PROGRESS REPORT FOR FEBRUARY 8, 2010
1. Legal cases

I have three legal cases active at present. You are aware of the case against Homeland Security et al. The civil complaint has been mailed to the U. S. District Court in Manhattan. A criminal complaint has been mailed to the JURY ADMINISTRATION OFFICE NEW YORK COUNTY SUPREME COURT, DA OFFICE OF SPECIAL PROSECUTOR, and CIVILIAN COMPLAINT REVIEW BOARD COMPLAINT UNIT for consideration by a NY Grand Jury. One of my legal advocates has agreed to write the criminal complaint to be submitted for consideration by a U. S. Grand Jury.

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from an email sent out to supporters

Hi Tyranny Fighters:

We now are getting organized. The following organizational help has materialized:

1. Four photographers have taken videos of the FIJA demonstrations. Two of them I do not know. One photographer has provided the critical video of October 26, 2009, when I was charged with forcibly resisting arrest. Antonio Musumeci, a photographer who received a citation, has agreed to be a co-plaintiff on the civil case.
2. I have two legal advocates that help prepare legal briefs.
3. One of you has agreed to be my webmaster.  Stuff will appear on my web page shortly.
4. One of you has offered to write an article about the arrests  for publication in a mainstream magazine.
5. At least 3 of you are regularly providing publicity.  These are Garry Reed, Mike Benoit, and Antonio Musumeci. There are others also, but I am unaware of names or details.
6. Iloilo Jones of FIJA has been very helpful and supportive.
7. Some of you are forwarding my e-mails to your e-mail lists.
8. One of you makes my signs.
9. Staples has been very helpful in copying, binding and delivery of manuscripts.

Future activities include two speeches that I will give: on March 13 at the NJ Libertarian Party Convention at Rutgers; and on May 8, I will deliver the sermon at Congregation Beth Shalom in Teaneck. NJ.  When the weather gets warmer (March or April), I will return to the Monday appearances at the U. S. District Courthouse in Manhattan.

Court cases: Today the civil complaint against Homeland Security and others went to Staples for copying and binding.  It will be mailed to the court on Wednesday hopefully (or Thursday).  Next will be the criminal complaint to the grand Jury of New York County (Manhattan). The criminal complaint is nearly in final form and should be submitted the first week in February.  Copies of these complaints will be posted on my web page.

In regard to the Homeland Security action, both Musumeci and I were summoned to magistrate court  for January 19.  I notified the court that I would not appear or pay the fines. Musumeci appeared with a lawyer from the NY Civil Liberties Union, which has agreed to represent him. However Officer Barnes, who wrote the citations did not appear. The cases should have been dismissed, because the citing officer did not appear. However, the magistrate postponed the hearing for a month.  I assure you that if Barnes had appeared, but we did not, judgment would have been rendered against us. That is what equal justice means in the U.S.

Right now what I need from the rest of you is publicity, publicity, publicity.  Notify your e-mail lists and write letters-to-the editor. Also ask others to join us.  At the moment we have over 100 people on this e-mail list, but we will need 1000 in order to spread the actions accordingly.  I expect to go to the District Courthouse in Newark, NJ, as well as in Manhattan, in the spring.

Warning: You should know that The Federal Protective Service is intercepting my e-mails. Another violation of our civil liberties.

THE PRICE OF FREEDOM IS ETERNAL VIGILANCE

THE PRICE OF JUSTICE IS ETERNAL PUBLICITY

Yours in Freedom —Julian

learn more at http://blogofbile.com/tag/julian-heicklen/?order=ASC

http://freekeene.com/2010/01/20/detroit-tsa-security-theater/

http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2010/01/googles-mapreduce-patent-what-does-it-mean-for-hadoop.ars

The USPTO awarded search giant Google a software method patent that covers the principle of distributed MapReduce, a strategy for parallel processing that is used by the search giant. If Google chooses to aggressively enforce the patent, it could have significant implications for some open source software projects that use the technique, including the Apache Foundation’s popular Hadoop software framework.

“Map” and “reduce” are functional programming primitives that have been used in software development for decades. A “map” operation allows you to apply a function to every item in a sequence, returning a sequence of equal size with the processed values. A “reduce” operation, also called “fold,” accumulates the contents of a sequence into a single return value by performing a function that combines each item in the sequence with the return value of the previous iteration.

Google’s MapReduce framework is roughly based on those concepts. A series of data elements is processed in a map operation, then combined at the end with a reduce operation to produce the finished output. The advantage of partitioning a workload this way is that it’s extremely conducive to parallelization. Each discrete unit of data in the series can be processed individually and combined at the end, making it possible to spread the workload across multiple processors or computers. It’s a fairly elegant approach to scalable concurrency, one that offers efficiency regardless of whether your environment is a single multicore processor or a massive grid in a data center.

Google published a paper in 2004 that described how it uses MapReduce. The paper attracted considerable interest and paved the way for the MapReduce pattern to become a common technique for parallelization. One of the most well-known third-party implementations of MapReduce for distributed computing is Hadoop, an open source Apache project now used by Yahoo, Amazon, IBM, Facebook, Rackspace, Hulu, the New York Times, and a growing number of other companies.

Google’s patent on MapReduce could potentially pose a problem for those using third-party open source implementations. Patent #7,650,331, which was granted to Google on Tuesday, defines a system and method for efficient large-scale data processing:

A large-scale data processing system and method includes one or more application-independent map modules configured to read input data and to apply at least one application-specific map operation to the input data to produce intermediate data values, wherein the map operation is automatically parallelized across multiple processors in the parallel processing environment. A plurality of intermediate data structures are used to store the intermediate data values. One or more application-independent reduce modules are configured to retrieve the intermediate data values and to apply at least one application-specific reduce operation to the intermediate data values to provide output data.

i suspect google applied for a patent defensively as many software firms do and don’t expect them to go after anyone. if they didn’t someone else likely would have. it shows us another business distortion and resource waste brought about by intellectual property. nothing in this patent is all that impressive or new. even if it were it doesn’t justify an artificial monopoly privilege enforced through aggression and the threat thereof by another monopoly.

this patent is important both in that distributed mapreduce has become a popular way of processing data but also personally affects the work i’m currently doing. i hope that in this regard Google sticks with their ‘do no evil’ slogan and simply sits on this patent.

• Arrived at 500 Pearl St at approximately 9:55AM. Met NYCLU representatives in front of building.
• Approximately 10:00AM we entered the building and stood in line for a security scan.
• At 10:20AM we got to the appropriate floor / counter. I let them know I’m present and we wait.
• 10:40AM two officers arrive. Neither is the arresting officer, C. Barnes #245.
• 10:45AM I overhear the officers say to the clerk that C. Barnes #245 is not going to show up. He’s apparently in training in Washington DC for the next 2 weeks. Later we learn that the Assistant US Attorney only learned he was going to be absent that morning.
• 10:48AM Officers notify two women that their meeting with the AUSA has been rescheduled due to C. Barnes #245’s absence. They are both obviously upset. The taller, Hispanic officer attempts to get them to just pay the tickets. Asking several times if they would be paying it. As they go to leave a gentleman in his 60’s asks one of the women if she was contacted in any way. She responds in the negative. He, obviously upset by that, says something to the effect: “They could have at least let you know he wasn’t going to be here. It’s the courteous thing to do. It’s *your* government. They should issue a warrant for him. They would have done that to you had you not shown up.” At least 5 people, including myself, are affected by C. Barnes #245 not showing. Each person spoken to by the Hispanic officer he tries to get them to pay the ticket.
• 10:50AM The Hispanic officer says to the other: “I say we just reschedule all of them.”
• 10:52AM The Hispanic officer speaking of Julian Heicklen’s 5 tickets, which he did not appear to contest: “They should just issue a warrant for this guy. He’s got five tickets.”
• 10:53AM The Hispanic officer starts checking out his cell phone. Perhaps reading text messages. There are several signs posted in the room saying that absolutely no one is to use cellphones.
• 10:55AM The officers leave to meet with the AUSA with the paper work for all those present.
• 11:00AM they start calling people in.
• 11:15AM I’m called and told C. Barnes #245 will not be showing up and therefore the appearance is rescheduled to February 9th, 2010. We ask to talk with the AUSA anyway.
• 12:05PM we are told to stand out in front of the conference room where the AUSA is meeting with people. He is in with the 60ish y/o who commented that Barnes should have a bench warrant issued for him. I missed the lead up to the incident but the gentleman was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct. Prior to the arrest apparently the officer stepped on his foot so hard that he broke at least one toe and caused the nail to come loose. He was wearing a cast. I was unable to gather any specifics otherwise.
• About 12:55PM the man leaves the room with the AUSA and we knock and walk in. The AUSA says that we need to reschedule due to C. Barnes #245’s absence. My NYCLU reps inform him we are not fighting the description of events but feel the regulation does not apply. We are told that he would likely drop it down to deferred with a 60 day period in which I would not be able to record otherwise I’d they’d bring the issue to trial. We indicate we want full dismissal and he tells us that he will talk with C. Barnes #245 when he gets back and if he’s OK with a dismissal so be it otherwise we will have to talk again in February.

An account of the November 9th, 2009 arrest of Julian Heicklen and myself as well as a video can be found here.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2010/01/verizon-and-google-draft-net-neutrality-peace-treaty.ars

Amidst all the rancor that we’ve seen during the last few weeks over the Federal Communications Commission’s proposed net neutrality rules comes a joint filing by Verizon and Google that asks a refreshing question. What do the antagonists have in common regarding this vexing problem?

“Because our businesses rely on each other, it is appropriate for us to jointly discuss a number of things,” wrote Alan Davidson of Google and Thomas Tauke of Verizon on Thursday, such as “how we ensure that consumers get the information, products and services they want online; encourage investment in advanced networks; and ensure the openness of the web around the world.” And so they’ve come up with a set of broad principles and the outline of a voluntary industry-wide system for handling network management disputes, with government intervention included only in the most dire cases—a set of “overarching values that create a framework to guide players throughout the Internet space.”

Google/Verizon say that the Internet should function as an “open platform.” That means, to them, that “when a person accesses cyberspace, he or she should be able to connect with any other person that he or she wants to—and that other person should be able to receive his or her message,” they write. The ‘Net should operate as a place where no “central authority” can make rules that prescribe the possible, and where entrepreneurs and network providers are able to “innovate without permission.”

Consumers, the statement continues, should enjoy control over all parts of their experience of the Internet. “No entity from either the government or the private sector should wrest control from consumers over how they choose to use the Internet, and the government should not implement policies that would limit consumers’ ability to choose for themselves,” Verizon and Google explain. And providers should offer maximum transparency to consumers, giving them “clear and meaningful information” regarding the services they buy and receive.

But here is where they screw up:

But Google and Verizon acknowledge that there needs to be a “backstop role” for the government to step in “if or when bad actors emerge anywhere in the Internet space, and we do agree that involvement should occur only where necessary on a case-by-case base basis.” In those instances, intervention should be “surgical, swift and based on a finding of specific facts that establish such harm.”

Anyone else notice the blatantly contradictory statements that there should be no central authority yet the government should be the central authority?

There is *NO* need for government, period. The market, even in its currently distorted mode, is more capable of dealing with issues that may arise than some government bureaucracy. Ideally these companies would be calling for complete government withdrawal from the field thereby empowering consumers and entrepreneurs. But this is better than full government intervention.