Although I have heard similar assessments before, a new study shows that the UK surveillance society isn’t protecting against crime. With more than 10,000 CCTV cameras in London, crime in general has not improved.
At the very least, it shows that the stated goal isn’t working. In the more cynical view, it was never supposed to. The government has successfully convinced the people that they need a nanny state in order to further their own goals. Sounds familiar here in the US.
You know the most ironic thing about the Patriot Act? The name. A true patriot respects the government’s critical checks and balances. It seems that the judiciary is slowly waking up to just how perverted the W clan’s view of the world is.
U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero said the government orders must be subject to meaningful judicial review and that the recently rewritten Patriot Act “offends the fundamental constitutional principles of checks and balances and separation of powers.”
The Layer 8 blog over at Network World has a post indicating that the Department of Defense is closing down the TALON database in less than a month. TALON was widely criticized by privacy advocates and Congress alike for tracking ordinary citizens.
Setting aside my cynicism for a moment, this is a nice bit of news. Now the cynical person (looking at myself in the mirror) would assume this data won’t be destroyed but just go underground to a program we don’t know about yet. Nothing the Bush administration has done would dissuade me from this interpretation but since I am feeling slightly generous today, props to the DoD.
A post over at Consumerist reports on a small victory for consumers. The 9th Circuit Court Of Appeals has ruled the mandatory arbitration clause in Cingular/ATT’s contract in “unconscionable” under California law.
While the scope of this is limited, it is a crack in the armor of the mega corporations that attempt to strip consumers of any rights they still have.  Virtually every service contract you see these days includes this arbitration crap. Score one for the little guys.
Susan Landau of Sun Microsystems has an excellent post up at the Washington Post. The idiots in Congress caved in last week and gave even more latitude in surveillance of communications to the NSA. Applying for secret warrants which are almost never denied and can be filed up to 72 hours after surveillance begins is just too much due process for them to deal with.
Even setting aside the civil liberties issues (which is a huge deal on it’s own), this is just stupid. We just heard about what this kind of surveillance built in to the phone networks can result in with the Greek wiretapping scandal (see Bruce Schneier’s blog.) Regardless of how you feel about the “intelligence” community having this ability, reducing national security by adding what will most certainly be insecure back doors in the process is just asinine.
Security expert Bruce Schneier recently wrapped up a five-part series from an interview with the Kip Hawley. You can find the complete interview here.
As expected, Mr. Hawley dodges many of Bruce’s questions. At least they are talking, which is progress. Bruce indicates they sought him out for the interview. Now if they would just hire him and give him real power to fix things! Obviously that will never happen because TSA/Homeland Security is all about politics and theater, not actual security.
Still, an interesting read. Check out Bruce’s excellent blog which has a well-deserved slot in my blogroll on the right.
I have seen several worrying accounts of late that detail the harassment of citizens who tape police actions. While I don’t always agree with Ed Brayton of “Dispatches from the Culture Wars” I found his recent post interesting.
It is absolutely critical that our public servants are subject to the scrutiny of the public they serve. As the title alludes, their actions must be able to withstand the light.
Interestingly, in St. Louis the ACLU is giving cameras to citizens in order to monitor the police. Project Vigilant hopes to equip up to 100 residents and train them to safely tape police contacts. A spokesman for the police department officially says they don’t have “feelings about it one way or another.” We’ll see about that. They also plan workshops to teach people their consitutional rights when approached by the police.
Finally some sanity has been injected into the case of Julie Amero. She is the substitute teacher convicted of endangering minors for “allowing” porn on a school computer. Ms. Amero claimed the porn was the result of ad pop-ups on the web but the prosecutor seemed determined to make a case. She was due to be sentenced yesterday but the court heard her motion for a new trial first and granted it.
Despite the fact that there was no active firewall/content blocker and outdated virus protection, this substitute was somehow supposed to magically change the nature of the web and prevent any distasteful pop-ups. Shoddy investigation made it seem that someone was actively surfing for it. Another forensic examination has shown there is no evidence for that and seems to corroborate Ms. Amero’s story. Even the prosecutor nows admits there may have been errors.
With a competent judge, this should go away when she is retried. I hope Ms. Amero then turns around and sues those involved if only to make them think twice before trying to railroad people again. Teachers have enough problems without malicious questionable prosecution.
News Article
Commentary by Investigator
Blogs: Odd Time Signatures / Slashdot / BoingBoing
A Michigan man was arrested by police for accessing a coffee shop’s
public Wi-Fi hotspot. He was charged with a felony and faced up to 5
years in jail, but he took an offer of “paying a $400 fine, doing 40
hours of community service and staying on probation for six months.”
I am a bit disturbed by this story. While a person surreptitiously piggybacking on a neighbors connections is certainly unethical and most likely illegal, this is different. This coffee shop is operating a wifi hot-spot essentially for the public. There are systems (some free) designed for such operations that allow a shop owner to give an access password which is usually input on a gateway page when a user opens a web browser. In this case it was left completely open which to me could imply “public” status.
While the shop owner didn’t even have a problem with the man’s use of the connection, a cop took it upon himself to research whether he could find something to charge the guy with and eventually did charge him with a felony. Now I don’t argue that the cop had probable cause to question the guy due to the reports from the barber shop but to go back and start looking for something to get him with seems excessive as does the charge that the prosecutor chose.
Link (via BoingBoing)
In remembrance of those who have fought and died defending our rights… Maybe, some day, we will again have a government that respects the Constitution. Need a refresher on what these dedicated men and women fought for?
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