Just as the Bush administration and the U.S. media re-labelled “torture” with the Orwellian euphemism “enhanced interrogation techniques” to make it more palatable, the governments and media of the Five Eyes surveillance alliance are now attempting to re-brand “mass surveillance” as “bulk collection” in order to make it less menacing (and less illegal). In the past several weeks, this is the clearly coordinated theme that has arisen in the U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia and New Zealand as the last defense against the Snowden revelations, as those governments seek to further enhance their surveillance and detention powers under the guise of terrorism.
This manipulative language distortion can be seen perfectly in yesterday’s white-washing report of GCHQ mass surveillance from the servile rubber-stamp calling itself “The Intelligence and Security Committee of the UK Parliament (ISC)”(see this great Guardian editorial this morning on what a “slumbering” joke that “oversight” body is). As Committee Member MP Hazel Blears explained yesterday (photo above), the Parliamentary Committee officially invoked this euphemism to justify the collection of billions of electronic communications events every day.
The Committee actually acknowledged for the first time (which Snowden documents long ago proved) that GCHQ maintains what it calls “Bulk Personal Datasets” that contain “millions of records,” and even said about pro-privacy witnesses who testified before it: “we recognise their concerns as to the intrusive nature of bulk collection.” That is the very definition of “mass surveillance,” yet the Committee simply re-labelled it “bulk collection,” purported to distinguish it from “mass surveillance,” and thus insist that it was all perfectly legal.
Category: Ignorant or unreasonable
Project G650
This story has gone viral on twitter this morning for all the wrong reasons. Celebrity pastor Creflo Dollar, worth a reported 27 million dollars, is crowdfunding a new private jet worth a reported 65 million dollars. Dubbed Project G650, the pastor is requesting his followers donate to the project “in order to continue to spread the word of god across the globe”.
The mission of Project G650 is to acquire a Gulfstream G650 airplane so that Pastors Creflo and [wife] Taffi and World Changers Church International can continue to blanket the globe with the Gospel of grace. … We are believing for 200,000 people to give contributions of 300 US dollars or more to make this a reality—and allow us to retire the aircraft that served us well for many years.
This isn’t really that shocking as I assume stuff like this happens all the time. Its the nature of the (celebrity evangelical megachurch) business. Still, 65 million dollars could feed a lot of folks, or put shoes on their feet.
![This story has gone viral on twitter this morning for all the wrong reasons. Celebrity pastor Creflo Dollar, worth a reported 27 million dollars, is crowdfunding a new private jet worth a reported 65 million dollars. Dubbed Project G650, the pastor is requesting his followers donate to the project “in order to continue to spread the word of god across the globe”. The mission of Project G650 is to acquire a Gulfstream G650 airplane so that Pastors Creflo and [wife] Taffi and World Changers Church International can continue to blanket the globe with the Gospel of grace. … We are believing for 200,000 people to give contributions of 300 US dollars or more to make this a reality—and allow us to retire the aircraft that served us well for many years.This isn’t really that shocking as I assume stuff like this happens all the time. Its the nature of the (celebrity evangelical megachurch) business. Still, 65 million dollars could feed a lot of folks, or put shoes on their feet.](http://40.media.tumblr.com/61d41fe5e40d9fe4264376aaa0d15be6/tumblr_nl5qfiCuQs1rugltbo1_1280.jpg)
Angry Austrian could turn Europe against the US – thanks to data
In a David versus Goliath battle, an Austrian law student may topple the biggest EU-US data sharing deal when he gets his day in court in a couple of weeks’ time.
Max Schrems, who set up the Europe v Facebook group, alleges that Facebook violated the so-called safe harbour agreement which protects EU citizens’ privacy by transferring personal user data to the US National Security Agency (NSA).
The European Court of Justice (ECJ) will hear details of the case on 24 March.
Schrems first appealed to the Irish Data Protection Commissioner to investigate his claims. He was refused on the grounds that Facebook was signed up to the safe harbour agreement and so could transfer data to the US with impunity.
Under European data protection law, companies can only transfer consumer data out of the EU to countries where there is an “adequate” level of privacy protection. As the US does not meet this adequacy standard, the European Commission and the US authorities came up with a workaround and, in 2000, set up the voluntary safe harbour framework whereby companies promise to protect European citizens’ data.
These promises are enforced by the US Federal Trade Commission – but since the Snowden revelations, there has been doubt these promises are worth the paper they’re written on.
Canadian Town Bans Spitting, Swearing And Gathering In Groups Of Three Or More
Taber, a town of 8,100 in Alberta, Canada, must be in the midst of the nation’s smallest and least impressive crimewave. How else would you explain the town’s new “Community Standards Bylaw,” which imposes the following on its residents?
With a sweeping new bylaw, the southern Alberta town of Taber has outlawed swearing in public, instituted a nightly curfew on kids and teenagers, and granted local law enforcement the power to break up any assemblies of three or more people.
It’s petty enough in the summary, but it gets even worse in the fine print.
Here’s the “swearing” part of the bylaw:
No person shall yell, scream, or swear in any Public Place.
Which won’t hold up to Canada’s free speech laws, even with the plentiful exceptions the government can enact at any time. And it will apparently be up to patrolling officers to decide when a raised voice constitutes a “yell,” and always with one ear cocked towards any errant public swearing occuring at lower volumes.
Then there’s this part of the bylaw, which makes possibly disturbing others a crime.
No persons shall, during any period of the day allow, suffer or permit any electronic equipment, musical instruments, vehicles or any other devices to be sounded or used in any area of the Town of Taber, that may, or is likely, to disturb others.
There’s also a clause apparently inserted by Taber’s Behavior Nazis solely to anger the world’s Grammar Nazis.
And bad cops will have all sorts of fun with this one:No person shall be a member of the assembly of three or more persons in any Public Place where a Peace Officer has reasonable grounds to believe the assembly will disturb the peace of the neighborhood, and any such person shall disperse as requested by a Peace Officer.
“Reasonable grounds.” As is common to the rest of the bylaw, criminal intent is scuttled in preference of “whatever the Peace Officer believes.”
So, what has prompted this move towards a more controlled populace? The answer appears to be that it’s just something the town’s law enforcement wanted.
[Police Commission Chairman Ken] Holst said the goal of the bylaw was “to give another layer of tools to our police service.”
He said it came largely in response to concerns raised by citizens in a survey commissioned by the Taber Police Service.
“Graffiti was the main concern and the second concern was large gatherings of youth and other people on town property, sometimes causing issues,” he said.
While some of those issues could be addressed through existing provincial and federal laws, Holst said Taber wanted to empower its law enforcement when an offence is “imminent to occur,” which he described as “preventative policing.”
Ah, the old “thoughtcrime,” as practiced by loitering youths. Holst didn’t want this community of 8,100 to suffer the existential threat posed by aimless teens, so he and his law enforcement buddies helped write the bylaw.
Holst said the bylaw was drafted by town staff and the Taber Police Service and was reviewed by the police commission before being sent on to town council, where it was approved by a 6-1 vote.
And, since it was written by law enforcement, there was apparently no need to ensure the bylaw didn’t violate anyone’s rights or would even hold up in court. Because who knows the law better than law enforcement officers? No one, that’s who. Just ask any cop.
Holst said no lawyers were involved in the police commission’s review and they didn’t discuss whether aspects of the bylaw would violate the Charter of Rights and Freedoms…
“Exactly how that sits with the Charter, to be 100 per cent honest with you, that discussion did not come up with the commission,” Holst said.
Because screw the public.
Save that 100%, Holst. You’re going to need it. Here’s an actual legal expert with 45 years experience, and he’s of the opinion there’s a 100% chance it’s in violation.
“It clearly, clearly infringes the Charter,” [Michael] Dietrich said.
And now that the ridiculous bylaw has drawn mockery from around the internet, Holst and other city representatives are shocked and saddened by all the criticism.
“It hurts my heart,” Ken Holst said Tuesday. “I’m hurt today to read some of the extreme comments that have circulated on social media…”
“We really feel this is the best for Taber and makes it a better place, as opposed to ‘the worst place on Earth,’ as the way some people are portraying this,” he said.
Holst further defended his stupid bylaw by pointing to other similarly stupid Canadian towns that have enacted similarly stupid bylaws. Presumably, this belated justification will also not be run by any legal experts — armchair or actual — who may point out that two wrongs still don’t equal a right, no matter what some informal, police-guided survey might “indicate.”
Dutch Court Sets Aside National Data Retention Law
Back in January, we wrote about a legal challenge to the Netherlands’ data retention law by a group of civil rights organizations. This was because the Dutch government had decided to ignore the important ruling by Europe’s highest court, the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU), that blanket data retention was “invalid.” Now, a court in The Hague has ruled the government was wrong to do so:
Dutch providers are no longer required to retain internet and phone traffic data. The telecommunications data retention law, that was fought in court by various privacy groups and small ISPs, is invalid.
That was ruled by the court of The Hague on Wednesday. The data retention law violated the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, specifically regarding the right to protection of private life and protection of personal data.
As that report from Nu.nl, translated by Matthijs R. Koot on his blog, makes clear, the court’s judgment affects all kinds of telecoms — both Internet and phone traffic data — and all communication providers. This is the judge’s reasoning:
The judge finds that the collected data are too easily accessible for crimes that are not serious. The plaintiffs stated that, technically, theft of a bicycle could lead to access to data, although the government stated this does not happen.
“Fact of the matter is that the possibility exists and that no safeguards exist to limit access to the data to what is strictly necessary to fight (only) serious crime”, according to the judge.
The court also finds it to be incorrect that no prior court approval is needed to access the data.
The judge’s ruling is only “provisonally enforeable”, and the Dutch government may appeal against it. But even if it does, it has a larger problem with its policy in this area. Although it claims a new data retention bill will be compatible with the CJEU ruling, the Netherlands’ Data Protection Authority has already said that it is still too intrusive for a number of reasons. Clearly, the European debate over what is a reasonable and proportionate level of data retention — if any — has a long way to go yet, both in the Netherlands and elsewhere.
Walmart Not Horsing Around With Parody Domain Site
Another strike for the Streisand Effect
Walmart. Just saying the company’s name is usually enough to evoke unbidden brain-sounds of terrifying organ music and images of pitchfork-wielding devil-imps. But, hey, it’s a large business that’s been around for quite a while, so I guess it’s doing alright. It seems to me that somebody might want to call a meeting with the Walmart legal brain trust, because the company’s campaign against a silly and simple parody website isn’t achieving much of anything at all, and is in fact Streisanding the parody site into national views.
This story starts back in 2012, when ICANN saw fit to hold a firesale on domain extensions. Buying them up was all the rage for reasons unfathomable to this author. Still, that was the impetus for how we arrived at Walmart going after a site with a .horse extension.
That explains why, for the mere price of $29, you can now purchase a .horse domain name, if you want to do such a thing. “With .HORSE, there are no hurdles between equine enthusiasts on the Internet,” says United Domains. “Giddy up and register .HORSE today!” It doesn’t seem like too many people have been receptive to this pun-based sales pitch, but a 34-year-old named Jeph Jacques saw the opportunity for what he calls an “art project.”
“I thought, ‘Alright I’m gonna buy this and do something stupid with it and see what happens,” he told me. And readers, he did just that.
This grand art project? Buying up the domain www.walmart.horse, slapping a picture of the front of a Walmart store with a, you guessed it, horse superimposed over the top, and declaring the whole thing a monumental artistic success. Seriously, this is the only thing at the website if you go there.
Monet it might not be, but the image is suddenly competing with the likes of famous artists for attention and views thanks to Walmart freaking the hell out about it. In its infamous wisdom, Walmart and its crackerjack legal team have demanded that the whole shebang be taken down, claiming infringement of trademark. The C&D letter Walmart helpfully sent along suggested that Jacques’ website would confuse customers into thinking that Walmart, who is not in either the business of horses nor in the business of having a sense of humor, might have some affiliation to walmart.horse. Interestingly, the letter targets the domain name, rather than the image on the site itself. I’m not personally aware of any infringement claim on domain name being refuted by the actual extension used, but this would seem to be a ripe candidate for that argument, given that Walmart is not in the horse business.
But this really shouldn’t even get that far, given the whole purpose of the site itself and the artistic nature of the creator.
Jacques argues that his site is “an obvious parody and therefore falls under fair use.” He also told Walmart in his response that he’d be happy to put a disclaimer on his site to let visitors know he is not actually affiliated with the Waltons. And although he doesn’t want to bow to the company just yet, he says he’s already proved his original hypothesis: that corporations spend an absurd amount of time policing their trademarks.
Point proven, I suppose. Meanwhile, a tiny joke site has been Streisanded into the national conversation because Walmart just couldn’t resist.
More Copyright Trolls Rushing In To Take Advantage Of Canadian Copyright Notice System Loopholes
Canada’s new copyright notice system is swiftly become a playground for copyright trolls. As Michael Geist reports, Canadian legislators could have baked in a few limitations to curb abuse, but chose instead to ensure the Rightscorps of the world could twist the legislation to their advantage.
Despite more than a year of work on potential regulations – including possible costs to rights holders for sending notifications – Industry Minister James Moore abandoned the process, implementing the system with no costs, no limitations on notice content, no restrictions on settlement demands, and no sanctions for the inclusion of false or misleading information. The government’s backgrounder says that the law “sets clear rules on the content of these notices”, however, it does not restrict the ability for rights holders to include information that goes beyond the statutory minimum.
Righstcorp is called out for a reason. It was the first to seize this opportunity to shake down Canadian internet users with pre-settlement offers. To make its requests appear more “reasonable,” Rightscorp lied in its letters to alleged infringers.
The notice falsely warns that the recipient could be liable for up to $150,000 per infringement when the reality is that Canadian law caps liability for non-commercial infringement at $5,000 for all infringements. The notice also warns that the user’s Internet service could be suspended, yet there is no such provision under Canadian law.
Beyond that, Rightscorp has no intention of litigating these cases — which would be the only way for it to secure statutory damages. Even in the US, where the sky-high $150,000 applies, Rightscorp has yet to actually sue anyone for copyright infringement. It instead hopes to nickel-and-dime its way to the top of the troll heap with $20/per infringement “settlements.”
Now another copyright troll is invading the same territory. CEG TEK (Copyright Enforcement Group… um… TEK) has started sending out reams of useless and misleading paper threatening alleged infringers in Canada, citing the new law in order to appear really, really serious about possibly doing something expensive to those on the receiving end.
At least this letter acknowledges the $5,000 cap on infringement awards, but it only uses that higher number to make its demands in the low-hundreds per infringement more palatable. The rest of it is standard demand letter histrionics.
In Canada, the unauthorized copying, performance, and/or distribution of Rights Owner’s Work is illegal and is subject to civil sanctions (with statutory damages of up to $5,000 or non-statutory damages that could be higher) and/or criminal sanctions, and is a violation of the Canada Copyright Act (R.S.C., 1985, c. C-42). The recent amendments to the Copyright Act, which came into force on November 2012, have confirmed Rights Owner’s right to have its copyright protected in Canada.
[…]
If you have questions about your legal rights, you should consult with your own legal counsel (i.e., barrister, solicitor, lawyer, and/or attorney).
CEG HAS BEEN AUTHORIZED BY RIGHTS OWNER TO OFFER A SETTLEMENT SOLUTION TO RESOLVE THIS MATTER AND PREVENT LEGAL ACTION.
You have until Saturday, March 28, 2015 to access the settlement offer and settle online.
Of course, the letter makes it appear as though CEG can actually offer a complete release from legal culpability for only $xxx, and the artful use of ALL CAPS around “SETTLEMENT SOLUTION” and “LEGAL ACTION” could give some recipient the sense that something dangerous lurks behind this mass-mailed “threat.” But CEG, like Rightscorp, can’t make much money with “LEGAL ACTION.” Nope, it’s all about “SETTLEMENT SOLUTIONS.” Serve to thousands. Collect from tens. Call it a day.
There’s no lawsuit coming. A search for CEG in the Justia database returns a single lawsuit — and in that one, CEG was the defendant. Perhaps that’s why the letter stays suitably vague about the consequences of ignoring these missives. At this point. CEG TEK’s business model only allows for repeated sending of demand letters and, if needed, more use of the Caps Lock key.
Still, the shakedowns will have an effect, mostly on the wholly ignorant or easily intimidated — which makes copyright trolling indistinguishable from any number of scams. The victims are those who don’t know any better. And Canada’s decision to enact a copyright notice system filled with holes only encourages entities like CEG and Rightscorp to expand their “markets.”
Music Industry Demands Action Against “Pirate” Domain Names
In recent years copyright holders have demanded stricter anti-piracy measures from ISPs, search engines, advertising networks and payment processors, with varying results.
Continuing this trend various entertainment industry groups are now going after companies that offer domain name services.
The MPAA, for example, has joined the domain name system oversight body ICANN and is pushing for policy changes from the inside.
A few days ago the RIAA added more pressure. The music group sent a letter to ICANN on behalf of several industry players asking for tougher measures against pirate domains.
The RIAA’s senior vice president Victoria Sheckler wants the Internet to be a safe place for all, where music creation and distribution can thrive.
“… we expect all in the internet ecosystem to take responsible measures to deter copyright infringement to help meet this goal,” she notes.
The music groups believe, however, that domain registrars don’t do enough to combat piracy. ICANN’s most recent registrar agreement states that domain names should not be used for copyright infringement, but most registrars fail to take action in response.
Instead, many registrars simply note that it’s not their responsibility to act against pirate sites.
“We […] do not see how it is an appropriate response from a registrar to tell a complainant that it has investigated or responded appropriately to a copyright abuse complaint by stating it does not provide non-registrar related services to the site in question,” Sheckler writes.
In what appears to be a coordinated effort to pressure ICANN and other players in the domain name industry, the U.S. Government also chimed in last week.
According to the U.S. Trade Representative, Canada-based Tucows is reported as “an example of a registrar that fails to take action when notified of its clients’ infringing activity.”
Despite the critique, it’s far from clear that Tucows and other registrars are doing anything wrong. In fact, the Electronic Frontier Foundation
“Domain registrars do not have an obligation to respond to a random third party’s complaints about the behavior of a domain name user. Unless ordered by a court, registrars cannot be compelled to take down a website,” notes Jeremy Malcolm, EFF’s Senior Global Policy Analyst.
“What the entertainment industry groups are doing is exaggerating the obligations that registrars of global top-level domains (gTLDs) have under their agreement with ICANN to investigate reports of illegal activity by domain owners, an expansion of responsibilities that is, to put it mildly, extremely controversial, and not reflected in current laws or norms.”
Law or no law, the entertainment industry groups are not expected to back down. They hope that ICANN will help to convince registrars that pirate sites should be disconnected, whether they like it or not.
Entertainment Industry Demands Swedish ISP Block The Pirate Bay; ISP Says No
There has been an increasing push by the legacy entertainment industry to get “full site blocking,” in which companies can declare sites they don’t like as “rogue” and order ISPs to block all access to them. This was the whole point of SOPA. And while that law failed in the US, the entertainment industry is still interested in figuring out other paths to making it happen. Courts in many other countries have been much more receptive to this form of censorship — and have regularly ordered ISPs to block sites. This is true in Sweden as well, but it appears that one ISP, Bredbandsbolaget, is going to fight back for as long as it can, according to Torrentfreak:
“It is an important principle that Internet providers of Internet infrastructure shall not be held responsible for the content that is transported over the Internet. In the same way that the Post should not meddle in what people write in the letter or where people send letters,” Commercial Director Mats Lundquist says.
“We stick to our starting point that our customers have the right to freely communicate and share information over the internet.”
Of course, this means that they’ll be going to court later this year. Torrentfreak notes that the MPAA is pulling the strings behind this, of course:
Internal movie industry documents obtained by TorrentFreak reveal that IFPI and the Swedish film producers have signed a binding agreement which compels them to conduct and finance the case. However, the MPAA is exerting its influence while providing its own evidence and know-how behind the scenes.
Also of interest is that IFPI took a decision to sue Bredbandsbolaget and not Teliasonera (described by the MPAA as “the largest and also very actively ‘copy-left’ Swedish ISP”). The reason for that was that IFPI’s counsel represents Teliasonera in other matters which would have raised a conflict of interest.
Meanwhile, we’re still left wondering how any of this encourages people to actually spend more money to support content creators.
Maybe Obama’s Sanctions on Venezuela are Not Really About His “Deep Concern” Over Suppression of Political Rights
Oil. The answer is always oil.
The White House on Monday announced the imposition of new sanctions on various Venezuelan officials, pronouncing itself “deeply concerned by the Venezuelan government’s efforts to escalate intimidation of its political opponents”: deeply concerned. President Obama also, reportedly with a straight face, officially declared that Venezuela poses “an extraordinary threat to the national security” of the U.S. — a declaration necessary to legally justify the sanctions.
Today, one of the Obama administration’s closest allies on the planet, Saudi Arabia, sentenced one of that country’s few independent human rights activists, Mohammed al-Bajad, to 10 years in prison on “terrorism” charges. That is completely consistent with that regime’s systematic and extreme repression, which includes gruesome state beheadings at a record-setting rate, floggings and long prison terms for anti-regime bloggers, executions of those with minority religious views, and exploitation of terror laws to imprison even the mildest regime critics.
Absolutely nobody expects the “deeply concerned” President Obama to impose sanctions on the Saudis — nor on any of the other loyal U.S. allies from Egypt to the UAE whose repression is far worse than Venezuela’s. Perhaps those who actually believe U.S. proclamations about imposing sanctions on Venezuela in objection to suppression of political opposition might spend some time thinking about what accounts for that disparity.
That nothing is more insincere than purported U.S. concerns over political repression is too self-evident to debate. Supporting the most repressive regimes on the planet in order to suppress and control their populations is and long has been a staple of U.S. (and British) foreign policy. “Human rights” is the weapon invoked by the U.S. Government and its loyal media to cynically demonize regimes that refuse to follow U.S. dictates, while far worse tyranny is steadfastly overlooked, or expressly cheered, when undertaken by compliant regimes, such as those in Riyadh and Cairo (see this USA Today article, one of many, recently hailing the Saudis as one of the “moderate” countries in the region). This is exactly the tactic that leads neocons to feign concern for Afghan women or the plight of Iranian gays when doing so helps to gin up war-rage against those regimes, while they snuggle up to far worse but far more compliant regimes.
Any rational person who watched the entire top echelon of the U.S. government drop what they were doing to make a pilgrimage to Riyadh to pay homage to the Saudi monarchs (Obama cut short a state visit to India to do so), or who watches the mountain of arms and money flow to the regime in Cairo, would do nothing other than cackle when hearing U.S. officials announce that they are imposing sanctions to punish repression of political opposition. And indeed, that’s what most of the world outside of the U.S. and Europe do when they hear such claims. But from the perspective of U.S. officials, that’s fine, because such pretenses to noble intentions are primarily intended for domestic consumption.
As for Obama’s decree that Venezuela now poses an “extraordinary threat to the national security” of the United States, is there anyone, anywhere, that wants to defend the reasonability of that claim? Think about what it says about our discourse that Obama officials know they can issue such insultingly false tripe with no consequences.
But what’s not too obvious to point out is what the U.S is actually doing in Venezuela. It’s truly remarkable how the very same people who demand U.S. actions against the democratically elected government in Caracas are the ones who most aggressively mock Venezuelan leaders when they point out that the U.S. is working to undermine their government.
The worst media offender in this regard is The New York Times, which explicitly celebrated the 2002 U.S.-supported coup of Hugo Chavez as a victory for democracy, but which now regularly derides the notion that the U.S. would ever do something as untoward as undermine the Venezuelan government.
The real question is this: if concern over suppression of political rights is not the real reason the U.S. is imposing new sanctions on Venezuela (perish the thought!), what is? Among the most insightful commentators on U.S. policy in Latin America is Mark Weisbrot of Just Foreign Policy. Read his excellent article for Al Jazeera on the recent Obama decree on Venezuela.
In essence, Venezuela is one of the very few countries with significant oil reserves which does not submit to U.S. dictates, and this simply cannot be permitted (such countries are always at the top of the U.S. government and media list of Countries To Be Demonized). Beyond that, the popularity of Chavez and the relative improvement of Venezuela’s poor under his redistributionist policies petrifies neoliberal institutions for its ability to serve as an example; just as the Cuban economy was choked by decades of U.S. sanctions and then held up by the U.S. as a failure of Communism, subverting the Venezuelan economy is crucial to destroying this success.