Internet freedoms restrained - SOPA/PIPA/OPEN/ACTA/CETA/PrECISE-related updates

[SeraphimLabs]

Pretty much. They know if they keep bringing it up and hammering it over and over, eventually people will get tired of saying no and let it pass.

And when it does, god help us all.

The people sponsoring this thing need to be removed from authority as soon as practical.

[Stoic Joker]

The people sponsoring this thing need to be removed from authority as soon as practical.

-SeraphimLabs (January 16, 2015, 04:16 PM)

Agreed. It truly is astonishing how these fools who were put in place to enact the will of the people, persist in pushing an agenda that is so clearly against the grain of the people's will.

They need to start running congress like a reality show where the players are forced to toe the line because "We The People" have an option of 'voting them off the island' at any minute ... Then we'll see some freakin' work getting done in a hurry for a change.

[Renegade]

It truly is astonishing how these fools who were put in place to enact the will of the people...

-Stoic Joker (January 16, 2015, 04:56 PM)

It's becoming increasingly apparent that we have some sort of disconnect between our expectations and theirs.

[IainB]

^^ Perhaps equally astonishing (to me, at any rate) is this apparent US-sponsored stifling/censoring of free speech on the Internet:
How Government Stifled Reason's Free Speech
(Copied below sans embedded hyperlinks/images.)

Yes, the feds can compel magazines and websites to cough up user information about obviously non-threatening trolls, while barring them from even acknowledging it.
Nick Gillespie & Matt Welch|Jun. 19, 2015 5:08 pm
 5495    417    128   
Spritz
For the past two weeks, Reason, a magazine dedicated to "Free Minds and Free Markets," has been barred by an order from the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York from speaking publicly about a grand jury subpoena that court sent to Reason.com.

The subpoena demanded the records of six people who left hyperbolic comments at the website about the federal judge who oversaw the controversial conviction of Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht. Shortly after the subpoena was issued, the government issued a gag order prohibiting Reason not only from discussing the matter but even acknowledging the existence of the subpoena or the gag order itself. As a wide variety of media outlets have noted, such actions on the part of the government are not only fundamentally misguided and misdirected, they have a tangible chilling effect on free expression by commenters and publications alike.

Yesterday, after preparing an extensive legal brief, Reason asked the US Attorney's Office to join with it in asking that the gag order - now moot and clearly an unconstitutional prior restraint - be lifted. This morning, the US Attorney's Office asked the Court to vacate the order, which it did. We are free to tell the story for the first time.

On May 31, Nick Gillespie published a post at Reason.com's Hit & Run blog discussing Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht's "haunting sentencing letter" to District Court Judge Katherine Forrest, and the judge's harsh response. Gillespie noted that Forrest "more than threw the book" at Ulbricht by giving him a life sentence, which was a punishment "beyond even what prosecutors...asked for."

In the comments section of the post, six readers published reactions that drew the investigative ire of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York. In a federal grand jury subpoena dated June 2, the U.S. District Court commanded Reason.com to turn over "any and all identifying information" we had about the individuals posting those comments.

This is the first time Reason.com has received such a subpoena from any arm of government.

From press accounts of similar actions at other news publications and social media sites, we know that it is increasingly common for the federal government to demand user information from publications and websites while also stifling their speech rights with gag orders and letters requesting "voluntary" confidentiality. Exactly how common is anyone's guess; we are currently investigating just how widespread the practice may be.

The federal government's command for information—and request for silence—ironically came just days after the Supreme Court, in Elonis v. United States, strongly limited the scope of what counts as a true "threat" online. In that case, the Court voided the conviction of Anthony Elonis, who had published on Facebook rap lyrics depicting violence against his estranged wife and as a result been sentenced to 44 months in prison for making threats. The Court ruled that context needs to be taken into account when evaluating the true nature of the threatening actions being described. "Federal criminal liability," the justices wrote, "generally does not turn solely on the results of an act without considering the defendant’s mental state."

Unfortunately, that precedent is mostly irrelevant in our case. In America, grand juries have almost limitless ability to investigate whatever they want, regardless of whether that investigation has any chance of producing a constitutionally permissible conviction. Grand juries are widely regarded as playthings of ambitious prosecutors, who famously are able to indict "ham sandwiches"—at least, as long as those sandwiches aren't police officers accused of brutality.

U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara subpoenaed all of the identifying information we had about the authors of such comments as, "Its (sic) judges like these that should be taken out back and shot." And, "Why waste ammunition? Wood chippers get the message across clearly. Especially if you feed them in feet first." This last comment is a well-known Internet reference to the Coen brothers' movie Fargo. 

The subpoena also covered such obviously harmless comments as: "I hope there is a special place in hell reserved for that horrible woman," and "I'd prefer a hellish place on Earth be reserved for her as well."

The comments are hyperbolic, in questionable taste–and fully within the norms of Internet commentary.

It's worth stressing that, under established legal precedent, Reason.com (like any other website) is generally not legally responsible for reader comments posted at our site. Still, the chilling effect on Reason and our commenters is tangible. It takes time, money and resources to challenge, or even simply to comply with, such intrusive demands.

The original subpoena, received late on Tuesday, June 2, did not come with a gag order. However, it came with a letter from Bharara and Assistant U.S. Attorney Niketh Velamoor requesting that we refrain from informing any other parties about the subpoena so as to "preserve the confidentiality of the investigation," and that we notify his office in advance if we intended to do so, even though it also said that we were under "no obligation" to keep the subpoena confidential.

We had three options: We could 1) abide quietly with the subpoena, 2) attempt to quash it, and/or 3) alert the commenters named in the subpoena.

Option 1, quietly abiding, was a non-starter for us.

As for Option 2, our chances of prevailing in that sort of legal challenge—given the extremely wide-ranging authority of federal grand juries, and the precedents set in cases such as In re Grand Jury Subpoena No. 11116275, 846 F. Supp. 2d 1 (D.D.C. 2012), involving an anonymous poster on Twitter—was in practical effect, virtually nil. 

In the Twitter case, an anonymous poster moved to quash a grand jury subpoena to Twitter that arose from online postings of a sexual nature about then-congresswoman Michele Bachmann. In that case, Twitter received the subpoena and notified the anonymous poster about it, letting him know that the company would comply with the subpoena unless he filed a motion to quash. The court denied his motion, holding that the poster's First Amendment right to comment anonymously must yield to the government's "compelling interest" in knowing his identity.

So we decided, against the government's request but well within our legal rights, to choose Option 3: notify and share the full subpoena with the six targeted commenters so that they would have a chance to assert their First Amendment rights to anonymity and defend themselves legally against the order.

At about 10:30 am ET on Thursday, June 4, our attorney Gayle Sproul (of Levine, Sullivan, Koch, & Schulz) called Velamoor to discuss the subpoena. The call did not go well. Sproul asked Velamoor to consider scaling back the scope of the subpoena by omitting the more benign commenters. Velamoor said simply, "No." Then Sproul informed him that we would be notifying our commenters about the subpoena to give them the chance to defend their rights to remain anonymous, and that we would not comply with the subpoena as it related to any commenters who moved to quash the subpoena before our compliance deadline. Sproul explained to him that there is case law firmly establishing that these commenters have the right to speak anonymously, and that we would withhold the information of anyone fighting the subpoena. Velamoor disputed that any such free speech rights exist. He asked that we delay notifying the commenters so he could get a court order prohibiting us from disclosing the subpoena to them. We refused. Sproul pointed out that we were perfectly within our rights to share the subpoena given the law and the wording of his own letter. Velamoor then suggested that Reason was "coming close" to interfering with the grand jury investigation. The call ended abruptly.

Immediately following that conversation (at about 11:00 am ET on June 4), Reason Publisher Mike Alissi sent the subpoena to the six email addresses associated with the user accounts for the comments identified in the subpoena. The email stated:

I am unhappy to report that Reason has received the attached grand jury subpoena from the US District Court/Southern District of New York demanding that we provide all identifying information that we have for several commenters who posted comments in a recent Reason.com thread about the Silk Road case.  I am writing you because your email address is associated with one or more of the comments at issue.

Please be aware that we must provide the information that is being demanded by June 9 at 10 am eastern.   Please let us know no later than Monday, June 8 at 5 pm eastern if you have filed any motion(s) with the Court opposing the grand jury subpoena. Our attorney has notified the US Attorney's Office that we are notifying you about this subpoena.

Later that day, at approximately 5:35 pm ET, Velamoor sent Reason a gag order he had later secured blocking us from discussing the subpoena or the order itself with anyone outside of Reason, other than our attorney.

The gag order was accompanied by this email:

Mr. Alissi,

Regarding this subpoena, I spoke to someone who said she was an attorney representing Reason in connection with this subpoena.  The attorney indicated that Reason intended to notify the individuals referenced therein about the subpoena.  The attorney further refused to provide me any time to take steps to protect the confidentiality of the investigation.

I have obtained the attached Court Order prohibiting Reason from notifying any third party about the subpoena.

Please forward the Order to the attorney and any other individuals who should be aware of it.

Thank you

Niketh V. Velamoor
Assistant United States Attorney
Southern District of New York
One Saint Andrew's Plaza
New York, NY  10007

(Sproul had identified herself and provided contact information to him.)

Since receipt of the gag order on June 4, and until this moment, Reason has not spoken with any outside parties about the subpoena or the gag order. We originally intended to publish the subpoena as part of a Reason.com story about it after the reply deadline; unfortunately, the gag order put those plans on ice.

Having already suggested that Reason might have interfered with a grand jury investigation, Velamoor contacted Sproul on the afternoon of Friday, June 5, in response to a letter from her explaining the commenters' constitutional rights and laying out the timeline of Reason's notification to them. Velamoor told her that he now had "preliminary information" suggesting that Reason was in violation of the court order. Sproul said we were not and asked for further information. Velamoor refused to give any specifics, saying simply that he was "looking into it further."

So as of this point in the saga, Reason had been subpoenaed, we had been vaguely—and falsely—accused by a United States Attorney's office of actions verging on obstruction of justice and contempt of court, and we were now told that we were being investigated further.

None of the six commenters informed us that they would be filing motions to oppose the U.S. Attorney's subpoena. Therefore we complied with the subpoena on the deadline of June 9.

Providing the subpoena to the commenters before the gag order was issued is what presumably enabled it to become public. That has had the effect of bringing to light what these compulsory grabs for information look like, launching a wide number of conversations about a grand jury process in which the government can target individuals, platforms, and publications for data about users.

(For a relatively comprehensive list of coverage of the matter go to this post at the legal blog Popehat, which published the first article on the subpoena and its implications.)

Reason's experience needs to be understood in a larger context. Especially since the 9/11 attacks, there has been a mounting conflict between the values of free speech and constitutional due process, with government making increasing demands–often under threat of punishment–for all sorts of information from innocent citizens. Coupled with the rise of a secretive and pervasive surveillance state, this tension means that Americans have no way of knowing just how unfree their speech really is.

While it is impossible to fully ascertain the frequency of information requests from local, state, and federal law enforcement, there is every reason to believe websites are subjected to thousands of demands each year. It is also not clear how other websites interpret the type of letter requesting "voluntary" confidentiality that Reason received. How often is that letter sent along with subpoenas? And how often does it achieve its intended effect of securing silence? In other words, does it have the same effect as a gag order?

In 2013, for instance, Mother Jones reported that Google, Facebook, Twitter, and Microsoft have between them received "tens of thousands of requests for user data from the US government annually," covering hundreds of thousands of accounts. Using corporate transparency reports, the magazine estimated that the companies complied with the demands between 72 percent and 89 percent of the time, and that it's impossible to know how many of those requests were filled without the affected users ever knowing their information had been targeted.

Also confusing the discussion about these orders is that different categories of cases have different rules and procedures, with some granting more power to targets than others. "Unlike grand jury subpoenas, subpoenas for commenter information in civil cases and in public criminal prosecutions are easier for websites to deflect. The information sought there may be truly tangential and the parties may be willing to negotiate," Sproul told Reason. "But, as in this case, when a grand jury subpoena targets specific information that it contends is necessary to an investigation and can demonstrate the link, any fight is going to be a seriously uphill battle."

Regardless of the legal details, the growing government demand for user data and our own experience with court-enforced silence on a self-evidently ridiculous investigation raise important questions about free speech and the abuse of power.

Reason's unmoderated comment space is rare among comparable publications and has, over the years, developed into a forum that is by turns exciting, intellectually advanced, outlandish, cringe-inducing, and more foul-mouthed than any locker room this side of the Crab Nebula. It is something to be celebrated as a voluntary community that can be engaged or ignored as the spirit moves you (we say that as writers whose work and physical shortcomings rarely escape unscathed from any thread). However trollish many of our commenters can be, they have created a sphere of free speech that delivers on one of the great promises of the Internet, which is unbridled expression, dialogue, and argument.

We took risks by creating an autonomous zone in which our readers are left to their own devices. Some of the risk is reputational—how many other serious outlets allow anonymous commenters to run riot as we do? Some of the risk is legal, as in the current situation.

One further note about anonymity in our comment threads. Commenting on our site requires registration using a working email address (which is hidden from public view unless a commenter chooses to have it displayed). We also log IP addresses. We do both of these things in order to fight spammers and trolls–people who have shown enormous determination in their efforts to disrupt the discussion.

Our commenters are generally a tech-savvy bunch. It is likely that those who have a desire for a very high degree of anonymity are taking control of that themselves, using anonymous email addresses and tools to prevent us from logging IPs connected to them.

But Reason.com is not the dark web. Many of our regular commenters voluntarily display either personal website information or their email addresses. In fact, three of the six commenters subject to this very subpoena voluntarily displayed public links to personal blogs at Blogger as part of their comments, one of which further links to a Google+ page. Raising the question: How can the government view these so-called "threats" as so nefarious when people posted them in such a non-anonymous fashion?

Due in part to the government's secrecy and possible gag orders or requests for "voluntary" confidentiality, we don't know whether Google or other media outlets have been subpoenaed in this particular case. Judge Forrest's sentencing and comments in the Silk Road trial have drawn widespread criticism in corners of the Internet that value privacy and oppose the ruinous drug war. The potential number of critical comments subject to the District Court's low bar for investigative compulsion is enormous. Now multiply that number by the number of controversial court cases, and you could quickly get to the point where federal courts were doing nothing but investigating online trolls. Surely there are more pressing tasks, ones that don't involve suppressing the speech of journalistic outlets known to be critical of government overreach.

Reason's guiding principle over 47 years has been to expand the legal and cultural space for free expression, as the bedrock value behind human flourishing. As libertarians who believe in "Free Minds and Free Markets," Reason takes seriously an obligation to our audience and to our critics not simply to hold on to what we've got but to increase the rights of everyone to speak openly and without figurative or literal prior restraint.

To live in a world where every stray, overheated Internet comment—however trollish and stupid it may be—can be interpreted as an actionable threat to be investigated by a federal grand jury is to live in a world where the government is telling the public and media to just shut up already. As we gather and publish more information on just how often this sort of thing happens, we pledge to always be on the side of more speech rather than less.

Nick Gillespie is the editor in chief of Reason.com and Reason TV and the co-author of The Declaration of Independents: How Libertarian Politics Can Fix What's Wrong With America, just out in paperback.
Follow Nick Gillespie on Twitter

Matt Welch is editor in chief of Reason magazine and co-author with Nick Gillespie of The Declaration of Independents: How Libertarian Politics Can Fix What's Wrong With America.
Follow Matt Welch on Twitter

[Renegade]

^^ Egregious doesn't begin to describe it.

The judge is a thin-skinned <insert pejoratives and profanity here />. She's so spineless that even if she were put through a wood chipper, she'd make it through no worse off than a gummi bear. I'd love to fart in an elevator with her, but I'm quite certain she'd have me thrown in a black prison for a "terrorist attack" with "biological weapons".

Any hatred against her is well deserved, and this nonsense persecution against the commenters is just further proof of that.

Just as a reminder, this is the same <insert pejoratives and profanity here /> that Ars Technica lied about threats:

http://cynic.me/2014...s-about-it-redacted/

Her eternally melting flesh and screams will serve her right in Hell when she gets there.

That the AUSA would... blah. He'll be right beside her in Hell. They'll scream in harmony. Or dissonance. Who cares?

(These toadies bring out the worst in me.)

[TaoPhoenix]

"Perhaps equally astonishing (to me, at any rate) is this apparent US-sponsored stifling/censoring of free speech on the Internet"

... Unfortunately, to me it's becoming "astonishing that this is so routine"!


It's gonna be tough to roll this juggernaut back! Various people have remarked that even "Snowden" is just a new card-deal with a big new spin, going for "different mechanisms of control".

It reminds me yet again of that old venerable collectible card game Magic the Gathering, where you could have any number of specific kinds of "Control Decks", that just controlled different things. So let's say you were a moderately skilled player, and each gaming group has their local crowd of fifteen people who have their kinds of pet decks. Red Aggression (at the player), Green Monster Stomp, Black Weenie, someone's slightly flawed but always dangerous Flier deck, and so on. And then every group has their few Control specialists.

So your local group has the "Silence Stifle" specialist, that simply removes stuff from play, turning your hopes and dreams into a cross between the Sahara and Siberia. So you work around that.

Then you visit another city, and their group has instead a "Control Magic" specialist that borrows your stuff and uses it against you. That's what they're starting to shift to ... the old style was operating with the subpoena and gag order. But trust Reason of all places to have a good lawyer on retainer, so now it got out. Oops!

So now they have to go squash it around the edges.

[TaoPhoenix]

"Dismayingly routine", because also on Slashdot, we get this entry:

Illinois Supreme Court: Comcast Must Identify Anonymous Internet Commenter
http://yro.slashdot....s-internet-commenter

An anonymous reader writes: In 2011, an anonymous person on the internet posted a comment to the Freeport Journal Standard newspaper's website implying that a local political candidate *******. The candidate, Bill Hadley, took offense to this, and tried to get Comcast to tell him who the commenter was.

Comcast refused, so Hadley took it to the courts. The Illinois Supreme Court has now ruled (PDF) that Comcast must divulge the commenter's identity. "Illinois' opinion was based in large part on a pair of earlier, lower-court decisions in the state, which held that the anonymity of someone who makes comments in response to online news stories isn't guaranteed if their opinions are potentially defamatory, according to Don Craven, an attorney for the Illinois Press Association."

Important Redaction mine! Because I purposely want the issue known, not the "hot button noun" running around.

Iain probably knows more than me about this next bit - If someone is gonna express "frustration" about someone, I think you can even graph it scientifically that it's gonna have "inflammatory content". So what all these nasty cases are doing, are setting up the gradient scale. Echoes of:

"First they came for the people who called someone a (A). Then they came for people who called someone (B). Then they came for me."

And

"I have altered the deal. Pray I do not alter it further."

 

[TaoPhoenix]

"Voluntary"

This is one of the more strange and dangerous words in English vs Legalese.

In English we think it means "optional"". But in many legal contexts it means "you provide something, rather than us sending a representative to take it". (That's the answer to the famous '80 's junk scam 'taxes are voluntary!!'  No, they're not optional. However, you also don't get your very own rep at your door most times either.)

[IainB]

Whew! I hadn't known about this until I received this email from openmedia.org today:
Refer link:

• website post: Thousands of Internet users ask the European Commission to listen to their feedback | OpenMedia
• response tool: put an end to this copyright zombie once and for all.

(Copied below sans embedded hyperlinks/images.)

XXX,
We’ve seen the leaked version1 of the roadmap for copyright reform, and oh boy is it sneaky. And although these proposals are coming from Europe, Internet users everywhere will be affected.
It could open the door to absurd new rules that would kill our ability to link freely – copyrighting hyperlinks and charging to link to freely accessible content online.2
This makes no sense. And we need EU Digital Economy Commissioner Oettinger to hear from us loud and clear that we think so.

EU parliamentarian and copyright rapporteur Julia Reda has declared this a “full frontal attack on the hyperlink, and that “each weblink would become a legal landmine and would allow press publishers to hold every single actor on the Internet liable."3
Does that sound like the Web you want? If it isn’t, now is the time to send your message. If enough of us speak out, we can convince the Commission to listen to Internet users instead of to the big media giants pushing this plan.

The most offensive part of this leaked plan? Decision-makers are setting the direction of copyright reform before the end of their own public consultation on this issue.
That’s right. Experts at Copyright for Creativity have said clearly stated this denies "citizens and relevant stakeholders the right to be heard" and would "prejudge the outcomes of these consultations."4

We’ve already seen over 9000 Internet users5 submit their comments using our tool – now is the time to make sure those in charge can’t ignore them.
Send a message right now to the commissioners leading on the digital agenda. Our best chance to stop this is by creating a loud public outcry.

Consider this: the link tax has already been implemented twice, and both times it’s been a disaster.6 The European Parliament even rejected it (twice!) mere months ago.7 But this is the bad idea that Just. Won’t. Die.
It’s simple: this is nothing more than twisting copyright in knots to justify propping up outdated business models.
Let’s put an end to this, once and for all.

–Meghan, on behalf of your OpenMedia team

PS: Want to do more? Tweet at the commissioners leading the charge on digital policy to make sure they get the message.

Footnotes
[1] Leaked copyright communication: Towards a modern, more European copyright framework.
[2], [3] Ancillary Copyright 2.0: The European Commission is preparing a frontal attack on the hyperlink. Source: Julia Reda.
[4] Dear European Commission, could you at least pretend you’re listening to us? Source: Copyright for Creativity.
[5] Tell the European Union: protect the Web and Save Hyperlinks. Source: SaveTheLink.org.
[6] MEP Petra Kammerevert's Open Letter on copyright. Source: OpenMedia.
[7] Reda report adopted; amendment rejected! Source: Initiative Against Ancillary Copyright.
__________________________________

European nations lost millions of lives in WWII fighting to retain sovereignty, independence, freedom and liberty, and against Nazi totalitarianism and fascism. Within 60 years their governments would seem to have achieved national and legal subordination to an unelected totalitarian EU body that takes away their sovereignty and freedoms. Go figure.

[tomos]

thanks for the heads up -- I went for the response:

response tool: put an end to this copyright zombie once and for all

-IainB (December 07, 2015, 10:13 PM)

[TaoPhoenix]

If we're so far down Rabbit Holes this is even about to be passed, what is a "mere" 9000 responses going to do? "First Name Last Name Email" ... Oh look! It's a list of people to "mysteriously" harass!



Copyrighting Weblinks!? Without reading the whole bill, to start with the three behemoths, what does that EVEN DO to Google, Facebook, and Twitter!?



Exactly what are they doing about it?
"Search for Wheat" (on Google).
"No responses found. Monsanto copyrighted them all. To view them, it's 0.1 cents per link."

And I have an eye for Chain Logic. In the US, "If it is created, it is copyrighted". So maybe Google has copyrighted them all if their link is the typical link garbage. Poof! The link has been created, therefore it has been copyrighted. You do *not* have to register stuff with the US Copyright Office. (And what are THEY saying!?)

What about the Fair Use clause as a loophole for at least the US (and other countries versions!?) to spite this? Lots of links are commercial, so THAT gets ugly ...

[tomos]

If we're so far down Rabbit Holes this is even about to be passed, what is a "mere" 9000 responses going to do?

-TaoPhoenix (December 08, 2015, 09:44 AM)

• 9,000 is only a start
• it's not 'about to be passed', so it's a good time to kill it ;-)

Try this link for more info:
https://juliareda.eu...ck-on-the-hyperlink/
=>

According to a draft communication on copyright reform leaked yesterday (via IPKat), the Commission is considering putting the simple act of linking to content under copyright protection.

[TaoPhoenix]

Oh, I'm starting to get tired, I saw on
https://savethelink.org/listen
"in 48 hours a plan is about to be published" and I thought that was the same as passing it.

[Renegade]

"Voluntary"

This is one of the more strange and dangerous words in English vs Legalese.

In English we think it means "optional"". But in many legal contexts it means "you provide something, rather than us sending a representative to take it". (That's the answer to the famous '80 's junk scam 'taxes are voluntary!!'  No, they're not optional. However, you also don't get your very own rep at your door most times either.)

-TaoPhoenix (June 22, 2015, 02:04 AM)

That makes sense.

FWIW, "understand" in many legal contexts means "agree".

European nations lost millions of lives in WWII fighting to retain sovereignty, independence, freedom and liberty, and against Nazi totalitarianism and fascism. Within 60 years their governments would seem to have achieved national and legal subordination to an unelected totalitarian EU body that takes away their sovereignty and freedoms. Go figure.

-IainB (December 07, 2015, 10:13 PM)

It's pretty much mind boggling. And people just cheer it on... Sigh... I don't know whether to pity people, or callously watch them burn with a sneer on my face because they're getting what they asked for.

But I doubt that link thing will pass. It's way to stupid. While I have little faith in Brussels (actually nothing but contempt), I don't think that they've descended that far into madness quite yet. Give it another 10 years and they'll probably have degenerated enough to think it's a good idea.

[Renegade]

So, Hillary Clinton wants a "Manhattan" project to break encryption?

http://arstechnica.c...to-break-encryption/

Hillary Clinton wants “Manhattan-like project” to break encryption
US should be able to bypass encryption—but only for terrorists, candidate says.

Just a snippet:

"I would hope that, given the extraordinary capacities that the tech community has and the legitimate needs and questions from law enforcement, that there could be a Manhattan-like project, something that would bring the government and the tech communities together to see they're not adversaries, they've got to be partners," Clinton continued. "It doesn't do anybody any good if terrorists can move toward encrypted communication that no law enforcement agency can break into before or after. There must be some way. I don't know enough about the technology, Martha, to be able to say what it is, but I have a lot of confidence in our tech experts."

More at the link.

I'm not sure what part of that is the most disturbing.

That she is so fundamentally misinformed that she thinks strong encryption can be broken?

That she has so little value for privacy?

That she's willing to piss away billions chasing rainbow dragons?

Even if quantum computing can break current strong encryption, the research has already been done that shows that quantum encryption is unbreakable by quantum decryption.

There's just so much wrong.

[Renegade]

Edward Snowden:

https://twitter.com/...s/679692055271096321

Imagine if the government went after corruption as hard as it goes after guys who run filesharing sites. Priorities.

Links to Kim Dotcom article.

[IainB]

In the post: New ISDS consultation seems surreal it says:
(Copied below sans embedded hyperlinks/images.)

The European Commission has launched a consultation on an investor-to-state dispute settlement (ISDS) variant: a multilateral investment court. 1 In an email the commission confirms the consultation has a narrow scope. The commission does not want feedback on the system as a whole. This way the system’s social and environmental impacts will go unmentioned in the consultation results.

This is irresponsible, as the system as a whole will strengthen investments vis-à-vis democracy and fundamental rights. This undermines our values and ability to respond to crises, including climate change.

Mankind faces its biggest challenge ever: climate change. For the commission it’s business as usual. Give multinationals their own court and keep the social and environmental impacts out of sight.

That’s surreal, not?

I asked the commission two questions about the consultation; below the commission’s answer, with inline comments. ...
___________________________________

Regardless as to whether one is skeptical of climate alarmism in general, for those who are concerned about it, the above question is valid and (presumably) deserves an articulate response.
But no. Look at the response from the European Commission.
Some people (not me, you understand) might say that the EUC response is basically two fingers (English style) - the equivalent of "F#ck off, rude letter follows", or similar - but I couldn't possibly comment.

[IainB]

This seems really whacky:
(Copied below sans embedded hyperlinks/images.)

Hardware maker: Give up your privacy and let us record what you say in your home, or we’ll destroy your property
PRIVACY
POSTED ONAUGUST 30, 2017 • UPDATED AUGUST 30, 2017 • BY RICK FALKVINGE 74  0
Image: guy-with-sledgehammer-1280x720-istockphoto

Hardware maker Sonos has a new privacy policy, and is telling users that unless they agree to it, their devices may cease to function entirely. Of course, since people bought these objects, they’re those people’s property. And since Sonos is taking an action that they know will break these devices, Sonos is effectively saying they’ll willfully destroy your property unless you comply and give up your privacy. This is a new low.

Sonos is a high-end sound system maker, famous for being the first brand to have synchronized music in different rooms with an off-the-shelf device system. This week, they announced a new privacy policy, where they say they’ll be collecting a lot of data about you, including listening in to your room and (in a roundabout way) recording it. People were justifiably quite upset. It is in response to this community reaction that Sonos does the unforgivable: Sonos states that if people don’t accept “the new privacy policy” — meaning give up their privacy in their own home completely — Sonos is going to willfully destroy those people’s property.

“The customer can choose to acknowledge the policy, or can accept that over time their product may cease to function,” the Sonos spokesperson said, specifically.

Sonos is particularly sneaky about the part where they record sound. They say in their blog post that they “don’t keep the recordings” of sound recorded in your home, with the new Voice Assistant. However, they point out that they share their collected data with a large number of parties, the services of which you have “requested or authorized” — where people tend to read “requested”, but where “authorized” is the large part. Further, they point out that they share recorded sound with Amazon under all circumstances, and Amazon is already known to keep recordings for later use by authorities or others, so the point is kind of moot. “We don’t keep the recordings, we let others do it for us” would be a more straightforward wording.

As ZDNet notes, the community’s reaction has been quite hostile to the manufacturer who threatens to destroy their property, and not without justification.

For my personal purchasing choices, behaving like this is enough to get on my blacklist of manufacturers, just like when Sony willfully infected its customers with rootkit malware in 2005, and Sony made it onto my blacklist. (It’s a high bar to get there, and still, hardware makers keep inventing new audacious ways to clear that bar.)

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This article was previously published at Private Internet Access.
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The SONOS website says:

Try it. Love it. Keep it.
Try any Sonos speaker risk-free, for up to 100 days. Keep it if you love it. Get your money back if you don’t.
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They sound very user-friendly.