Posts tagged censorship

Hawaii’s legislature is weighing an unprecedented proposal to curb the privacy of Aloha State residents: requiring Internet providers to keep track of every Web site their customers visit.

Its House of Representatives has scheduled a hearing this morning on a new bill (PDF) requiring the creation of virtual dossiers on state residents. The measure, H.B. 2288, says “Internet destination history information” and “subscriber’s information” such as name and address must be saved for two years.

H.B. 2288, which was introduced Friday, says the dossiers must include a list of Internet Protocol addresses and domain names visited. Democratic Rep. John Mizuno of Oahu is the lead sponsor; Mizuno also introduced H.B. 2287, a computer crime bill, at the same time last week.

Last summer, U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) managed to persuade a divided committee in the U.S. House of Representatives to approve his data retention proposal, which doesn’t go nearly as far as Hawaii’s. (Smith, currently Hollywood’s favorite Republican, has become better known as the author of the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA.)

Democrat Jill Tokuda, the Hawaii Senate’s majority whip, who introduced a companion bill, S.B. 2530, in the Senate, told CNET that her legislation was intended to address concerns raised by Rep. Kymberly Pine, the first Republican elected to her Oahu district since statehood and the House minority floor leader.

“I was asked to introduce the Senate companions on these Internet security related bills by Representative Kymberly Marcos Pine after her own personal experience in this area,” Tokuda said. “I would defer to her on the origins of these bills as she has done the research and outreach, and been the main champion of this effort.”

Pine, who did not immediately respond to queries, has been targeted by a disgruntled Web designer, Eric Ryan, who launched KymPineIsACrook.com and claims she owes him money, according to an article last summer in the Hawaii Reporter. Her e-mail account was also reportedly hacked around the same time. The article said Pine would advocate for “tougher cyber laws at the Hawaii State Capitol” as a result.

“We must do everything we can to protect the people of Hawaii from these attacks and give prosecutors the tools to ensure justice is served for victims,” Pine said at the time.

Whatever its sponsors’ motivations, the bill isn’t exactly being welcomed by Hawaiian Internet companies.

“This bill represents a radical violation of privacy and opens the door to rampant Fourth Amendment violations,” says Daniel Leuck, chief executive of Honolulu-based software design boutique Ikayzo, who submitted testimony opposing the bill. He adds: “Even forcing telephone companies to record everyone’s conversations, which is unthinkable, would be less of an intrusion.”

Mizuno’s proposal currently specifies no privacy protections, such as placing restrictions on what Internet providers can do with this information (like selling user profiles to advertisers) or requiring that police obtain a court order before perusing the virtual dossiers of Hawaiian citizens. Also absent are security requirements such as mandating the use of encryption.

Because the wording is so broad and applies to any company that “provides access to the Internet,” Mizuno’s legislation could sweep in far more than AT&T, Verizon, and Hawaii’s local Internet providers. It could also impose sweeping new requirements on coffee shops, bookstores, and hotels frequented by the over 6 million tourists who visit the islands each year.

“H.B. 2288 raises all of the traditional concerns associated with data retention, and then some,” Kate Dean, head of the U.S. Internet Service Provider Association in Washington, D.C., which counts Verizon and AT&T as members, told CNET. “And this may be the broadest mandate we’ve seen.”

Even the Justice Department has only lobbied the U.S. Congress to record Internet Protocol addresses assigned to individuals—users’ origin IP address, in other words. It hasn’t publicly demanded that companies record the destination IP addresses as well.

In Washington, D.C., the fight over data retention requirements has been simmering since the Justice Department pushed the topic in 2005, a development that was first reported by CNET. Proposals publicly surfaced in the U.S. Congress the following year, and President Bush’s attorney general, Alberto Gonzales said it’s an issue that “must be addressed.” So, eventually, did FBI director Robert Mueller.

(Source: CNET)

There is confusion in the former Soviet republic of Belarus over a new law which restricts internet access to some foreign-registered websites.

The government says the change is designed to stop online businesses from setting up outside the country.

But activists like Yaroslav Romanchuk, an economist with the Mises Centre in Minsk, say the real aim is to target high-profile opposition websites registered outside Belarus.

“Technically, if you follow the word of this decree, you can fine up to three million Belorussians every day,” he said.

“So that’s extremely difficult. I think that authorities will hand-pick websites that they don’t like and they will prosecute people or organisations that will provide access to them.”

Belarus, under strongman president Alexander Lukashenka, already has the most repressive security regime in Europe.

Kirill Koktysh, from the Moscow Institute of International Relations, says the reason for the confusion over the new law is that the presidential order was “extremely general”.

“Theoretically it allowed interpretation that the access to all Belorussian internet sites would be blocked,” he said.

“But now we have official comment that the order aims only for blocking of the internet shops. So we should wait for the real practice.”

But many analysts predict the real practice will be a pronounced chill for internet service providers.

Faced with fines and an obligation to report visits to certain sites, Mr Romanchuk says providers may simply block access themselves.

“The thing is that if you, as a provider, violate this legislation providing access to websites registered outside Belarus, then you can have your licence revoked,” Mr Romanchuk said.

“Essentially, you can kill your own business.”

The president has faced unprecedented protests in the last year, and has thrown hundreds of anti-government leaders in jail.

But the opposition carries on, Mr Romanchuk says this will not change.

“I think Belorussians are creative and can find out new ways to access information,” he said.

(Source: abc.net.au)

The conservative and liberal blogospheres are unifying behind opposition to Congress’s Stop Online Piracy Act, with right-leaning bloggers arguing their very existence could be wiped out if the anti-piracy bill passes.

“If either the U.S. Senate’s Protect IP Act (PIPA) & the U.S. House’s Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) become law, political blogs such as Red Mass Group [conservative] & Blue Mass Group [liberal] will cease to exist,” wrote a blogger at Red Mass Group.

The suppression of breakthrough research into deadly bird flu strains has been labelled scientific censorship by some, but others say it is a necessary step to prevent a possible biological attack.

Last month researchers in the Netherlands discovered that the H5N1 influenza virus, or bird flu, could develop into a dangerous virus that can spread between humans.

The H5N1 strain of bird flu is fatal in 60 per cent of human cases but only 350 people have so far died from the disease largely because it cannot be spread by sneezing or coughing.

But by using ferrets in a lab, the researchers proved it was possible to change H5N1 into an aerosol-transmissible virus that can be easily spread rapidly through the air.

The genetic mutations could trigger deadly epidemics in humans, and the scientists behind the research have now agreed to remove key details of their work from publication.

The research - known as the Erasmus study - alarmed the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB), a US government science committee.

It argued the information could be used by terrorists to orchestrate a biological attack using the virus.

The virologists were planning to publish their research in the respected journals Science and Nature.

But they have now agreed to redact their manuscripts at the request of the NSABB.

Dr Philip Cambell, Nature’s editor-in-chief, describes the NSABB’s recommendations as unprecedented.

“It is essential for public health that the full details of any scientific analysis of flu viruses be available to researchers,” he said in a statement.

He says authorities are trying to work out how appropriate access to the scientific methods and data can be granted within the scenario recommended by the NSABB.

Censorship

But there are concerns now that science is being censored.

Professor Wendy Barclay, the chair of Influenza Virology at Imperial College in London, says the Erasmus study should be reviewed and shared.

“It’s a very worrying idea that the information may be restricted to those that qualify in some way to be allowed to share it,” she said in a statement.

“Who will qualify? How will this be decided? In the end, is the likelihood of misuse outweighed by the danger of beginning a big brother society?

“I’m not convinced that withholding scientific know-how will prevent the highly unlikely scenario of misuse of information, but I am worried that it may stunt our progress towards the improved control of this infectious disease.”

‘Major mistake’

Peter Collignon, a Professor of Infectious Diseases and Microbiology at the Australian National University, says the study should not have been conducted in the first place.

“Yes this is censorship, but by allowing this material to be out in the general public I think you’re putting public health at higher risk rather than lower risk,” he said.

“If you’ve actually taken a virus like the influenza virus… if you genetically engineer that and engineer mutations that then make it readily transmissible from… potentially from person to person, that is a huge problem given that the millions of people who’ve died in 1918 as a result of the Spanish flu.

“So to allow that material to be published that may be used by somebody with less than honourable intents, to use it to engineer something, I think is a major mistake.

“But what is even more a major mistake was that this research was allowed to go ahead in the first place.”

Scary

He says there should be an international convention on the use of aggressive viruses.

“I think if you’re taking a virus we have now and making it even more aggressive or more lethal and more easily spread, I do think you need an international convention or group of countries that regulate that so that just one country can’t use it against the others,” he said.

“And to me you really have to justify doing it and have to do this in the utmost secure facilities.”

The Erasmus study was commissioned by the American National Institutes of Health.

The Dutch research team was led by Ron Fouchier at Rotterdam’s Erasmus Medical Centre. The researchers received a permit to conduct the study from the Dutch government.

NSABB chair Paul Keim, a microbial geneticist, told Science magazine’s Science Insider report last month that he had huge concerns about the potential havoc the man-made virus could unleash.

“I can’t think of another pathogenic organism that is as scary as this one,” Mr Keim said.

“I don’t think anthrax is scary at all compared to this.”

(Source: abc.net.au)

India has vowed to ban offensive material from the internet after Facebook, Google and other major firms told the government they were unable to screen content before it was posted.

Communications minister Kapil Sibal said talks with the internet giants had failed to come up with a solution following complaints that he had lodged three months ago over “unacceptable” images.

“My aim is that insulting material never gets uploaded,” Mr Sibal told reporters in New Delhi.

“We will evolve guidelines and mechanisms to deal with the issue. They will have to give us the data, where these images are being uploaded and who is doing it.”

Mr Sibal said the government supported free speech and was against censorship but that some material on the internet was so offensive that no one would find it acceptable.

He said he had shown some of the worst images to the internet companies, who had said they could not control all distribution.

“Three months back we saw that Google, Yahoo!, Facebook had images which could be an insult to Indians, especially religious-minded people,” Mr Sibal said.

“We told them to find a way that such insulting images are not uploaded. We gave them some time… but there was no response.”

Mr Sibal said the firms had shown that their “intention was not to cooperate” and that they had explained they were only “platforms” on which people could display material.

“I feel that this in principle was not correct but it is very clear that we will not allow such insults to happen. We are thinking and will take the next step,” he said.

“We will not allow our cultural ethos to be hurt.”

Facebook, which has 25 million users in India, released a statement saying it “recognised the government’s interest in minimising the amount of abusive content” online and would continue to communicate over the issue.

Google confirmed Monday’s meeting with Mr Sibal but made no further comment, while Yahoo! and Microsoft were not immediately available.

Mr Sibal showed some of the offending material to journalists, including fake images of naked politicians and religious figures.

He added that “sometimes when asked for data in respect to terrorists… there is hesitation (by internet companies) to provide that data.”

The Hindustan Times on Tuesday said the internet companies had rejected Sibal’s appeal for screening, saying a huge volume of information was uploaded on to the internet and that they were not responsible for judging its content.

The paper added that Mr Sibal had earlier complained about a site that targeted Sonia Gandhi, the influential president of the ruling Congress party.

AFP

(Source: abc.net.au)

WASHINGTON — Three leading technology industry groups urged members of the US Congress on Monday to oppose a copyright protection bill being proposed in the House of Representatives.

The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) would give US authorities more tools to crack down on websites accused of piracy of movies, television shows and music and the sale of counterfeit goods.

The legislation has received the backing of Hollywood and the music industry but has come under fire from digital rights and free speech groups.

It also came in for criticism on Monday from the powerful Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), the Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA) and NetCoalition, whose members include Google and Yahoo!.

In a letter to members of Congress, they said the legislation “has been framed by its sponsors as a vehicle to protect US trademarks and copyrights from foreign ‘rogue’ websites.

“While we support this concept, (the bill) puts lawful US Internet and technology companies at risk,” the letter said.

“Under this bill, a foreign or domestic Internet site that has broken no US law can nevertheless have its economic lifeblood cut off upon a single notice from a copyright or trademark owner,” it said.

“As currently drafted, we believe SOPA is an alarming step backwards” that would create a “litigation and liability nightmare for Internet and technology companies and social media,” the letter said.

“Virtually every Internet site that allows user-generated content can be subject to suit under SOPA and the bill could force Internet companies to police their users? activities,” it said.

“In short, this is not a bill that targets ‘rogue foreign sites.’ Rather, it allows movie studios, foreign luxury goods manufacturers, patent and copyright trolls, and any holder of any intellectual property right to target lawful US websites and technology companies,” the letter said.

The Stop Online Piracy Act is the House version of a bill introduced in the Senate in May known as the Theft of Intellectual Property Act or Protect IP Act.

House Judiciary Committee chairman Lamar Smith, a Republican from Texas, said the bill would help “stop the flow of revenue to rogue websites and ensures that the profits from American innovations go to American innovators.”

“The bill prevents online thieves from selling counterfeit goods in the US, expands international protections for intellectual property, and protects American consumers from dangerous counterfeit products,” Smith said.

The House Judiciary Committee is to hold a hearing on the bill on November 16.

The Obama administration has come in for some criticism for shutting down dozens of “rogue websites” over the past year as part of a crackdown known as “Operation in Our Sites.”

US authorities in November, for example, shut down 82 websites selling mostly Chinese-made counterfeit goods, including golf clubs, Walt Disney movies, handbags and other items.

(Source: google.com)

Rep. Zoe Lofgren, the California Democrat whose district includes the heart of Silicon Valley, is preparing to lead congressional opposition to the new Stop Online Piracy Act.

The antipiracy legislation, introduced yesterday in the House of Representatives to the applause of lobbyists for Hollywood and other large content holders, is designed to make allegedly copyright-infringing Web sites, sometimes called “rogue” Web sites, virtually disappear from the Internet.

“I’m still reviewing the legislation, but from what I’ve already read, this would mean the end of the Internet as we know it,” Lofgren told CNET.

Lofgren, whose congressional district includes the high-tech center of San Jose, will be a key ally for Google, Yahoo, and other tech companies who are already working with advocacy groups through trade associations to figure out how to defeat SOPA (PDF), also known as the E-Parasite Act.

So far, at least, they’re outnumbered, outspent, and outgunned. SOPA’s backers include the Republican or Democratic heads of all the relevant House and Senate committees, and groups as far afield as the Teamsters have embraced the measure on the theory that it will protect and create U.S. jobs.

SOPA is so controversial — the Electronic Frontier Foundation calls it “disastrous” — because it would force changes to the Domain Name System and effectively create a blacklist of Internet domains suspected of intellectual property violations.

Lofgren’s long familiarity with tech issues (I interviewed her at a Santa Clara law school conference in February, and she’s been dubbed a politician who “actually understands how the Internet works”) will help her rally SOPA opposition. More importantly, though, she’s a member of the Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, Competition, and the Internet that will meet soon to review the legislation.

A Senate version of the bill called the Protect IP Act, which a committee approved in May, was broadly supported by film and music industry companies, who say there’s no other realistic way to shut down rogue Web sites. But Google chairman Eric Schmidt was sharply critical, as were prominent venture capitalists, civil liberties groups, and trade associations representing Web companies.

For Lofgren, at least, opposing an expansion of copyright law won’t be a novel task. After the Department of Homeland Security began seizing alleged piratical domains last fall, Lofgren wrote a letter to the department expressing concerns about the practice.

When an earlier version of Protect IP was advancing in the Senate last year, Lofgren said: “I’m particularly concerned that it could set a precedent for further control and censorship of the Internet by foreign governments, and risk the fragmentation of the global domain name system. Many prominent human rights activists and Internet engineers have voiced these concerns, and they deserve serious consideration.”

Lofgren has also earned the enmity of some copyright lobbyists for trying to expand Americans’ fair use rights. In 2002, she introduced a bill—which was ultimately unsuccessful—that would amend the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to allow consumers to make backup copies of digital media such as DVDs that they had lawfully purchased.