The government has abruptly ended an inquiry into the warrantless eavesdropping programme because the National Security Agency refused to grant Justice Department lawyers security clearance
Internet telephony is moving beyond small-scale pilots at the big end of town as large operations tackle 5000-plus handset rollouts
Online file-sharing service BearShare, along with operators Free Peers Inc, is packing it up due to a $30 million settlement with the recording industry. The conditions of the settlement were agreed to by the P2P company to avoid further copyright infringement litigation
14 Pakistan International Airlines passengers awarded themselves an upgrade to the empty first class cabin of a flight from Islamabad to Manchester that was stuck, sweltering on the Islamabad tarmac for four hours. They switched to first class mid-flight and refused to go back to cattle-class. When the flight landed in the UK, they were arrested on suspicion of endangering the aircraft
— via Boing Boing
The federal health and welfare smartcard project may be heading for big problems, according to experts concerned by a lack of detailed planning and apparent Government willingness to work outside the business case
Unions have labelled proposed independent contractor legislation worse than Work Choices, warning that the federal Government risks creating an underclass
of IT contractors who will undercut the pay of salaried staff
The US government has asked a federal judge to dismiss the EFF’s civil liberties lawsuit against the AT&T Corporation because of a possibility that military and state secrets would otherwise be disclosed
. The statement concludes by saying: Finally, because the United States intends to assert the state secrets privilege and file a dispositive motion to dismiss this action, the United States requests that discovery proceedings be deferred until the government’s submission has been considered and heard.
You can view the full text of the government’s statement of interest (PDF) on the EFF’s web site
Intelligence agencies and police will be given access to a vast database of biometric
photographs of Australians to be created for the new health and welfare smart card to fight terrorism and more general crime
Some of Canada’s best known musicians, including Avril Lavigne, Sarah McLachlin, Sum 41 and Barenaked Ladies, have formed a new copyright coalition. The artists say in a press release that they oppose file sharing lawsuits, the use of DRM, and DMCA-style legislation and that they want record labels to stop claiming that they represent their views
The introduction of a national smart card with photo ID has upset Coalition MPs and privacy experts who believe it could develop into a national identity card by stealth
For the last few years, a coalition of technology companies, academics and computer programmers has been trying to persuade Congress to scale back the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Now Congress is preparing to do precisely the opposite. A proposed copyright law would expand the DMCA’s restrictions on software that can bypass copy protections and grant federal police more wiretapping and enforcement powers. The new law would send you to prison for attempting to infringe copyright. It would make it even more illegal to own tools that could be used to remove copy-restrictions, like DVD-ripping software — it could even bust Symantec for making software that removed the Sony rootkit malicious software that the company distributed with its CDs last year
It’s not a Can’t beat ’em? Join ’em
scenario but it’s pretty close. In a move that will most likely anger DVD buyers in western markets, Warner Home Video is trying to compete with film pirates in China as they launch a trial program. A new release movie, sans all the normal packaging, is available for the equivalent of US$1.50
LiveJournal recently introduced ads on some pages for free users. More interestingly, they also added a new restriction to their TOS (XVI 17 b.) banning users from using or providing ad-blocking software. The new TOS also permits them to immediately terminate the account of anyone they catch doing this
In 1993, Jack Rogers grudgingly agreed to serve on a task force studying whether his local Presbyterian church in Southern California should ordain gays. Quite frankly, he wasn’t interested in giving the topic serious thought. I opposed homosexuality reflexively — that was just what I thought Christians were supposed to do,
he recalls. But once he did embark on a scholarly journey, the Presbyterian minister found that his views changed 180 degrees: He’s become a vocal advocate of ordaining gays and marrying gay couples in the church — via The Detroit News
A legal spat over a Web site criticising Jerry Falwell for his antigay views won’t ascend to the US Supreme Court. The justices on Monday declined without comment to take up the evangelical preacher’s appeal, which challenged the operator of Fallwell.com, a site that aims to explain why Rev. Falwell is completely wrong about people who are gay or lesbian
. The televangelist had claimed the domain name’s spelling was too close to that of his official Web presence and asked the courts to shut it down
Ministers may now hesitate before using anti-terrorist powers against suspected extremists after a court ruling against control orders. Lord Carlile, the government’s independent assessor of terrorism laws, gave his view after a High Court judge in London ruled that ministers’ powers to put accused terrorists under house arrest contravene human rights laws
An RAF doctor who refused to serve in Iraq because he believed the war to be illegal was jailed for eight months. The conviction and imprisonment of Flight Lieutenant Malcolm Kendall-Smith, the first member of the armed forces to be charged with disobeying orders to deploy in Iraq, has provoked widespread condemnation. Anti-war groups declared that a man who had shown great moral courage and acted according to his conscience was being pilloried for his beliefs
A Republican controlled committee has defeated a bill that would have guaranteed fair access and stopped companies like AT&T and Verizon from charging high-bandwidth sites for allowing their customers to have priority access to them
In Sweden, a new political party — the Pirate Party — is pushing a platform that would abolish patents and free creative works from copyright protections after five years, instead of the 50 to 100 years typically associated with a creator’s exclusive rights
Telemarketers will have to abide by a national Do Not Call register in 2007, after the federal government announced it would soon introduce legislation to protect consumers
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