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![]() ![]() "This was not an untruth or a falsehood. This was just a mistake on his part." – Robert Litt May 16th, 2015 ![]() EU: Blocking Access to File-Sharing Sites 'Ineffective' Against Piracy Internet site-blocking and shutdowns have almost no effect against music and video piracy, new research from the European Union says. Zack Whittaker A new paper published by the European Commission's Joint Research Center concluded that copyright enforcement tactics, which include blocking of Web addresses to known illegal file-sharing and video-streaming sites, saw "significant but short-lived" declines in piracy levels. Data retention will be a useful tool in a proposal from the content industry to get ISPs to match IP addresses connected to alleged infringers with customer accounts. The researchers examined Germany's former most popular pirate video streaming site Kino.to in 2011, which was shut down after police raided dozens of homes across Europe. Established in 2008, it became one of the most notorious illegal video-streaming sites in the world, allowing users to stream some of the latest movies for free. According to a complaint by a German rights group, which sparked the initial criminal probe into Kino.to, the site generated upwards of $2.9 million in advertising revenue and through its premium service offering. But its shutdown by German police, though quick and effective, had a minimal effect on the black content market, the researchers say. Relying on clickstream data of more than 5,000 internet users across three countries, researchers determined that there was "little difficulty" for those users to switch to other sites. "The shutdown of Kino.to resulted in a much more fragmented structure of the market for unlicensed movie streaming. This potentially makes future law enforcement interventions either more costly -- as there would not be a single dominant platform to shutdown anymore -- or less effective if only a single website is targeted by the intervention," the paper said. In other words, when one pirate site was shut down, more emerged, turning a single site-blocking effort into a game of Whac-a-Mole. A number of governments, including Germany, France, and the UK, have enacted laws and fought cases in the courts to seek the shutdown of websites in recent years. A case against arguably the most famous piracy site, The Pirate Bay, at the UK's High Court resulted in the major Internet providers in the UK blocking access to the site. The block reportedly had little effect on the site's traffic, and remains one of the top 500 sites on the internet today, according to Alexa rankings. Researchers also argued in the paper that new sites filled the void left by Kino.to's demise soon after. "The rapid emergence of new copyright-infringing platforms led the movie streaming piracy market to quickly recover from the intervention," the researchers wrote. The paper also added that following the site's shutdown, only 2.5 percent of those internet users turned to licensed video platforms. "If these consumers are not willing to pay for the licensed version of these products, their surplus will not translate into surplus to producers," the paper said, noting that movie and music studios effectively don't gain anything back from the shut downs. http://www.zdnet.com/article/site-bl...an-commission/ ![]() Film Consortium Urges ISPs to Abandon Ineffective ‘Six Strikes’ Policy for Pirates Martin Anderson A consortium of motion picture companies called The Internet Security Task Force (ISTS) is calling for American ISPs to abandon the “ineffective” Copyright Alert System (CAS), which sends up to six warnings to ISP users identified as sharing copyrighted works via BitTorrent and other means, before potentially taking sterner action against the end-user. The CAS system was enacted in 2011 by the Center for Copyright Information following three years of initial research into an approach to online movie piracy, though it was not taken up by ISPs until 2013. ISTS claims that the system is ineffective, and cites a growth of 160% in piracy of movies, TV shows, software, video games and music over the last two years, and an assertion that such piracy accounts for 24% of global internet usage. “We've always known the Copyright Alert System was ineffective,” said Mark Gill, ISTF chairman and President of member company Millennium films “as it allows people to steal six movies from us before they get an educational leaflet. But now we have the data to prove that it's a sham,” In fact the ‘six strikes’ arrangement of CAS provides for rather sterner punishment, including bandwidth throttling on the customer, a downgrade in Internet Service Tier, or even redirection to a landing page until the customer contacts their ISP, or completes “an online copyright education program”. The carriers participating in CAS are Cablevision, AT&T U-verse, Time Warner Cable, Comcast, and Verizon FiOs, who in combination represent 71% of internet throughput in the United States. Voltage CEO and ISTF member Nicolas Chartier says “These alarming numbers show that the CAS is little more than talking point utilized to suggest these five ISPs are doing something to combat piracy when in actuality, their customers are free to continue pirating content with absolutely no consequences,” The ISTF has sent a letter to the primary participants in the voluntary CAS scheme asking that CAS be allowed to expire in July, and that it be replaced with more uncompromising measures based on Canada’s Copyright Modernization Act, which came into effect in January of this year. Under CCMA there is no limit on the number of notifications that must legally be forwarded to ‘offending’ ISP customers, which has led to a 69.6% reduction in infringements at Bell Canada, with Rogers, TekSavvy, Telus and Shaw all reporting notable reductions in piracy (or, theoretically, greater uptake of VPNs). The incendiary acts behind the move appears to be the wide-spread pirating of 2014 action blockbuster The Expendables 3, about which Mark Gill comments that it “has been illegally viewed more than 60 million times, the CAS only allowed 0.3% of our infringement notices through to their customers. The other 99.7% of the time, the notices went in the trash,” http://thestack.com/internet-securit...strikes-130515 ![]() Small ISP Stands Up to Rightscorp’s “Piracy Fishing Expedition” and Wins A Rightscorp DMCA subpoena, asking for 71 subscriber identities, is thrown out. Joe Mullin Online copyright enforcer Rightscorp contacts alleged Internet pirates, sometimes on their cell phones, and demands $20 per song from them. It's a business that has led to tens of thousands of payment demands, but Rightscorp is far from profitable. But Rightscorp needs cooperation from ISPs to get contact information for its targets, and many ISPs don't cooperate. Now, one ISP, Birch Communications, has seen through the legal process, quashing a Rightscorp DMCA subpoena issued last September. “Our first order of business when anyone requests access to a customer’s private information is to refuse, absent a valid subpoena or court order, which we then scrutinize as we did with Rightscorp’s illegal subpoena in this matter,” said Christopher Bunce, Senior VP and GC for Birch, in a press statement about the matter sent out today. "Rightscorp’s attempt to gain access to our customers’ data was in essence a piracy fishing expedition." The matter began in September of last year when Rightscorp sent a subpoena to Cbeyond, a Georgia technology company that had just been purchased by Birch. The subpoena detailed more than 1,200 instances of copyright infringement by 71 users with Cbeyond IP addresses. Cbeyond/Birch moved to quash the subpoena and asked for sanctions against Rightscorp. On Wednesday, a Georgia federal judge agreed (PDF) with Birch that the subpoena is unacceptable. "The Subpoena in this action arose from alleged copyright infringement that is not yet—and may never become—the subject of an action pending in any court," wrote US District Judge William Duffey. ISPs have a legal requirement to "terminate repeat infringers" in order to maintain their safe harbor from copyright suits. But the DMCA doesn't obligate them to remove or disable access to infringing material when they're acting "merely as a conduit for allegedly infringing material," wrote Duffey. The 11th Circuit, which governs Georgia, hasn't ruled on the matter, but appeals courts in the 8th Circuit and DC Circuit both sided against copyright holders in similar cases with "persuasive and well-reasoned" rulings. Duffey didn't agree to sanction Rightscorp, however. "The issuance of a subpoena under Section 512(h) to a conduit ISP is an issue of first impression in our Circuit," he noted. To the judge, Rightscorp's actions didn't amount to a frivolous filing. Another ISP, Grande Communications, also stood up to a subpoena it received from Rightscorp around the same time as the Cbeyond subpoena. In that case, Rightscorp immediately withdrew its subpoena, and the case was dismissed. Rightscorp was founded in 2011, and it makes money by sending out tens of thousands of copyright infringement e-mails and calls. Its main clients are music labels Warner Music and BMG. The company says it works with more than 230 ISPs, representing about 15 percent of US subscribers. But that hasn't been enough to make it profitable—Rightscorp losses have become greater each quarter, and the company has lost more than $6 million since its inception. http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2...tion-and-wins/ ![]() Warner Music Says Streaming Revenue Has Passed Downloads, and It Wants More Vjeran Pavic Here’s another sign that the music industry has shifted from selling songs to selling subscriptions: Warner Music Group says that last quarter, streaming music revenue passed revenue from selling downloads. It’s the first time a big music label has hit that milestone. Streaming revenue from the company’s recorded music unit, generated by companies like Spotify and YouTube, grew 33 percent in Q2, Warner CEO Stephen Cooper announced during the company’s earnings call. Warner says digital revenue grew 7 percent overall — which means download sales from outlets like Apple’s iTunes decreased during the same period. The news comes as the big music labels, including Warner, are pushing Spotify and YouTube to pull back on the free music they let users stream and concentrate more on paid subscriptions. That syncs up with the pitch Apple is making for its upcoming subscription service, which only provides a limited sample of free music. “The rate of this growth has made it abundantly clear that in years to come, streaming will be the way that most people enjoy music,” Cooper said in a statement at the beginning of the call. “We’ll continue to collaborate with our streaming partners to expand their businesses, and more importantly, to ensure that copyright owners, artists and songwriters receive appropriate value for their work.” Warner has made a point of licensing its music to a variety of digital platforms in the last year, including Snapchat, Vessel and Interlude. https://recode.net/2015/05/11/warner...it-wants-more/ ![]() Google Play Books is a Safe Haven for Commercial eBook Piracy Nate Hoffelder Piracy is endemic to almost every retail site which sells digital content. Some sites such as Amazon routinely (and sometimes aggressively) police their catalog for pirated content, while others have a more laissez-faire attitude. Google definitely falls into the latter category. The ad network is allowing large-scale commercial ebook piracy to infest Google Play Books. And to be clear, we're not just talking about an excess of pirated ebooks; Google Play Books' policies are enabling industrial-scale ebook piracy operations. On Sunday I came across a tweeted link to an industrious ebook pirate who had set up shop in Google Play Books. Claiming to be the author, that pirate has uploaded and is selling no fewer than one hundred ebooks, all of which are obviously pirated copies: The books had been stolen from indie authors and publisher, including HarperCollins, Baen Books, Penguin Random House, Dell Magazines (Ellory Queen Mystery Magazine), and Tor-Forge Books. And just to be sure, I bought 4 copies at random and compared them to the copies in the Kindle Store (I'm out about $30). The pirated ebooks in Google Play Books were clearly inferior copies with missing formatting, generic or outdated covers, and other problems, but were as complete as the copies in the Kindle Store. All these books are being sold out in the open, for $2.11 each, in what would best be described as the pirate's own personal ebookstore. And to add insult to injury, they are all encumbered with DRM. And Google isn't doing anything about it, nor is Google doing anything to deal with the many other pirates who have set up shop in Google Play Books. To be clear, I'm not talking pirates who have republished a book or two under their own name, or ones who snuck in a pirated copy of Ringworld; Google's problems aren't that small. What we have here are multiple accounts which have picked an authors name and uploaded obviously pirated books under that name, effectively creating a pirate ebookstore. A friend on Twitter spent a few minutes searching through Google Play Books and found no fewer than ten different "authors" and "publishers": • Huzur Burda • Dogukan Akbulut • Kazam Butur • Bestsellers - Books USA Press • Asama Davran • Samar Dana • JAMAL KASA • Zara Hakan • Global Dogan • 80% DISCOUNT ( Save up to 80%) Update: Google killed some of those accounts in response to this post. Here's a new list: • Bestsellers - Books USA Press • Dedem Adam (en español) • Duhyu Aban • Kansa Zera • Ahban Azer • Cather Danus • Ahacan Kanat • Best Book • Hamdi Yazar • Sahin Akbulut • Devad Akbak • 80% DISCOUNT ( Save up to 80%) And that was in just a few minutes; just imagine what a thorough search will find. Pretty much every site that sells digital content has a problem with piracy, but most try to cope with the problem. They respond quickly by removing the content as soon as they get a DMCA notice - and sometimes faster. Scribd and Amazon, for example, have automated scanners which check for pirated, public domain, and other types of content. Youtube has the much maligned ContentID scanner, and there are even 3rd-party services like Atributor and Muso which will scan retail and pirate sites on behalf of their clients. As we've seen in the past, those automated scanners are not without problems, but when paired with human oversight the scanners would be a far better option than Google's current policies. But Google won't do that. Hell, they won't even respond to a piracy complaint unless it comes from the copyright holder or their representative. And when Google does respond, they will take down the ebooks but they will leave the listing active so it clogs up the search results and author listings (see the bottom of Larry Niven's listing for examples). Furthermore, Google may remove the ebooks you complain about but they will allow the pirate to continue to operate. Tymber Dalton discovered a couple weeks ago that one of her books had been stolen by one of the commercial ebook pirates mentioned above (or a different pirate using the same author name): This shitstain of a ####nugget needs to go down: https://play.google.com/store/books/...ogukan+Akbulut ALL the books he has posted are ILLEGALLY POSTED. And I found out today, after discovering he’d posted at least one of mine, that authors have been sending takedown notices to GooglePlay Books for WEEKS and their books are STILL showing up there. The illegally posted copy of my book is here and keep in mind, it’s an ILLEGAL posting. Not all of the books he’s posted are showing up on the front page of his stuff. Authors, go search your books by your name and make sure this fucking shitstain isn’t listed as author/publisher: Dougukan Akbulut Either that pirate is still in operation, or another pirate has moved in and set up shop on the same author name. Given the similar operational styles, I think they are the same pirate, but either way, it does not speak well of Google. google android statue pirate Folks, the above examples show that Google doesn't have a laissez-faire attitude; it's more that they simply don't give a damn about piracy in Google Play Books. If Google cared, they would use the patent they filed for in 2013. That patent explained how to build a scanner which would identify and flag pirated content. If Google were using that scanner, my friend would not have found so many pirated ebooks. Sadly, I think it is going to take an expensive lawsuit before Google starts to care about piracy in Google Play Books. Viacom's lawsuit against Youtube led to the ContentID scanner, and Google only started taking an active position against pirate sites showing up in search results after a lot of yelling on the part of the music and movie industries. If we want Google to take similar action in Google Play Books I think the Big 5 will have to file a lawsuit. Google was queried for comment before this post was published, and has not responded. P.S. In the past Google has delisted and deranked pirate sites from its search results. Do you suppose they will do the same for Google Play Books? P.P.S. If you have complaints about piracy in GPB, please leave a comment. I'm not done with this story. There are several issues I haven't addressed yet, and I would love the opportunity to slap Google around again. http://the-digital-reader.com/2015/0...-ebook-piracy/ ![]() Update! by wavelengthmovies Hello! Today we’re excited to reopen wavelength.io. We’ve been working hard to bring you a great product and we’re grateful for your support. Here’s the status update. We’ve removed the movie sharing feature from wavelength.io because we’ve reached an impasse with the other parties in the UltraViolet ecosystem. At the end of the day, what was being asked of us entailed too many compromises to the user experience that we are not prepared to make. That said, we believe in abiding by the rules of the system (even if they keep changing), as our goal has always been to create value for both consumers and content creators. I know this is disappointing; trust us, we feel the same way. But while you can’t share your movies, the site does offer a bunch of other features for movie fans. You can showcase your movie collection and browse your friends’ libraries. You can find films to watch with discovery tools like Video Surf, Movie Feed and Top Lists. Or engage with the community by commenting on and rating movies and earn badges and move up the leaderboard by collecting more films. Think of it as Goodreads for movies. This is admittedly different than our original vision but we still love films, we still think there’s value in creating a community for movie fans, and we want to leverage some of the social tools we’ve already built. To give it a shot, click here! The Wavelength.io Team https://wavelengthmovies.wordpress.c.../05/06/update/ ![]() Ultra HD Blu-Ray Specification Now Complete, Logo Unveiled The Blu-ray Disc Association today announced it has finalized what could be the last major disc-based movie format: Ultra HD Blu-ray. Ty Pendlebury The Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) has announced the Ultra HD Blu-ray (4K) specification is now complete and has also revealed the next-gen format's official logo. The new disc format promises the incorporation of the latest video standards, and players will also be backward-compatible with existing Blu-ray discs. The BDA says the format incorporates a 3,840x2,160-pixel resolution, expanded color range support, high dynamic range (HDR) and high frame rate content (read 60fps). As well as the promise of up-to-date video, UHD Blu-ray will also support "next-generation immersive, object-based sound formats." The BDA has yet to expand on which specific standards will be supported as for each of these features there are a number of competing options: for example there are two object-based sound formats -- DTS:X and Dolby Atmos. However, a spokesperson for the BDA said that specific audio support is optional and not mandatory so "if it's on the disc it's passed through". In addition UHD Blu-ray will bring with it the Ultraviolet-like "digital bridge" feature that will allow consumers to "view their content across the range of in-home and mobile devices." The association has announced it will begin licensing Ultra HD Blu-ray products this summer. Panasonic was the first company to announce a prototype Ultra HD Blu-ray player at this year's CES, and consumers can expect to see players hit the market by the end of 2015. http://www.cnet.com/news/ultra-hd-bl...logo-unveiled/ ![]() Harper Letter to Music Canada on Budget Day Confirms Copyright Extension the Product of Industry Lobbying Michael Geist The government’s decision to extend the term of copyright for sound recordings in the budget may have taken most copyright observers by surprise, but not the music industry. I’ve posted earlier on their extensive lobbying efforts on the issue and how the extension will reduce competition, increase costs for consumers, and harm access to Canadian Heritage. The record of lobbyist meetings gives a hint of the reasons behind the extension, but a letter sent by Prime Minister Stephen Harper that I recently obtained suggests that it all it took was a letter from Music Canada President Graham Henderson to the Prime Minister. The Harper letter was sent on April 21, 2015, the day the budget was tabled. It states: Thank you for your recent letter regarding the copyright term for sound recordings. I have reviewed this material carefully, and share your view that the current term of copyright protection for sound recordings falls short of what is required to protect artists and ensure they are fairly compensated for their work. Please know that, as announced today in Budget 2015, our Government will extend copyright protection for sound recordings from 50 to 70 years. The extension will be incorporated into the Budget Implementation Act, and will be in effect immediately upon passage of the legislation. The letter is remarkable as it confirms that the copyright term extension for sound recordings was strictly the product of behind-the-scenes industry lobbying with no broader public consultation or discussion. While other countries spent years debating the issue with careful study, the Canadian government simply caved on the issue based on a little lobbying from foreign record labels. The Conservative government did not consult with Canadian companies or retailers about the impact of their changes, nor did they dig into the data that would have revealed that this change will decrease revenues for many artists. Instead, the major record labels pulled out all the stops to block competitive new records from entering the marketplace and the Prime Minister obliged by including copyright reforms in a budget bill. http://www.michaelgeist.ca/2015/05/h...stry-lobbying/ ![]() Obama Pushes Skeptical Legislators Hard on Pacific Trade Deal Julie Hirschfeld Davis and Jonathan Weisman President Obama’s most aggressive and sustained legislative push since the Affordable Care Act faces a crucial first test this week, when a divided Senate considers a bill that would grant him accelerated power to finalize a massive trade accord with 11 nations across the Pacific Rim. But after a lobbying campaign that has included giving members of Congress rides on Air Force One, pitching them at meetings in the West Wing, making private vows of political support and attacking publicly critics in his own party, Mr. Obama’s top legislative priority remains at risk. A vote scheduled for Tuesday on legislation granting him trade promotion authority, also known as “fast track,” has become mired in a procedural thicket, with Democrats — many of them loyal to labor unions bent on killing the bill — vowing to oppose it. Once Congress grants a president trade promotion authority, lawmakers have the ability to vote up or down on a final trade agreement, but they forfeit the right to amend the deal or filibuster it. The bill before the Senate adds a new twist: If lawmakers decide a final trade accord falls short of their standards, Congress can vote to revoke the president’s authority, and then try to amend the deal. It will only get more difficult for the president as the debate moves from the Senate to the House. The Republicans, on whom Mr. Obama is relying to provide the bulk of the votes for the trade measure, are finding their colleagues — many aligned with the Tea Party — reluctant to hand the president a victory. Leaders have warned the White House they may not be able to supply enough votes to compensate for balky members of the president’s own party. Mr. Obama has seized on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, an accord that would reach 40 percent of the global economy, as “the most progressive trade agreement in history,” with labor and environmental standards written into its text and the potential to right the wrongs of past trade deals. The accord would reduce tariffs on a vast array of goods and services, and would affect about 40 percent of America’s exports and imports. But even senior members of the administration seem astonished at the difficulty the president is having in selling the deal. “I’ve never participated in something like this,” said Penny Pritzker, the secretary of commerce, who has helped lead the lobbying campaign with other cabinet members and White House officials. “It’s an all-hands-on-deck approach,” she said, “and sometimes it’s in the hallway.” Michael B. Froman, the trade representative, is known to prowl the tunnels underneath the Capitol to buttonhole skeptical Democrats. He has also lobbied them at dinner parties, at the airport and even on a crowded bus in India during a presidential visit there. Mr. Obama has made his case in dozens of telephone calls and one-on-one or group meetings with lawmakers, a rarity for a president who normally eschews legislative schmoozing. “He’s been very active making the case that this is a different-in-kind trade agreement, the most progressive trade agreement,” said Jeffrey D. Zients, the director of Mr. Obama’s National Economic Council. Late last month, in a meeting with the House’s moderate new Democrats, the president even offered to personally campaign for any member who provokes a primary challenge by supporting him. “It’s no secret the A.F.L.-C.I.O. said, ‘We will not do anything for anyone if you support these trade bills,’” said Representative Gregory Meeks, Democrat of New York, who was at the two-hour meeting in the Cabinet Room. “Folks are concerned if they don’t have the support and enthusiasm they usually have, they’re going to need some help.” Mr. Obama’s political team is working to allay those worries, armed with polling data that indicates that most Democratic voters — particularly the fast-growing coalition of women, minorities and lower-income people — favor free trade and would be more likely to vote for a candidate who shared that view. Mitch Stewart, a veteran field organizer for Mr. Obama’s presidential campaigns, has started a group called the Progressive Coalition for American Jobs to counter the well-funded opposition by organized labor, and environmental and human rights organizations that reject the president’s stance on trade. Mr. Stewart will not reveal any of his group’s financial backers. With Pete Brodnitz — partner of Joel Benenson, Mr. Obama’s campaign pollster — Mr. Stewart is trying to help the president persuade Democrats that this trade agreement, unlike previous pacts, will deliver benefits to American workers. “He’s frankly learned from previous attempts at this,” Mr. Stewart said of the president. Trade votes have always posed difficulties for presidents because of their technical and regional complexity, and the potential impact on jobs. But this one has proved a particularly heavy lift for Mr. Obama, who campaigned for president railing against trade deals like the North American Free Trade Agreement. But a president’s priorities are not the same as a legislator’s, said Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, who has gone from free-trade enthusiast to skeptic since Nafta’s passage in 1993. With Mr. Obama’s pledge to “pivot” United States foreign policy toward Asia, his priorities have diverged from his party’s. To the president, the Trans-Pacific Partnership would counter the economic weight of China and set rules on labor, the environment, intellectual property and investor protections for the growing economies of the Pacific Rim. For members of Congress, it’s about jobs. “I understand the president’s desire to pull these countries away from China’s orb here, but I feel middle-class income decline is the greatest problem Americans face, and trade agreements exacerbate that decline,” Mr. Schumer said. Those tensions have pushed the administration to seek votes one by one. Representative Ami Bera, Democrat of California, narrowly won his swing district in 2012, then ran for re-election in 2014 on a pledge to oppose trade promotion authority. After two rides on Air Force One and a trip to India with the president, Mr. Bera came around. “The President has asked for my support to negotiate the deal based on the parameters outlined by Congress in T.P.A.,” he said in a statement, using an acronym for trade promotion authority. “I made it clear, however, that my support to give the President the authority to negotiate a trade deal is not the same as giving him my vote or support for the final Trans-Pacific Partnership.” Representative John Delaney, Democrat of Maryland, also got personal presidential attention — and a promise by Mr. Obama to campaign for him if he sticks with the White House on trade. “Sure it’s great to have the president’s support,” Mr. Delaney said, although he insisted his decision to support the trade agreement was not based on the president’s pledge to campaign for him. The White House also made sure that the guest list to the April 28 state dinner for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan was loaded with supporters of the president’s trade push, from Republicans like Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin and Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah to Democrats like Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon and Representative Ron Kind of Wisconsin. Representative Earl Blumenauer, Democrat of Oregon and a fast-track supporter, brought as his guest a fellow Oregon Democrat, Representative Suzanne Bonamici. A week later, with the president in her district, she declared her support. On Friday, Mr. Obama traveled to Nike’s headquarters, in Oregon, to highlight the company’s pledge to create 10,000 jobs in the United States if the trade accord passed. But one senator who is officially undeclared on the matter, Angus King, an independent from Maine, was not impressed. Nike has sent virtually all of its manufacturing to Asia, including Vietnam, a party to the trade deal. In contrast, a competitor, New Balance, has kept its production in the United States, including in Maine. “That’s certainly an influence,” he said. “I’ve been to those New Balance factories. I’ve looked those people in the eye.” http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/11/us...rade-deal.html ![]() Whoever Is Leaking Trans-Pacific Partnership Drafts: Please Leak More Jordan Pearson The Trans-Pacific Partnership, a secretive international trade agreement, stands to have intensely damaging effects on nearly every front, from internet freedom to copyright law. But if you raise these concerns with negotiators, who have privileged access to the text of the agreement, they’ll just tell you that they have access to the latest draft, and you don’t. Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations are a closed-door affair involving government officials and a select group of corporate stakeholders. Almost everything we know about the text of the TPP—that it would allow corporations to sue governments for instituting policies that hurt their bottom line, for example—comes from documents leaked to the internet by WikiLeaks. Until March of this year, the last TPP draft critics could refer to was from 2014. Every TPP chapter leaked reveals some new policy horrorshow. But in this game of cat and mouse between governments, corporations, and citizens, those who are in the know always have the upper hand. The TPP’s secrecy is a classic case of asymmetry in knowledge, and thus, power. Leaks, for now, are the only way to even the playing field. Critics have claimed that the TPP’s “free flow of information” clauses—ostensibly meant to prevent governments from forcing internet companies to censor content—would also prevent sovereign countries from hosting data locally and instituting their own data privacy laws. In response, Senator Ron Wyden argued in April that there are, in fact, protections against just this in the TPP. The catch is that they supposedly lie in a chapter of the agreement that hasn’t seen the light of day, outside of secretive negotiations. “That’s exactly why they’re making it secret—Obama’s response to critics was, word for word, ‘They don’t know what they’re talking about,’” Maira Sutton, the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s global policy analyst, told me. “And yes, we don’t know exactly what we’re talking about, because it’s secret. For them to say that these rules are legitimate as they’re being negotiated in secret, with disclosures to corporate advisors who can see and comment on the text, we cannot trust that what is in there is in the public interest.” The need for more leaks is especially urgent because of a recently proposed bill that would “fast-track” the agreement’s approval by Congress. If passed, the bill would reduce Congress’s say in approving the TPP to a simple “yes-no” vote. The process of adopting the TPP would be much quicker, without amendments or procedural delays. Leaking, however, remains a contentious topic, with pundits and government officials gleefully accusing NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden of everything from sparking ISIS’ rise to prominence to giving the Chinese government the knowledge it needed to create a powerful hacking tool, often without any evidence at all. Similarly, WikiLeaks faced criticism after creating a searchable archive of Sony executives’ email inboxes. The emails were leaked last year by hackers known as the Guardians of Peace. While WikiLeaks insisted the emails provided valuable insight into the close ties between Sony and the US government, the Motion Pictures Association of America called the move a “despicable act.” Yet, the act of leaking TPP drafts hasn’t faced as much backlash, presumably because every newly leaked draft contains stipulations that seem to actively work for corporate interests and against citizens. That’s all the more reason for whomever is leaking the drafts—WikiLeaks has done an excellent job thus far of staying exceedingly mum on that point—to leak more of them. The black box of TPP negotiations is especially concerning because it may already be affecting policy decisions in negotiating states. Canada extended its copyright protections for audio recordings from 50 to 70 years in April—a move that is widely speculated to have been prompted by pressure from the US in the lead-up to TPP negotiations. “The narrative here is that the US is pretty much arm-twisting the negotiators of other countries into accepting various provisions, including free-flow of information and copyright provisions,” Sutton said. The office of the Canadian ambassador to the US doesn’t see it that way, however. “With respect to the TPP, the [intellectual property] chapter is still under negotiation and Canada continues to advance its interests at the negotiating table,” Alexandra Vachon White, deputy spokesperson for the Embassy of Canada, wrote me in an email. “Canada will continue to work with our TPP partners to achieve outcomes consistent with the common goal of achieving an ambitious and balanced 21st Century agreement that will enhance trade and investment, and promote innovation, economic growth and development.” Exactly who is pulling these international levers of power, and how, is unclear—and that all we can do is speculate and play connect-the-dots is exactly the problem. Without leaks, no truly relevant public discourse can exist around the agreement, if only because negotiators have the ironclad argument of public ignorance to fall back on, whether or not their claims are true; we simply have no way of knowing. When the powerful actors engaged in the negotiations refuse to make the process auditable by the public, leaks are our only means of peeking behind the veil of secrecy. So, whoever you are: keep leaking TPP documents. Because right now, we don’t have any other options. http://motherboard.vice.com/read/who...ease-leak-more ![]() Senate Democrats Foil Obama on Asia Trade Deal Jonathan Weisman Senate Democrats on Tuesday blocked consideration of giving President Obama power to accelerate a broad trade accord with Asia, a rebuke that the president helped bring on himself. After more than six years battling Republicans on everything from his signature health care legislation to simply keeping the government open, Mr. Obama is at odds with his own party as he seeks a legislative capstone to his presidency. But Tuesday’s setback also highlighted a problem that has vexed Mr. Obama for most of his tenure in office: his difficulties with Congress. This time he is criticizing Democrats whose votes he now needs. The president “has made this more personal than he needed to,” said Senator Sherrod Brown, Democrat of Ohio, after the 52-45 vote. Mr. Obama has said Democrats have been spreading disinformation about the Pacific trade accord and the authority he is seeking, singling out Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts for her role in opposing the accord. Only one Democrat, Senator Tom Carper of Delaware, joined Republicans to support debating and voting on legislation that would give Mr. Obama authority to pursue the most sweeping trade accord since the North American Free Trade Agreement more than 20 years ago, and the procedural vote fell eight short of the 60 needed. “Ultimately, it’s up to the president,” said Senator John Cornyn of Texas, the Senate’s No. 2 Republican. “Does the president of the United States have enough clout with members of his own political party?” The White House press secretary, Josh Earnest, tried to play down Tuesday’s vote as a “procedural snafu.” The vote is not necessarily the final word. According to Democratic leadership aides, Senators Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader, and Chuck Schumer of New York, the No. 3 Democrat, have proposed a compromise to Republican leaders: First, hold a separate vote on legislation aimed at discouraging so-called currency manipulation by American trading partners, which could be vetoed by the president. Then, wrap the fast-track authority he is seeking with a more encompassing bill, including assistance for displaced workers, extension of an African trade accord and other trade enforcement measures. That offer could be the path forward, given that at least eight Democrats who normally embrace trade deals voted no on Tuesday. The compromise proposed by Mr. Reid and Mr. Schumer could help the president because the currency provisions demanded by Democrats are strongly opposed by Japan and Malaysia, two of the 12 nations trying to complete the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and could be significant enough to stop the larger accord. There are other serious policy challenges to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which, if completed, would affect about 40 percent of United States exports and imports; bring together developing economies like Peru and Vietnam with superpowers like the United States and Japan; and serve as a Pacific counterweight to an increasingly assertive China. Critics of the trade deal say that it would do little to help ordinary American workers while mostly serving as a vehicle to advance the agendas of multinational corporations at home and abroad. In Congress, Republicans were sharply critical of Democrat efforts to add layers of complexity to the bill. “It creates a whole new monster set of arguments and debates that we don’t need,” Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah, the main author of the trade bill, said of the currency language. “I offered to have them bring up a bill later, do everything I can to give that a fair hearing because I have concerns sometimes, too,” Senator Hatch said. “But on this bill we just can’t have it on there.” Beyond the currency issue, a provision attached to the trade promotion authority bill to block trade preferences to countries involved in human trafficking would effectively exclude Malaysia, which is on the State Department’s list of worst offenders. Another provision to crack down on child labor could stop American candy makers from importing cocoa from Africa. While the Obama administration’s greatest concern was with the Democrats, challenges also could come from the right. Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky and a presidential candidate, said he would vote against giving Mr. Obama fast-track authority. Democrats have united around demands that trade promotion authority — which would allow the White House to present the trade deal for a straight up-or-down vote, without amendments — be paired with a series of other measures, not only to crack down on currency manipulation, but also to assist workers displaced by globalization, tighten child labor law and fortify the government’s response to unfair trade practices. White House officials have said the Pacific trade accord cannot be completed without that authority. After the vote, the president summoned to the White House 10 Senate Democrats whom he believes he can ultimately win over, including Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon who was a co-author of the bill he helped filibuster, and Mr. Carper, his lone Democrat supporter on Tuesday’s vote. Republicans were equally adamant that accelerated authority not be saddled with many of those demands. “This is not a game. This is about trying to accomplish something important for the country that happens to be the president’s No. 1 domestic priority,” Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and majority leader, said. At the heart of Democrats’ demands is a measure that would force the government to respond when trading partners artificially depress the value of their currency to make their exports cheaper and United States exports more expensive. But if Democrats successfully force Mr. McConnell to include that currency measure in the trade promotion bill, the international negotiations could collapse, administration officials say. Democrats, for instance, accuse Japan of depressing the value of the yen to increase its exports. The Japanese say they have been doing almost exactly what the Federal Reserve has done to help lift economic growth in the United States through the printing of money. Any move by United States trade negotiators to block such maneuvers could imperil the Pacific accord. “I’m strongly against it,” said Penny Pritzker, the commerce secretary. Republican leaders were pleased with the turn of events. Senator John Thune of South Dakota, the Senate Republican conference chairman, said Democrats were “throwing their own president under the bus.” http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/13/bu...rade-deal.html ![]() After Lobbying by Obama, Senate Agrees to Vote on Trade Bill After All Jonathan Weisman Senate leaders, after personal intercessions by President Obama, reached an agreement Wednesday on a path to grant the president accelerated power to complete a sweeping trade accord ringing the Pacific Ocean — just a day after fellow Democrats had blocked him. The larger aim is to secure a 12-nation agreement known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, spanning the Pacific from Canada and Chile to Japan and Australia and encompassing 40 percent of the world’s economic output. Mr. Obama sees the pact as a central part of his economic legacy, the largest trade deal in two decades and the realization of his foreign policy pivot toward Asia. It also means money. Major American business interests, from Nike to Boeing and Hollywood to Silicon Valley, want the deal badly. Labor and environmental groups see it as a threat to American workers at the expense of profits. A series of trade-related votes will begin Thursday and stretch well into next week. The trade promotion authority would give the president the ability to move more quickly on the deal, leaving Congress with the power to vote up or down on the agreement but with no ability to amend it. While the pathway to passage became clearer Wednesday, it is still treacherous. Most Senate Democrats will ultimately oppose the trade promotion bill, and with the stated opposition of Senators Rand Paul of Kentucky and Jeff Sessions of Alabama, both Republicans, there are now louder rumblings on the president’s right flank. “Now is not the time to celebrate,” said Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah, the Finance Committee chairman. “While this agreement solves a temporary procedural issue, now is when the real work begins.” Yet Mr. Obama showed he does have sway among fractious Democrats. A long White House meeting with 10 Democrats considered pro trade helped force the Senate to compromise. In the end, the Democrats withdrew their demand that trade enforcement measures be integrated into trade promotion authority before the Senate began considering the measure. “The so-called pro trade Democrats had a chat with the president for a couple of hours, and I think that helped,” said Senator John Cornyn of Texas, the Senate’s No. 2 Republican. “I wish he’d had that chat with them before the first failed vote.” Under the deal, the Senate will vote Thursday, first on a contentious trade enforcement bill that includes new remedies to counter currency manipulation by trading partners, and then on an extension of an African trade agreement. The Senate would then begin debate Thursday evening on trade promotion authority. The agreement gives Democrats a chance to demonstrate broad, bipartisan support for a get-tough approach on countries that intentionally keep the value of their currency low to make their exports cheaper, which then effectively raises the cost of American-made goods. But if that separate bill can get through the House, it would then be vetoed by the president, who believes it would destroy the trade talks. For the most ardent opponents of Mr. Obama’s trade push, the deal means delay, which can be perilous for trade negotiators. Under the terms of the trade promotion legislation, Congress could not consider a final Pacific trade deal for four months after it was completed, pushing it further into the election season, when major legislative initiatives become far more difficult. Final negotiations would not begin unless and until Congress approved the accelerated authority. Republicans succeeded in fending off a Democratic push to attach the currency measure to trade promotion authority itself. The measure has the support of a strong majority in the Senate, including Senator Rob Portman, Republican of Ohio and a United States trade representative in the administration of President George W. Bush. American automakers and some economists believe a currency measure is vital to a trade agreement that is intended to protect the interests of American workers. Mr. Portman went to the Senate floor Wednesday evening and promised that he would push for a currency provision on the trade promotion bill itself. “Part of a level playing field is making sure countries don’t manipulate their currency,” he said. But the White House fears that making the accelerated authority contingent on currency policy alterations could scare important partners from the negotiating table, including Japan, the second-largest Trans-Pacific partner. Senator Mitch McConnell, the majority leader, insisted on a legislative approach that would “provide our Democratic colleagues with a sensible way forward without killing the bill,” he said as he presented the plan on the Senate floor. For his part, Mr. Obama preserved a clean path toward the Pacific trade deal, which includes Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam, as well as the United States. “Yesterday, we made it clear we didn’t accept merely a fast-track foreign trade agreements,” said Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader. “We must also enforce the trade agreements we make. The proposal today provides that path forward.” Mr. Obama had rankled Mr. Reid and some other Democrats by singling out members of their party by name, criticizing them for their opposition to the deal. The president was notably critical of Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, whom he called “absolutely wrong” for her views. For all the drama, Senate Democrats may have ended up where they started, with tough trade enforcement provisions that are broadly supported but without a vehicle to get them into law. Lawmakers from both parties say that even if the enforcement and currency bill passes Thursday, they may try to break off some provisions as amendments to the trade promotion bill that Mr. Obama must sign into law. Those measures include the creation of an interagency trade enforcement center and a system to respond faster to unfair trade practices. Another would require Customs and Border Protection to quickly investigate allegations of customs duty evasion. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/14/us...after-all.html ![]() FCC Refuses to Delay Net Neutrality Rules The ageny still faces seven lawuits challenging the regulations Grant Gross The U.S. Federal Communications Commission has denied the requests of several broadband providers and trade groups asking the agency to delay its net neutrality rules. The FCC, late Friday, denied petitions for a stay of its net neutrality rules from Daniel Berninger, founder of the nonprofit Voice Communication Exchange Committee, the American Cable Association, the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, USTelecom, the Wireless Internet Service Providers Association, AT&T and CenturyLink. Berninger asked the FCC to delay its entire net neutrality order, approved in February, while the trade groups and broadband providers sought a delay in the portion of the order reclassifying broadband from a lightly regulated information service to a regulated common carrier. The groups had asked the FCC to delay the rules from going into effect while courts deal with seven lawsuits challenging the regulations. Public Knowledge, a digital rights groups, praised the FCC for denying the request. Reclassifying broadband under Title II of the Telecommunications Act would enable the FCC to enforce several consumer protections, the group said. "The argument of the cable and telephone companies hinged on the argument that respecting user privacy and requiring disability access -- as required under Title II -- would be too great a burden," Harold Feld, the group's senior vice president, said by email. "The cable and telephone companies will now go to [court] to argue that they will suffer 'irreparable harm' from all this privacy protection and the other consumer protections in Title II." The Telecommunications Industry Association, a trade group for the manufacturers and suppliers of broadband networks, said it was disappointed with the decision. The FCC refused "a fair and reasonable request to delay the imposition of sweeping new regulations of the Internet," the group said in a statement. The net neutrality rules will hinder deployment of broadband, the group added. http://www.computerworld.com/article...ity-rules.html ![]() Comcast: Want Your Refund? Sign This Non-Disclosure Agreement Karl Bode WPVI in Philadephia has what begins as a story about Comcast we've all probably heard a thousand times by now. A family calls the cable giant trying to get $600 refunded after five years of the cable giant charging them for a cable box that was already returned. As is all-too-common in these types of stories, Comcast's impossible to get help from, yet magically finds its competence in the matter once the local media is contacted. In a new twist to the familiar tale, in this case the family was told they'd only give a refund if the family signed a non-disclosure agreement: The Camerons tell us they made phone call after phone call to Comcast. "Over and over - every time I'd have to go through the whole thing," said Ronald Cameron. After the Action News Troubleshooters got involved, Hershey told me Comcast agreed to credit his account for the additional charges for the past five years. The Lehmans got a voicemail from Comcast saying they would give them their $600 -- but only if they agreed not to talk about it. The company appears to be tired of the endless stream of stories about its awful service, but trying to silence annoyed users -- instead of helping them -- certainly doesn't seem like the productive path. Apparently Comcast doesn't realize that the genie's quite out of the bottle when it comes to the company's horrible customer service, which this week it once again declared would be undergoing a massive overhaul. https://www.dslreports.com/shownews/...reement-133699 ![]() BitTorrent’s Encrypted P2P Chat App Bleep Launches Publicly for Android, iOS, Windows, and Mac Emil Protalinski BitTorrent today launched its encrypted P2P chat app Bleep. You can download the first stable version for Android, iOS, Windows, and Mac from bleep.pm. Formerly known as BitTorrent Chat, Bleep was first released in private alpha in July (but only for Windows 7 and Windows 8) and then as a public alpha in September with apps for Android and OS X. While there have been numerous updates since, today’s release brings Bleep to iOS for the first time, and removes the alpha tag on all platforms. That’s right — Farid Fadaie, senior director of product development at BitTorrent, confirmed with VentureBeat that Bleep is skipping the beta phase entirely and going straight to public release. Additionally, BitTorrent has added a new whisper function to Bleep for both mobile and desktop (though it works best on Android and iOS). In short, whisper lets you send ephemeral messages; just tap “Go to Whisper” to ensure both text and pictures disappear from devices after they’ve been viewed (after 25 seconds). The experience is slightly different on the desktop: Hold shift while hitting send. “You can switch back and forth between normal and whisper messages seamlessly, so you don’t lose the flow of your conversation,” Fadaie said. In short, whisper takes Bleep’s privacy-focused strategy a step further: Messages are not only stored locally, they are quickly deleted after they are viewed. BitTorrent says whisper messages even include basic screenshot protection: Either nicknames or text are blocked out so it’s not clear who said what. Hitting the “eye” icon will switch between the two modes: either nicknames or text are blurred, so taking a screenshot only captures one or the other. That’s what’s new. As for what else Bleep can do, here the five features BitTorrent wants to highlight: • No Personal Info Required: To get started with Bleep, all that is required is choosing a nickname. You can share your Bleep key wherever you like, and no one will have any of your other details. Optionally, you can verify your email addresses and mobile numbers with Bleep, which will let your friends discover you through Bleep when they open an account. • In Your Hands, Instead of the Cloud: Messages and the encryption keys for images are stored on your local device, not the cloud. For messages and metadata, there is no server for hackers to target, and because you hold the keys, images can’t be leaked to haunt you later. BitTorrent claims it has “solved” serverless peer-to-peer messaging. • Adding friends is easy: Invite friends via your device’s address book, their email address, mobile number, or Bleep key. In situations where you want to add a friend in person, you can scan/share a Bleep code. • Free Voice Calls: Start a Bleep-to-Bleep call with any online contact by tapping the phone icon at the top of your text conversation. Calls are connected directly (with a cloud service) with end-to-end encryption. • Cross-platform: The mobile apps work over cellular or Wi-Fi connections, while the desktop apps have essentially feature parity except that they can’t yet send images (only receive them). Each device you own is registered with Bleep separately, but you can add your friends to each device to stay in touch. So, what’s next? While Fadaie told us that there are no plans for adding more platforms just yet (“we’re going to just focus on these major four”), he wanted to expand on the last point above. Full multi-device support is coming next. That means messages will eventually be synced across all your devices (while this feature was technically available in the alpha, support was pulled because it still needed some work and was difficult to set up). Fadaie also promised one more upcoming feature: group chats. BitTorrent plans to keep Bleep’s basic features free for consumers. New features may end up costing extra, Fadaie told VentureBeat, but the company isn’t sure yet what exactly those might look like (frankly, we doubt users will want to pay for extra messaging features). We say “for consumers” because BitTorrent is exploring licensing and other revenue models for businesses. The company is considering a separate SDK and APIs, as well as private relationships with select partners, though Fadaie couldn’t share a timeline for when BitTorrent may go down the enterprise road. For now, BitTorrent Bleep is still very much aimed at consumers. It will have to succeed there before any other plans can come to fruition. The messaging space is already ridiculously saturated, and while an encrypted app is desirable, it’s simply not a feature many get excited about. That said, Fadaie did share that BitTorrent saw 200,000 installs of Bleep since the alpha launch. With today’s public Bleep release, Fadaie said, BitTorrent is hoping to get that number into the “millions.” http://venturebeat.com/2015/05/12/bi...ndows-and-mac/ ![]() Warrantless Airport Seizure of Laptop “Cannot be Justified,” Judge Rules Feds said a laptop is simply a "container" that can be searched without warrant. David Kravets The US government's prosecution of a South Korean businessman accused of illegally selling technology used in aircraft and missiles to Iran was dealt a devastating blow by a federal judge. The judge ruled Friday that the authorities illegally seized the businessman's computer at Los Angeles International Airport as he was to board a flight home. The authorities who were investigating Jae Shik Kim exercised the border exception rule that allows the authorities to seize and search goods and people—without court warrants—along the border and at airport international terminals. US District Court judge Amy Berman Jackson of the District of Columbia noted that the Supreme Court has never directly addressed the issue of warrantless computer searches at an international border crossing, but she ruled the government used Kim's flight home as an illegal pretext to seize his computer. Authorities then shipped it 150 miles south to San Diego where the hard drive was copied and examined for weeks, but the judge said the initial seizure "surely cannot be justified." After considering all of the facts and authorities set forth above, then, the Court finds, under the totality of the unique circumstances of this case, that the imaging and search of the entire contents of Kim’s laptop, aided by specialized forensic software, for a period of unlimited duration and an examination of unlimited scope, for the purpose of gathering evidence in a pre-existing investigation, was supported by so little suspicion of ongoing or imminent criminal activity, and was so invasive of Kim’s privacy and so disconnected from not only the considerations underlying the breadth of the government’s authority to search at the border, but also the border itself, that it was unreasonable. The defendant was accused of unlawfully selling Q-Flex Accelerometers—models QA-2000-10, QA-2000-20, and QA-3000—manufactured by Honeywell Aerospace. They require an export license before they can be sold from within the US. Kim was accused of selling the technology to intermediaries in China and Korea before their ultimate destination of Iran. "The government points to its plenary authority to conduct warrantless searches at the border. It posits that a laptop computer is simply a 'container' that was examined pursuant to this authority, and it submits that the government’s unfettered right to search cargo at the border to protect the homeland is the beginning and end of the matter," the judge wrote. Evidence discovered on his computer of his alleged involvement in the conspiracy that won an indictment is now suppressed, and it cannot be used against him according to the ruling. The authorities took the man's computer in 2012 for national security reasons but allowed him to board his flight home. The government did not comment on the decision. Judge Berman Jackson questioned whether the border search exception should apply to laptops because they carry much more private information than, say, a briefcase. Judge Jackson cited last year's Supreme Court case, known as Riley, in which the justices ruled unanimously that the authorities generally may not search the mobile phones of those they arrest unless they have a court warrant. The Supreme Court said that "Modern cell phones, as a category, implicate privacy concerns far beyond those implicated by the search of a cigarette pack, a wallet, or a purse. A conclusion that inspecting the contents of an arrestee’s pockets works no substantial additional intrusion on privacy beyond the arrest itself may make sense as applied to physical items, but any extension of that reasoning to digital data has to rest on its own bottom." Seizing on that high court opinion, Judge Berman Jackson wrote: Applying the Riley framework, the national security concerns that underlie the enforcement of export control regulations at the border must be balanced against the degree to which Kim’s privacy was invaded in this instance. And as was set forth above, while the immediate national security concerns were somewhat attenuated, the invasion of privacy was substantial: the agents created an identical image of Kim’s entire computer hard drive and gave themselves unlimited time to search the tens of thousands of documents, images, and emails it contained, using an extensive list of search terms, and with the assistance of two forensic software programs that organized, expedited, and facilitated the task. Based upon the testimony of both Special Agent Hamako and Special Agent Marshall, the Court concludes that wherever the Supreme Court or the Court of Appeals eventually draws the precise boundary of a routine border search, or however either Court ultimately defines a forensic – as opposed to a conventional – computer search, this search was qualitatively and quantitatively different from a routine border examination, and therefore, it was unreasonable given the paucity of grounds to suspect that criminal activity was in progress. The American Civil Liberties Union has long maintained that the authorities invoke the border exception rule to the warrant requirement to build cases when they don't have probable cause to get a warrant. One such high-profile incident occurred in 2010, when the authorities detained and seized a laptop, thumb drive, and digital camera from David House at Chicago's O'Hare Airport when he returned from a vacation in Mexico. House was an outspoken supporter of WikiLeaks leaker Chelsea Manning, who at the time was facing a court-martial for leaking classified documents to WikiLeaks. Manning is now serving 35 years for the leaks. The Department of Homeland Security confiscated House's gear for 49 days before it was returned after the ACLU complained. The government had waited for House's return so it could search his digital properties. As part of a legal settlement, the government agreed to destroy copies of House's seized data. http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2...d-judge-rules/ ![]() Why the Ruling Against the NSA’s Phone Records Program Could Have Huge Implications Andrea Peterson A federal appeals court ruling that the National Security Agency's collection of millions of Americans’ phone records is illegal could undercut more than just that program. The 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Thursday that the phone records program violated the law used to authorize it, the USA Patriot Act. The program had been approved by the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and was first reported on by USA Today in 2006, but documents from former government contractor Edward Snowden revealed the program continued under President Obama. The government argued that the huge volume of phone records were relevant to counterterrorism investigations because searching through them later might help discern links to terrorism suspects. But the court didn't buy it, ruling that such an interpretation of "relevance" was "unprecedented and unwarranted." The government's argument, the judges said, boiled down to "the proposition that essentially all telephone records are relevant to essentially all international terrorism investigations.” Knocking down that interpretation could have consequences that go beyond the program and even the part of the USA Patriot Act used to authorized it, Section 215. First, it could mean a blow to other programs relying on the same part of the USA Patriot Act, experts said -- for example, a potentially ongoing program tracking international money transfers that includes millions of Americans' financial and personal data that was revealed by the Wall Street Journal last year. And because many laws rely on very similar relevance language, the decision should bring new scrutiny to other programs, experts said. "As I understand it, this ruling should have implications for several surveillance statutes," said Harley Geiger, advocacy director and senior counsel at the Center for Democracy & Technology. Why? Basically that's due to a bit of congressional laziness, said Jonathan Mayer, a lawyer and computer scientist affiliated with Stanford University's Center for Internet and Society. "Most surveillance statutes are copy and paste," he said. "There's certain relevance language that is replicated everywhere." The court itself noted as much, citing the example of two bills that use the same language to compel the production of information relevant to authorized terrorism investigations -- one about telephone toll‐billing and another about educational records. (Those bills did not appear to be used for or intended to authorize bulk surveillance.) But other programs that collected massive amounts of data on Americans relied on similar relevance language. A program that collected information about e-mails until 2011, for example, was set up under a set of legal authorities known as "pen register/trap and trace." And a Justice Department and Drug Enforcement Administration program that harvested records of international calls by Americans to as many as 116 countries for more than two decades since 1992 relied on an administrative subpoena power that required that the information gathered be "relevant or material" to an investigation, USA Today reported. The court's rejection of the broad interpretation of relevance in this case could make it nearly impossible for the government to argue in favor of domestic bulk collection programs such as these without it being explicitly spelled out in the law, according to Mayer. That could have significant weight in the legislative debate over the phone records program. Section 215 is set to expire on June 1, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is pushing for a bill that would renew it. But for the phone program to continue after passage, the government would have to convince the Supreme Court to reverse the 2nd Circuit's decision. And a bill to modify the law so that, supporters argue, the NSA can get access to records while still protecting Americans’ data -- called the USA Freedom Acct -- has split privacy advocates. One coalition of privacy advocates argues that the bill essentially legalizes mass surveillance and could "eviscerate numerous court challenges" -- presumably, challenges like the one just won in the 2nd Circuit. But one of the key arguments from privacy advocates who support the bill is that it reins in bulk collection by the government, which may have continued under other authorities even if Section 215 is sunset. That argument may be less compelling to some now. "The 2nd Circuit just did a big piece of USA Freedom," Mayer said. Some members of Congress are already citing the decision as a reason to reject the current version of the USA Freedom Act, including Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.), who led a campaign to defund the phone records program in 2013. In light of today's Second Circuit ruling, Congress must NOT proceed with the latest version of the #USAFreedomAct. https://t.co/MIzExi7q7C — Justin Amash (@justinamash) May 7, 2015 But supporters of the bill say that other aspects of the legislation, including transparency provisions, still make it worthwhile. "The problem is without the transparency requirements in USA Freedom, we won't know how the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court responds to the ruling," said Cato Institute senior fellow Julian Sanchez. And USA Freedom would not undermine the relevance restrictions included in the 2nd Circuit decision, Geiger argues. Rather, he said, it would build on them by giving more specific parameters for what is relevant and "provide the certainty that both the intelligence community and the Americans concerned about civil liberties deserve." The 2nd Circuit also declined to place a preliminary injunction on the case due to the current debate and could still be overturned, Sanchez said. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...-implications/ ![]() Attorney: Spy Chief Had 'Forgotten' About NSA Program When He Misled Congress Julian Hattem Director of National Intelligence Jim Clapper wasn’t lying when he wrongly told Congress in 2013 that the government does not “wittingly” collect information about millions of Americans, according to his top lawyer. He just forgot. “This was not an untruth or a falsehood. This was just a mistake on his part,” Robert Litt, the general counsel for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, said during a panel discussion hosted by the Advisory Committee on Transparency on Friday. “We all make mistakes.” The comments add to the years of criticism that Clapper has received for his testimony in the 2013 Senate Intelligence Committee hearing. In the public session, longtime surveillance critic Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) had asked Clapper whether or not the NSA collected “any type of data at all on millions of Americans.” “No sir,” Clapper responded. “There are cases where they could inadvertently perhaps collect, but not wittingly.” Just a few months later, however, leaks from Edward Snowden proved Clapper wrong. As documents released by Snowden made clear, the NSA collects records about millions of Americans’ phone calls under a program the government has said is authorized by Section 215 of the Patriot Act. After the fact, Clapper has said that his statement was the “least untruthful” possible answer, given the secrecy of the program at the time. Still, critics such as Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) have called for Clapper to resign over the flap, which they say amounts to perjury. Litt on Friday said that Clapper merely did not have a chance to prepare an answer for Wyden and forgot about the phone records program when asked about it on the spot. “We were notified the day before that Sen. Wyden was going to ask this question and the director of national intelligence did not get a chance to review it,” Litt said. “He was hit unaware by the question,” Litt added. “After this hearing I went to him and I said, ‘Gee, you were wrong on this.’ And it was perfectly clear that he had absolutely forgotten the existence of the 215 program.” Instead, Litt said, Clapper had been thinking about separate programs authorized under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which the NSA has used to collect massive amounts of foreigners’ Internet data. The law explicitly prohibits the government from gathering the same kind of data about Americans, unless t is “incidental.” “If you read his answer it is perfectly clear that he was thinking about the 702 program,” Litt said. “When he is talking about not wittingly collecting, he is talking about incidental collection.” Litt, he said, also erred after the hearing by not sending a letter to the panel to correct the mistake. “I wish we’d done that at the time,” he said on Friday. http://thehill.com/policy/technology...ut-nsa-program ![]() Two Men Who Breached Photobucket.com Indicted and Arrested on Conspiracy and Fraud Related Charges US Dept of Justice Two men have been arrested after breaching the computer services of Colorado based Photobucket, a company that operates an image and video hosting website, announced U.S. Attorney John Walsh for the District of Colorado and Special Agent in Charge Thomas Ravenelle for the Denver Division of the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI). Brandon Bourret, 39, of Colorado Springs, Colorado and Athanasios Andrianakis, 26, of Sunnyvale, California, were arrested today without incident at their homes. Both made initial appearances today, where they were advised of their rights and the charges pending against them. According to the indictment, beginning on July 12, 2012 and continuing through July 1, 2014, Bourret and Andrianakis knowingly conspired to commit acts and offenses against the United States, namely computer fraud and abuse, access device fraud, identification document fraud and wire fraud. The indictment further alleges that there was interdependence among the members of the conspiracy. The purpose of the conspiracy was for the conspirators to enrich themselves by selling passwords and unauthorized access to private and password protected information, images and videos on the Internet and by selling private and password protected information, images and videos that the conspirators obtained from the Internet. The conspirators developed, marketed and sold a software application called Photofucket, which allowed viewers to circumvent the privacy settings of the image and video hosting website at Photobucket.com and to access and copy users private and password protected information, images and videos without authorization. The conspirators used Photofucket to obtain guest passwords to access users’ password protected albums. They also transferred, or caused to be transferred, guest passwords to others who paid to use the Photofucket application. “It is not safe to hide behind your computer, breach corporate servers and line your own pockets by victimizing those who have a right to protected privacy on the internet,” said U.S. Attorney Walsh. “The U.S. Attorney’s Office is keenly focused on prosecuting those people for their theft -- and for the wanton harm they do to innocent internet users.” “Unauthorized access into a secure computer system is a serious federal crime,” said Special Agent in Charge Ravenelle. “The arrest of Brandon Bourret and his co-conspirator reflects the FBI’s commitment to investigate those who undertake activities such as this with the intent to harm a company and its customers.” The investigation regarding the breach and who’s albums were accessed is ongoing. For those who want to follow the status of this case, visit http://www.justice.gov/largecases – and then select “Photobucket.” In addition, the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the FBI commend Photobucket for their cooperation from the inception of the investigation – and thanked them for their continued assistance as both the investigation and prosecution moves forward. Bourret and Andrianakis both face one count of conspiracy, which carries a penalty of not more than five years in federal prison and up to a $250,000 fine. They each face one count of computer fraud, aid and abet, which also carries a penalty of not more than five years in federal prison and up to a $250,000 fine. Finally, they each face two counts of access device fraud, which carries a penalty of not more than ten years in federal prison, and up to a $250,000 fine, per count. This case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney David Tonini. The charges contained in the indictment are allegations and the defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty. http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/two-me...-fraud-related ![]() Blocking Google Ads on Phones Makes No Sense for Carriers Cade Metz Somewhere across the Atlantic, inside a European company that runs a wireless network for smartphones and computer tablets, an executive is trying to drop “the bomb” on Google. That’s the word from The Financial Times. According to the paper, this wireless exec is considering a plan that involves blocking Google ads on millions of mobile phones “in an attempt to force the company into giving up a cut of its revenues.” His carrier would snuff Google’s ads “just for an hour or a day,” the exec tells The FT, saying this would be enough to bring Google to the negotiating table. It’s a ridiculous plan. Blocking ads in this ham-fisted way would spark an enormous uproar among public advocates and in the press on both sides of the Atlantic. After all, it would violate the idea of net neutrality—the notion that all internet traffic should be treated equally—and it may even qualify as censorship. But this is almost beside the point. The bigger issue here is that this plan has exactly zero chance of bringing Google to the table. The web’s most powerful company is not about to negotiate away the business model that drives its entire online empire “People pay for mobile internet packages so they can access the apps, video streaming, webmail and other services they love, many of which are funded by ads,” Google said in response to The FT story. “Google and other web companies invest heavily in developing these services—and in the behind-the-scenes infrastructure to deliver them.” Google would fight this in court, not at the negotiating table. Tug of War The more realistic possibility is that this European carrier—and others like it—will install ad blocking tech in their data centers and then give smartphones owners the option of turning it on. In terms of net neutrality, such a thing sits in a (slightly) grayer area. The FT says this is on the way as well, reporting that several European carriers are set to deploy ad blocking tech from an Israeli company called Shine. Shine says much the same thing. “The story is accurate,” company spokesman Roi Carthy tells WIRED. The situation is part of never-ending push-and-pull between the world’s internet service providers and the companies (most notably Google) that offer software over the net. Basically, Google believes it should be able to do whatever it wants on the networks operated by the ISPs. The ISPs believe they should be compensated for the use of their network. And each is always looking for an edge in this ongoing debate. Blocking ads in this ham-fisted way would spark an enormous uproar among public advocates and in the press on both sides of the Atlantic. Shine believes that its technology can shift the balance in this tug-of-war. In Europe, at least, the company feels that this tech in on solid legal ground. “Net neutrality is about companies treating data differently,” Carthy says. “When the user opts into a service, it’s a different scenario altogether.” Unlike the U.S., the European Union has yet to approve official net neutrality rules, which could explain at least some of Shine’s confidence. But Shine and the carriers will face enormous opposition if they deploy such technology—and not just from Google. “This is incredibly harmful—and not because I think ads are awesome,” says Josh Levy, of Access Now, a not-for-profit dedicated to protecting net neutrality in the US, Europe, and across the globe. “Ads are content and service providers should not be blocking any kind of content. Full stop. That’s true whether it’s an ad or a blog or your Facebook articles or whatever.” Levy acknowledges that some consumers would be happen to eliminate ads from their phones, in part because ads can eat into their data quotas. But he says the Shine setup would set a dangerous precedent. “If you start blocking ads, it’s a slippery slope to start blocking other types of content.” Staying Neutral To get an idea of the furor that will confront the carriers, take a quick look at the complaints Facebook has encountered in rolling out its Internet.org app, an effort to bring internet services, including the Facebook social network, to the developing world. The Internet.org app is free, and though its use is certainly in Facebook’s self-interest, it also provides a service that could benefit an enormous number of people by providing Internet access they might not otherwise have. Yet it still may not succeed in places like India because in the eyes of some critics, its free access to a limited number of sites and services is a kind of preferential treatment that violates net neutrality. The Internet.org debate is very closely linked to the Shine situation, Levy says. If Facebook is getting this kind of heat, the carriers will get much more if they roll out Shine. And the detriment to the carriers will exceed the benefits. In fact, it’s not completely clear what the benefits are. We don’t know how well Shine will work (the company is coy about the particulars, and the Googles of the world are always changing their ad techniques). Even if it does work, it will block only a portion of the ads on phones (it doesn’t touch ads Facebook and Twitter, for instance). It’s not as if the carriers can offer to sell you an ad-free phone. In fact, many of them likely have their own ad programs. In short, the idea of carriers blocking ads isn’t just unlikely; it’s also ridiculous. http://www.wired.com/2015/05/carrier...akes-no-sense/ ![]() Toronto Star Scrapped Digital Paywall as it was ‘Expensive’ and had a ‘High Churn’ Rate Nic Christensen Executives from the Toronto Star have admitted paywalls did not work for them and said promoting stories inside the newspaper is a waste of time, arguing the space can better be used for editorial or advertising. Addressing the International News Media Association (INMA) World Congress in New York today, Julie Murtha, director of audience and innovation at one of Canada’s biggest daily broadsheet newspapers, the Toronto Star, said their experience led them to question whether stories promoted on the front page increased print readership or sales. “We recently measured the value of front page editorial promotion”, Murtha told the room. “The results actually surprised us – sky boxes and pointers do not affect readership, if a reader reads a section, they probably read the story whether it was promoted on the front page or not. “With most readership now coming from home delivery we are no longer really concerned with pasting the front page with headlines and skyboxes. “This thinking led to the creation of new ad units that offer advertisers the opportunity to capture reader attention with unique shaped ads that deliver maximum impact.” Speaking to Mumbrella in a video hangout after today’s speech, the paper’s chief operating officer for print Sandy Macleod elaborated on the findings and what it meant to the newspaper in terms of freeing up front page space. “We walked away from that saying we have some pretty valuable real estate on the front page which really isn’t paying for itself so to speak,” said MacLeod. “We have eliminated sky boxes and we are using more for editorial and also for some interesting advertising.” The Toronto Star COO also spoke about the decision to buck a global newspaper trend towards paywall models by removing the paywall last year. “We had a nice run when we first launched it,”said MacLeod. “Had early adoption rates which we were quite thrilled with and then we hit a wall pretty quickly. “Within about 90 days we seem to have plateaued – we spent about probably six months trying pretty aggressively trying to move the number and found that was expensive and a relatively high churn rate. “When we investigated our opportunities long term we found we were better off to open up the website again and also now investing heavily in mobile and tablet applications and are now focused on growing audience.” MacLeod warned other English language market newspapers that they were likely to see a similar stalling in their digital subscriber numbers. “I think when you are in Toronto or in Sydney these days people can go anywhere, and while our content is unique it may not be unique enough for people to pay for,” he added. The most recent Australian Audit Bureau of Circulation figures appeared to show slow downs in both the digital subscription uptakes of both Fairfax Media and News Corp, with the Herald Sun last quarter actually posting a year on year decline in digital subscriptions. MacLeod’s comments were also echoed by Murtha who on stage said: “I think if we are interested in driving that audience engagement and then a paywall works for that highly loyal but content is ubiquitous.” Murtha’s presentation highlighted the Toronto Star’s attempts to grow print revenues through various strategies including rejigging its TV Guide, expanding its photo licencing and use of sample pages and events. http://mumbrella.com.au/toronto-star...rn-rate-292661 Until next week, - js. ![]() Current Week In Review ![]() Recent WiRs - May 9th, May 2nd, April 25th, April 18th Jack Spratts' Week In Review is published every Friday. Submit letters, articles, press releases, comments, questions etc. in plain text English to jackspratts (at) lycos (dot) com. Submission deadlines are Thursdays @ 1400 UTC. Please include contact info. The right to publish all remarks is reserved. "The First Amendment rests on the assumption that the widest possible dissemination of information from diverse and antagonistic sources is essential to the welfare of the public." - Hugo Black |
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