Take Action!
Take Action to Support Ethiopian Blogger Eskinder Nega
EFF was dismayed to learn that Ethiopian journalist and blogger Eskinder Nega had been sentenced to eighteen years in prison under a sweeping and overbroad Anti-Terrorism Proclamation. More than one hundred other Ethiopians, including nine journalists, have been sentenced under the vague law. Individuals and organizations in the U.S. that wish to offer support for Eskinder Nega and freedom of expression in Ethiopia have several options. They can:
- Sign PEN American Center’s petition, which automatically an email to Prime Minister Meles Zenawi and Minister of Justice Berhanu Hailu.
- Send appeals by mail to Ethiopian officials and their local Ethiopian Embassy or Consulate.
- Contact their elected official, urging them to take a stand for freedom of expression in Ethiopia, a US ally.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/08/take-action-support-ethiopian-blogger-eskinder-nega
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Public Policy
Counties Across the Country Use an Array of Voting Technology
Across the United States, there are thousands of voting jurisdictions, most of which are responsible for deciding how elections will be conducted. In an attempt to present an up-to-date breakdown of voting technology in every county in the United States, a group of News21 reporters set about verifying and collecting information for every jurisdiction and verifying it with every state in the country.
http://votingrights.news21.com/interactive/voting-technology-county/
Several Top Federal Contractors are also Top Polluters
Whenever someone puts out a best/worst ranking of corporations, the first thing the Project On Government Oversight does is check to see if any of the contractors in our Federal Contractor Misconduct Database are in it. This week, the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) at the University of Massachusetts Amherst published its fourth Toxic 100 Air Polluters list of the worst corporate air polluters in the United States. Sure enough, it ranks Textron and General Electric, respectively, as the second and third worst air polluters. Sixteen other contractors in our database also made the top 100.
http://pogoblog.typepad.com/pogo/2012/08/top-federal-contractors-are-also-top-polluters.html
California Suspends Open Meetings Law to Save Money
In June, the California state legislature suspended the state’s open meetings law, which requires cities and other agencies to publish the agendas of public meetings before they occur and make the minutes of these meetings available to citizens after they occur. In suspending the law, the state is sacrificing not only a fundamental element of a democratic society, but a vital tool that can actually save money.
http://www.ombwatch.org/node/12171
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Intellectual Property Issues
A Push Grows Abroad for Open Access to Publicly Financed Research
Researchers, publishers, and librarians have spent a lot of this year firing up the longstanding debate over access to published research. You’ve probably heard the big questions: Who gets to see the results of work the public helps pay for, when should they get to see it, and who’s going pay for it? This summer, the fervor has gone global, with policy makers in Britain, elsewhere in Europe, and in Australia signaling that they’re ready to come up with some answers. Details vary from country to country and proposal to proposal, but the overall warming trend looks very clear.
http://chronicle.com/article/Push-for-Open-Access-to/133561/
DMCA overkill: NASA video of Mars removed from YouTube
Hours after NASA’s successful landing on Mars of its Mars rover, one of NASA’s official clips from the mission was pulled from YouTube, and replaced with a notice from the video site indicating that the "video contains content from Scripps Local News, who has blocked it on copyright grounds."
The video was replaced and Scripps apologized, but it is an example of how the scale are tipped in favor of the "content industry" and even obvious, public-domain content gets caught in the privatization of information trap.
http://freegovinfo.info/node/3759
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Freedom of Information
39% of Office of Legal Counsel Opinions Kept from the Public
The Department of Justice is withholding from online publication 39% (or 201) of its 509 Office of Legal Counsel opinions promulgated between 1998 and 2012, according to a Sunlight Foundation analysis. This apparently conflicts with agency guidance on releasing opinions to the public.
OLC opinions are the Justice Department’s authoritative legal advice to the executive branch on questions central to the functioning of government. Publication of opinions allow Congress and the public to review executive branch determinations on the lawfulness of policy options, thereby providing information necessary for oversight, historical, and precedential purposes.
http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2012/08/15/39-of-office-of-legal-counsel-opinions-kept-from-the-public/
BART’s Cell Phone Shutdown, One Year Later
A year ago this week, responding to planned protests throughout the BART system, the transit authority cut off cell phone service in four stations in downtown San Francisco. BART acknowledged the problem with their actions, and in October of last year promised to introduce a new policy restricting the circumstances under which it could manipulate communications networks.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/08/barts-cell-phone-shutdown-one-year-later
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Privacy Issues
ACLU sues FBI for tracking memos
The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit on Wednesday to force the FBI to reveal internal memos on GPS tracking.
The ACLU requested the documents, which provide guidance to FBI agents about using GPS devices to track suspects, last month under the Freedom of Information Act, but the FBI has yet to respond.
http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/243825-aclu-to-sue-fbi-for-memos-on-gps-tracking
Court Dismisses Case Based on State Secrets Privilege
A federal court yesterday dismissed a lawsuit which alleged that the Federal Bureau of Investigation had engaged in unlawful surveillance of Muslim residents of southern California. The court granted the Obama Administration’s claim that the state secrets privilege precluded litigation of the case.
The plaintiffs in the case contended that the FBI had "conducted an indiscriminate ‘dragnet’ investigation and gathered personal information about them and other innocent Muslim Americans in Southern California based on their religion." The government said various aspects of the subject were too sensitive to be addressed in open court.
http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2012/08/fazaga_ssp.html
Hackers Steal, Encrypt Health Records and Hold Data for Ransom
As more patient records go digital, a recent hacker attack on a small medical practice shows the big risks involved with electronic files.
The Surgeons of Lake County, located in the affluent northern Illinois suburb of Libertyville, revealed last month that hackers had burrowed deeply into its computer network, infiltrating a server where e-mails and electronic medical records were stored.
But unlike many other data breaches, the hackers made no attempt to keep their presence a secret. In fact, they all but fired a flare to announce the break-in, taking the extreme step of encrypting their illicit haul and posting a digital ransom note demanding payment for the password.
The doctors turned the server off and notified the authorities, refusing to pay.
http://go.bloomberg.com/tech-blog/2012-08-10-hackers-steal-encrypt-health-records-and-hold-data-for-ransom/
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International Outlook
This Week In Internet Censorship: Activists Convicted in Oman, Malware in Nepal, and Wiretapping Bloggers in Russia
More Activists Convicted on Protest-Related Charges in Oman: The dozens of writers, activists, and bloggers who have been arrested on charges connected to their calls for greater freedoms in Oman in May and early June of 2012 have been brought to trial, convicted, and sentenced in recent weeks.
Nepalese Government Website Compromised, Altered to Serve Malware: Last week, Websense reported on its Security Labs Blog that its security researchers had detected the compromise of two Nepalese government websites.
Russian Government Wiretaps Dissident Blogger Alexei Navalny: When Russian anti-corruption blogger Alexei Navalny found a bug hidden inside the wall molding in his office last week, he was not surprised. Russian security services have a long history of extensive surveillance of activists and dissidents, especially those who was outspokenly critical of the Putin regime. Before calling the police, Navalny posted this video of himself and his colleagues taking the surveillance device apart.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/08/week-internet-censorship-activists-convicted-oman-malware-nepal-and-wiretapping
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The Intersect Alert is a newsletter of the Government Relations Committee, San Francisco Bay Region Chapter, Special Libraries Association.