Chechnya’s Crackdown on Gays; New York Times, April 24, 2017

Editorial Board, New York Times; 

Chechnya’s Crackdown on Gays

[Kip Currier: I was recently thumbing through a file folder of comic strips and Op-Eds I've bookmarked over the years and came across this one by the brilliant political cartoonist Rob Rogers, featured frequently in The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. The cartoon is from 2007 but is eerily timely, and reminiscent of recent statements by Chechnya’s leader Ramzan Kadyrov and his administration, denying the very existence of gays, while euphemistically threatening "such people" with death. Frank Bruni's Food, Sex and Silence trenchantly points out "how often oppression is an act of omission rather than commission". Chilling first-hand reports from Chechen gay men and human rights groups show how oppression is also waged through both strategies.] 

[The Guardian, April 21, 2017] "Previously, Kadyrov’s spokesman Alvi Karimov denied the reports of the purge, saying there were no gay people in Chechnya. “If there were such people in Chechnya, law enforcement agencies wouldn’t need to have anything to do with them because their relatives would send them somewhere from which there is no returning,” he said."

[The New York Times Editorial Board, April 24, 2017] 

"The crimes in Chechnya have presented the Trump administration with its first major test on this issue on the international stage. Last Monday, Nikki Haley, the American ambassador to the United Nations, issued a strong statement calling for a prompt investigation and accountability for the culprits.

“We are against all forms of discrimination, including against people based on sexual orientation,” Ms. Haley said. “When left unchecked, discrimination and human rights abuses can lead to destabilization and conflict.”

It would be encouraging to see Ms. Haley take on this cause with as much passion and perseverance as her predecessor, Samantha Power. Without American leadership, forging a global consensus that gay rights are human rights will take longer. Time is not on the side of gay people living in terror in places like Chechnya."

Unroll.me head 'heartbroken' that users found out it sells their inbox data; Guardian, April 24, 2017

Alex Hern, Guardian; 

Unroll.me head 'heartbroken' that users found out it sells their inbox data

"Following the story, Unroll.me’s CEO and co-founder Jojo Hedaya wrote a corporate blogpost in which he expressed contrition. But while he said it was “heartbreaking”, he was not talking about the sale of customer data: instead, he said he felt bad “to see that some of our users were upset to learn about how we monetise our free service”.

He added: “the reality is most of us – myself included – don’t take the time to thoroughly review” terms of service agreements or privacy policies."

‘Remix’ or plagiarism? Artists battle over a Chicago mural of Michelle Obama.; Washington Post, April 24, 2017

Derek Hawkins, Washington Post; ‘Remix’ or plagiarism? Artists battle over a Chicago mural of Michelle Obama.

"Devins’s mural had only been up for a matter of hours when word got back to Mesfin. She objected to the use of her work without permission in a widely circulated Instagram post that triggered a wave of outrage online, saying she felt like Devins stole her piece.

“I was very disheartened when he did that,” Mesfin told The Washington Post. “There’s a common code among all artists that you can get inspired by someone’s work but you have to pay homage and you have to give credit for it.”...

Devins said he never intended to take credit for Mesfin’s creation, which itself was based off a portrait in the New York Times by photographer Collier Schorr. Mesfin credited Schorr’s work on her Instagram post...

Devins said he came across Mesfin’s drawing on the sharing site Pinterest and was unable to track down the artist. He explained his decision to use the image without permission in an analogy, saying he was creating a “remix” of a piece of art in the way that a DJ remixes songs."

Food, Sex and Silence; New York Times, April 22, 2017

Frank Bruni, New York Times; 

Food, Sex and Silence

"The discrepancy between accounts of Beard up until his death and posthumous assessments like “America’s First Foodie” remind me of how often oppression is an act of omission rather than commission: not letting people give voice and vent to much of what moves them and to all of what defines them; not recognizing and honoring that ourselves.

I’m struck, too, by the nature of lies. They’re not just statements. They’re silences that fail to confront bad as well as beautiful things, often with grievous consequences.

[Ted] Allen thought about all the L.G.B.T. kids back then who were denied a role model. He thought about how the editing of Beard’s life shortchanged a minority group’s major contribution to American gastronomy. Claiborne, too, was in this minority, as the writer John Birdsall pointed out in a 2014 essay for the magazine Lucky Peach that was titled “America, Your Food Is So Gay.”

But Allen said that he thought in particular about all “the well-known people whose homosexuality was buried along with them,” and how that distorted and continues to distort our views of L.G.B.T. Americans."

O’Reilly, Ousted; New York Times, April 20, 2017

David Leonhardt, New York Times; 

O’Reilly, Ousted

"Rupert Murdoch tried to make his firing of Bill O’Reilly seem as if it were based on morality. In a letter to Fox News employees (obtained by CNN’s Brian Stelter), Murdoch wrote that “we want to underscore our consistent commitment to fostering a work environment built on the values of trust and respect.”

This claim is false, and Murdoch’s use of “consistent” is especially rich. O’Reilly’s pattern of harassing women has been clear for more than a decade. Megan Garber of The Atlantic has a useful review — incomplete, no doubt — of his behavior...

But if O’Reilly’s firing wasn’t based on morals, it is still a victory for morality. A man who spent years abusing people less wealthy and powerful than him has lost his large public stage, in a very public way. His legacy — like that of his old boss, Roger Ailes — will always involve his ugly abusiveness."

Alex Jones, You’re a Real Sicko; Daily Beast, April 23, 2017

Matt Lewis, Daily Beast;
Alex Jones, You’re a Real Sicko

"What is more, starting or spreading conspiracy theories—warning of false flags and ginning up the worries and fears of people who might already be struggling with reality—could result in horrific repercussions.

It’s one thing to sincerely believe the theories you spout out for public consumption (some people do), but it’s even worse to do it solely for fawning attention and a fat paycheck.

One particularly despicable example of this phenomenon occurred in the wake of the Sandy Hook shooting in 2012, when Jones advanced the theory that the shooting was a “false flag” hoax. Parents who had lost a child were already experiencing unimaginable pain, and Jones compounded that pain by spreading this false and emotionally damaging rumor...

Jones’s custody case seems to hinge on his mental stability. But if he’s perfectly sane, that means he is guilty of saying inexcusably careless things that could possibly get someone killed—and definitely break the heart of a grieving parent.

His lawyer’s defense boils down to this: He’s not crazy—just evil. Having shared a drink with him, I’m inclined to believe his attorney."

Ex-CIA operative Valerie Plame talks nuclear, cyber threats at CMU; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, April 22, 2017

Courtney Linder, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; Ex-CIA operative Valerie Plame talks nuclear, cyber threats at CMU

"Ms. Plame, who worked to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons, referred to the Science and Security Board’s “Doomsday Clock” in her keynote speech at Carnegie Mellon University on Friday, prefacing a panel on inclusivity in STEM — or science, technology, engineering and math — for students and faculty.

In her hour-long discussion of nuclear threats and cybersecurity, Ms. Plame kept the conversation solutions-oriented, rather than dwelling on the high-profile “Plamegate” scandal that ended her espionage career."

VW Moves Beyond Criminal Case, but Not Without a Scolding; New York Times, April 21, 2017

Bill Vlasic, New York Times; 

VW Moves Beyond Criminal Case, but Not Without a Scolding

"The criminal case against Volkswagen for its decade-long scheme to cheat on diesel emissions tests ended Friday with a scolding, an apology and $4.3 billion in penalties.

The sentence, affirmed at a court hearing, had been recommended by federal prosecutors in January as part of a deal in which the German automaker agreed to plead guilty to three felony charges for illegally importing nearly 600,000 vehicles equipped with devices to circumvent emissions standards.

The conclusion of the criminal case, 19 months after the vast cheating operation was first revealed, was a milestone in Volkswagen’s recovery from a scandal that badly damaged its reputation and sales. This week it delivered an encouraging quarterly report, and the company has even been given permission to sell — with modifications — the diesel cars at the center of the case."

What happened when ‘Pizzagate’ came to my restaurant; Washington Post, April 20, 2017

James Alefantis, Washington Post; What happened when ‘Pizzagate’ came to my restaurant

"It started in October when WikiLeaks released Podesta’s hacked emails. Podesta and his brother, Tony, are Comet fans, and in these emails I was invited to cook for a Clinton fundraiser.

Anti-Clinton conspiracy theorists and online trolls congregating on Reddit and 4chan decided that the words “pizza” and “cheese” in these emails were code for pedophilia.

They ultimately pushed the lie that my pizza restaurant was being used to abduct children and commit heinous crimes.

These lies ricocheted from shadowy chat rooms to various social-media platforms, encouraged by fake news articles and deliberately amplified by provocateurs such as Alex Jones, who broadcast these smears to his audience of millions."

Torching the Modern-Day Library of Alexandria: "Somewhere at Google there is a database containing 25 million books and nobody is allowed to read them."; The Atlantic, April 20, 2017

James Somers, The Atlantic; Torching the Modern-Day Library of Alexandria: "Somewhere at Google there is a database containing 25 million books and nobody is allowed to read them."

"After the settlement failed, Clancy told me that at Google “there was just this air let out of the balloon.” Despite eventually winning Authors Guild v. Google, and having the courts declare that displaying snippets of copyrighted books was fair use, the company all but shut down its scanning operation.

It was strange to me, the idea that somewhere at Google there is a database containing 25-million books and nobody is allowed to read them. It’s like that scene at the end of the first Indiana Jones movie where they put the Ark of the Covenant back on a shelf somewhere, lost in the chaos of a vast warehouse. It’s there. The books are there. People have been trying to build a library like this for ages—to do so, they’ve said, would be to erect one of the great humanitarian artifacts of all time—and here we’ve done the work to make it real and we were about to give it to the world and now, instead, it’s 50 or 60 petabytes on disk, and the only people who can see it are half a dozen engineers on the project who happen to have access because they’re the ones responsible for locking it up."

Bose headphones have been spying on customers, lawsuit claims; Washington Post, April 19, 2017

Hayley Tsukayama, Washington Post; Bose headphones have been spying on customers, lawsuit claims

"Wireless headphones are part of a growing category of connected devices, in which everyday products can hook up to the Internet and pass information from users to companies. Other smart device makers have been accused of sharing and selling information without users' consent...

“It’s increasingly important for companies to be upfront and honest about the data use policies” as more devices become smart, said John Verdi, vice president of policy at the Future of Privacy Forum. “This is a sign of the friction that is increasingly common when devices, like headphones, that were not previously connected or data-driven become increasingly data-driven.”

Zak's complaint alleges that Bose's actions violate Illinois state statutes prohibiting deceptive business practices, as well as laws against eavesdropping and wiretapping."

Ivanka Trump won Chinese trademarks the same day she dined with China's president; Associated Press via Los Angeles Times, April 19, 2017

Associated Press via Los Angeles Times; Ivanka Trump won Chinese trademarks the same day she dined with China's president

"On April 6, Ivanka Trump's company won provisional approval from the Chinese government for three new trademarks, giving it monopoly rights to sell Ivanka brand jewelry, bags and spa services in the world's second-largest economy. That night, the first daughter and her husband, Jared Kushner, sat next to the president of China and his wife for a steak and Dover sole dinner at Mar-a-Lago, her father’s Florida resort.

The scenario underscores how difficult it is for Trump, who has tried to distance herself from the brand that bears her name, to separate business from politics in her new position at the White House."

Trump’s ethical squalor is worse than you thought; Washington Post, April 19, 2017

Jennifer Rubin, Washington Post;

Trump’s ethical squalor is worse than you thought

"What is striking is the degree to which the Trump clan publicly flaunts its ethical laxity and disinterest in complying with norms that every other president and his family have managed to follow.

Whether it is abuse of the instruments of government power or disregard for financial propriety, Trump is setting a new low."

Rude Doctors, Rude Nurses, Rude Patients; New York Times, April 10, 2017

Perri Klass, New York Times; 

Rude Doctors, Rude Nurses, Rude Patients

"Just how much rudeness is there in the hospital, and who bears the brunt of it?

A few weeks ago I wrote about a study that looked at what happens to medical teams when parents are rude to doctors. In these studies of simulated patient emergencies, doctors and nurses working in the neonatal intensive care unit were less effective in teamwork and communication, and in their diagnostic and technical skills, after an actor, playing a parent, made a rude remark about the quality of the hospital."

Rooney Rule legacy touches entirety of NFL and beyond; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, April 14, 2017

Brian Batko, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; 

Rooney Rule legacy touches entirety of NFL and beyond

[Kip Currier: Standing across the street from St. Paul's Cathedral in Pittsburgh's Oakland neighborhood today, the site of Dan Rooney's funeral, I overheard a news reporter filing a story behind me say "Dan Rooney said you can get just about anything done if you share the credit."] 

"Chairman of the Fritz Pollard Alliance, a foundation promoting equality in coaching, scouting and front-office jobs for NFL teams, Mr. Wooten worked closely with Mr. Rooney to develop a league policy requiring teams to interview minority candidates. Eventually — and, as Mr. Wooten remembers, reluctantly — it would be named after an Irishman who grew up on the North Side.

“The thing about it is, he really didn’t want it to be called the Rooney Rule,” Mr. Wooten, 80, said over the phone from his Texas home on what he called a sorrowful evening for him and his organization. “I told him, ‘As much as I respect you, and will always do what you recommend, I don’t want to call it anything else but the Rooney Rule. Because you are the one that made it happen. You, and you alone, made it happen.’ ”

Undoubtedly, it was also the brainchild of people such as Mr. Wooten and the two attorneys he called on his victorious day in 2002 — Cyrus Mehri and the late Johnnie Cochran — but Mr. Rooney was the driving force behind it.

As Mr. Wooten sees it, no other NFL power broker would have been able to persuade the entirety of league ownership to vote in favor of the rule. But Mr. Rooney did, with alacrity, and now it’s viewed by many as a move that opened the gates for some of the sport’s finest coaches, including the Steelers’ Mike Tomlin."

What you’re really agreeing to when you accept your smart TV’s privacy policy; Washington Post, April 17, 2017

Hayley Tsukayama, Washington Post; What you’re really agreeing to when you accept your smart TV’s privacy policy

"Let's be honest here — most of us don’t read the privacy policies for smart televisions. And even if we try to, it’s often difficult to read them, particularly on a television screen. Some televisions even display the massive policies five lines at a time. Reaction to recent controversies involving Vizio and Samsung televisions, for example, have highlighted that while people understand that their televisions have microphones, cameras and tracking software, they don't fully understand how much of this information they've actually agreed to share with companies.

So we asked a few legal experts who specialize in privacy — Christopher Dore of the Chicago-based law firm Edelson, Danielle Citron of the University of Maryland, William McGeveran of the University of Minnesota and Bradley Shear of Maryland-based Shear Law — to explain what we're really getting into when we hit the “I agree” button."

‘Nobody’s got to use the Internet’: A GOP lawmaker’s response to concerns about Web privacy; Washington Post, April 15, 2017

Kristine Phillips, Washington Post; ‘Nobody’s got to use the Internet’: A GOP lawmaker’s response to concerns about Web privacy

"In response, Sensenbrenner, who voted to scrap the Federal Communications Commission’s privacy rules that were set to take effect at the end of this year, said:

“Nobody’s got to use the Internet. … And the thing is that if you start regulating the Internet like a utility, if we did that right at the beginning, we would have no Internet. … Internet companies have invested an awful lot of money in having almost universal service now. The fact is is that, you know, I don’t think it’s my job to tell you that you cannot get advertising for your information being sold. My job, I think, is to tell you that you have the opportunity to do it, and then you take it upon yourself to make that choice. … That’s what the law has been, and I think we ought to have more choices rather than fewer choices with the government controlling our everyday lives.”...

The Internet has become such a fixed part of people’s everyday lives, the United Nations considers access to it a human right. In 2016, the U.N. Human Rights Council passed a resolution declaring that denying someone the ability to access or disseminate information online is a human rights violation." 

Company sued EFF over “Stupid Patent of the Month;” EFF now flips the script; Ars Technica, April 13, 2017

Cyrus Farivar, Ars Technica; 

Company sued EFF over “Stupid Patent of the Month;” EFF now flips the script

"The Electronic Frontier Foundation has sued an Australian company that it previously dubbed as a "classic patent troll" in a June 2016 blog post entitled: "Stupid Patent of the Month: Storage Cabinets on a Computer."

Last year, that company, Global Equity Management (SA) Pty. Ltd. (GEMSA), managed to get an Australian court to order EFF to remove its post—but EFF did not comply. In January 2017, Pasha Mehr, an attorney representing GEMSA, further demanded that the article be removed and that EFF pay $750,000. EFF still did not comply.

The new lawsuit, filed in federal court in San Francisco on Wednesday, asks that the American court declare the Australian ruling unenforceable in the US. Why? According to the EFF argument, the Australian ruling runs afoul of free speech protections granted under the United States Constitution—namely, that opinions are protected.

GEMSA attorneys have threatened to take this Australian court order to American search engine companies to deindex the blog post, making the post harder to find online."

Why Don’t Supreme Court Justices Have an Ethics Code?; NBC News, April 11, 2017

Rich Gardella, NBC News; 

Why Don’t Supreme Court Justices Have an Ethics Code?

""When we do a Supreme Court justice, we want to know about their background in the law and everything that they know," said U.S. Representative Louise Slaughter of New York, an 87-year-old Democrat. "Nobody ever asks them, 'Are you an honest person?'"

Slaughter has been waging a long battle to pass a bill that she says would make the justices more transparent about and accountable for conduct outside the Court.

"The one thing that we take for granted, and give them the benefit of the doubt," said Slaughter, "is that they're not going to do anything that they would not have done as a federal judge."

Slaughter has been sponsoring legislation since 2013 that would require the nation's highest Court to create and follow a code of ethics.

Her bill is called "The Supreme Court Ethics Act." Last Wednesday, she reintroduced it for the third time.

All other federal judges are subject to a published official "Code of Conduct for United States Judges," which applies to all employees of the Judicial Branch's Administrative Office of the United States Courts. The code includes specific rules about ethics, integrity and even appearances of impropriety relating to outside business and political activities and the acceptance of gifts."

"Invasion of Privacy"; Bizarro, April 12, 2017

Dan Piraro, Bizarro; "Invasion of Privacy"

The Charging Bull Sculptor Is Right. Fearless Girl Should Go.; Slate, April 12, 2017

Christina Cauterucci, Slate; 

The Charging Bull Sculptor Is Right. Fearless Girl Should Go.

"Artist Arturo Di Modica, who installed his bull sculpture under the cover of night after the 1987 stock-market crash, called on Wednesday for New York City authorities to remove the girl statue, saying it violates his rights as an artist...

Though it’s rarely been invoked, the Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990 protects artists from having their works destroyed, moved, or altered under specific circumstances. Di Modica may have been able to argue a violation of his copyright under VARA if he could convince a judge that the city modified his work or damaged its integrity in a way that harmed his reputation, which the city almost certainly did. But the law doesn’t apply to artworks created before the law’s enactment, meaning Di Modica will have to find another legal basis if he decides to sue the city."

'Charging Bull' sculptor calls for New York to remove 'Fearless Girl' statue; Guardian, April 12, 2017

Jamiles Lartey, Guardian; 

'Charging Bull' sculptor calls for New York to remove 'Fearless Girl' statue

"Siegel and Di Modica have asked the city of New York to remove the statue, which became something of a phenomenon when it was first installed earlier this year, and tied by many to the global Women’s March movement. They say the city should place the “Fearless Girl” somewhere else where it no longer relies on the “Charging Bull”. “The work is incomplete without Mr Di Modica’s Charging Bull, and as such it constitutes a derivative work,” Seigel said, noting that the statue of the girl, hands on her hips, only becomes “fearless” because of the much larger, aggressive bull.

Siegel pointed to a 1990 copyright statute that grants visual artists the right “to prevent any intentional distortion, mutilation or other modification of that work which would be prejudicial to [the artist’s] reputation”.

In addition to the removal of the statue, Di Modica was seeking unspecified damages from the city of New York. Siegel said, however, that his client had not filed a lawsuit yet and is hoping the city – specifically its mayor, Bill de Blasio – will come to the table with the artist in good faith. De Blasio recently extended “Fearless Girl’s” permit through March 2018 and has called it a symbol of “standing up to fear, standing up to power” and doing what’s right. Seigel said the “inescapable implication” was that Di Modica’s bull became “a force against doing what’s right”."

Howard Jacobson: ‘Trump in the White House – that must never feel normal’; Guardian, April 2, 2017

Andrew Anthony, Guardian; 

Howard Jacobson: ‘Trump in the White House – that must never feel normal’

"Jacobson views Trump as a triumph of the stupid, a symbol of the rejection of expertise and elitism, two concepts that the novelist feels are in danger of being deemed unacceptable in the new paradigm. One of Trump’s great successes was to make articulacy and erudition appear inherently suspect. This has been a growing trend, particularly in America, for many years, but there’s little doubt that with his tweets and fact-free assertions, Trump has set a new low standard of debate, beneath which others may feel compelled to sink."

The ‘alternative facts’ epidemic goes way beyond politics; Washington Post, April 5, 2017

George F. Will, Washington Post; The ‘alternative facts’ epidemic goes way beyond politics

"The consequences of what Stewart calls “our growing intolerance of an unedited reality” are enumerated in Tom Nichols’s new book, “The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why It Matters.” Our devices and social media are, he says, producing people who confuse “Internet grazing” with research and this faux research with higher education, defined by a wit as “those magical seven years between high school and your first warehouse job.” Years when students demand to run institutions that the students insist should treat them as fragile children.

“It is,” Nichols writes, “a new Declaration of Independence: no longer do we hold these truths to be self-evident, we hold all truths to be self-evident, even the ones that aren’t true. All things are knowable and every opinion on any subject is as good as any other.”"

How do you stop fake news? In Germany, with a law.; Washington Post, April 5, 2017

Anthony Faiola and Stephanie Kirchner, Washington Post; How do you stop fake news? In Germany, with a law.

"Germany officially unveiled a landmark social-media bill Wednesday that could quickly turn this nation into a test case in the effort to combat the spread of fake news and hate speech in the West.

The highly anticipated draft bill is also highly contentious, with critics denouncing it as a curb on free speech. If passed, as now appears likely, the measure would compel large outlets such as Facebook and Twitter to rapidly remove fake news that incites hate, as well as other “criminal” content, or face fines as high as 50 million euros ($53 million)."

‘Unwanted Advances’ Tackles Sexual Politics in Academia; New York Times, April 5, 2017

Jennifer Senior, New York Times; 

‘Unwanted Advances’ Tackles Sexual Politics in Academia

"Among the educators who recently found herself at the treacherous intersection of free speech and sensitivity politics is Laura Kipnis, a film professor, cultural critic and dedicated provocateur at Northwestern University. Responding to a new campus directive that prevented professors from dating undergraduates, she wrote an essay for The Chronicle of Higher Education in February of 2015 entitled “Sexual Paranoia Strikes Academe.” Within days of publication, she was brought up on Title IX complaints for creating a “hostile environment.” She spent 72 days in the public stockade for it, until the university cleared her of any wrongdoing.

Kipnis has now written a book, “Unwanted Advances,” about feminism, relationship statecraft and the shadow world of Title IX investigations. It is invigorating and irritating, astute and facile, rigorous and flippant, fair-minded and score-settling, practical and hyperbolic, and maybe a dozen other neurotically contradictory things. Above all else, though, “Unwanted Advances” is necessary. Argue with the author, by all means. But few people have taken on the excesses of university culture with the brio that Kipnis has. Her anger gives her argument the energy of a live cable."

How the U.S. ethics chief took on Trump and became a reluctant Washington hero; Washington Post, March 30, 2017

David Montgomery, Washington Post; How the U.S. ethics chief took on Trump and became a reluctant Washington hero

"Reading aloud in a mild voice for 13 minutes, Shaub cited the Bible, Antonin Scalia and other authorities to make the case that presidents should act as if the conflict-of-interest law did apply to them. Previous presidents have done so, he said.

“Should a president hold himself to a lower standard than his own appointees?” he asked."

Russia Bans ‘Extremist’ Image Of Putin In Makeup; Huffington Post, April 5, 2017

Nick Robins-Early, Huffington Post; 

Russia Bans ‘Extremist’ Image Of Putin In Makeup

"Russia has added a digitally altered image of President Vladimir Putin in heavy makeup to its list of banned extremist materials, saying the picture suggests Putin is gay. 

The Russian Ministry of Justice last week added the photo to its index of extremist materials ― a list that now includes more than 4,000 images that are illegal to share. The offending image is number 4,071, which the ministry describes a “man resembling the president” whose makeup “hints at the Russian president’s allegedly nonstandard sexual orientation.”"

Can any good come from engaging with internet trolls?; Guardian, April 5, 2017

Emma Brockes, Guardian; 

Can any good come from engaging with internet trolls?

"Q: Should I ever engage with my trolls?

A: Firstly, let’s settle on a definition of “troll”. A troll is not someone who makes you feel bad. It’s not someone whose opinion you find offensive, or a “devil’s advocate” who assumes a position contrary to your own with the intention of stirring up trouble. That person, while annoying, is called an opinion writer and can still be usefully engaged with. A troll, on the other hand, is someone whose gratification is vested in an intent to cause harm. Why on earth would you engage with that?"

Facebook launching tools to tackle revenge porn; Guardian, April 5, 2017

Alex Hern, Guardian; 

Facebook launching tools to tackle revenge porn

"Facebook is launching a series of tools designed to crack down on the sharing of so-called revenge porn.

The new tools will allow users to easily report any intimate photos posted without consent that they see on the social network, which will flag the pictures in question to “specially trained representatives” from the site’s community operations team, who will “review the image and remove it if it violates [Facebook’s] community standards”."

Trump wants to search cellphones at the border. These lawmakers are trying to stop him.; Washington Post, April 4, 2017

Brian Fung, Washington Post; Trump wants to search cellphones at the border. These lawmakers are trying to stop him.

"“Just because you cross the border doesn’t mean the government has a right to everything on your computer,” Rep. Blake Farenthold (R-Tex.), one of the bill's sponsors, said Tuesday. The bill's other sponsors are Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.) and Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.)."

No, Republicans didn’t just strip away your Internet privacy rights; Washington Post, April 4, 2017

Ajit Pai and Maureen Ohlhausen, Washington Post; No, Republicans didn’t just strip away your Internet privacy rights

[Kip Currier: In light of recent controversial online privacy developments, I'm particularly intrigued to hear what Maureen Ohlhausen, acting chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, has to say at a Thursday, April 6 lunch I'll be attending during the 32nd Annual Intellectual Property Law Conference.]

"Ajit Pai is chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. Maureen Ohlhausen is acting chairman of the Federal Trade Commission...

The FCC’s regulations weren’t about protecting consumers’ privacy. They were about government picking winners and losers in the marketplace. If two online companies have access to the same data about your Internet usage, why should the federal government give one company greater leeway to use it than the other?...

In short, the Obama administration fractured our nation’s online privacy law, and it is our job to fix it. We pledge to the American people that we will do just that."

EFF Says No to So-Called “Moral Rights” Copyright Expansion; Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), March 30, 2017

Kerry Sheehan and Kit Walsh, Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF): 

EFF Says No to So-Called “Moral Rights” Copyright Expansion

"The fight over moral rights, particularly the right of Integrity, is ultimately one about who gets to control the meaning of a particular work. If an author can prevent a use they perceive as a “prejudicial distortion” of their work, that author has the power to veto others’ attempts to contest, reinterpret, criticize, or draw new meanings from those works...

A statutory right of attribution could also interfere with privacy protective measures employed by online platforms. Many platforms strip identifying metadata from works on their platforms to protect their users' privacy, If doing so were to trigger liability for violating an author’s right of attribution, platforms would likely be chilled from protecting their users’ privacy in this way.

For centuries, American courts have grappled with how to address harm to reputation without impinging on the freedom of speech guaranteed by the First Amendment. And as copyright’s scope has expanded in recent decades, the courts have provided the safeguards that partially mitigate the harm of overly broad speech regulation."

"Still Living in the Dark Ages"; Bizarro, April 4, 2017

Dan Piraro, Bizarro; "Still Living in the Dark Ages"

Tim Berners-Lee: selling private citizens' browsing data is 'disgusting'; Guardian, April 4, 2017

Sam Thielman, Guardian; 

Tim Berners-Lee: selling private citizens' browsing data is 'disgusting'

"What did you think of the congressional repeal of Federal Communications Commission’s privacy rules?

It’s not the case that an ISP can just spy on people and monetize the data; if they do, they will get taken to court. Obviously the worry is the attitude and the direction. The attitude is really appalling. That bill was a disgusting bill, because when we use the web, we are so vulnerable.

When the internet was new, when people didn’t realize to what extent it would be important to people’s lives, I gave talks pointing out that, actually, when people use the web what they do is really, really intimate. They go to their doctor for a second opinion; they’ve gone to the web for the first opinion on whether it’s cancer. They communicate very intimately with family members that they love. There are things that people do on the web that reveal absolutely everything, more about them than they know themselves sometimes. Because so much of what we do in our lives that actually goes through those left-clicks, it can be ridiculously revealing. You have the right to go to a doctor in privacy where it’s just between you and the doctor. And similarly, you have to be able to go to the web.

Privacy, a core American value, is not a partisan thing. Democrats fight for it and Republicans fight for it too, maybe even more. So I am very shocked that the Republican party has managed to suggest that it should be trashed; if anyone follows up on this direction, there will be a massive pushback – and there must be a massive pushback!

If they take away net neutrality, there will have to be a tremendous amount of public debate as well. You can bet there will be public demonstrations if they do try to take it away."

London Book Fair 2017: Judge Pierre Leval Defends Google Books Decision, Fair Use; Publishers Weekly, March 16, 2017

Andrew Albanese, Publishers Weekly; 

London Book Fair 2017: Judge Pierre Leval Defends Google Books Decision, Fair Use

"In a packed room for the LBF’s 2017 Charles Clark Memorial Lecture, Judge Pierre Leval, America’s foremost copyright jurist and a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals Second Circuit, told attendees that Google’s program to scan tens of millions of library books to create an online index “conferred gigantic benefits to authors and the public equally,” and did not “offer a substitute or interfere with authors’ exclusive rights” to control distribution.

“It was,” Leval concluded, “not a, quote, close case.”

Leval delivered his remarks in what was billed as a debate with intellectual property lawyer and former General Counsel for the U.S. Copyright Office, Jon Baumgarten. But at the outset, both Leval and Baumgarten—long time acquaintances—downplayed the debate aspect. Rather, at a time when proposed exceptions to copyright law have many publishers in the U.K. and Europe on edge, Leval spoke mainly as an ambassador for the American doctrine of fair use...

The key to American fair use, he said, was the flexibility the law gives judges. While he acknowledged there is something to be said for “predictability and bright line rules,” he insisted that hard and fast standards do not best serve the purpose of copyright...

In his portion of the talk, Baumgarten reiterated the publishing community’s main complaints with the decision, and about fair use in the digital age more broadly. Most prominently, that the decision overly expanded the right to freely copy others’ works, which, if widely practiced in the digital age will harm rightsholders. He also bemoaned what he saw as the courts’ expansion of what “transformative” means."

Pick Your Favorite Ethics Offender; New York Times, April 1, 2017

Editorial Board, New York Times; 

Pick Your Favorite Ethics Offender

"President Trump and his administration are offering the country a graduate-level course in the selling of the presidency. Much attention has focused on how Mr. Trump is using the White House for personal gain, but many other officials, including members of his family, friends and close aides, also stand to rake it in at the public’s expense.

Mr. Trump has driven right over the Constitution by allowing foreign governments to funnel money to him through his hotels and golf courses, in violation of the emoluments clause. So it comes as no surprise that the people who work for him have felt free to abuse their positions and run roughshod over ethics rules. He has created an anything-goes culture in which some aides and advisers are openly working to bend government policy to serve their personal interests. In other cases, the potential for corruption is less obvious but no less dangerous. Here are some of the most egregious offenders."

The findings of medical research are disseminated too slowly; The Economist, March 25, 2017

The Economist; The findings of medical research are disseminated too slowly

"As more researchers submit preprints and make their data available to others, they may find the comments they receive regarding their work helpful. Even the kudos of publication in the premier journals may slowly fade in the face of data about a piece of work’s actual, rather than potential, impact (see article). Having survived three and a half centuries, scientific journals will no doubt be around for a long time yet. With luck, though, they will return to being science’s servants, rather than its ringmasters."

Chechen Authorities Arresting and Killing Gay Men, Russian Paper Says; New York Times, April 1, 2017

Andrew E. Kramer, New York Times; 

Chechen Authorities Arresting and Killing Gay Men, Russian Paper Says

"By Saturday, the paper reported, and an analyst of the region with her own sources confirmed, that more than 100 gay men had been detained. The newspaper had the names of three murder victims, and suspected many others had died in extrajudicial killings.

A spokesman for Chechnya’s leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, denied the report in a statement to Interfax on Saturday, calling the article “absolute lies and disinformation.”

“You cannot arrest or repress people who just don’t exist in the republic,” the spokesman, Alvi Karimov, told the news agency.

“If such people existed in Chechnya, law enforcement would not have to worry about them, as their own relatives would have sent them to where they could never return,” Mr. Karimov said."

Trump Is President. Now Encrypt Your Email.; New York Times, March 31, 2017

Max Read, New York Times; Trump Is President. Now Encrypt Your Email.

"As lawyers and civil libertarians point out, federal criminal law is so vast and complicated that it is easy to unwittingly violate it, and even innocent conversation can later be used to build a criminal case. Encrypting your communication isn’t a matter of hiding criminal activity; it’s a matter of ensuring innocuous activity can’t be deemed suspicious by a zealous prosecutor or intelligence agent. Telling a friend that a party is really going to “blow up” when you arrive is less funny when it’s being entered into evidence against you."

FBI Arrests Hacker Who Hacked No One; Daily Beast, March 31, 2017

Kevin Poulsen, Daily Beast; FBI Arrests Hacker Who Hacked No One

"Now free on bond, Huddleston, 26, is scheduled to appear in a federal courtroom in Alexandria, Virginia on Friday for arraignment on federal charges of conspiracy and aiding and abetting computer intrusions.

Huddleston, though, isn’t a hacker. He’s the author of a remote administration tool, or RAT, called NanoCore that happens to be popular with hackers. NanoCore has been linked to intrusions in at least 10 countries, including an attack on Middle Eastern energy firms in 2015, and a massive phishing campaign last August in which the perpetrators posed as major oil and gas company. As Huddleston sees it, he’s a victim himself—hackers have been pirating his program for years and using it to commit crimes. But to the Justice Department, Huddleston is an accomplice to a spree of felonies.

Depending on whose view prevails, Huddleston could face prison time and lose his home, in a case that raises a novel question: when is a programmer criminally responsible for the actions of his users?"

WikiLeaks’ latest release of CIA cyber-tools could blow the cover on agency hacking operations; Washington Post, March 31, 2017

Ellen Nakashima, Washington Posr; WikiLeaks’ latest release of CIA cyber-tools could blow the cover on agency hacking operations

"WikiLeaks’ latest disclosure of CIA cyber-tools reveals a technique used by the agency to hide its digital tracks, potentially blowing the cover on current and past hacking operations aimed at gathering intelligence on terrorists and other foreign targets.

The release Friday of the CIA’s “Marble Framework” comes less than a month after the WikiLeaks dumped onto the Internet a trove of files — dubbed “Vault 7” — that described the type of malware and methods the CIA uses to gain access to targets’ phones, computers and other electronic devices...

WikiLeaks, founded by Julian Assange, has sought to position itself as a champion of transparency and defender of privacy rights. It described the Marble Framework as “the digital equivalent of a specialized CIA tool to place covers over the English language text on U.S. produced weapons systems before giving them to insurgents secretly backed by the CIA.”"