Increased congressional activity is likely focused on government surveillance, said members of Congress and privacy advocates Friday after The Washington Post reported on a leaked National Security Agency audit. The NSA audit said the agency’s surveillance programs violated court orders and other privacy protections (http://wapo.st/19ylImi). Aides from several relevant committees attended a last-minute briefing, convened by the Senate Intelligence Committee, to discuss the NSA audit Friday morning. Staffers from the Intelligence, Judiciary and Appropriations committees in both the House and Senate and from both parties were invited, aides told us. They said leadership staffers were also invited to the lengthy meeting.
The U.S. Department of Commerce wants congressional or regulatory attention on cellphone unlocking and on rate-setting standards for public performance of sound recordings by digital music services, it said in a so-called green paper released Wednesday on Copyright Policy, Creativity and Innovation in the Digital Economy (http://1.usa.gov/15vOJd3). It backed reform of music licensing, with particular focus on the mechanical license for musical compositions, and also reiterated the administration’s calls to extend public performance rights for sound recordings to cover broadcasting, and adopting the same penalties for criminal streaming of copyrighted works to the public, as now exists for criminal reproduction and distribution. The report was authored by the department’s Internet Policy Task Force with input from the Patent and Trademark Office and the NTIA. IPTF will also seek further comment on improving the notice and takedown system under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the relevance and scope of the first-sale doctrine, and remixes, said the paper. “Ensuring that our copyright policy provides incentives for creativity while promoting innovation on the Internet is a critical and challenging task,” said Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker in the report. The 120-page report addressed a host of copyright issues, including the balance between protecting creative works and maintaining a free flow of information and the meaningful enforcement of copyright provisions in a digital environment. Public Knowledge took issue with several aspects of the report, including its lack of focus on essential limitations and exceptions and the costs of copyright enforcements, particularly upon users. “While the green paper makes a good faith effort to recognize the need for balanced copyright policy, in several areas it fails to recognize fully the negative effects of certain copyright enforcement policies on the public,” said Sherwin Siy, PK vice president-legal affairs, in a statement. The Center for Democracy and Technology had a similarly mixed reaction to the report, and said in a blog post that “the report offers more positive than negative in moving the conversation about digital copyrights forward” (http://bit.ly/1685gDi). CDT is concerned about the report’s request for proposals on improving the operation of the DMCA’s notice and takedown system, it said. “Free expression advocates will need to engage actively to counterbalance a possible push towards (for example) more ongoing content monitoring."
The U.S. Department of Commerce wants congressional or regulatory attention on cellphone unlocking and on rate-setting standards for public performance of sound recordings by digital music services, it said in a so-called green paper released Wednesday on Copyright Policy, Creativity and Innovation in the Digital Economy (http://1.usa.gov/15vOJd3). It backed reform of music licensing, with particular focus on the mechanical license for musical compositions, and also reiterated the administration’s calls to extend public performance rights for sound recordings to cover broadcasting, and adopting the same penalties for criminal streaming of copyrighted works to the public, as now exists for criminal reproduction and distribution. The report was authored by the department’s Internet Policy Task Force with input from the Patent and Trademark Office and the NTIA. IPTF will also seek further comment on improving the notice and takedown system under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the relevance and scope of the first-sale doctrine, and remixes, said the paper. “Ensuring that our copyright policy provides incentives for creativity while promoting innovation on the Internet is a critical and challenging task,” said Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker in the report. The 120-page report addressed a host of copyright issues, including the balance between protecting creative works and maintaining a free flow of information and the meaningful enforcement of copyright provisions in a digital environment. Public Knowledge took issue with several aspects of the report, including its lack of focus on essential limitations and exceptions and the costs of copyright enforcements, particularly upon users. “While the green paper makes a good faith effort to recognize the need for balanced copyright policy, in several areas it fails to recognize fully the negative effects of certain copyright enforcement policies on the public,” said Sherwin Siy, PK vice president-legal affairs, in a statement. The Center for Democracy and Technology had a similarly mixed reaction to the report, and said in a blog post that “the report offers more positive than negative in moving the conversation about digital copyrights forward” (http://bit.ly/1685gDi). CDT is concerned about the report’s request for proposals on improving the operation of the DMCA’s notice and takedown system, it said. “Free expression advocates will need to engage actively to counterbalance a possible push towards (for example) more ongoing content monitoring.”
Online privacy stakeholders questioned the legitimacy of the Do Not Track discussions being facilitated by the World Wide Web Consortium, in emails to W3C’s DNT group and interviews with us. During last week’s teleconference (WID July 25 p1), the group wasn’t given a chance to vote on whether stakeholders see value in continuing on a path laid out last month by the co-chairs, when the co-chairs decided to reject a proposal from the online advertising industry and move forward with the group’s current draft. That draft includes 23 change proposals (WID July 17 p1). Though the group was scheduled to produce a “Last Call” document outlining a DNT mechanism by Wednesday, last week’s call didn’t produce consensus on the draft, and the group isn’t scheduled to talk again until September (WID July 31 p 9).
Online privacy stakeholders questioned the legitimacy of the Do Not Track discussions being facilitated by the World Wide Web Consortium, in emails to W3C’s DNT group and interviews with us. During last week’s teleconference (CD July 25 p15), the group wasn’t given a chance to vote on whether stakeholders see value in continuing on a path laid out last month by the co-chairs, when the co-chairs decided to reject a proposal from the online advertising industry and move forward with the group’s current draft. That draft includes 23 change proposals (CD July 17 p9). Though the group was scheduled to produce a “Last Call” document outlining a DNT mechanism by Wednesday, last week’s call didn’t produce consensus on the draft, and the group isn’t scheduled to talk again until September (CD July 31 p13).
An ombudsperson, transparency and someone to play an amicus role are needed at the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, civil liberties advocates and a former FISC judge told the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board during a Tuesday hearing. Former government officials defended the telephone metadata and Internet communications surveillance programs taking place under Section 215 of the Patriot Act and Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act.
An ombudsperson, transparency and someone to play an amicus role are needed at the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, civil liberties advocates and a former FISC judge told the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board during a Tuesday hearing. Former government officials defended the telephone metadata and Internet communications surveillance programs taking place under Section 215 of the Patriot Act and Section 702 of FISA.
The Departments of State and Treasury issued limited waivers allowing the export and reexport of U.S.-origin reconstruction items such as agricultural equipment, to opposition-controlled areas of Syria June 12. The new license policy will also allow U.S. companies to engage in transactions with Syria’s oil, agricultural and telecommunications sectors. The actions "still require companies interested in engaging in these transactions to come in and get specific licenses," said a senior State Department official in a June 12 briefing call (read the transcript here). "That ensures that relevant U.S. governments can review specific transactions to make sure that specifically sanctioned entities aren’t able to participate in those transactions and that those transactions are actually for the benefit of the Syrian people."
As some large retail ISPs move to carrier-grade network address translation (CGN) -- a ramped-up version of the network address translation (NAT) that has been in use for some time to cope with exhaustion of IPv4 addresses -- there are growing concerns about its impact on investigation of online and offline crimes and on traffic data storage requirements, said representatives from the law enforcement, cybersecurity, ISP and other sectors.
As some large retail ISPs move to carrier-grade network address translation (CGN) -- a ramped-up version of the network address translation (NAT) that has been in use for some time to cope with exhaustion of IPv4 addresses -- there are growing concerns about its impact on investigation of online and offline crimes and on traffic data storage requirements, said representatives from the law enforcement, cybersecurity, ISP and other sectors.