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Lawrence Lessig calls for a Constitutional amendment on campaign financing

Cory Doctorow Boing Boing

Eric sez, "Today, Larry Lessig announced his call for a constitutional convention to fundamentally address the problem of money in politics by passing a Constitutional amendment. he posted today."

The procedural point is more fundamental, and comes in two parts: First, no one should distract Congress from the one good thing it could do right now -- pass the Fair Elections Now Act. That would be a huge victory; it is a possible victory; and we are defeating the cause of reform if we do anything that jeopardizes that possible win.

And second, we all need to recognize that America is uncertain about how best to fix our government right now. From the Tea Party Right to the Progressive Left, there is agreement that something fundamental has gone wrong. But I believe that our frustrations share a common source -- an exasperation with the broken state of our political system -- even as we disagree passionately on what to do about it.

The solution to that disagreement is democracy. We should begin the long discussion about how best to reform our democracy, to restore its commitment to liberty and a Republic, by beginning a process to amend the Constitution through the one path the Framers gave us that has not yet been taken -- a Convention.

Call a Convention (Thanks, Eric!)
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Mentioning Android Is a No-No In iPhone App Store

kdawson Slashdot: Your Rights Online

donberryman writes "Apple has told a software developer that its application cannot be included in the iPhone App Store if it mentions Google Android. The developer just wanted to mention that the app was a finalist in Google's Android Developer's Challenge." The developer complied with apparent good humor. Here is their blog post, which includes the text of the iPhone store's not-quite-rejection.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Santa Fe Institute economist: one in four Americans is employed to guard the wealth of the rich

Cory Doctorow Boing Boing

Here's a fascinating profile on radical Santa Fe Institute economist Samuel Bowles, an empiricist who says his research doesn't support the Chicago School efficient marketplace hypothesis. Instead, Bowles argues that the wealth inequality created by strict market economics creates inefficiencies because society has to devote so much effort to stopping the poor from expropriating the rich. He calls this "guard labor" and says that one in four Americans is employed to in the sector -- labor that could otherwise be used to increase the nation's wealth and progress.

The greater the inequalities in a society, the more guard labor it requires, Bowles finds. This holds true among US states, with relatively unequal states like New Mexico employing a greater share of guard labor than relatively egalitarian states like Wisconsin.

The problem, Bowles argues, is that too much guard labor sustains "illegitimate inequalities," creating a drag on the economy. All of the people in guard labor jobs could be doing something more productive with their time--perhaps starting their own businesses or helping to reduce the US trade deficit with China.

Guard labor supports what one might call the beat-down economy. Community Action's Porter sees it all the time.

"We have based almost everything we have done on the idea that we always need a part of our workforce that is marginalized--that we can call this group into action at any time, pay them nothing and they will do anything that needs to be done," she says.

More discouraging, perhaps, is the statistical fact that a person born into this workforce has little chance of rising beyond it.

Born Poor? (via MeFi)
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'Don't Be Evil,' Meet 'Spy on Everyone': How the NSA Deal Could Kill Google

Xeni Jardin Boing Boing

Noah Shachtman at Wired "Danger Room" writes: "The company once known for its 'don't be evil' motto is now in bed with the spy agency known for the mass surveillance of American citizens." More on why NSA is a particularly untrustworthy partner for Google: 'Don't Be Evil,' Meet 'Spy on Everyone': How the NSA Deal Could Kill Google

Greenwald on claimed "war exception" to the Constitution

Xeni Jardin Boing Boing

Glenn Greenwald in Salon has an update on news that "the Obama administration has adopted the Bush policy of targeting selected American citizens for assassination if they are deemed (by the Executive Branch) to be Terrorists." Greenwald argues this policy "basically gives the President the power to impose death sentences on his own citizens without any charges or trial."

Report: Google in talks with NSA to team up on defense partnership

Xeni Jardin Boing Boing

goog.jpg

"The world's largest Internet search company and the world's most powerful electronic surveillance organization are teaming up in the name of cybersecurity," reads the opening line from this Washington Post report. The National Security Agency is reported to be finalizing an agreement with Google to analyze the recent and much-publicized hack attack Google says originated in China, targeting its networks. The point of the partnership is to help defend Google and Google users from future breaches. Snip:

Google and the NSA declined to comment on the partnership. But sources with knowledge of the arrangement, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the alliance is being designed to allow the two organizations to share critical information without violating Google's policies or laws that protect the privacy of Americans' online communications. The sources said the deal does not mean the NSA will be viewing users' searches or e-mail accounts or that Google will be sharing proprietary data.

The partnership strikes at the core of one of the most sensitive issues for the government and private industry in the evolving world of cybersecurity: how to balance privacy and national security interests. On Tuesday, Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair called the Google attacks, which the company acknowledged in January, a "wake-up call." Cyberspace cannot be protected, he said, without a "collaborative effort that incorporates both the U.S. private sector and our international partners."

Washington Post: Google to enlist NSA to help it ward off cyberattacks (via Danger Room)

More around the web: CNET, Reuters, Wall Street Journal, Firedoglake.

Obama has yet to fill empty seats at civil liberties watchdog committee

Cory Doctorow Boing Boing

It's been a year and Obama has yet to fill the empty seats on the government's main civil liberties oversight committee:
The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board was recommended initially by the bipartisan September 11 commission as an institutional voice for privacy inside the intelligence community. Its charter was to recommend ways to mitigate the effects of far-reaching surveillance technology that the federal government uses to track terrorists...

On Friday, two leading Democrats -- Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, and Rep. Jane Harman of California, chairman of that panel's subcommittee on intelligence, information sharing and terrorism risk assessment -- sent a letter to Mr. Obama demanding action.

"We write to urge you to appoint individuals to the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board immediately. Your FY2010 budget appropriates funds for this board, but it remains unfulfilled," the lawmakers wrote.

The two Democrats noted that previous letters to Mr. Obama, including one from Mrs. Harman and Sen. Susan Collins, Maine Republican and ranking member of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, "remain unanswered."

The lawmakers said the need for the oversight panel is particularly urgent in light of proposed changes to terrorist-screening rules at airports after the attempted Christmas Day attack on a Northwest jet bound for Detroit.

Liberties oversight panel gets short shrift (Thanks, Marilyn!)

(Image: Cerberus: entry for Bruce Schneier's TSA logo competition, a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike image from bazzr's photostream)

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Same-sex marriage is bad, but Prop 8 lawyers don't know why

Xeni Jardin Boing Boing

gaymar.jpg BB reader Laszlo Thoth writes,
I've always been puzzled by the strong opposition to same-sex marriage. I just don't see what's so bad about it. I have no idea what the harm is. I've talked to many supporters of CA Prop 8 but they haven't been able to tell me either.

Last night I was reading an October 14 transcript from Perry v. Schwarzenegger, the case that's deciding the constitutionality of CA Prop 8. I was surprised to discover that apparently *nobody* knows what the problem is with same-sex marriage. Not the plaintiffs, not the defendants, and not the judge, who seems more than a little surprised by this.

The whole transcript is 104 double-spaced pages (PDF Link), all of which are worth reading, but I've excerpted the good bits.

[PHOTO - "intolerance," CC-licensed image by Joseph Robertson. "Spotted this stencil on the back of a truck down by the fish processing plant. This appears to be the truck owner's genius contribution to the debate involving Oregon state ammendment 36, which passed last year, altering the state's constitution to ban same-sex marriages."]

Macmillan CEO on Amazon deletepocalypse

Cory Doctorow Boing Boing

John Sargent, Macmillan USA's CEO, has issued a statement on the Amazon deletion of an appreciable fraction of all of English literature from its store. He confirms that this is a strong-arm tactic in a pricing war. (via Making Light)

Obama Reverses Position on Disclosing Lobbyist Contacts

kurt EFF.org Updates

In yesterday's State of the Union address, President Obama made an important commitment to openness and transparency in government:

It's time to require lobbyists to disclose each contact they make on behalf of a client with my Administration or Congress.

This is welcome news. For the past few years, EFF has been litigating a Freedom of Information Act case against the government, seeking the identities of lobbyists who contacted the Department of Justice and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence on behalf of their telecommunications company clients in order to push for telecom immunity. With the help of lobbyists from AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint, the FISA Amendments Act passed with an unconstitutional provision to retroactively grant immunity to the telecoms for collaborating with the warrantless wiretapping program.

So far, the Obama Administration has been fighting hard to stop the release of the names of these representatives, appealing a court order that required disclosure. Just last month, the Obama Administration argued to the appeals court that "there is no public interest in the compelled disclosure of the representatives’ identities." To the contrary, the Administration argued, lobbyists had a "significant privacy interest in being able to communicate confidentially with the government."

While it's great to see Obama reverse his position in the State of the Union and acknowledge the strong public interest in disclosure of lobbying records, the Administration must do more than give speeches in order to fulfill its commitment to transparency. Instead, Obama must apply this policy to pending litigation, and release the identities of telecommunications representatives who lobbied for immunity for the their telecommunications carrier clients.

Productivity in 11 Words [Quotables]

Adam Pash Lifehacker

"One thing at a time. Most important thing first. Start now." [Skelliewag via @scottros] Photo by koalazymonkey.



Ballmer Defends Microsoft In China

CmdrTaco Slashdot: Your Rights Online

An anonymous reader writes "Mr. Ballmer has recently posted on the official Microsoft blog discussing future business in China and defending Microsoft's stance of cooperating with the government even as other large IT companies have begun making public condemnations (Google and Twitter being the most prominent). Couple this with Bill Gate's speech on China's censorship being not all that bad (a speech very well received by Chinese media) and you've got people wondering: Is Microsoft aiming to take Google's place in China?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

iPad Is a "Huge Step Backward"

CmdrTaco Slashdot: Your Rights Online

An anonymous reader writes "FSF's John Sullivan launches the Defective by Design campaign and petition to rain on Steve's parade, barely minutes out of the starting gate. 'This is a huge step backward in the history of computing,' said FSF's Holmes Wilson, 'If the first personal computers required permission from the manufacturer for each new program or new feature, the history of computing would be as dismally totalitarian as the milieu in Apple's famous Super Bowl ad.' The iPad has DRM writ large: you can only install what Apple says you may, and 'computing' goes consumer mainstream — no more twiddling, just sit back, spend your money, and watch the show — while we allow you to." What is clear is that the rise of the App Store removes control of the computer from the user. It makes me wonder what the next generation of OS X will look like.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Book Sharing Bankrupting Publishing Industry!

Jessamyn West Boing Boing

pirate-librarians.jpgLibrarians are the worst sort of pirates. Eric Hellman has a wry look at how Offline Book "Lending" Costs U.S. Publishers Nearly $1 Trillion
To get to the bottom of this story, Go To Hellman has dispatched its Senior Piracy Analyst (me) to Boston, where a mass meeting of alleged book traffickers is to take place. Over 10,000 are expected at the "ALA Midwinter" event. Even at the Amtrak station in New York City this morning, at the very the heart of the US publishing industry, book trafficking culture was evident, with many travelers brazenly displaying the totebags used to transport printed contraband.

As soon as I got off the train, I was surrounded by even more of this crowd. Calling themselves "Librarians", they talk about promoting literacy, education, culture and economic development, which are, of course, code words for the use and dispersal of intellectual property. They readily admit to their activities, and rationalize them because they're perfectly legal in the US, at least for now.

For a more serious look at library economics, I suggest Hellman's post Why Libraries Exist where he cites a study comparing circulating libraries and video rental stores The study included the effects of transaction costs, production costs and the different values of owning and sharing, and found that library-like sharing benefits both publishers and consumers when the transaction cost of sharing is less than the marginal production cost:



1) more books will be read;

2) consumers will pay a lower price per reading;

3) the sellers will make a higher profit; and,

4) consumers will be better off.


See also: Confessions of a Book Pirate.


[image http://www.flickr.com/photos/sylvar/ / CC BY 2.0]

[via copyfight]



Hysteria About "Profanity" Is 100 TIMES MORE DESTRUCTIVE THAN NUCLEAR WAR!!!

(author unknown) Woot! - One Day, One Deal

OK, maybe not. But it is, at least, sort of sad when respected institutions are splattered with the mud of the immature dirty mind. This week, the Canadian National History Society announced that they'd be changing the name of their 90-year-old magazine, The Beaver, because profanity and spam filters were making it difficult for teachers and students to access their online material.

Now, it's been a couple of decades since I was any kind of kid, but I've never in my life heard a contemporary use "beaver" in its, um, vulgar slang sense. Maybe things are different in Canada, maybe web filters are all set up by 80-year-olds, or maybe the kids these days are really getting into retro naughty slang. In any case, the magazine will henceforth be known as Canada's History. But what will become of young Theodore Cleaver?

Tripping up an outfit like the Canadian National History Society is one thing - but mighty Merriam-Webster, publishers of the standard dictionaries found in just about every school? Yes, they've run afoul of some parents in Riverside County, California, for including the phrase "oral sex". Seems to me I'd rather have my kids learn about such things from a dull grey eminence like Merriam-Webster than from an equally confused classmate (or, God forbid, the Internet). The dictionary's definition of the act - "oral stimulation of the genitals" - makes it sound about as arousing as a tonsillectomy.

Am I the weirdo here, or do these both seem like cases of overreaction to you, too? I feel sorry for any kid who has to research rapeseed or pussywillows. And I'll tell you one thing: nobody, but nobody better mess with Albert Pujols.

                  

Chertoff needs to get paid

Rob Beschizza Boing Boing

chertoff1.jpg In an article published by the Washington Post, former Homeland Security secretary Michael Chertoff warns America of the need to install body-imaging screening machines at airports. He rails against critics of the devices, accusing them of being ideologues setting out to 'alarm the public.' At the foot of the piece, the fig leaf: "Chertoff ... is co-founder of the Chertoff Group, a security and risk-management firm whose clients include a manufacturer of body-imaging screening machines."

The cost of health care around the world

Mark Frauenfelder Boing Boing

201001251015

Health care cost per person per year on left, life expectancy on right.

Related: a futile attempt to use logic to convince teabaggers to stop hurting themselves.

Health care cost -vs- life expectancy chart from National Geographic.

Activist ejected from "public" meeting on secret copyright treaty for tweeting

Cory Doctorow Boing Boing


The latest round of negotiations over the Anti Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA -- a secret treaty that contains provisions requiring nations to wiretap the Internet, force ISPs to spy on users, search laptops at the border, and disconnect whole households from the net on the basis of mere accusation of copyright infringement) is just kicking off in Mexico, and activists from around Mexico and the world have converged on the meeting to demand transparent, public negotiations of this critical treaty.

True to the secretive, crony-capitalist nature of this treaty, the organizers have done everything they can to harass and intimidate observers. Attendees at the so-called "public meeting" were booed by representatives from big business, and they ejected an activist for using Twitter to post updates on what was being said in the room.

There was even an effort to force members of the public who attended the meeting to sign non-disclosure agreements, though outrage forced them to reconsider.

This is not how the world makes its copyright laws. In years gone by, copyright treaties were made by the UN, in full sight of NGOs, the public and the press. Now that copyright touches everything we do on the Internet -- from political organizing to health care to basic education and communication -- we need more transparency and due process, not a retreat to smoke-filled rooms where lobbyists from privileged industry groups do an end-run around democratic process.

REPTILIA: crónica de la reunión en el IMPI por Geraldine Juárez

ACTA - consulta del IMPI en México

(Thanks, Geraldine and Paolo!)

(Image: 2propuestas para el #TwitterShowcase 24 #ACTA #openACTA, a Creative Commons Attribution image from N3T1O™'s photostream)

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Verizon Terminates Copyright Infringers' Internet Access

(author unknown) Wired Top Stories - PostRank (PostRank: Best)

Verizon is terminating internet access to repeat copyright offenders. The move comes as the recording and motion picture industries are lobbying ISPs and Congress to support so-called three-strikes policies.


Constitutional amendment petition: run government for people, not monied interests

Cory Doctorow Boing Boing

The Campaign to Legalize Democracy is circulating a petition in response to yesterday's ruling that legalized unlimited political bribery by corporations in the USA. Signatories include Bill Moyer, Howard Zinn, Jim Hightower, Billl McKibben, and Tom Hayden.

We, the People of the United States of America, reject the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Citizens United, and move to amend our Constitution to:

* Firmly establish that money is not speech, and that human beings, not corporations, are persons entitled to constitutional rights.

* Guarantee the right to vote and to participate, and to have our votes and participation count.

* Protect local communities, their economies, and democracies against illegitimate "preemption" actions by global, national, and state governments.

"We the corporations" (Thanks, Rodney!)
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