Federal agents may take a traveler’s laptop computer or other electronic device to an off-site location for an unspecified period of time without any suspicion of wrongdoing, as part of border search policies the Department of Homeland Security recently disclosed.
Also, officials may share copies of the laptop’s contents with other agencies and private entities for language translation, data decryption or other reasons, according to the policies, dated July 16 and issued by two DHS agencies, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Give me candidates that will reliably fight this kind of crap, and I’ll gladly jump ship from any of our current batch (in both parties) that seem to actually like this kind of thing.
Last week, members of the Senate Judiciary Committee introduced S. 3325, the “Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights Act of 2008,” a bill that proposes a number of alarming changes to copyright law. The bill is the Senate’s gift to big content owners, creating new and powerful tools — many of which will be paid for by your tax dollars — for the entertainment industry to go after infringers. But it doesn’t offer a lick of protection for legitimate innovators and technology users that may be buried by the copyright juggernaut.
One of the bill’s most disturbing changes would give the Attorney General new powers to sue individuals on behalf of rightsholders like the MPAA and the RIAA. Bill proponents claim that these new powers, which would allow the AG to bring “milder” civil as well as criminal actions, are necessary because some offenses don’t rise to the level of criminal conduct. This justification just doesn’t make sense. If it’s a low-level offense, why should our top cops pursue it? Traditionally, those types of offenses can and will be pursued by the parties who believe they have actually been harmed, namely the copyright owners. The real “problem” may be that some so-called “offenses” can’t be proven beyond a reasonable doubt, the standard for any crime. This new provision would allow the AG to sidestep that high burden of proof — a burden that gives the average citizen an important measure of protection from the overwhelming power of the government.
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There’s more: another provision creates new categories of infringement at the border, suggesting that individuals need the permission of copyright holders to bring copies of music or movies with them overseas, or even through the United States. If the bill is passed, something as simple as taking your iPod to Mexico could be considered an infringement of the copyright owners’ distribution right. The bill also proposes to lengthen the list of items that can be impounded as part of a civil copyright infringement suit, while broadening the list of articles that can be seized and destroyed by the government. (Meanwhile, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is being negotiated in secret by a number of countries, pairing this unprecedented public threat with a potentially catastrophic secret one.)
There has been a lot of attention today to one new poll showing McCain ahead nationally among “likely voters”.
First of all, my usual caution, looking at national polls for a presidential election is just plain silly, and does NOT really tell you much of anything useful about the state of the race. We do NOT have a national election, we have 50 separate state elections (plus DC). So you are better off looking at something that breaks things down by state. I of course prefer my own analysis but there are a bunch of places out there that do this using a variety of different methodologies. If you actually care to understand what is going on, you need to look at the state by state breakdowns and pretty much ignore the national polling.
Having said that, if you MUST look at national polling, look at something that does a trendline over many polls, so that you don’t get distracted by random noise or outliers. The best one out there (I think) is the one at pollster.com. First, you clearly see just how noisy the poll data is. Second, you see that this one result is a clear outlier.
Now, could additional polls start coming in any day now to reinforce the numbers in this new poll and thus indicate the beginning of a shift in McCain’s direction? Quite possibly. But the point is that with just the one poll, with a large number of other polls continuing to give Obama a big lead, it is way too early to be saying anything of the sort. In fact, the trend at the moment is still a widening of Obama’s lead.
Although, as I mentioned here and here and here there are some hints that some states may be starting to move in McCain’s direction again after a long period of time where it seemed absolutely every update was good news for Obama.
In my earlier post on the topic I said “Normally this happens once one is actually elected. Not before one is even officially the nominee.” BZZZZZ. Wrong.
What is true, is that in the cases where the transition hasn’t started until after the election, they have always been rushed and the start of the new administration has been rocky. A variety of presidents, including Reagan and W himself have started transitions very early. Clinton and Carter apparently started to, but then changed their minds, and their transitions were a bit rocky.
More here, from a guy that tries to turn the story around by criticizing McCain for NOT having started his transition already:
The question is not why Obama made the decision, but why Sen. John McCain has not. Instead attacking the Obama campaign for “dancing in the end zone,” McCain should have appointed his own planning team long ago.
Obama has plenty of historical precedent to draw upon. On the Republican side of the aisle, Ronald Reagan began his 1980 planning effort in early spring under a senior confidant. The planning produced the fastest transition to governing in modern history, which translated directly into Reagan’s victories on budget and tax cuts only six months into the term.
George W. Bush also began his planning early, which produced a remarkably disciplined transition that laid set the stage for another round of tax cuts. It is hard to imagine how the transition could have succeeded without it. Given the Florida impasse, it is hard to imagine how the Bush transition could have succeeded without the pre-election planning.
On the Democratic side, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton also began their planning early, but waffled when it came time to use the plans. Under intense pressure from their campaign staffs who rightly complained about a lack of consultation, both decided to start planning again all over again the morning after the election.
It was reported yesterday that Obama is already assembling a transition team. Normally this happens once one is actually elected. Not before one is even officially the nominee. Now, yes, I buy the notion that it is a complicated process, and previous transitions could sometimes have benefited from a early start.
But it is still more than three months before the election, and almost six months before the inauguration… I talked about this on the podcast a couple weeks back. He needs to not get cocky.
Sure, the state by state polls have him with a nice healthy lead right now in the electoral college. And McCain has been screwing up left and right. Currently things look very good for Obama.
But… you can’t be taking it for granted… or you will start making stupid mistakes thinking you have room for error. And for that matter just LOOKING like you think you have already won (as some people are interpreting parts of the overseas trip) can have negative consequences too.
Yes, there is a lead. But the public is fickle, and things can change quickly. And we have more than three months left. Obama needs to not start believing his own hype here.
The Senate overwhelmingly approved a new federal wiretapping law this afternoon by a vote of 69-28.
After last month’s approval of a similar measure in the House, today’s vote essentially clears the way for the bill to go to the White House for a final signature.
The bill approved includes sweeping and retroactive immunity for telecom companies that provided information about customers to government officials without a warrant as part of the Bush Administration’s surveillance program imposed after September 11, 2001.
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So what does that mean? It means that the nations largest telecom companies no longer have to worry about a batch of multi-million lawsuits filed by customers angered that the companies turned over their personal information to the government without a warrant.
It also means that if you are at home making an overseas phone call to a suspected terrorist, the government can monitor that call without a warrant.
And it’s not clear how intel agents define who is a suspected terrorist.
Is there any reason why I should care about this Wes Clark dust up that is all over everywhere right now? So far I haven’t really seen anything that makes me want to care or think it is in any way relevant to anything. Am I missing something?
Another Seymour Hersh piece. They are always somewhat controversial, and many people always dispute the facts. Personally, I don’t have any idea how much of his pieces are really true, what is exaggeration, what is someone feeding Hersh what they want him to say to push one agenda or another, etc… But regardless, these articles are always very interesting.
And if even 10% of it is true… shudder. Well… 204 days, 16 hours left to go. Regardless who wins in November, they can’t be worse than this bunch.
ate last year, Congress agreed to a request from President Bush to fund a major escalation of covert operations against Iran, according to current and former military, intelligence, and congressional sources. These operations, for which the President sought up to four hundred million dollars, were described in a Presidential Finding signed by Bush, and are designed to destabilize the country’s religious leadership. The covert activities involve support of the minority Ahwazi Arab and Baluchi groups and other dissident organizations. They also include gathering intelligence about Iran’s suspected nuclear-weapons program.
The House of Representatives today has fallen down on the job. By passing the FISA Amendments Act (293-129, with 105 Democrats in favor), they voted to give this lame duck President an undeserved parting gift by passing immunity for telcoms that helped the President violate the Constitution by participating in the NSA’s massive and illegal spying program.
While Speaker Pelosi and President Bush describe it as a “balanced bill” with “bipartisan support,” the millions of Americans whose privacy rights have been violated by the President’s illegal spying program seem to have been left out of the equation.
Senator Bond’s gloating statement to the New York Times showed the true picture: “I think the White House got a better deal than even they had hoped to get.” The Washington Post wrote that the bill “hands President Bush one of the last major legislative victories he is likely to achieve.” And the San Francisco Chronicle, writing from Speaker Pelosi’s home district, called the vote “weak, timid, spineless.”
To say that EFF is disappointed in the House Leadership’s support for this bill is an understatement. Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Hoyer, so vocal in their opposition to telecom immunity last March, capitulated to a dangerous “compromise” that gives the telecoms and the Bush Administration what they have been demanding for over a year: Protection from court cases that threaten to uncover the extent of the President’s illegal spying program.
Many Democrats stood up for the rule of law, and they deserve our thanks. Senators Conyers and Nadler have been consistent and vocal in their staunch opposition to immunity. Senator Feingold has spoken out as well, saying that the bill “is not a compromise, it is a capitulation.”
Republican Senator Arlen Specter has shown himself more supportive of the rule of law than Speaker Pelosi on this issue: “I am opposed to the proposed legislation because it does not require a judicial determination that what the telephone companies have done in the past is constitutional. It is totally insufficient to grant immunity for the telephone companies’ prior conduct based merely on the written assurance from the administration that the spying was legal.”
As the fight moves to the Senate, we now look to Senators Leahy, Dodd and Feingold to lead the opposition to the immunity provisions in the Senate version of the bill. Contact your Senators now and tell them to stand strong.
I will add that I am highly disappointed in Obama’s statement on this issue. It either shows that Obama agrees with an expansive view of what proper executive surveillance power should be, or that he has a complete lack of spine. Either way, it is a big negative for me. Not like McCain would be better on this. and I’m not sure what Bob Barr is saying on this these days, but I don’t think I’d trust him.