Archives for December 2005
File the Bin Laden Phone Leak Under ‘Urban Myths’
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Could journalists be the targets?
The NYT reports today that NSA employees are miffed by the eavesdropping story because “domestic surveillance is anathema,” to their agency culture. “Mr. Aid said several agency employees he spoke with on Friday were disturbed to learn of the special program, which was known to only a small number of officials.” Those employees must be asking themselves the same question that a FISA judge asked in the WaPo today, “I need to know more about it to decide whether it was so distasteful. But I wonder: If you’ve got us here, why didn’t you go through us? They’ve said it’s faster [to bypass FISA], but they have emergency authority under FISA, so I don’t know.” The only reason I can think of is that the administration believed that their request would likely be turned down. But what sort of request would this court–infamous for never denying a warrant–turn down this time?The NYT says: “Americans come to the program’s attention only if they have received a call or e-mail message from a person overseas who is already suspected to be a member of certain terrorist groups or linked somehow to a member of such groups.” Who would fit that description better than journalists?
AIM ♥’s GTalk
“Google and AOL plan to let their respective instant messaging features communicate. … The integration pact was announced Tuesday as part of a larger deal.” This might be the real story to come out of the Google-AOL deal. GTalk has just been a lame duck since it was announced, and remember that in October MSN and Yahoo! announced plans to integrate their respective IM clients.Live chat with Judge Posner
Today at 2 p.m. on washingtonpost. com. He writes in today’s WP that domestic surveillance by the Pentagon is just a symptom of a broken FBI. Update: Here’s the link to the chat transcript.Seasonal advice from the dismal science
From Marginal Revolution: “Do not buy gifts for nieces, nephews or grandchildren. Send money if you must, but other gifts will be spectacularly incompetent. Using questionnaires, Joel Waldfogel famously revealed (in an article entitled ‘The Deadweight Loss of Christmas’) that the typical $50 gift is valued at between $35 and $43 by the ungrateful recipient, but that gifts from grandparents, aunts and uncles were even less welcome.”AFF Radio, with your host, me
The new edition of the monthly podcast AFF Radio is now up for your listening pleasure. This month, I got to try my hand at hosting. It was fun, and I hope you’ll have a listen. The show’s panelists are Tim Carney, author of the forthcoming book, The Big Ripoff: How Big Business and Big Government Steal Your Money; attorney and columnist James Markels; Brendan Conway of the Washington Times editorial board; writer Mollie Ziegler; and Julian Sanchez, associate editor of Reason magazine. Topics covered in the podcast include:- How to advance your career without forsaking your ethics. Several political writers have been accused recently of accepting undisclosed payments from lobbyist Jack Abramoff for their political journalism. Panelists discuss the boundaries of ethical behavior and how to prevent such scandals in the future.
- Is torture an acceptable tool in the war on terrorism?
- Reconciling the ambitious Bush foreign policy with the people’s desire for an all-volunteer military and low military casualties.
- Mollie Ziegler and Julian Sanchez debate protecting Christmas from secular commercialism and protecting secular commerce from religion.
- The “Outrage of the Month” feature, in which panelists describe the recent political happening they have found most contemptible.
Here’s the link to get it from iTunes.
Is the FCC getting desperate?
So I’m working on a paper on cable franchising and was reading the FCC’s latest proposed rulemaking on the topic (PDF). In it they claim the authority to preempt local franchise regulations that are barriers to entry. They FCC finds authority to do this in Section 621(a)(1) of the Communications Act, which states that local authorities “may not unreasonably refuse to award an additional competitive franchise.” So far so good.I get to the last item in their “authority” section and there they ask, “Finally, we seek comment on possible sources of Commission authority, other than Section 621(a)(1), to address problems caused by the local franchising process. For example … could the Commission take action to address franchise-related concerns pursuant to Section 706?” So I ask myself, what’s Section 706? Imagine my surprise when I turned to that section and found, “SEC. 706. [47 U.S.C. 606] WAR EMERGENCY–POWERS OF PRESIDENT.” The section goes on to say that in time of war the president can commandeer the airwaves and other communications facilities, etc.
This has got to be a typo. Right?
Cross-posted at TLF. You can leave and read comments there. →
~Rothko
My Christmas present from Jacinda. I love it.
Gonzales defends domestic eavesdropping
Attorney General Gonzales said today, “Our position is that the authorization to use military force which was passed by the Congress shortly after Sept. 11 constitutes that authority [to wiretap the conversatioins of American citizens without a warrant].” Secretary of State Rice said yesterday, “[The president] has constitutional authorities that derive from his role as commander in chief and his need to protect the country. He has acted within his constitutional authority and within statutory authority.” President Bush claims to support the strict construction of the Constitution and the laws. So, let’s take a look at the Fourth Amendment:The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Now let’s look at the powers of the president as commander-in-chief found in Article II:
The President shall be commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several states, when called into the actual service of the United States; he may require the opinion, in writing, of the principal officer in each of the executive departments, upon any subject relating to the duties of their respective offices, and he shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment.
Finally, let’s look at the operative part of the congressional joint resolution authorizing the president to use force after the September 11 attacks,
That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.
Last time I checked, acts of Congress can’t undo the Constitution. This one in particular authorizes only “appropriate” force, and I would think that unconstituionality is a good measure of inappropriateness. I’m also not sure what in Article II would allow the president to ignore the Fourth Amendment.
President Discusses Iraq in Address to the Nation
Bush: “September 11th, 2001 required us to take every emerging threat to our country seriously, and it shattered the illusion that terrorists attack us only after we provoke them. On that day, we were not in Iraq, we were not in Afghanistan, but the terrorists attacked us anyway - and killed nearly 3,000 men, women, and children in our own country.” We were in Saudi Arabia!!NYT features dude who invented the walkman
The story details his legal fight to get paid by Sony. More interesting, though, is people’s reaction to the crazy idea of taking your music with you.Over the next few years, he took his invention to one audio company after another - Grundig, Philips, Yamaha and ITT among them - to see if there was interest in manufacturing his device. But everywhere he went, he said, he met with rejection or ridicule.
“They all said they didn’t think people would be so crazy as to run around with headphones, that this is just a gadget, a useless gadget of a crazy nut,” he said.
In New York, where he moved in 1974, and then in Milan, where he relocated in 1976, “people would look at me sometimes on a bus, and you could see they were asking themselves, why is this crazy man running around with headphones?”
Very, very disappointing.
Businessweek: “[Doug Bandow, a] senior fellow at the Cato Institute resigned from the libertarian think tank on Dec. 15 after admitting that he had accepted payments from indicted Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff for writing op-ed articles favorable to the positions of some of Abramoff’s clients.” This is awful for our collective credibility, which already hurting. Taking contributions that support one’s advocacy for a position one would have advocated anyway is one thing, but quid pro quo is shameful.The Advocate: Can we stop with the bravery thing?
Advocate: “Everyone who’s tired of the media—and Madonna—calling Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger ‘brave’ for acting in Brokeback Mountain, please raise your hands. Then say it with me: ‘poppycock’”NYT: Bush Lets U.S. Spy on Callers Without Courts
NYT: “Months after the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States to search for evidence of terrorist activity without the court-approved warrants ordinarily required for domestic spying, according to government officials. Under a presidential order signed in 2002, the intelligence agency has monitored the international telephone calls and international e-mail messages of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people inside the United States without warrants over the past three years in an effort to track possible ‘dirty numbers’ linked to Al Qaeda, the officials said.”If these are numbers linked to Al Qaeda, then why can’t they get a warrant–specially a FISA warrant? This is scandalous. How are we any different from Cuba or Syria, countries which routinely spy on their citizen’s international telephone conversations.
HarperCollins scans its own books.
HarperCollins announced yesterday that they were scanning their books into their own database and then planned to give Google and other search engines access to that database, but on their terms. Both Techdirt and Tim Lee question the purpose of this move, Techdirt chalks it up to old media’s obsession with control, while Tim thinks the initiative is pointless since it doesn’t necessarily reduce the total number of digital copies in circulation. I don’t know if it’s a good move or a bad one, but I certainly don’t think it’s pointless and actually think it makes lots of sense.Techdirt is right that this is about control — legal control. If you do a Google or Yahoo! search for this site (jerrybrito.com), you’ll notice that there is no cache available. Also, if you go to the Internet Archive, you won’t find this site there. That’s because I’ve exercised my prerogative to control how search engines use the digital copies of my site, over which I have copyright. HarperCollins is looking to do much of the same. The question, then, is, to what end? I can think of several reasons.
- They want to retain the option of charging for access to their database. Nothing in HarperCollins’ actions require them to give Google permission to use their database for free.
- They don’t want Google to be the only universal library out there because then they will be at the mercy of Google. By making their content available to all search engines they foster competition and check Google. That also increases the value of no. 1. It also makes economic sense. I’m sure Yahoo!, MSN, AOL, Alexa, and much smaller search engines would rather license access to a publisher database (in exchange for revenue sharing probably) than each scan the books themselves. The publishers could make a tidy profit this way–even if they lose the Google suit.
- It helps them with their lawsuit against Google. First, it arguably shows that Google does not need to rely on fair use to create a book search library; Google could “borrow” or license from the publishers. HarperCollins could tell a court, “Our web book database is like any other website in the world. Google is committed to not offering a public cache of sites that opt-out. That is why they don’t offer a public cache of the articles behind the NYT’s paywall, even though those stories are indexed. Our books are no different. If they want to offer snippets, they can ask for permission.” Second, if Google does have to ask for permission, and possibly pay a fee or share revenue for access to the database, that supports the notion that there is a “potential market” for licensing digital book databases, which is a factor in the statutory fair use analysis.
(Let me be clear, though: If I was a court I wouldn’t buy this argument because Google does need to copy if it wants to create a universal library. If it had to license every book, transactions costs would stop them.)
- It may be fashionable to say that the dinosaurs are obsessed with control, but it’s only reasonable that a company would want to have a say in how its assets are utilized. By controlling their own database, HarperCollins gets to set its own terms instead of letting Google do whatever it wants. What’s the length of a snippet? Which books will be made available? Will some pages not be available? Will promotional material accompany the scan? Who knows what else. HarperCollins, reasonably, would rather control these factors than let Google do so at no charge.
Political Wire: Meet the Press Moves Online
PW: “Starting this weekend, NBC News announced it will webcast Meet the Press in its entirety, free of charge and on-demand. The online version will be available at 1:00 pm ET on Sunday afternoons at mtp.msnbc.com.”WP: The French unveil a government program to get business to stop relying on government programs
WP: “The notion of a notoriously bureaucratic French government stage-managing innovations in the high-tech sector — typically known for fierce competition and a libertarian ethos — seems paradoxical. But in France, business remains a risk-averse activity in which industry looks to the government for succor. Proponents say this is precisely what makes the initiative necessary: France has proven skilled at research but weak at transforming ideas into money — a step requiring government orchestration.”Publishers: Kelly’s OK, Google Book Search is not
I just finished reading the complaint (PDF) by the publishers in their suit against Google. Two things struck me. The first is that they are not asking for damages; only injunctive relief. If Google was found liable of willful infringement, it would be on the hook for up to $150,000 per book scanned. The Author’s Guild suit, on the other hand, does ask for damages, which has caused much consternation. The second interesting thing is that rather than challenging Kelly v. Arriba-Soft, the publishers are merely trying to distinguish it. Here’s what they say:Google analogizes the Google Library Project’s scanning of entire books to its reproduction of the content of websites for search purposes. This comparison fails. On the Internet, website owners have allowed their sites to be searchable via a Google (or other) search engine by not adopting one or more technological measures. That is not true of printed books found in library shelves. Moreover, books in libraries can be researched in a variety of ways without unauthorized copying. There is, therefore, no “need,” as Google would have it, to scan copyrighted books.
So what do these things mean? Is it just magnanimity on their part of the publishers? It could be that while the authors and their lawyers are just acting like one would expect a class in a class action suit to act (maximize damages), the publishers want to continue to work with Google on (what used to be called) Google Print Publisher, so they don’t want to destroy Google. On the Kelly point, I think this signals that the publishers understand that a court would have to be unbelievably shortsighted not to see the wisdom of Kelly, e.g. that a fantastically valuable set of services (search engines for starters) would be destroyed if they were saddled with the impossible transactions costs of having to ask permission of each site indexed. Maybe the publishers have figured out that their best course is to show that books are different. Of course, they’re not.
Cross-posted at TLF. You can leave and read comments there. →
Distinguishing Kelly
I just finished reading the complaint (PDF) by the publishers in their suit against Google. Two things struck me. The first is that they are not asking for damages; only injunctive relief. If Google was found liable of willful infringement, it would be on the hook for up to $150,000 per book scanned. The Author’s Guild suit, on the other hand, does ask for damages, which has caused much consternation. The second interesting thing is that rather than challenging Kelly v. Arriba-Soft, the publishers are merely trying to distinguish it. Here’s what they say:Google analogizes the Google Library Project’s scanning of entire books to its reproduction of the content of websites for search purposes. This comparison fails. On the Internet, website owners have allowed their sites to be searchable via a Google (or other) search engine by not adopting one or more technological measures. That is not true of printed books found in library shelves. Moreover, books in libraries can be researched in a variety of ways without unauthorized copying. There is, therefore, no “need,” as Google would have it, to scan copyrighted books.
So what do these things mean? Is it just magnanimity on their part of the publishers? It could be that while the authors and their lawyers are just acting like one would expect a class in a class action suit to act (maximize damages), the publishers want to continue to work with Google on (what used to be called) Google Print Publisher, so they don’t want to destroy Google. On the Kelly point, I think this signals that the publishers understand that a court would have to be unbelievably shortsighted not to see the wisdom of Kelly, e.g. that a fantastically valuable set of services (search engines for starters) would be destroyed if they were saddled with the impossible transactions costs of having to ask permission of each site indexed. Maybe the publishers have figured out that their best course is to show that books are different. Of course, they’re not.
Harry Potter and the Half-Crazed Bureaucracy by Benjamin Barton
“This Essay examines what the Harry Potter series tells us about government and bureaucracy. … The most cold-blooded public choice theorist could not present a bleaker portrait of a government captured by special interests and motivated solely by a desire to increase bureaucratic power and influence.” (Link.)-
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