PITTSBURGH, March 4 -- Messages about public figures in Internet chat rooms are akin to anonymous pamphlets like Thomas Paine's "Common Sense" and their authors should have the same right to keep their identities secret, advocates told Pennsylvania's highest court. The American Civil Liberties Union and a number of Internet companies have lined up to protect the identity of a person who alleged in a political online chat room that a state court judge behaved unethically.

12:04:09 AM    

A boycott of Delta Airlines is being mounted in response to the airline's decision to test a controversial program that requires airline passengers to undergo background checks.

[ ... ]

Advocates of CAPPS II insist the system will identify terrorists while allowing law-abiding citizens to avoid the airport security shakedown. But privacy advocates like Scannell believe CAPPS II is highly intrusive and ineffective in identifying terrorists.

Delta will be trying out CAPPS II at three as-yet undisclosed airports during the month of March. It's a first step prior to potentially deploying CAPPS II screening throughout the country over the next year.

[ ... ]

Scannell first heard that Delta would be testing the CAPPS II program last Friday. He immediately registered BoycottDelta.org and worked all weekend to get the site up.

It went live late on Monday, and Scannell sent information about it to several security and privacy mailing lists. He said the site received about 25 e-mails an hour on Tuesday, all but one in complete support of the boycott.

Scannell argues that CAPPS II is ineffective in spotting would-be terrorists, as the system can easily be defeated by watching to see what sort of passengers it targets for special attention.

"CAPPS II threatens our liberty, but its security benefits are far from clear," said Barry Steinhardt, director of the ACLU's Technology and Liberty Program. "It will leave security screeners at sea in an ocean of private data; some of that data will be fraudulent, and much of it just plain wrong."

[ ... ]

Information from files about those individuals could also be shared with other government agencies at the federal, state and local levels, as well as with intelligence agencies such as the CIA and with foreign governments and international agencies -- all of which could use those designations for many purposes, including employment decisions and the granting of government benefits, according to the ACLU.

Undersecretary of Transportation for Security James M. Loy said in a statement that CAPPS II will respect citizens' privacy.

11:55:34 PM    

Logical Fallacies and The Rush To War. Dave Koehler of PhillyBurbs.com has written an outstanding summary of the logical fallacies used by the Bush administration to try to convince the world at large of the necessity of invading Iraq in the absence of any sort of compelling evidence. If you think Bush is full of it, but couldn't put your finger on how, exactly, read the article. If you think Bush is making a good case for invading Iraq, read the article anyway. [kuro5hin.org

Let's review them, shall we?

One of the favorite methods of the current administration is a false dilemma. This is when only two choices are given when, in reality, there are more options. Right after 9/11 you heard, [base "]You are either with us or against us,[per thou] in the fight against terrorism. Actually, countries can be both against terrorism and not an ally of the U.S. More recently, many countries are showing that they are both against a pre-emptive war and against the current Iraqi regime.

[...]

Another arguing device is the argument from ignorance. This involves claiming that what hasn[base ']t been disproven must be true. We hear Iraq hasn[base ']t shown that they do not have WMD, therefore they do. The real burden of proof is on the party making the claim. The U.S. and/or U.N. must prove that Iraq has WMD. It is impossible for Iraq to prove that they don[base ']t.

An argument portraying a series of increasingly bad events is called a slippery slope. This is used effectively by gun-control opponents who suggest handgun registration will eventually lead to government confiscation of all guns. On Iraq, we hear how Saddam will develop WMDs and give them to terrorists who will then use them on America. While this is one possible chain of events, it hardly justifies a pre-emptive attack on a sovereign nation.

[...]

Criticizing a person or group instead of an issue is called an ad hominem attack. The current talk about France by many Americans is a perfect example. It is not only childish, it distracts from the real issues. France is not obligated to go along with every American idea because we saved them from Nazi Germany 60 years ago.

[...]

Another common device we are seeing is a fallacy of exclusion. Colin Powell and President Bush have both talked about aluminum tubes being used for uranium enrichment for use in nuclear weapons. They always fail to mention that according to U.N. nuclear inspectors the tubes were actually conventional rocket artillery casings. They also mention Iraq[base ']s use of chemical weapons against Iran in the 1980[base ']s. They again leave out that we supported Iraq at that time in their war against Iran, and basically ignored the use of WMDs at that time.

[...]

Arguing a claim is true based on someone being an expert on the subject is known as an appeal to authority. In our case, the experts are defectors from Iraq. Powell claimed defectors reported there were 18 mobile biological weapons labs cruising around Iraq. First, these defector[base ']s stories are suspect due to their obvious dislike of Iraq. I[base ']m sure they would be happy to tell the U.S. what they wanted to hear if it hastened the destruction of the Iraqi regime and they could return to their homeland. More to the point, chief weapons inspector Hans Blix said his men had examined some of the trucks and found them to be food-testing labs.

[...]

Why is the Bush Administration using these deceptive techniques to rush us into a war with Iraq?

Is there any solid evidence that Iraq still processes weapons of mass destruction and has ties with terrorist groups? A few audio tapes and fuzzy satellite photos are not proof. All we hear is the same anecdotal evidence repeated over and over again.

President Bush has said that if Saddam and his generals [base "]take innocent life, if they destroy infrastructure, they will be held accountable as war criminals.[per thou] Isn[base ']t the United States about to take innocent life and destroy infrastructure?

What I've found in all the listservs I've been on since 9/11 is that there are TWO things Americans need most in this world. I've hollered and yelled, "Oh my kingdom for just these two little things!"

They are:

1. For everyone to retake 8th grade civics class, with particular focus on the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

2. A university-level course in rhetoric and argumentation, Logical Fallacies 101, if you will.

If we just had these two things, fewer people would be DUPED by stupid and poorly constructed arguments. I swear, it is if the Enlightenment never happened, and all those poor postmodernists NEED the Enlightenment to rebel and rail against. Would you take such a precious thing away from them?!

Miasma
12:13:43 AM    

topgold writes "During an initial public meeting yesterday, the Irish Justice Ministry revealed that for nearly a year, the Irish government has mandated all telecommunications operators store traffic information from every landline, fax and mobile phone call for at least three years. Irish Times journalist Karlin Lillington offers insights regarding this secret data retention regime in several national newspaper columns. A considerable citizen reaction is at the boiling point, stoked by a civil liberties discussion board and the rejuvenation of the Electronic Freedom Ireland citizen group. By law, the Irish government can deep-six any Cabinet discussions related to the 'deliberative process' and since this decision to retain phone records happened at Cabinet level, it could have remained hidden for more than five years."

11:35:11 PM    

Instead of one mark of the beast embedded under your skin, your entire household could be profiled by hundreds or thousands of items. My god, it is a marketing and demographic person's wet dream, to drive down a street and run a RFID scan on a house and know exactly how to target market a sales pitch. And worse, for that same sales person to know virtually everything about you.

I mean, if it is true that we are what we eat, erm, I mean we are what we buy?

Miasma

New York Times - free registration required A Radio Chip in Every Consumer Product.

And, yes, Procter & Gamble will notice if a case of Pantene shampoo does not make it to the Wal-mart Supercenter in Broken Arrow, Okla. Its truck is equipped to monitor signals continuously from chips hidden in each case. If any case stops sending its "Hi, I'm still here" signal, a monitor in the "smart truck" will record exactly when and where.

Such technology, known as radio-frequency identification -- the same techniques that enable an electronic sensor to record data from an E-ZPass tag or an office door to open for people with chip-equipped cards in their pockets -- could one day stymie pilferers. But it is also capable of doing much more for commerce. Beyond Gillette and Procter & Gamble, companies as diverse as International Paper and Canon USA are teaming up with retailers and customers to apply R.F.I.D., as it is known, to tracking products from the time they leave an assembly line to the time they leave the store.

The companies are tagging clothes, drugs, auto parts, copy machines and even mail with chips laden with information about content, origin and destination. They are also equipping shelves, doors and walls with sensors that can record that data when the products are near. "We want to track all of our merchandise, and that includes items that people are unlikely to steal," William C. Wertz, a spokesman for Wal-Mart Stores, said.

[ ... ]

Consumer privacy is also an issue. It would be easy to combine credit card data with information from the retail chips to know who bought what, and when -- and, conceivably, track the product even after it left the store.

"I don't think the average consumer understands the threat to personal privacy that these kinds of technologies can present," said Alan N. Sutin, a partner specializing in information technology at the law firm of Greenberg Traurig.

William H. Steele, a consumer products analyst with Bank of America, doubts companies will "succumb to the temptation to keep tracking products in the consumers' hands," but he, too, stops short of calling the issue specious. "There should be a certain level of skepticism on the part of the U.S. consumer," he said.

[Privacy Digest]

11:31:55 PM    

The American Civil Liberties Union today targeted Attorney General John Ashcroft's continuing push for expanded surveillance and intelligence gathering powers with a new full-page newspaper advertisement in this morning's Washington Times and New York Times.

"Americans of all ideological stripes - right, center and left - are up in arms about the unnecessary and intrusive powers being pushed for by John Ashcroft's Justice Department," said Anthony Romero, Executive Director of the ACLU. "This new advertisement highlights the serious concerns shared by an unlikely alliance that includes groups and individuals as ideologically disparate as the ACLU and well-known conservative Bob Barr."

The ad describes examples of the slew of new intelligence gathering and law enforcement powers either asserted unilaterally by the Administration or granted to the President by Congress since September 11, 2001.  It also warns against the proposed Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003, the Department of Justice's follow-up wish list of expanded powers not granted in the original USA PATRIOT Act. 

11:24:02 PM    

[chest tumping alert!]

Yup, I am a Salon subscriber, premium service. I resisted for a long time, but eventually admitted that I was powerless over my addiction, and I had to turn it over to a higher power along with doing a searching and fearless moral inventory...

Wait, wrong meeting. Sorry.

What I mean is that I sucked it up and bit the bullet after long resisting, because I don't believe in the subscription model on the web, and figuring I'd resent it even as I resent having registered for the NYTimes site and having been a long time hater of the Time Warner Pathfinder site in the mid-90s asking me to sign over rights to my first born child before I could even log on...

As in, this STUNK of OLD MEDIA.

But then I did it. I wanted an article dammit! And since I know how to get around the NYTimes archive fee charge (not gonna tell how...), this is the ONLY one I did cough up for.

Funny thing happened on the way to being co-opted. I started really using the premium service and liking it. Liked the little music compilation thingie too. Not to mention the Mother Jones and Utne Reader subscriptions. Good will. Then they added blogs, and I'm still happy even tho my blog isn't in that club.

Worse, I would be sad if Salon went away in a way that I would not be sad if Slate went away (has it gone away?). Obviously I subscribe to it in my news feed reader and Radio aggregator.

I like its righteous ballsy streak. I miss Suck.com, and that sucks. There are a lot of things we could and do miss because VC interpreted the dot.com bomb as an excuse to take leave of what little imagination and vision the pathetic souls had in the first place.

So they say Salon spends too much money and lives too high in its offices. That these periodic death throes are con jobs to get more money and get propped up a bit longer.

To that, I say, "What the fuck? It is a hell of a lot better than those far more periodic beg-fests on public radio and television, and I cough up for those every 5 years or so when I am flush and when the guilt hits me."

Salon is like a less serious and more mouthy version of NPR, and for that I love it. And if you need more reasons, here's their version of a beg-fest. Come on, y'all. Cough it up. It isn't as bad as you might think.

Miasma

Did you ever get the feeling that some people want you dead? Last week's flurry of news stories about Salon's imminent demise produced another wave of hate mail from those eager to dance on our grave. (The fact that Salon never seems to actually die -- despite the tone of absolute certainty in these perennial press obits that this time, yes, it MUST be going under! -- never diminishes these letter writers' bloodlust.)

[...]

Stan Willock offers these words of consolation to Salon readers: "[They] will still have PBS, where hundreds are misinformed and entertained at taxpayer expense, as well as CNN, ABC, CBS and NBC. All are losing viewers to the fair and balanced Fox News Channel and to conservative talk radio. Best of luck looking for a new job. Hopefully you qualify as a member of a preferred group (person of color, female, gay, lesbian, etc)."

[...]

Salon -- and I -- take all these attacks in stride. As Ishmael Reed observed, "writin' is fightin'." When you publish a rambunctiously independent daily in a time marked by conservative backlash and martial fever, you're bound to make some enemies. And we're proud of those we've made over the years, from Ken Starr to John Ashcroft and, of course, the right-wing guidance counselors at the Wall Street Journal's editorial pages.

[...]

Chris Broderick wrote, "As a subscriber, I don't really know what I can do, but damn, there's got to be a way. With the way things are now in the world, I really rely on you people to give the news that I perceive to be the truth. I am so goddam frustrated with the mainstream media and their neglect of truthful reporting. It's going to be like a death in the family if you guys go down."

Mark E. Michael e-mailed: "I stumbled on you a few years back and then told my wife and her sister about this great e-zine (as it was once called). You have given us some wonderful memories, but we don't want them to end. And we cannot let right-wing voices be the only ones heard. There are elements in the government that wish to silence dissent and do it permanently. There will be no marketplace of ideas, only the authorized, approved one ... How can Salon be saved?"

[...]

If every one of our 53,000 subscribers brings in just ONE additional subscription, Salon will finally break even this year. In the current economic climate, advertising cannot be counted on to secure Salon's future. But YOU can help do that by buying at least one gift subscription.

The enemies of a free and critical press -- like the ministers of information at the Wall Street Journal -- want to write off Salon as dead. With our voice silent, there will be one less bullhorn to question the wisdom of our country's current direction. The world is becoming increasingly dangerous. As reader Mark E. Michael warned, don't let the "authorized" version become the only one you read. Help us fight the good fight. Thank you.

-- David Talbot Editor, salon.com

12:47:09 AM    

Tracking users

Google is a privately-owned US company that has a policy of collecting as much information as possible about everyone who uses its search tool.

It will store your computer's IP address, the time/date, your browser details and the item you search for.

It sets a tracking cookie on your computer that does not expire until 2038.

This means that Google builds up a detailed profile of your search terms over many years.

Google probably knew when you last thought you were pregnant, what diseases your children have had, and who your divorce lawyer is.

It refuses to say why it wants this information or to admit whether it makes it available to the US Government for tracking purposes.

And the much-loved Google toolbar tells Google about every web page you look at.

Yet it so dominates the search engine market that no website can afford to ignore it, and it indexes so much of the web that few users think of using another.

The way it ranks pages is a commercial secret, outside any external supervision or control.

If Google decides it does not like you then you can be dropped from the index.
2:12:05 AM    

Skyshadow writes "Vermont Bookseller Bear Pond Books has announced that they will purge their sales records at the request of customers . This would effectively sidestep typically insideous a provision of the PATRIOT Act which allows government agencies to secretly seize sales records. The store's co-owner, Michael Katzenberg, put it this way: 'When the CIA comes and asks what you've read because they're suspicious of you, we can't tell them because we don't have it... That's just a basic right, to be able to read what you want without fear that somebody is looking over your shoulder to see what you're reading.' Now if only certain other booksellers would show that same conscience, we might have something here."

1:27:06 AM    

 Wacky Neighbor interprets Homeland Security Alerts. via Boing Boing via Michael.

[a klog apart propagandart]

12:51:09 AM    

It is always on, passively listening. The Personal Awareness Assistant prototype from consulting firm Accenture has a speech recognition engine, two small microphones, a small camera and a scrolling audio buffer. But it's more than a recording system. For example, if a user meets someone new and says "it's nice to meet you," the Assistant takes a low-resolution picture of the person being greeted and then, when that person responds, records the name, storing the dated and time-stamped information in an address book.

12:11:31 AM    

Miasma

CASPIAN - Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering. [Privacy Digest]

Breaking news: RFID is on the way!

RFID tags, tiny tracking devices the size of a grain of dust that can be inserted in virtually any product, are about to enter the retail world.

Industry insider comes clean Insurance companies seek card data

THE CASPIAN mailbox always makes for interesting reading, and we thought you might enjoy an excerpt from one email that was recently sent to us. The writer, who wished to remain anonymous, was employed in software development and worked on a data mining system to be used with card programs. The most interesting comments concern other businesses that were closely watching the project:

[...] one of my jobs was to wow potential customers. I had to take them through my data center and development labs and show them our stuff. The usual suspects were there - various marketers and database mongers. But the most interesting were the reps from the insurance companies. we had a BUNCH of 'em."

The reason they were interested is that they wanted to collect lifestyle information on people so that individuals can be charged according to their lifestyles. "We see that you eat too much red meat so your life insurance will be higher than the norm". "We see that you've bought a lot of electrical supplies which means you're doing unauthorized electrical work on your house. Therefore we're canceling your homeowners policy." that kind of stuff. He goes on to predict that the companies will publicly deny this, especially since it would be difficult to prove their involvement at this stage. Then he makes this astute observation:

Once stored in a database, data has a nasty habit of not ever going away so even if they don't do something in the near future, all this data is out there just waiting to be exploited.

Consumers should also keep in mind that It doesn't matter how "innocent" a purchase might be; when twisted in whatever manner is to the benefit of someone else it can come back to haunt you.

11:57:12 PM