Treasury’s Terrorist Finance Program’s Access to Information Held by the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT)
Recent press reports have raised questions about the Department of the Treasury’s Terrorist Finance Tracking Program’s access to information on international financial transactions held by the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), a Brussels-based organization owned by banks [...]
Archive of entries posted on July 2006
New CRS Report on Terror Financing Program’s Access to Global Banking Data
Are Internet Service Providers blocking blogs?
From Rediff News:
Bloggers in India are getting together to protest against the sudden blocking of popular Google-owned blog-hosting site Blogger by some Internet Service Providers (ISPs) like Spectranet, Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL), Reliance Powersurfer, Airtel Broadband and Sify. . .
. . . J Grewal, Spectranet’s Delhi representative at the National Internet exchange of India, [...]
CRS Report Protection of National Security Information
A new Congressional Research Service report:
This report provides background with respect to previous legislative efforts to criminalize the unauthorized disclosure of classified information; describes the current state of the laws that potentially apply, including criminal and civil penalties that can be imposed on violators; and some of the disciplinary actions and administrative procedures available to [...]
Microsoft hands copyright control over to publishers
From Information World Review:
Microsoft has moved further into searching copyright material with its Windows Live Books Publisher Program . Launched in May, the program will be expanded within the coming weeks to accept submissions in digital form, in addition to the print material currently being processed.
This follows Microsoft’s recent move into searching copyrighted content within [...]
Who or What Constitutes Media under the FOIA?
From LLRX.com:
The problem with making a law in the 1970s and then ignoring the fact that technology, commerce and government operations have all changed completely from the time the law was passed, is illustrated by the fee waiver provision for members of the media as set forth in the FOIA.
The FOIA grants fee waivers to [...]
Creative destruction in the library
From the Economist:
Publish or perish runs the adage. The publication of research is the bedrock of scientific careers and the foundation of grant applications. But for many years people have questioned the system’s fairness.
The normal mechanism is that scientists offer the fruits of their research—often bankrolled by the taxpayer—for nothing to publishers. Those publishers then [...]
Specter NSA Bill Shields Administration’s Illegal Wiretaps
From the Center for Democracy and Technology:
Contrary to press reports of a White House compromise on NSA legislation, Senator Specter has agreed to a bill that would shield the Administration from accountability for its illegal warrantless wiretapping. The bill has been erroneously described as requiring judicial review of the President’s warrantless wiretapping program. In fact, [...]
Gracenote, music publishers in lyrics deal
From the Washington Post:
U.S. digital entertainment company Gracenote on Thursday said it obtained licenses to distribute lyrics as music publishers mulled legal action against Web sites that provide them without authorization.
From Big Dig officials: Info under wraps
From the Boston Herald:
Reeling from growing outrage over the deadly tunnel disaster, the Big Dig has thrown a shroud of secrecy over previously public inspection reports and other documents that could show who is to blame for the tragedy.
Officials at both the state Turnpike Authority and Federal Highway Administration yesterday refused to release even basic [...]
China gives Web reporter two-year jail sentence
From News.com:
China sentenced reporter Li Yuanlong to two years in jail on Thursday, adding to its list of writers imprisoned for expressing themselves through the country’s expanding but tightly censored Internet.
Li, who worked on the Bijie Daily in the southwestern province of Guizhou, was detained in September and charged in February with issuing essays that [...]