamorous sort: holding 
social events, trying to get pro-liberty candidates elected, 
buttonholing politicos when possible. It's helped along not only by the 
state's "Live Free or Die" culture but also the fact that New 
Hampshire's legislature has around 424 members (thus each represents a 
relatively small number of residents).

So far it's unclear how well this is going to work. They've signed up 
some 20,000 people so far in principle, and say they know of about 200 
who have already moved. But two things that the Free Staters have going 
for them is that it's a social bunch of people and, based on my 
impression over four days, devoid of any serious internal conflicts that 
could imperil the effort.

It's worth watching to see what happens -- and, if you're able to work 
remotely and are looking for a change of scenery, you could do worse 
than give New Hampshire a try. The border's about 25 miles from Boston 
and the state has no sales tax or income tax.
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Declan McCullagh | 7 Mar 2007 09:42
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Real ID Act regulations finally released by Homeland Security [priv]

We've had plenty of discussions about the Real ID Act here on Politech, 
including these:
http://www.politechbot.com/2007/02/09/california-officials-like/
http://www.politechbot.com/2007/01/25/maine-becomes-first/
http://www.politechbot.com/2005/03/24/john-gilmore-on/

But so far it's been difficult to figure out how bad the bloody law will 
be in practice. That's because the Department of Homeland Security has 
remarkably broad power to come up with regulations, which they finally 
did in draft form:
http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/nprm_realid.pdf

Here's a summary I wrote trying to put this in perspective:
http://news.com.com/2100-1028_3-6163509.html

Among the outstanding unanswered questions: Will the final rules include 
an RFID tag? Will all drivers licenses have a standard design dictated 
by Homeland Security? Will the information that has to be stored on the 
nationalized licenses (in the form of a 2D barcode) be encrypted?

The deadline extension by Homeland Security was cunning. It's almost 
certainly intended to fragment opposition in state capitals. If the 
federalized ID card doesn't have to be complete until 2013 -- the 
earlier date was 2008 -- state DMVs won't be as alarmed right now and 
voters won't be either.

Here's some more background:
http://www.epic.org/privacy/id_cards/
http://www.realnightmare.org/
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Declan McCullagh | 7 Mar 2007 10:01
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Justice Department's new data retention target: image-sharing sites

Once upon a time, the concept of mandatory data retention seemed almost 
reasonable. What's the big difference between an ISP keeping data on 
users for a year instead of six months? Rep. Diana DeGette & co spent a 
large portion of last year talking about babies being raped thanks to 
the Internet and how that could be prevented by data retention -- and if 
they're right, who could be against the idea?

Well, it turns out that the Bush administration wants far more than just 
that. In a private meeting with industry groups last week, Assistant 
Attorney General Rachel Brand and other officials said they wanted to 
target Web sites that let users upload images or video:
http://news.com.com/2100-1028_3-6163679.html

This is consistent with a Politech post from January, in which I said 
that search engines, domain registrars, and Web hosting services have 
also been talked about as data retention targets:
http://www.politechbot.com/2007/01/24/not-just-isps/

Unfortunately, we don't know exactly what the Justice Department has in 
mind. (A real problem is that discussions on this topic have been both 
vague and secretive. No language has been circulated, at least as of 
last week, so we can only speculate.)

-Declan
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Declan McCullagh | 7 Mar 2007 21:12
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France bans citizens from recording violence, Web sites from reproducing videos [fs]

Background on "happy slapping":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_slapping

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: France bans citizen journalists from reporting violence
Date: Wed, 07 Mar 2007 08:57:02 -0700
From: Richard Smith <richard2 <at> fastermail.com>
To: declan <at> well.com

http://www.macworld.com/news/2007/03/06/franceban/index.php?lsrc=mwrss

quote:
The French Constitutional Council has approved a law that criminalizes 
the filming or broadcasting of acts of violence by people other than 
professional journalists. The law could lead to the imprisonment of 
eyewitnesses who film acts of police violence, or operators of Web sites 
publishing the images, one French civil liberties group warned on Tuesday.

Apparenly there's little mention of it in the mainstream french media. 
You can read the press release from Odebi here (in french):

http://www.odebi.org/new2/?p=223

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: FRANCE : New prevention of criminality law poses threat to 
citizen  reporting / FRANCE : Loi sur la  prévention de la délinquance , 
un risque pour  l'information citoyenne
Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2007 16:46:56 +0100
From: rsf.Internet <internet <at> rsf.org>
To: internet <at> rsf.org
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Declan McCullagh | 8 Mar 2007 08:26
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Real ID Act regulations: a critique by Steven Adler [priv]

Previous Politech message:
http://www.politechbot.com/2007/03/07/real-id-act/

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [Politech] Real ID Act regulations finally released by 
Homeland	Security [priv]
Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2007 09:20:15 -0500
From: Steven Adler <adler1 <at> us.ibm.com>
To: Declan McCullagh <declan <at> well.com>

Declan,

The current rulemaking proposal has several key features:

1.  It establishes federal standards in document authentication for
drivers licenses:

2.  Jurisdictional control will remain at the state and county level, as
it is today, but data will be shared via remote query nationally and
globally

3.  There will be a machine-readable zone (MRZ) on the back of each
license in the form of a 2D-barcode

Privacy Issues:

Current privacy debate centers on the MRZ because it will provide the
first common electronic means to verify a drivers license.  MRZ readers
are cheap and common.  Law enforcement would like the full data set on the
front of the card to be written in the MRZ.
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Declan McCullagh | 9 Mar 2007 01:26
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Real ID rebellion accelerates; ACLU's scorecard rates regulations [priv]

Previous Politech message:
http://www.politechbot.com/2007/03/07/real-id-act/
http://politechbot.com/pipermail/politech/2007-March/001685.html

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Real ID rebellion accelerates; scorecard rates regs
Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2007 15:14:46 -0500
From: Stanley, Jay <JStanley <at> dcaclu.org>
To: Declan McCullagh <declan <at> well.com>

Hi Declan,

Wanted to let you know that a couple of things are happening with Real 
ID.  First, Idaho became the second state to opt out today.  As you know 
Maine opted out in January; there are also a lot of states that have 
passed anti-Real ID bills through one chamber, or through committee.

This matters because the whole point of Real ID is to have a uniform 
national identity document, and as the states start rejecting it, the 
whole concept collapses.

Also we issued a Real ID "Scorecard" this morning summarizing our 
analysis of the new regulations Homeland Security put out last week.  We 
listed every issue with Real ID that has been pointed out and 
systematically looked at how many of those issues have been addressed by 
the new regs.  The answer: 9%.

When the regs were released, DHS made a lot of fuss over the extension 
they promised to give the states to comply.  But clearly that isn't 
slowing down the rebellion in the states.
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Declan McCullagh | 21 Mar 2007 07:35
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FBI illegal use of eavesdropping powers: not just national security letters [priv]

So we've all heard about the FBI's misuse of national security letters. 
The Justice Department's inspector general came out with a report on 
March 9 describing "serious misuse" of the letters, which are secret 
subpoena-like documents that can be sent to businesses including banks, 
telephone companies, and ISPs:
http://www.usdoj.gov/oig/special/s0703b/final.pdf

I wrote about the inspector general's report here:
http://news.com.com/2100-1028_3-6166015.html

And in fact the inspector general, Glenn Fine, is going to be testifying 
about them in the Senate on Wednesday at 10am ET:
http://judiciary.senate.gov/hearing.cfm?id=2616

Fine showed up before a House committee on Tuesday and faced a hostile 
audience -- not that the FBI's illegal acts are his fault, mind you, but 
Bush administration officials seem oddly reluctant to testify in public 
under oath nowadays:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/20/AR2007032000921.html

The odd thing is that everyone, or nearly everyone, seems to think this 
is entirely unexpected. In fact, it's a natural consequence of giving 
the federal government more and more power over the years (national 
security letters were made much more powerful by the Patriot Act). 
Incentives matter, and the FBI has plenty of incentives to expand its 
power and surveillance ability and precious few incentives to preserve 
Americans' constitutional liberties.

To give credit to EPIC, they realized this and sent a letter to the 
Senate in June 2006 asking for more oversight:
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Declan McCullagh | 21 Mar 2007 07:39
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Chip Pitts on NSA surveillance, data mining, and national security letters [priv]

Previous Politech message:
http://www.politechbot.com/2007/03/20/fbi-illegal-use/

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: FYI -- re NSA programs, NSLs, and datamining
Date: Fri, 16 Mar 2007 12:12:54 -0500
From: Chip Pitts <chip.pitts <at> att.net>
To: 'Declan McCullagh' <declan <at> well.com>

Hi, Declan --

I hope you're well.

Here's a little top level summary I did trying to describe where we are on
warrantless domestic surveillance (via NSA, NSLs, and datamining) . . .

Chip

http://www.washingtonspectator.com/articles/20070315surveillance_1.cfm
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Declan McCullagh | 21 Mar 2007 19:28
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EPIC urges Senate to kill Patriot Act section expanding FBI's national security letters [priv]

Previous Politech message:
http://www.politechbot.com/2007/03/20/fbi-illegal-use/

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: For Politech: EPIC on NSL Letters and Patriot Act Powers
Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2007 13:38:15 -0400
From: Guilherme Roschke <roschke <at> epic.org>
To: Declan McCullagh <declan <at> well.com>

Declan,

	I'm wondering if you could send to Politech this letter that EPIC today
sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee.  The text is below,  and I also
include a link to the PDF, which has the proper footnotes.

-gr

--
Guilherme Roschke
Skadden Fellow
Domestic Violence and Privacy Project
Electronic Privacy Information Center
http://www.epic.org/privacy/dv/
(202) 483-1140 x124

http://www.epic.org/privacy/pdf/nsl_letter.pdf

							March 21, 2007

Senator Patrick Leahy, Chairman
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Declan McCullagh | 23 Mar 2007 00:07
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COPA struck down, again, and judge says filters are very effective [fs]

Here's my article:
http://news.com.com/2100-1030_3-6169621.html

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: COPA struck down again, but filters fair pretty well
Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2007 09:05:17 -0700
From: David Burt <David.Burt <at> microsoft.com>
To: declan <at> well.com <declan <at> well.com>

As the legal saga of the Children's Internet Protection Act prepares to 
enter its second decade, and heads toward a likely third trip to the 
Supreme Court, it's interesting to note the cumulative take on filters. 
  As you know, I've been following this for a long time and was a 
consultant to the DOJ in the last filtering case, CIPA.  (See my 
Wikipedia entry 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Burt_%28former_librarian_and_activist%29 
)

In the section of the ruling on "The Effectiveness of Filters", the 
court reviews a number of studies on filters, including Consumer 
Reports, the COPA Commission, testimony in CIPA, and the data gleaned 
via subpoena from Google and MSN.  The judge concludes, "I find that filters
generally block about 95% of sexually explicit material."
Ruling at http://www.paed.uscourts.gov/documents/opinions/07D0346P.pdf

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
David Burt
Product Manager, Communications, Security & Access Products
Microsoft Corporation
david.burt <at> microsoft.com<mailto:david.burtb <at> microsoft.com> | Office:
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Gmane