A Publication of the Electronic Frontier Foundation ISSN 1062-9424
San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) on Thursday published
a
landmark report on trusted computing, a technology designed to improve security
through hardware changes to the personal computer.
The report, entitled "Trusted Computing: Promise and Risk," maintains
that
computer owners themselves, rather than the companies that provide software
and
data for use on the computer, should retain control over the security measures
installedhon their computers. Any other approach, says the report's author
Seth
Schoen, carries the risk of anti-competitive behavior by which software
providers may enforce "security measures" that prevent interoperability
when
using a competitor's software.
" Helping computer owners defend their computers against attacks is progress
in
computer security, but treating computer owners themselves as the bad guys
is
not," said Schoen. "Security architectures must be designed to put
the computer
owner's interests first, not to lock the owner into the plans of others."
San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), along with
PrivacyActivism, Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, C.A.S.P.I.A.N., and
others,
submitted formal comments on September 30th to the Privacy Office
of the U.S.
Department of Homeland Security (DHS), urging it to stop development
of a
proposed airline passenger screening program administered by the
Transportation
Security Administration (TSA).
"We're concerned that the Homeland Security Department's CAPPS II plan
sacrifices the privacy and civil liberties of travelers without a logical
connection to safety and security," said EFF Attorney Kevin Bankston,
an Equal
Justice Works / Bruce J. Ennis Fellow. "The CAPPS II passenger
profiling scheme
should not proceed until its proponents address serious questions
about privacy,
due process, accuracy, and effectiveness, as Congress recognized
last week when
it halted implementation of CAPPS II pending further review."
Late in September, Congress ended funding for Terrorism Information
Awareness
(TIA) by passing HR 2658, a fiscal 2004 Defense appropriations
bill that has yet
to be signed by the President. But is TIA truly dead? EFF believes
that it is
too early to tell.
Congress eliminated funding for the Office for Information Awareness,
but it has
allowed the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)
to continue to
research and develop "dataveillance" tools, so long as
they are not used within
the United States. While EFF is pleased that these tools will
not be developed
specifically for domestic use, we are concerned that their development
for
foreign intelligence purposes continues to pose civil liberties
risks -
especially since it appears that they are to be developed under
a classified
"
black budget" with little, if any, public accountability.
In addition,
Congress has also expressly allowed several former TIA programs to
continue, including the Bio-Event Advanced Leading Indicator
Recognition
Technology (Bio-ALIRT), Rapid Analytic Wargaming, Wargaming the
Asymmetric
Environment, and Automated Speech and Text Exploitation in Multiple
Languages
(including Babylon and Symphony).
Finally, TIA was never the only domestic
dataveillance program. EFF is
campaigning to stop implementation of the Computer Assisted Passenger
Pre-Screening System (CAPPS II), which gathers personal information
about each
airline passenger from unidentified government databases as well
as commercial
data sources. But CAPPS II is only one domestic surveillance
initiative, and
neither it nor the other programs in development is subject to
the TIA
"overseas-only" provision.
In light of these ongoing threats to citizens'
privacy and civil liberties, EFF
concludes that even if TIA is "dead," the need for continued
Congressional
oversight and a strong regulatory framework remains great. We
ask for a status
report on the tools being developed for foreign surveillance,
as well as on TIA
biometric programs. We also strongly support Senator Russ Feingold's
(D-WI)
Data Mining Moratorium Act (S. 188) and Senator Ron Wyden's (D-OR)
Citizens'
Protection in Federal Databases Act of 2003 (S. 1484), and we
urge constituents
to join us in this support.
San Francisco - The
Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) sent a letter on
Wednesday to the San Francisco Public Library Commission (SFPLC)
warning of
privacy concerns in the use of radio frequency identification
(RFID) tagging of
library books.
The SFPLC is considering a budget for RFID technology for the
library system
starting in 2004 with implementation in 2005. Under the plan,
San Francisco
libraries would place a computer chip in library books and
other materials to
facilitate tracking of the books through the library system
as well as on loan
to patrons. Library staff, as well as potentially other persons,
could use RFID
sensor devices to determine the location, title, and potentially
other
information about the library materials.
"RFID technology raises great privacy concerns because insecure RFID
tags permit
inventorying of people's possessions and tracking of people via
their
possessions," explained EFF Senior Staff Attorney Lee Tien in the
letter.
" Libraries have long been very protective of library patron privacy given
that
surveillance of reading and borrowing records chills the exercise
of First
Amendment rights."
San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)
on Friday released an
update of its landmark report on problems with digital
copyright law entitled
"Unintended Consequences: Five Years Under the Digital Millennium Copyright
Act"
(DMCA).
"Congress intended the DMCA to target criminals who pick digital
locks to engage
in mass piracy," said EFF Staff Attorney Gwen Hinze. "Yet
in practice the DMCA's
anti-circumvention provisions have stifled the legitimate
activities of
scientists, scholars, business competitors, journalists,
publishers, consumers,
and the general public."
Additions to the report include sections that explore:
"The DMCA has emerged over the past five years as a significant threat
to a
number of important public policy principles," added Hinze. "Congress
should
amend copyright law to preserve the constitutionally-mandated
balance between
private incentives and public rights."
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) on Friday
published "Unsafe
Harbors:
Abusive DMCA Subpoenas and Takedown Demands," a
report tracking abuse of the
safe harbor provisions in the Digital Millennium Copyright
Act (DMCA).
"Section 512 of the DMCA has often been used to invade the privacy of
Internet
users, harass Internet service providers, and chill online speech - yet the
abuses tend to fall below the national radar," said EFF Staff Attorney
Wendy
Seltzer. "We hope to alert the public to the danger
of giving copyright
claimants such sweeping powers."
The report includes examples garnered from the Chilling
Effects Clearinghouse,
which maintains a database of cease-and-desist demands.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has filed
comments in Australia's
review of its own "DMCA" - the technological
protection measures in the
Australian Copyright Act. EFF's comments are in response
to an issues paper
released by law firm Phillips Fox, which is conducting
a review of Australian
digital copyright law on behalf of the Australian
Attorney General's Department.
EFF outlines the unintended consequences and misuses
of the DMCA
anti-circumvention provisions in the United States,
and recommends narrowing the
scope of the analogous section of the Australian
Copyright Act in order to:
* Protect consumers' rights in digital media that
they have purchased
* Provide leeway for scientists and computer researchers
to conduct research and
engage in reverse-engineering
* Restore the balance in Australian copyright law
between the rights of
copyright holders and those of the public
EFF also addresses ISP regulation, stressing the
importance of procedural
safeguards and judicial oversight in any process
adopted to identify ISP
subscribers, whether by subpoena or otherwise, as
a safeguard to privacy. EFF
points out the deficiencies in the DMCA subpoena
process, making note of
the recent erroneous and unjustified disclosures
of subscribers' identities.
The Digital Agenda Review
is the first review of the impact and operation of the
Australian anti-circumvention provisions, ISP liability,
the interaction of
technology and copyright, and the impact of digital
copyright law on libraries
and archives. A final report on the review process
is expected in early 2004.
Electronic Frontiers Australia
(EFA), an Australian organization dedicated to
protecting the rights and freedoms of Internet users,
also filed comments in
response to the issues paper.
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