James Risen and the Bushy Subpoena

May 1st, 2010 | Permalink

Eric Holder, U.S. Attorney General, signed off on a subpoena of James Risen for his 2006 disclosure of CIA Iranian nuclear intelligence mistakes.  This is worth a well trimmed rant, but I don't have time - Exams next week.

For more reading:

Washington Post Article,

Scott Horton of Harper's takes note,

Greenwald has a good synopsis.

In other news the full text of the ACTA was released, I plan to dig into it once exams are over.

Ars Tech can tell you more.

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DC Court: FCC Lacks Authority to Regulate ISPs

Apr 6th, 2010 | Permalink

In the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, the FCC has lost its argument that it has the authority to regulate an Internet Service Provider's (Comcast, Time Warner, etc.) network management practices - in this case, Comcast's practice of network throttling to limit its users' bittorrent traffic.

Background:

In August of last year, the FCC issued the following order:

We consider whether Comcast, a provider of broadband Internet access over cable lines, may selectively target and interfere with connections of peer-to-peer (P2P) applications under the facts of this case. Although Comcast asserts that its conduct is necessary to ease network congestion, we conclude that the company’s discriminatory and arbitrary practice unduly squelches the dynamic benefits of an open and accessible Internet and does not constitute reasonable network management. Moreover, Comcast’s failure to disclose the company’s practice to its customers has compounded the harm. Accordingly, we institute a plan that will bring Comcast’s unreasonable conduct to an end. In particular, we require Comcast within 30 days to disclose the details of their unreasonable network management practices, submit a compliance plan describing how it intends to stop these unreasonable management practices by the end of the year, and disclose to both the Commission and the public the details of the network management practices that it intends to deploy following termination of its current practices.

Summation of the court's holding:

Acknowledging that it has no express statutory authority over such practices, the Commission relies on section 4(i) of the Communications Act of 1934, which authorizes the Commission to “perform any and all acts, make such rules and regulations, and issue such orders, not 3 inconsistent with this chapter, as may be necessary in the execution of its functions.” 47 U.S.C. § 154(i). The Commission may exercise this “ancillary” authority only if it demonstrates that its action—here barring Comcast from interfering with its customers’ use of peer-to-peer networking applications—is “reasonably ancillary to the . . . effective performance of its statutorily mandated responsibilities.” Am. Library Ass’n v. FCC, 406 F.3d 689, 692 (D.C. Cir. 2005). The Commission has failed to make that showing. It relies principally on several Congressional statements of policy, but under Supreme Court and D.C. Circuit case law statements of policy, by themselves, do not create “statutorily mandated responsibilities.” The Commission also relies on various provisions of the Communications Act that do create such responsibilities, but for a variety of substantive and procedural reasons those provisions cannot support its exercise of ancillary authority over Comcast’s network management practices. We therefore grant Comcast’s petition for review and vacate the challenged order.

The FCC argued that Comcast should be estopped from making their argument because of their advocacy of the opposite position in a California lawsuit, and that the SCOTUS decision in National Cable & Telecommunications Ass’n v. Brand X Internet Services gives the FCC the authority to issue the order.  The court rejected both the arguments, finding that even though the Brand X decision gave the FCC Title I some ancillary jurisdiction over Information Service Providers, "each and every assertion of jurisdiction over cable television must be independently justified as reasonably ancillary to the Commission’s power."

Ultimately the court found that the FCC didn't have "statutorily mandated responsibilities" when looking at the language that gives the FCC its authority; the court also found that the language looked to by the FCC for authority is merely "statements of policy" and such statements alone do not support ancillary authority unless supported by express delegations of regulatory authority.

Why Should You Care?

Simply put, the ability of the government, through the FCC, to tell Internet Service Providers what they can or cannot do is the ONLY capability we have as citizens to prevent these corporations from doing whatever they see fit with our communications network.  As you can imagine, they envision a future where, by a decrease in the availability and diversity of information, they are able to monetize and control the way you access information.  How would you feel if you turned on your computer at your media center in 10 years and the only thing available to you was what Comcast allowed you to see?  They would serve as gatekeeper for what TV shows you can watch, what news you can read, and what websites you can access.  They would quash the most unprecedented commingling of knowledge humanity has ever seen in an effort to monetize it - to dilute every channel with mindless drivel that exists on cable television today.

Free Press has released a statement

More Coverage:

Public Knowledge

Cecilia Kang at the Washington Post

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What I’ve Missed

Feb 10th, 2010 | Permalink

This first year of law school has wrecked my determination to keep this blog going, but I've still been keeping tabs when possible on the media news / technology developments that grind my gears.  Here's a roundup, Omnivore style:

Journalism

Russian authorities have finally convicted someone for killing Magomed Yevloyev, though the family's lawyer calls it a "peculiar farce."  More good news in the publishing world: lone newspaper watchdog Editor & Publisher was set to close before being bought out to see another day and CQ Researcher found that the internet is bad for press freedoms.  Wikileaks is appealing for foundations and contributions to continue publishing classified documents.  47 journalists are imprisoned in Iran; 56 journalists were killed in Mexico over the last 9 years; 68 journalists were killed in 2009 worldwide; and the European Court of Human Rights upheld a shield law for reporters.  John Nichols and Robert McChesney, longtime media critics who released their book "The Death and Life of American Newspapers," wrote a teaser article in The Nation on how to save investigative reporting.  Google launched fastflip and buzz, a study from the PEJ found that traditional news sources are still doing most real reporting, and Britain decided to tax libel lawyers' fees 90% to help pay for reporting.  In the US, the FCC has solicited opinions on how to help our own journalism debacle, and the New York Times is instituting a partial online paywall.

Nonprofit News

The Investigative News Network is growing, news orgs around the globe are considering the Spot.us model, and in California the Center for Investigative Reporting is launching a new venture called California Watch that hopes to use readers' participation along with "real journalism."  The Chicago's News Co-op was finding early success, and publishes stories in a section of the New York Times.

Online Media

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit heard arguments for FCC v. Comcast, and will decide whether the FCC had the authority to censure Comcast for singling out Bit-Torrent traffic among its users; Free Press filed briefs on behalf of the FCC.  Observers say the FCC's new "net neutrality" rules would permit the blocking of Bit-Torrent anyway.  The United States made appeals to Russia in a bid to increase cyber-security, a field that is increasingly called out by studies as perilous.  Twitter was working on technology to get around censorship tools used by despotic regimes, and Global Voices Online released a confusing tool to track online civic engagement related to transparency.  The New York Times published a book review of Jaron Lanier's book "You Are Not A Gadget," which seeks to articulate some serious problems with an open-knowledge culture - or as he puts it, "digital Maoism."  The misleadingly named Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement was still being negotiated in secret (more), Google was working with the National Security Agency (more), and the Pentagon was allegedly still running its military analyst program to sway domestic opinion.  Tickets now take your copyrights.

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Cell Phone Telcos Gave Authorities Customers’ GPS Data

Dec 7th, 2009 | Permalink

Slight break in the mayhem of finals studying to relay this bit of news that is not making the rounds in the echo chamber as it probably should.

EFF has a great write up here.

Ars also covered the story here.

How many customers?  Not sure, but it looks like customers were "pinged" for their location data over 8 million times through a web site available to law enforcement.

This is according to a graduate student's blog covering his trip to the Intelligence Support Systems gathering, who has the MP3 recordings to back up his claim.

It helps to view this in light of the ongoing NSA warrantless wiretapping controversy.

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