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Notable News Now
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February 29, 2000
Inside Stories
PAUL WEYRICH'S COMMENTARY:
Is Being Fat a Crime? Well, Hold on to Your Ho-Ho
Mayhem on the Internet
COALITION FOR CONSTITUTIONAL LIBERTIES
The Free Congress Commentary
SHIFTING MINDSETS
by Lisa S. Dean
From the "Endangered Liberties" Television Program
The February 21st issue of Time magazine ran a story by David Gelernter
entitled "Will We Have Any Privacy Left?" In the article the author paints
a rather accurate, yet bleak, picture of satellites tracking our every move,
computers responding to our demands (provided we proved our identity via
biometric identifier and password beforehand) and all of our personal
information being available in one location to be accessed by anyone if
those in charge don't take care to protect it.
The picture Gelertner painted was rather accurate, not only of the future
but of the present. However, the conclusion that he drew is vastly
different from the one which I have drawn. The author claimed that while
technology makes real the ability for friends and neighbors to seek out and
reveal your dirty laundry or spy on your every move, it just won't happen in
the future because morality will prevail. We as a people will understand
that eavesdropping on one another is wrong and preserving one another's
dignity is right and that morality will govern our behavior. And that alone
will have a much greater effect on privacy than any law, regulation or
judicial ruling could.
In theory he's correct. Laws protecting our privacy have had little effect
thus far. The few judicial rulings that favored privacy have often been
overturned on appeal and certainly the regulations made over the last decade
or so have benefited us very little with respect to privacy. And largely
Americans are honorable people with high standards with regard to decency
toward their fellow man. So far Gelernter is correct.
But unfortunately that is beginning to change. Our Founding Fathers
constructed our Constitution in such a way that emphasized trust in one
another and distrust in the government - a rather radical concept today.
The desired outcome of such a construct would be that the citizens would
protect themselves and one another by not allowing government to gain more
power than it was due. The citizens would keep watch over their government
and elected leaders to ensure that government remained limited and that
would ensure the protection of their rights and liberties.
Slowly but surely over the past few decades, we have seen the mindset of the
American people change. The traditional American view of hard work and
self-sufficiency has been replaced by the so-called "welfare mentality"
where it becomes the job and responsibility of government to correct the
problems of citizens rather than citizens taking that responsibility
themselves. That mentality, in effect, gave the government license to
expand its power and authority to do what it wished. The people "needed" it
to solve their problems.
Even the traditional morality based on Judeo-Christian belief has changed in
America. Under the "old morality", the author would be correct in his
outcome, but sadly, that morality is largely becoming unfamiliar to the
average American. If government is responsible for taking care and solving
people's problems, then people begin to see government and not their
neighbor, as their friend, the one they trust, even their earthly savior,
essentially the reverse mindset that the Founding Fathers had intended.
This has led to the current situation that is increasingly prevalent
throughout the country - turning in one's neighbor when they break the laws
established by the government. During last summer's drought, the state of
Maryland declared a drought emergency and restricted the citizens' use of
water. Washing cars and watering lawns were forbidden. The state provided
an 800 number for citizens who needed to report problems they were having.
Shortly after the 800 number was established, the state of Maryland reported
that it was mostly being used by citizens to report their neighbors for
violating the laws and using the water for forbidden purposes.
Currently in the state of Massachusetts citizens are calling their state and
local law enforcement agencies to report their neighbors for hollering or
losing their tempers and so forth and their reason for concern? Those same
neighbors happen to own guns - legal guns, mind you. Law enforcement
agencies are responding by going to the scenes where the alleged temper
tantrums are taking place and confiscating those citizens' guns.
What is happening here? I'll tell you what's happening. The "new morality"
states that its morally right and justifiable for you to turn in your
neighbors and friends and perhaps even relatives to the government when you
see them violating a law or aren't wearing smiles on their faces 24 hours a
day. After all, if they aren't smiling, they must be mentally unbalanced.
Under the "old morality" that Gelernter referred to, neighbors would mind
their own business or approach the violator and personally ask him to obey
the law but they would never turn him in to the government!
On top of all that, the same "new morality" is not only changing people's
attitudes toward their fellow citizens, but toward their God-given rights as
well. The attitude that "we need to give up more of our privacy to ensure
our security" is becoming quite a popular saying these days. The Clinton
Administration has long been saying it. The media picked it up and now it
is rolling off the tongues of more and more Americans. We need to give up
our rights in order for the government to give us more protection.
So the bottom line is if David Gelernter is referring in his article to the
"new morality", his conclusion is right on, but if he's referring to the
"old morality" that this country was founded upon, then with all due respect
to him, he's way off.
Lisa Dean is vice president of the Free Congress Foundation's Center for
Technology Policy.
For media inquiries, contact Robert McFarland 202.546.3000 /
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
For other questions or comments, contact Angie Wheeler
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Is Being Fat a Crime? Well, Hold On to Your Ho-Ho
by Paul M. Weyrich
From the "Endangered Liberties" Television Program
Well cross off Colorado as a place for me to vacation anytime soon. I don't
want to go near the place. I am afraid of either being thrown in jail or
being taken off to some clinic to be rehabilitated. You see out in that
beautiful Rocky Mountain state, some officials want to pass the "Obesity
Prevention Act." Under their definition, I am obese. This, you understand,
is not because being of German and Norwegian heritage, I like to eat good
food. This is because, according to the Colorado health police, I have a
disease. These are the same folks who insist that pregnancy is a disease.
Anyway, the Colorado health police want to make dieting an official policy
of the state of Colorado. Now it is unclear to me if I start on a diet they
will leave me alone if I come out there. Or do I have to actually show
results. You see, over my lifetime I have gained and lost the equivalent of
several people. So I don't know if I get any credit for that or if my
disease starts with my weight today.
I am curious as to how this policy will be enforced. Will cowboys patrol
the border with other states and turn away the obese? Will obesity
inspectors board incoming planes and refuse to let anyone off who is
overweight? Or maybe this policy just applies to permanent residents.
I can see it now. Your company transfers you to Denver. You call a real
estate agent and she asks you your weight. When you tell her, she says to
call back when you lose 60 lbs. She would be forbidden to sell you a house
if you are overweight. Some smarties will send surrogates to buy homes for
them. I have an uncle who has always looked like he just emerged from an
Eastern Orthodox monastery after Great Lent. I could send him to buy a house
for me. Then I'd move in under cover of darkness. Of course, no doubt
neighbors will be rewarded if they turn in fat people. So as soon as there
is light of day that probably won't work either.
This is fun to joke about such things but there is a serious side to it. It
is very clear that such a policy is aimed at doing to the food industry what
has been done to tobacco. If so-called obesity is, as proponents of this
health policy claim, killing thousands of people every year, and if it is
truly a disease, then someone is spreading the disease. Sounds like a great
case against any number of food processors, fast food places, restaurant
chains and so on.
Let us be clear. Just as the tobacco nonsense was not about stopping kids
from smoking, but rather was about reaching into the deep pockets of the
tobacco companies, so also is this kind of health policy not about
overweight and ill people, it is also about money. Those who want to spend
more on social programs, and who have been frustrated by the fact that there
have been too many conservatives holding office at both the state and
national level of late, have found a new way to extort money. Just watch the
class action lawsuits against everyone connected with the processing and
distribution of food. Wow!
Tobacco serviced a distinct minority of Americans. On the other hand,
everyone has to eat! The possibilities are endless. I used to have lots of
fun ridiculing absurd ideas like this purported health policy. It isn't any
fun anymore. Today's joke becomes official policy three years down the road.
Here is a warning then. Either stomp this sort of stupidity to death now or
watch the slow nationalization of the most successful food industry in the
world, in the name of better health.
Better health, my foot. It all makes me sick.
Paul Weyrich is president of the Free Congress Foundation.
For media inquiries, contact Robert McFarland 202.546.3000 /
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
For other questions or comments, contact Angie Wheeler
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
"Endangered Liberties" Program Excerpts:
Mayhem on the Internet
"After the recent attacks against popular websites on the Internet,
President Clinton held an emergency Internet security summit. The President
and the best minds in business and technology huddled together in crisis
mode. Is there really a crisis? Is the Internet the sight of the next
Pearl Harbor, as one reporter suggested? Or is there another side behind
all of the headline hype?" reported "Endangered Liberties" hosts Paul
Weyrich and Lisa Dean. Joining the program was Wayne Madsen of EPIC, the
Electronic Privacy Information Center and Jonathan Koppell, a fellow at the
New America Foundation.
Paul Weyrich asked his guests, "What did you think of the summit? Was it
the right thing for the President to do?" Wayne Madsen replied, "I think
it's a good thing when the President gets involved in these issues
generally, but what I'm more concerned about is, there were presence of the
national security community there. Is hacking, or not hacking per se, but
causing disruption to eBay where somebody cannot sell Aunt Martha's tea set
for a couple of hours, is that a national security issue? I think this is a
bit of an overkill by the national security community. I think they're
looking for enemies where there may not be the types of enemies they're used
to."
Weyrich stated, "Aren't they looking for an excuse to have the federal
government intervene in some way that eventually takes away our freedom?"
Madsen responded, "I think they're looking for that, and they're looking for
big budgets - there's two billion dollars on the table - the President has
asked for critical infrastructure protection. Now we see all the
intelligence agencies, military agencies, and their respective contractors
that populate the Beltway all in a feeding frenzy to get to that feeding
trough before the others." Guest Jonathan Koppell interjected, "But there
is a bona fide concern, and it may be born of their own plans on how to use
the Internet as a weapon that they recognized the possibility. It was
discussed in the context of the war on Serbia that computers could be used
to disable their infrastructure. And it was decided not to do that, perhaps
because it wasn't possible yet. But that may feed the fear, as much as the
budget capacity, obviously is an issue."
Host Lisa Dean commented, "It almost seems to me that Clinton created the
problem to begin with, because not emphasizing security early enough, not
really allowing the use of strong encryption, the development of strong
encryption and other security measures, now he's reacting and looking like
he's rescuing people from the problem that he created. Am I right?
Madsen commented, "That's right. And one participant in the summit told me
that after it was over, Clinton went around and he shook everybody's hand
and chatted, and this individual said, 'Mr. President, you realize to have
good, strong security you need good, strong encryption and your
administration has, frankly, been weak on that.' And he said, 'Yeah, yeah,
I know, but Al and I have been trying to fight through the Establishment on
that one.' Now, I assume the 'Establishment' is the FBI and the NSA. Now,
if the President and the Vice President can't fight through the
Establishment, who else is?"
Weyrich asked Jonathan Koppell to define the term 'critical infrastructure'
because, Weyrich said, "this term is being bandied about now, and we're
talking about the United States establishing strong critical infrastructure,
and other countries not having the ability to do this, and so on. What do
they mean by that?" Koppell said, "I think it is somewhat [of an] ambiguous
term. I've seen it used narrowly to refer to computer systems, and at the
same time I've seen it used quite broadly to refer to basically all
technological systems that could be affected in theory by computers or by
some sort of malicious attacks...." Wayne Madsen provided a definition
saying, "...a critical infrastructure, it could be almost anything under
their definition -- it's the pipelines that carry natural gas, water,
electricity, air traffic control systems - it goes on and on and on. What
the administration fails to realize is many of these infrastructures are not
connected to Internet - maybe one day they will - but right now they're not.
And that, in itself, is a bit of a security safeguard."
Lisa Dean noted, "There are some questions whether or not any of this is
really 'hacking.' Some say this is something else. Could you explain that a
little bit?" Madsen responded, "What this recent incident was, was called a
'distributed denial of service' attack. Now, I find it interesting that
people from eBay and people that probably have never even considered
computer security, other than watching reruns of Hackers and Sneakers, would
come up with terms that were basically originated in the Pentagon. Now, my
question is, who told them about these terms, where did they learn these
terms? But the whole thing, it's not hacking per se - somebody ran a
program that caused basically packets that transmit data on the Internet.
There was a flood of these packets. And the servers, the computers that are
used to pass these packets along, ground to a halt because there was too
many packets for them to handle. I just got an email today from somebody in
Australia and said, 'Do you realize that these types of denial service
attacks take place on a daily basis to a much greater extent than the eBay,
Amazon and Yahoo hits', but they're not reported because they take place at
what's called internet relay chat servers that are located in some obscure
university somewhere...you know, if you say it's the University of
Tasmania's server that's one thing, you know, that's not very interesting.
If it's Yahoo, Amazon, eBay - that's a different story." Jonathan Koppell
made the point, "The hacking part of it came in, which is the way that
they...overwhelm the computers with so many messages that they essentially
crashed, and the way that they accomplished that was to enter other
computers and essentially automate their sending messages, and this was
accomplished at, I believe, Stanford University was one of the universities
and the University of California at Santa Barbara, I think, was the other
university where those computers were essentially turned into instruments of
the hackers."
Paul Weyrich said, "You know, forty years ago this year, I started in radio
- and the big issue when I was in radio, and you had to have instructions on
this and everything else - was that certain people were figuring out how to
broadcast their own signal on the signal of the particular radio station -
and all of a sudden you'd be listening to the station I was on and somebody
else would come on. And there was no national crisis over this. This was
happening all over the country. The FCC dealt with these issues constantly.
But nobody called a national summit..."
Wayne Madsen stated, "Well, I agree. And, you know, it's very easy to deal
with those types of situations without their questioning whether you have to
amend the Bill of Rights, as we hear about today."
Contact: Producer Joseph Starrs 202.546.3000
Coalition for Constitutional Liberties
Brought to you by the Center for Technology Policy of the Free Congress
Foundation
Lisa S. Dean, Vice President for Technology Policy
(mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED])
Julie McIntire, Coalition Coordinator (mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED])
phone: (202) 546-3000
fax: (202) 544-2819
http://www.FreeCongress.org
The following are excerpts from the Coalition for Constitutional Liberties'
weekly report. To see the full report contact Julie McIntire at
(mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED])
CfCL stories in today's Notable New Now:
* IDENTIFICATION DEVICE WORKS IN A FLASH
* WHITE HOUSE SEEKS TO STRENGTHEN LEGISLATION FOR ELECTRONIC
SIGNATURES
CfCL stories included in the full report, not appearing in today's Notable
News Now:
* INFRARED SHARING: THE NEW GEEKY HANDSHAKE
* PSION ICES OUT MICROSOFT
* INTEL UNVEILS ENCRYPTION AS YOU TYPE
* A NEW RADAR IMAGING SYSTEM GIVES AN UNMANNED SPY PLANE SHARPER EYES
* FIBER OPTICS TO THE HOME
* CALL FOR NOMINATIONS: THE 2000 U.S. BIG BROTHER AWARDS
* THE TOPCLICK PRIVATE SEARCH ENGINE
IDENTIFICATION DEVICE WORKS IN A FLASH
The handheld gadget takes fingerprints and photos, then instantly transmits
them for on-the-spot data
Thursday, February 17, 2000
By Maxine Bernstein of The Oregonian staff
Police in several U.S. cities soon may ask drunken driving suspects not only
to touch their fingers to their noses but also to press their thumbs against
a handheld device to determine their identity and more -- instantly.
Six agencies in Minnesota and Southern California have been awarded federal
grant money to become the first in the nation to test the new fingerprinting
technology, which will go on sale nationwide in July.
The designers and manufacturers were in Portland this week to demonstrate it
to area agencies considering buying it, including the Portland Police
Bureau, Multnomah County Sheriff's Office, Clackamas County Sheriff's
Office, Gresham Police, Clark County Sheriff's Office and the Federal
Protective Service.
"We're all looking at ways in which we can become more efficient and
effective out on the street," said Capt. Mike Garvey, who heads the Portland
police identification division. "I don't know if we're going to buy this
fingerprinting system or not, but it looks like something that would help an
officer out in the field."
The terminals, patented by Digital Biometrics Inc., a Minnesota-based
company, can capture fingerprints at the scene and transmit them to a
database. If there is a match, the system returns the person's name and date
of birth directly to the officer's handheld terminal. Then the officer can
check the person's criminal history and search for any outstanding warrants.
Transmitting photos, too
The devices also can take photographs and transmit them immediately to an
office computer or to laptops in police cruisers.
If police are investigating a case of a missing child, for example, an
officer could transmit the child's photo to the data terminals in other
patrol cars aiding in the search.
Other applications include photographing crime-scene evidence, including
latent fingerprints, and recording witness statements.
Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Community
Oriented Policing Service, or COPS, awarded a one-year, $1.5 million grant
to allow six agencies to test the technology this spring.
"We're hoping this becomes like the cop's portable radio, and officers say,
'Geez, I can't be without this,' " said Lt. Bruce Lennox of the Hennepin
County Sheriff's Office in Minnesota, one of the agencies testing the
device.
Its manufacturers tout the time it could save police, keeping them from
needlessly transporting suspects to a police precinct or booking division to
fingerprint them.
"That eats up our time," said Darrell Souza of the Federal Protective
Service in Portland, which is responsible for the security of federal
properties. "This would certainly help."
Other agencies interested
Other agencies, such as border patrols and campus and airport security
forces, also have expressed interest.
Because the technology has not yet been used, officers don't know how well
suspects will comply with the field fingerprinting. And the price might be
prohibitive for some forces; the system ranges from $3 million for a small
police department to $8 million for an urban force.
"The whole idea is to just provide information as quickly as possible, so
police can make a good decision at the scene," said Jim Granger, chief
executive officer of Digital Biometrics. "It's a tool for decision-making."
WHITE HOUSE SEEKS TO STRENGTHEN LEGISLATION FOR ELECTRONIC SIGNATURES
By MICHAEL SCHROEDER
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
February 17, 2000
WASHINGTON -- A top Treasury Department official said the administration is
negotiating with Congress to beef up protections in legislation that would
allow many financial transactions to use electronic signatures as an
alternative to hand-signing documents.
Separate "digital signature" bills passed by wide margins in both the House
and Senate. The House voted Wednesday to send its legislation, which also
allows for electronic transfers of documents such as monthly bank
statements, to a House-Senate panel to reconcile the differences between the
bills and send a final measure to the president.
Advocates say electronic signatures make sense for transactions that are
being conducted over the Internet, such as stock trading, bank loans and
federal tax filing. Electronic signatures rely on encrypted codes or
passwords to verify a consumer's identity online.
"A good digital signature bill will ensure that consumer protections in the
electronic world are equivalent to those in the paper world. We believe that
with some modest, common-sense changes, the goal is well within reach," said
Gary Gensler, Treasury's undersecretary for domestic finance.
Mr. Gensler told the Exchequer Club, a group of financial trade-association
executives, that many of the administration's concerns about consumer
protections could be satisfied if lawmakers agree to let regulatory agencies
interpret and provide guidance on how provisions apply to their respective
industries. The legislation also needs to be modified to make sure that
consumers give full consent to electronic signatures and that records can't
be altered after a transaction is completed, he said.
"I hope we can reach agreement and move forward," Mr. Gensler said. Indeed,
there is optimism in both houses that a deal can be worked out.
Separately, the administration is pressing forward on President Clinton's
pledge to build on consumer financial privacy protections signed into law
last year.
Under the new financial-services modernization law, firms that share private
information with independent third parties must mail copies of their privacy
policies to customers. Customers also must be given the option of telling
firms not to share private personal data with third parties, such as
telemarketers.
The administration wants consumers to have more control over how their
personal information is shared among jointly owned financial firms. Mr.
Gensler said the administration soon will offer a new privacy bill that
would tighten controls on sharing information among affiliates.
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