http://arstechnica.com/…

http://arstechnica.com/…

Federal district judge Vaughn Walker has rejected lawsuits that aimed to hold telecommunications companies accountable for their role in a controversial warrantless surveillance program that was orchestrated in secret by the federal government. The Electronic Frontier Foundation and American Civil Liberties Union are preparing to appeal the dismissal.

The warrantless surveillance program is one the more contentious controversies that still lingers from Bush’s tenure in office. The Bush administration attempted to leverage the State Secrets privilege to block litigation that aimed to hold participants in the surveillance program accountable for violating privacy laws. When it became clear that the courts were going to allow the lawsuits to move forward, Congress intervened and passed a FISA amendment to grant the telecom companies explicit immunity. President Obama voted in favor of immunity, despite consistently promising to oppose it.

EFF and ACLU’s lawsuits against the telecoms are among the most significant pending lawsuits targeting the warrantless surveillance program, and they are viewed by privacy advocates as a means of bringing accountability and more robust judicial oversight to the surveillance mess. Judge Walker has thrown out the suits, citing the FISA telecom immunity amendment as the basis for dismissal. He affirmed that the evidence provided under seal by the government demonstrated that the conduct of the telecoms meets the criteria for immunity grants.

“While plaintiffs have made a valiant effort to challenge the sufficiency of certifications they are barred by statute from reviewing, their contentions under section 802 are not sufficiently substantial to persuade the court that the intent of Congress in enacting the statute should be frustrated in this proceeding in which the court is required to apply the statute,” Walker wrote in his decision. “The court has examined the Attorney General’s submissions and has determined that he has met his burden under section 802(a). The court is prohibited by section 802(c)(2) from opining further.”

The EFF and the ACLU are planning to launch an appeal, asserting that the FISA amendments which granted telecom immunity are unconstitutional.

“We’re deeply disappointed in Judge Walker’s ruling today,” said EFF Legal Director Cindy Cohn in a statement. “The retroactive immunity law unconstitutionally takes away Americans’ claims arising out of the First and Fourth Amendments, violates the federal government’s separation of powers as established in the Constitution, and robs innocent telecom customers of their rights without due process of law.”

I suppose the next step is the United States court of appeals. I don’t have much faith in them ruling in the pro-freedom direction. Nor the Supreme Court should it make it there.

Dale Everett, Richard Onley, Ian Freeman, Keith Carlsen, and Patrick Shields (from left) discussed efforts yesterday to obtain the release of fellow Free Stater Sam A. Miller from jail. They were not successful. (Cheryl Senter for The Boston Globe)

By Sarah Schweitzer
Globe Staff / May 29, 2009

KEENE, N.H. – From a jail cell in this rural corner of New Hampshire, Sam A. Miller waged a philosophical battle, one milk carton at a time.

The soft-spoken electrical engineer declined food for nearly a month, save for swigs of milk. To eat, he said, would be caving to the tyrannical government powers that placed him here for illegally filming in a courthouse and refusing to reveal his legal name to jail officials. (He says it’s private; jail officials obtained it from a fingerprint trace.)

His resistance has made him a folk hero among antigovernment types who have been making their way to New Hampshire from points across the country since their leaders put out a clarion call six years ago.

The Free Staters, as they are known, hope to lure thousands of like-minded souls to the state, with the goal of paring government to a bare minimum by eliminating things like taxes, speed limits, and zoning laws.

Thus far, just 427 Free Staters have relocated. Yet, here in Keene and in pockets across New Hampshire, Free Staters are making their case in increasingly provocative ways.

“Like Ghandi, like Martin Luther King, we need to educate and enlighten the public,” said Miller, who joined the Free State movement after breaking up with his fiancée.

The actions have ranged from the odd, such as when Free Staters filed another person’s fingernails without a manicurist’s license on a public sidewalk or held an unlicensed puppet show, to the irksome, as when they tried to dig a garden in a downtown Keene park, to the instigative, such as the day they stood on a street corner with a marijuana bud held aloft. Sometimes, they simply veer toward obstinate, wearing hats in a courtroom after being asked to take them off or refusing to remove a couch from a lawn.

When arrests have followed, Free Staters have sought to film the criminal proceedings from beginning to end, including scenes from courthouse lobbies, where filming is not allowed in some cases, such as in Keene District Court. The lobby filming has yielded more arrests (often, with Free Staters going limp as officers approach) and more footage that Free Staters post on websites such as FreeKeene.com, which has proved an effective recruiting tool.

The so-called liberty actions have been met with some bemusement by residents of this gently tolerant city, population 22,800, home to Keene State College, near the border of Vermont. But some say the tactics have taken on a menacing hue, such as when Free Staters have gathered on the streets of downtown Keene with holstered guns on their waists, visible on their waists.

“When they first came to town, there was a welcoming spirit. A lot of people were like, ‘OK,’ ” said Richard Van Wickler, a Keene resident and superintendent of the Cheshire County Department of Corrections. “But unfortunately what happens is that when [Free Staters] take the radical approach, that invites people to get angry.”
Read More…

http://www.keenesentinel.com/…

A legal fog pervades the corridors and lobbies of New Hampshire’s courts.

The rules for recording public hearings in courtrooms are relatively clear: The Supreme Court says it’s allowed unless “there is a substantial likelihood of harm to any person or other harmful consequence.”

But those foggy gray areas beyond the courtrooms remain untouched by state law.

Snapping a photo or recording video in these places is permitted in some district courts and prohibited in others, at the presiding judge’s discretion.

Keene District Court Judge Edward J. Burke banned photography outside the courtroom in February in an effort to protect juveniles and victims of crimes walking through the lobby from being caught on film without their consent.

“All the district court judges who have had this issue come up in their courthouse have thought about it and we’re trying to deal with it as fairly and responsibly as we can,” state judicial branch spokeswoman Laura Kiernan said. “It’s the privacy rights of citizens that we’re concerned with here.”

On the other side of the issue, a group of activists with the Free State Project — an effort to recruit 20,000 people who prefer limited government to live in New Hampshire — are riled because they believe their right to record in a public place is being violated.
Read More…

Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary has ditched plans for a giant Government database tracking all emails, phone calls and internet activity.

Ms Smith said a central store of electronic data was an “extreme” solution and would have undermined privacy.

Records of every electronic communication made by Britons will instead be held by private companies at a cost of around £2 billion.

Internet firms will be asked to collect and store vast amounts of data, including from social networking sites such as Facebook.

Launching the proposals on Monday, Ms Smith acknowledged concerns over privacy.

She said: “My key priority is to protect the citizens of the UK, and communications data is an essential tool for law enforcement agencies to track murderers and paedophiles, save lives and tackle crime.

“Advances in communications mean that there are ever more sophisticated ways to communicate and we need to ensure that we keep up with the technology being used by those who would seek to do us harm.

“It is essential that the police and other crime-fighting agencies have the tools they need to do their job. However, to be clear, there are absolutely no plans for a single central store.

“We recognise that there is a delicate balance between privacy and security, but to do nothing is not an option as we would be failing in our duty to protect the public.”

She added: “There were two elements that I think people could be concerned about. One was the state holding the data. The other was the data all being concentrated in one place.

“It is to overcome those concerns about privacy that the proposal involves Communication Service Providers retaining the data that comes from them and passes across their networks.”

Under the plans, every internet user will be given a unique ID code and all their data stored in one place.

Government agencies such as the police and security services will access the data to investigate suspected criminals and terrorists.

But it could also be accessed by local authorities and other Government agencies.

Ministers stress the content of messages and online profiles will not be stored.

More fascism. Awesome. That way when the government fucks up they can blame it on the “free market.” As Franklin said… if you are willing to give up your freedom for a little safety you won’t have or be deserving of either.

They should take after the United States’ NSA. They just tap right in and sniff everything. Constitution and public opinion be damned.

http://i.gizmodo.com/…

Today, President Obama officially named his nominee for the new position of Chief Technology Officer: Aneesh Chopra, current Secretary of Technology for Virginia. We’ll explain who Chopra is and what his new responsibilities will be.

The CTO position is linked with that of the Chief Information Officer (the recently-named Vivek Kundra), but they are two distinct jobs. The White House explains:

The responsibilities of the CIO are to use information technology to transform the ways in which the government does business. The CTO will develop national strategies for using advanced technologies to transform our economy and our society, such as fostering private sector innovation, reducing administrative costs and medical errors using health IT, and using technology to change the way teachers teach and students learn.

Essentially, the CIO is responsible for the general strategic aim of information technology, whereas the CTO is the one who really gets his hands dirty with the specific architecture. In particular, Obama has listed health care and education in today’s YouTube address as the two areas most requiring the efforts of the CIO and CTO, and we (along with most others) think Chopra is the right guy for the job. Here’s why.

Aneesh Chopra is not a CEO. He’s not a thinker like Negroponte, or a businessman like Gates, or a showrunner like Jobs. He’s a governmental agent. This is important because the CTO is, after all, a government job, and Chopra won’t have to adjust his strategies to work within a governmental system. Right now, he’s the Secretary of Technology for Virginia, and has shown huge success in the field. Last year, Virginia was ranked 1st in Technology Management, a direct reward for Chopra’s work.

Further, he’s made significant achievements in health care and education, which, you remember, is just what Obama wants. He’s gotten the nation’s first open-source textbook approved, initiated competitions for the state’s students to create iPhone apps, and designed a social network for physicians in remote areas.

Most importantly, Chopra’s achievements are forward-looking (Web 2.0, social networking, open source) but fervently grounded in the practical. He’s not pushing for the sake of pushing, he’s using the best tools we have in the best way he can.

“develop national strategies for using advanced technologies to transform our economy and our society, such as fostering private sector innovation, reducing administrative costs and medical errors using health IT, and using technology to change the way teachers teach and students learn.”

So more government distortion of the market, more government chosen technologies sure to be wrong, greater monopolization of products, increased risk of privacy leaks, more redirected resources and more promises regarding education which won’t pan out.