The
June 29 edition of the Watcher, the newsletter of
OMB Watch, has an article about the public release of Environmental Protection Agency’s Toxic Release Inventory data and publications. The article notes:
While EPA posted the TRI data online, it no longer publishes a full Public Data Release (PDR), which includes
easy-to-understand overviews of the data, detailed [...]
OMB Watch – FBI Used Controversial Patriot Act Provision
The FBI applied to use a section of the USA Patriot Act less than a month after Attorney General John Ashcroft stated it had never been used, according to new documents. Section 215 allows the government to track the public’s reading habits in bookstores and libraries…
Comments to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Advisory Committee on the Enforcement of Industrial Property Rights (ACE/IP) on Social Aspects of Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights by James Love.
28 June 2004.
James Love is the Director of the
Consumer Project on Technology (CPTech). Among the topics he addresses are:
The relationship between privacy and copyright [...]
The Importance of…: The Obsessively Annotated Introduction to the INDUCE Act by Ernest Miller.
June 24, 2004.
More here on the Inducing Infringement of Copyrights Act of 2004 (S.2560). Here is a lengthy statement by Orin Hatch, scrupulously, humorously, seriously, obsesively annotated by Ernest Miller.
Enjoy.
“Ernest Miller pursues research and writing on cyberlaw, intellectual [...]
Foreign Lobbyist Database Could Vanish
By Kevin Bogardus.
Center for Public Integrity, June 28, 2004.
Justice Department officials say a huge database that serves as the public’s lone window on lobbying activities by foreign governments has been allowed to decay to a point they cannot even make a copy of its contents.
This item from the Center for Public [...]
LibraryLaw Blog: Library computer authentication
Library Law Blog points to and comments on an article,
To Use That Library Computer, Please Identify Yourself,
By Scott Carlson. Chronicle of Higher Education
June 25, 2004 Volume 50, Issue 42, Page A39
[subscription required for online access].
Marc Rotenberg of the Electronic Privacy Information Center is quoted in the article:
Authentication cannot be compared [...]
Anti-Piracy Bill Creates Split In Technology Community
by Sarah Lai Stirland.
National Journal’s Technology Daily, June 25, 2004, PM Edition. [subscription required]
Battle lines are drawn again and this useful, short story from National Journal gives a good overview of the players. On the one hand are the Business Software Alliance (BSA), the Motion Picture [...]
Microsoft, Apple snub consumer freedom coalition By Andrew Orlowski, The Register,
Published Wednesday 23rd June 2004 04:07 GMT.
…when Apple’s head lawyer for its iTunes Music Store told EFF attorney Fred Von Lohmann last month that it would keep DRM even if it didn’t have to, its true strategy became clear: DRM is a competitive weapon, and [...]
Silicon Valley – Dan Gillmor’s eJournal – Opinion Laundering Thrives
Gillmor comments on Tim Lambert’s interesting piece, When Think Tanks Attack (23 Jun 2004), which posits that the many think tanks that oppose open source are funded by Microsoft. Gillmor calls this general trend of interest groups hiding behind others “opinion laundering.”
The Importance of…: The Broadcast Flag Treaty – Draft Available
Ernest Miller’s April posting on his Corante blog
“The Importance of…” covers the World Intellectual Property Organization’s draft Treaty for the Protection of Broadcasting Organizations and the “broadcast flag” provisions. Lots of links to background, commments, and full text of relevant provisions. This would give broadcasters [...]
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