So far, 21 cities and towns have passed resolutions to bar city employees fromcollaborating with federal officials who may try to use unconstitutional powers in the PATRIOT act to investigate city residents.
Similar efforts are underway in another 26 municipalities.
The Bill of Rights Defense Committee is the headquarters for the campaign. Their website includes clear and detailed instructions and tools for promoting these resolutions in other towns.
Thanks to Jeff Bone for the tip.
NYT: Bush Administration to propose system for monitoring the internet.
John Markoff and John Schwartz write:
The Bush administration is planning to propose requiring Internet service providers to help build a centralized system to enable broad monitoring of the Internet and, potentially, surveillance of its users.
A government official, speaking anonymously to the Times reporters,
compared the system to Carnivore, the Internet wiretap system used by the F.B.I., saying: ‘Am I analogizing this to Carnivore? Absolutely. But in fact, it’s 10 times worse. Carnivore was working on much smaller feeds and could not scale. This is looking at the whole Internet.’
Does anyone in the government remember about search warrants?
Privacy, syndication, signage, and more…
Good stuff from David Nunez’ write-up on the Austin Blog meet-up. (I described one of the conversations and he caught most of the conversational meander).
Given David’s penchant for Robotics, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Meet-up sign keeps evolving. It has already evolved from a simple table tent, to a printed sign anchored by a water bottle and held high by a piece of tubing punched into the water bottle lid. David talks about adding an LCD screen, but why stop there? Add some Lego Mindstorms processing and some wheels, and we’d have a sign that could meet us at the door and get us drinks!
Roundup of immigrants in Southern California
who showed up for an INS registration program. You can always count on the real terrorists to turn themselves in.
free our fathers, brothers, husbands and sons
this is a goddamn outrage
this is not my America
confirms the ACLU’s initial fears
Austin-blogger meet-up
At the Austin weblogger meetup, Chris McConnell talked about disliking political bloggers who quote mainstream press articles and write pompous commentary. He is put off by their officious tone, repetition of spoonfed platitudes, and their wannabe air, as if they were interviewing for jobs at the New Republic
This led to a discussion about diagnostics for phony bloggers, whether using weblogs for self-promotion is effective or good, and whether it’s important for one’s politics to be original.
Chris talked about how he likes blogs where people talk from their own experience, and thinks of self-expression as a political act.
I agree that “the personal is political”– I also think that there are times when you want your opinion (however independently considered) to become mainstream. In which case it is good to agree publicly with others, and to help google-amplify stories that come from the mainstream press.
Prentiss Riddle doesn’t find that kind of blogging interesting, and is reluctant to dive into flam-ish blog-conversations with pompous zealot-types. I think that “interesting” is actually a really good filter — a problem with poseur sites is that they’re boring.
Chris didn’t think that the politico-bloggers had any chance of using blogging to break into mass media. I’m not so sure. Blogging by itself probably won’t break you into the big time. But blogging, linking, and commenting are decent ways to meet people. Once you’ve made the introduction, you can do the usual networking.
David Nunez is (from other conversations as well) in favor of using a weblog as a means to promote yourself. I am more ambivalent about this. I am very comfortable and happy with using a blog to meet people with common interests.
But I also know that self-promotion is a game; there is a set of predictable techniques you can use to accrue fame points that can be cashed in for money points or influence points. Write catchy articles. Speak at conferences. Meet people around whom you can meet other people. The game does require some genuine skills. If you’re a bad writer, a boring speaker, a nasty person, you won’t be good at the game. But there’s a playbook; if you follow the playbook, you’re likely to increase your fame points.
The key here, as Jerry Michalski likes to say, is intent. The set of techniques can be used sincerely, to meet people you would like to know, and to work with people you would like to working with. Or they can be used insincerely, to attract attention, to flatter the unwary, and to social climb above your inferiors to reach the “a-list.”
Guys, if I’ve mischaracterized your opinions, please let me know.
peace phone
FTC announces plans for a national do-not-call list
a gazillion articles from Google news.
I screen my home phone most of the time, and can’t persuade myself to buy callerID service since it is a protection racket. The phone companies sell your number, and then they charge you for the privilege of screening out scanners.
The OJ Factor:
via News.com, Elcom has been found not guilty of violating the criminal copyright charges.
Interesting quote: “The jury has the flexibility to think about (ElcomSoft’s motives) and essentially nullify the law if they think it is overreaching,” said Jefferson Scher, a partner at Carr & Ferrell. “I think there’s a little O.J. factor if they decided that the law shouldn’t be read as strictly as it seems to read.”
I look forward to reading more from the lawbloggers on this one.
Google sarcasm filter
People get to my site searching for Jumpline and “leather bound Moby Dick and Kenmore vacuum cleaner manual.
Unfortunately for those visitors, Google doesn’t have a filter for sarcasm and irony.
Who controls your identity?
Anil Dash on how the web changes our expectations of privacy and self-presentation.