[Politech] EPIC Freedom 2.0 event in DC 5/20 and spy museum [priv]
Original Message Subject: EPIC - May 21 - Int'l Spy Museum Date: Tue, 18 May 2004 13:20:52 -0400 From: Marc Rotenberg [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Declan McCullagh [EMAIL PROTECTED] Declan - Could you forward to your list? This should be a great opportunity for people in the DC area. General conference information is at http://www.epic04.org/ Marc. -- PRESS RELEASE May 18, 2004 INTERNATIONAL SPY MUSEUM OPENS NEW EXHIBIT ON TERROR IN AMERICA Conference in Washington, DC to Explore Privacy, Open Government, and Democracy WASHINGTON, DC - Just in time for the EPIC policy conference Freedom 2.0, the International Spy Museum opens a new exhibit that provides unprecedented insight into terror on American soil from the Revolutionary War to the War on Terrorism. Admission to a special showing at the Spy Museum on Friday, May 21 is for attendees at Freedom 2.0: Distributed Democracy, Dialogue for a Connected World. The conference is open to the public. Registration information is available at http://www.epic04.org/. Registration will begin Thursday, May 20 at 3 pm at the Washington Club on Dupont Circle. The Enemy Within: Terror in America - 1776 to Today, the only museum exhibit to provide historic perspective on acts of terror that have taken place on American soil, opened May 13, 2004 as the International Spy Museum's first special exhibit. The Enemy Within will reveal nine major events and periods in U.S. History when Americans were threatened by enemies within its borders: depicting how the government and public responded, illustrating the corresponding evolution of U.S. counterintelligence and homeland security efforts, and examining the challenge of securing the nation without compromising the civil liberties upon which it was founded. Marc Rotenberg, President of EPIC, said, Attendees at Freedom 2.0 will have an extraordinary opportunity to view this timely and important exhibit. To understand the threats to our nation -- both from acts of terrorism and the loss of liberty -- we should look closely at how the United States has responded during similar periods in the past. EPIC has been among the leading civil liberties organizations in the United States calling for a careful examination of the government's proposals to expand police powers after 9-11. EPIC has also successfully pursued several Freedom of Information Act cases, including one against the Attorney General John Ashcroft and another against the former director of the Total Information Awareness program John Poindexter. Public understanding of the nature of terrorism and the responses of government is a critical requirement for an effective response to future threats of terrorism. EPIC's open government requests combined with the Spy Museum's extraordinary exhibit help promote a vital public debate, said Rotenberg. The following dramatic moments in U.S. history - all frightening, and destabilizing events - represent times when Americans have felt threatened within their own borders. Each precipitated legislation and/or new counterintelligence measures and provoked debate about protecting both citizens and civil liberties. * The City of Washington Captured and the White House Burned - August, 24 1814 During the War of 1812, the City of Washington was captured and the White House, Capitol, and other major public buildings were torched by British troops-aided by information provided by a few Americans. * Manhattan Hit by Massive Explosions in New York Harbor - July 30, 1916 German secret agents, aided by American collaborators, blew up a munitions depot in New York Harbor showering Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty with shrapnel and debris. Acts of German sabotage on America soil like this contributed to America 's entry into World War I, and inspired the passage of the 1918 Espionage Act, still in effect today, and the growth of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. * Anarchist Bombs Target American Leaders - June 2, 1919 When the home of Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer was bombed by an anarchist and plots for more bombings were revealed, both the public and the government clamored for tighter law enforcement and more restrictive legislation for immigrants, resulting in the roundups, deportations, and public outrage associated with the now infamous Palmer Raids. * 30,000 Ku Klux Klan Members Parade Down Pennsylvania Avenue - August 8, 1925 The nation's oldest hate group, Ku Klux Klan, has risen three times in the nation's history. Each time, the group changed, evolving from small vigilante groups inflicting terror on former slaves after the Civil War; to a politically powerful organization of four-million members in the 1920s expanding its targets to include immigrants, Jews, and Catholics; to the violent groups of the1960s attacking African Americans and civil rights workers. Today, a diminished Klan is only one among many
[Politech] New Zealand government's discussion paper on spam laws [sp]
I've placed the paper here: http://www.politechbot.com/docs/new.zealand.spam.051804.pdf They're asking for replies by June 30 to [EMAIL PROTECTED] -Declan Original Message Subject: NZ Discussion document on spam Date: Wed, 19 May 2004 11:23:16 +1200 From: Sebastian Morgan-Lynch [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] NZ SPAM discussion.pdf Office of the Privacy Commissioner PO Box 10-094 Wellington, New Zealand Home page: www.privacy.org.nz tel +64-4 494 7082 fax +64-4 474 7595 If you have received this transmission in error please notify me immediately by return e-mail and delete all copies ___ Politech mailing list Archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Moderated by Declan McCullagh (http://www.mccullagh.org/)
[Politech] Some responses to evil traffic cams in DC [priv]
Original Message Subject: Re: [Politech] Privacy villain of the week: DC's traffic cams [priv] Date: Tue, 18 May 2004 15:11:11 -0500 From: Jim Davidson [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Declan McCullagh [EMAIL PROTECTED] CC: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dear Declan, In fact, placing traffic cameras on pedestrian-free highways like New York Ave. and Anacostia Parkway may increase danger on the roads by mixing drivers going at 'highway speed' and other drivers slowing preciptiously to below the too-low speed limit, anxious that a camera will snap them. This is a recipe for disaster that compromises both safety and privacy. No doubt safety and privacy are not at stake, where as gaining more money for the city government is the only yardstick by which such camera placements are measured. It is interesting to me that red light cameras are just now being proposed for the first time, half-heartedly, here in Houston. Interesting because we have a vibrant gun culture and numerous expert marksmen with paintball guns who would be eager to treat these vile specimens of Orwellian statism with proper disrespect. Of course, before ramping up the intrusiveness of speed trap and red light cameras there in DC, first the people were disarmed. I wonder whether there are three paintball guns in all of the district, or the youth with sufficient enthusiasm to paint some targets. Regards, Jim http://www.indomitus.net/ Original Message Subject: Re: [Politech] Privacy villain of the week: DC's traffic cams [priv] Date: Tue, 18 May 2004 08:12:26 -0500 From: Matthew Platte [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Declan McCullagh [EMAIL PROTECTED] References: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yes it is a stretch. It's not a stretch -- studies of red-light cameras have shown that panicky drivers are more likely to slam on the brakes when they see a yellow light for fear of the redlight cameras, causing rear-end collisions. Rear-end collisions are caused by following too closely or driving too fast or inattentive operation of the _following_ car. Your privacy argument is polluted by this lame appeal to the outrage of Fox TV's C.O.P.S. audience. -- ---^.^-- Matthew Platte Lincoln, Nebraska Original Message Subject: Re: [Politech] Privacy villain of the week: DC's traffic cams [priv] Date: Tue, 18 May 2004 20:24:27 -0400 From: Ben [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Declan McCullagh [EMAIL PROTECTED] References: [EMAIL PROTECTED] I wish someone would hand a villain award over to the Charlotte, NC program. The industry behind the cameras here has absolutely no counterbalance and no basis in reality. The local news is as inept as any at getting to the bottom of anything more than it's ratings statistics. The only voice anyone hears on the subject is in a commercial running around the clock where a young man sits at a cemetery telling his dead friend about his school day. ___ Politech mailing list Archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Moderated by Declan McCullagh (http://www.mccullagh.org/)
[Politech] Cypress' TJ Rodgers speaks on politics, offshoring, and Republicrats
[This is one of the most interesting interviews I've done in a while. The full text is worth reading and has better formatting (click on the link). --Declan] http://news.com.com/2008-1006_3-5215272.html Chip off the block May 18, 2004, 12:33 PM PT By Declan McCullagh Unlike your garden-variety Silicon Valley CEO, Cypress Semiconductor's T.J. Rodgers is not shy about speaking his mind as an equal-opportunity critic. Over the years, this plain-spoken entrepreneur has publicly skewered sundry political and industry figures he believes to be peddling humbug--and that includes lobbing verbal bombshells in the direction of both major political parties. Along the way, he's taken on the likes of Jesse Jackson, Bill Clinton and Larry Ellison. For his day job, Rodgers is the founding CEO of Cypress, which manufactures more than 400 types of integrated circuits, with an emphasis on products useful in communications applications. Included in its product line: microprocessor clocks, embedded controllers, static RAM modules and USB chips. The company reported $254.4 million in revenue for the first quarter of 2004, with $26.5 million in profits. CNET News.com recently caught up with Rodgers to get his take on the controversies over the expensing of stock options, offshore outsourcing and the business climate in California for technology companies. --- Q: John Kerry is denouncing Benedict Arnold CEOs who send jobs overseas. Is it moral for American companies to increase their overseas outsourcing? A: It is immoral for any CEO not to run his company in the best possible financial way for his shareholders. I used to hold Kerry's naive view of the all American company, meaning all jobs in America. That was a foolish mistake on my part, and it cost my shareholders a lot of money, until I moved our entire assembly and test operation and several hundred jobs offshore in 1992. You're talking about your Philippines operation? Yes. To me, it's simply wrong to trash the retirement funds and the college funds of my shareholders so that I can wave the American flag and talk about keeping jobs in America. We do make all of our chips in America, because it's the right thing to do. Americans are good at that. A great majority of our engineers are in the United States also, because they're the best engineers we can find. Do you do your chip manufacturing domestically because of worries about intellectual property? No. Our engineers are chosen on merit, period. And we therefore have a mixture of design engineers who are two-thirds American and one-third offshore. A stronger driving force is serving customers. You need to have designers in every market in the world you serve so that they can make the stuff those customers want. There are local differences. Some AFL-CIO activists are pledging to make the offshoring of technology jobs a campaign issue this fall. The AFL-CIO has been promoting losing economics causes for years. Other than the government members of the union, the AFL-CIO has lost pretty much all of its membership over the last few decades. The AFL-CIO consistently promotes economic policies that harm its own members. By that you mean lobbying for short-term benefits at the expense of creating long-term problems? Yes. Exactly. You want to eliminate corporate welfare, including for the high-technology industry. In 1999, you told Congress the way to do it was simple: Put all pork barrel projects in a single package, and hold an up-or-down vote. Everyone ignored you. They're not serious at all about eliminating corporate welfare. It's one of the most sacred parts of our government system. The Democrats also accuse the Republicans of cozying up to business. I made my first call to eliminate corporate welfare to the then-new Clinton administration. And I was never treated with more hostility than by Congresswoman Anna Eshoo, a Democrat from California, and Democrat Herbert Klein from New Jersey. Both of them were condescending and insulting--beyond just disagreeing with me. Corporate welfare is a sacred cow for the Democrats as well as the Republicans. Why do so many people living in Silicon Valley seem to support Democrats, even when they are the more regulatory of the two major parties? In Palo Alto, Mountain View and San Jose, there are two registered Democrats for every Republican. Two big influences are Stanford University and the University of California at Berkeley, both of which are institutions that pour out very liberal graduates into our society. A second point is that it's not always true that we vote liberal. Ronald Reagan was our governor and a very good one. What's your opinion of Arnold Schwarzenegger? I think his $15 billion bond offering is really screwed up. But I think that he's trying to do a good job, and I think he's honest. Are you planning to vote for President Bush in
