Justin's Political Corner

Adam Carolla wants “Big Brother” to know he’s fine with them listening to his cell phone conversations. The comedian and popular podcast host laid out his views Friday in light of the ongoing Boston Marathon bombing investigation. “Big Brother doesn’t give a fuck about me and my cell phone conversations,” Carolla said, and he thinks anyone else who’s abiding the law should feel the same way.

Speaking about the Boston suspects and what authorities could have done to prevent last month’s attack, Carolla said, “If you’re involved with this, and you’re going to the mosque, and you’re preaching radical shit, and you’ve got a YouTube channel devoted to blowing stuff up, then we need to look at you.” He said when civil libertarians start warning about “Big Brother” and its increased power after events like this, he likes to remind them what would happen if the government was listening to his cell phone calls.

“All I do is complain about shit and I don’t talk about anything,” he said. “And Big Brother doesn’t give a fuck about my cell phone conversations, because it’s just me talking about cars and complaining about asshole producers I have to work with.” He joked, “It’s rarely speaking about jihad.”

Carolla concluded his point by saying, “if you’re going through your life, and you’re paying your taxes… and you’re not robbing anybody, then the camera’s your friend.” It’s an argument often made by proponents of increased surveillance, and one often challenged by those who, for what ever reason, don’t want to be watched.

From the 05.03.2013 edition of The Adam Carolla Show:

h/t: Mediaite

BEAVERTON, Ore. (AP) — A grieving Oregon mother who battled Facebook for full access to her deceased son’s account has been pushing for years for something that would prevent others from losing photos, messages and other memories — as she did.

“Everybody’s going to face this kind of a situation at some point in their lives,” says Karen Williams, whose 22-year-old son died in a 2005 motorcycle accident.

The Oregon Legislature responded and took up the cause recently with a proposal that would have made it easier for loved ones to access the “digital assets” of the deceased, only to be turned back by pressure from the tech industry, which argued that both a 1986 federal law and voluntary terms of service agreements prohibit companies from sharing a person’s information — even if such a request were included in a last will and testament.

Lobbyists agree the Stored Communications Act is woefully out of date but say that until it’s changed, laws passed at the state level could be unconstitutional.

“Everybody wants to do the right thing, but the hard legal reality is the federal communications act,” said Jim Hawley, a vice president at TechNet, an industry group that represents companies such as Google and Microsoft.

Oregon lawmakers moved ahead anyway with a proposal that would have given “digital assets” — everything from photos and messages stored online to intellectual property and banking information — the same treatment as material property for estate purposes.

“I think it’s time for us to really look at what we can do now,” said Democratic Sen. Floyd Prozanski after hearing Williams testify about her loss last month.

Two weeks later, however, language in the bill that would have covered social media accounts, from Facebook to Flikr, was stripped as tech lobbyists said the federal law and company privacy policies trumped anything that the bill would have included.

“I recognize the emotional toll these types of decisions can have on a family who’s lost a loved one,” Prozanski said Thursday. “But some of these issues may have to be addressed when we have more information than we currently have.”

Currently, five states have digital assets laws, which vary widely. This group includes Oklahoma, which passed a law two years ago allowing estate lawyers to access digital assets, even social media accounts. That measure did not face the opposition that has emerged in Oregon.

“There is some question if laws like the one we passed in Oklahoma, would stand up to a challenge by Facebook and Gmail saying their terms of service agreements supersede laws like this one and the one being discussed in Oregon,” said Ryan Kiesel, a former Oklahoma legislator who wrote the law.

“That’s a question that remains to be answered,” he added.

Several other states, including Nebraska — guided in part by the story of Williams’ 22-year-old son, Loren — are also considering proposals. And the Uniform Law Commission, a non-profit, non-partisan group that writes model legislation for states to help standardize laws around the nation, is examining the issue.

“This law is a real need as we have moved into a digital world,” said Lane Shetterly, an Oregon attorney and a representative on the commission’s drafting committee. The group is responsible for standardizing a range of legislation, including commercial transaction regulations and child custody laws.

Proponents say the need is clear. Without clarity or direction, the digital information left behind by a deceased person can spark emotional legal battles, pitting big business against devastated families. And as more and more memories are being stored online, new tools are necessary to make sure loved ones can easily access personal details that could be lost forever.

“If this were a box of letters under his bed, no one would have thought twice,” Williams said.

Months after the death of her first-born son, who was away at college in Arizona, Williams found comfort in his Facebook page. There, she was able to click through photos and letters that helped ease the pain of her loss — for two hours.

She learned of the page from his friends and wanted access to his memories to keep them from being deleted, which was Facebook’s policy at the time. Unaware of Internet privacy regulations, she reached out to Facebook for help. As she waited for a response, one of his friends provided a tip that helped her discover his password. “It was like a gift,” she said.

Shortly after, however, the site’s administrators changed the password, citing company policy in denying her. Williams sued and won, but she never received the full access she sought. Eventually, the account was taken down. In the end, she gained little more than a symbolic victory and a role as champion of a cause that didn’t exist before the digital age.

Kiesel, the former Oklahoma lawmaker, says the various attempts at legislation have sparked a long overdue conversation about estate planning for digital assets.

“I think that, because of the wide prevalence of online accounts and digital property, the federal government will ultimately need to pass some legislation that provides greater uniformity,” he said.

Under current law, Internet companies that provide storage for digital assets are prohibited from disclosing account information, even to families, without a court order, which can be costly and difficult to obtain.

Even then, there are no guarantees. Facebook, for example, citing its terms of service agreement won’t provide access, even if a judge orders them to do so. Facebook will not comment on pending legislation or specific cases other than to defer to their service agreement, which states, in part, “We may access, preserve and share your information in response to a legal request (like a search warrant, court order or subpoena) if we have a good faith belief that the law requires us to do so.”

Along these lines, TechNet, one of several groups in opposition to the Oregon measure, provided written testimony arguing that legislation requiring online companies to provide access could subject them to federal criminal penalties.

Since she began her quiet crusade after her 2007 court victory yielded limited, temporary access to her son’s account, the social media landscape has changed considerably, but there is still no industry standard. Where Facebook once deleted the accounts of deceased users, for example, pages can now be memorialized for public view.

Many predict the problem will grow as long as there are no estate laws in place to determine what happens to virtual property left behind by the deceased.

h/t: AP.org

In conversation with The Hill, Representative Charles “Dutch” Ruppersberger stated that he intends to re-introduce the controversial Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act in 2013.

The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, known to most as simply ‘CISPA,’ was a lighting rod bill in the House last year, leading to a contentious vote in the lower chamber, and a veto threat the President over privacy concerns. The final vote for the bill was rammed through so quickly that a half dozen of its co-sponsors did not vote for the law in the end.

CISPA passed the House 248 to 168. However, its lack of mandatory standards for critical infrastructure put it into a difficult spot, as the Senate majority was in favor of such standards. In the House they were, and likely remain, anathema. The political climate has shifted some since the last age of CISPA, but probably not enough to convince the House majority to vote in favor of increased regulation. 

Naturally, the updated version of CISPA will attract heavy scrutiny when it is announced. That said, I’m not optimistic that it will have been reformed sufficiently to ensure proper privacy for the average United States citizen.

Clearly, there is a firm need for clear, strong cybersecurity legislation in the United States. This is universally agreed upon. However, after the Senate’sfailure on the larger issue, and the President’s apparent declination of issuing an executive order, to see the next round of legislative work originate in the House isn’t surprising  But, as with the first version of CISPA before it, the House could trip out of the gate, and gum the wheels of progress.

H/T: TheNextWeb.us

Instagram said today that it has the perpetual right to sell users’ photographs without payment or notification, a dramatic policy shift that quickly sparked a public outcry.

The new intellectual property policy, which takes effect on January 16, comes three months after Facebook completed its acquisition of the popular photo-sharing site. Unless Instagram users delete their accounts before the January deadline, they cannot opt out.

Under the new policy, Facebook claims the perpetual right to license all public Instagram photos to companies or any other organization, including for advertising purposes, which would effectively transform the Web site into the world’s largest stock photo agency. One irked Twitter userquipped that “Instagram is now the new iStockPhoto, except they won’t have to pay youanything to use your images.”

That means that a hotel in Hawaii, for instance, could write a check to Facebook to license photos taken at its resort and use them on its Web site, in TV ads, in glossy brochures, and so on — without paying any money to the Instagram user who took the photo. The language would include not only photos of picturesque sunsets on Waikiki, but also images of young children frolicking on the beach, a result that parents might not expect, and which could trigger state privacy laws.

Facebook did not respond to repeated queries from CNET this afternoon. We’ll update the article if we receive a response.

Another policy pitfall: If Instagram users continue to upload photos after January 16, 2013, and subsequently delete their account after the deadline, they may have granted Facebook an irrevocable right to sell those images in perpetuity. There’s no obvious language that says deleting an account terminates Facebook’s rights, EFF’s Opsahl said.

Facebook’s new rights to sell Instagram users’ photos come from two additions to its terms of use policy. One section deletes the current phrase “limited license” and, by inserting the words “transferable” and “sub-licensable,” allows Facebook to license users’ photos to any other organization.

A second section allows Facebook to charge money. It says that “a business or other entity may pay us to display your… photos… in connection with paid or sponsored content or promotions, without any compensation to you.” That language does not exist in the current terms of use.

Google’s policy, by contrast, is far narrower and does not permit the company to sell photographs uploaded through Picasa or Google+. Its policy generally tracks the soon-to-be-replaced Instagram policy by saying: “The rights you grant in this license are for the limited purpose of operating, promoting, and improving our services.” Yahoo’s policies service for Flickr are similar, saying the company can use the images “solely for the purpose for which such content was submitted or made available.”

Reginald Braithwaite, an author and software developer, posted a tongue-in-cheek “translation” of the new Instagram policy today: “You are not our customers, you are the cattle we drive to market and auction off to the highest bidder. Enjoy your feed and keep producing the milk.”

One Instagram user dubbed the policy change “Instagram’s suicide note.” The PopPhoto.com photography site summarized the situation by saying: “The service itself is still a fun one, but that’s a lot of red marks that have shown up over the past couple weeks. Many shooters — even the casual ones — probably aren’t that excited to have a giant corporation out there selling their photos without being paid or even notified about it.”

h/t: CNET.com

Twitter on Monday evening launched new colored photo filters for users of its iPhone and Android apps. The multicolored filters, which are provided by photo-editing app companyAviary, put Twitter in more direct competition with Instagram, which recently disabled the ability for Twitter users to see full Instagram photos shared on Twitter.

But Twitter’s photo editor now not only displays full photos, but offers one feature Instagram does not: a view showing each filter applied to a specific photo in a grid.

h/t: TPM Livewire

(Reuters) - Facebook Inc’s recently acquired photo-sharing service Instagram removed a key element of its integration with Twitter, signaling a deepening rift between two of the Web’s dominant social media companies.

Instagram Chief Executive Kevin Systrom said Wednesday his company turned off support for Twitter “cards” in order to drive Twitter users to Instagram’s own website. Twitter “cards” are a feature that allows multimedia content like YouTube videos and Instagram photos to be embedded and viewed directly within a Twitter message.

The move marked the latest clash between Facebook and Twitter since April, when Facebook, the world’s no. 1 social network, outbid Twitter to nab fast-growing Instagram in a cash-and-stock deal valued at the time at $1 billion. The acquisition closed in September for roughly $715 million, reflecting Facebook’s recent stock drop.

The companies’ ties have been strained since. In July, Twitter blocked Instagram from using its data to help new Instagram users find friends.

Systrom confirmed Wednesday that his company had decided its users should view photos on Instagram’s own Web pages and took steps to change its policies.

“We believe the best experience is for us to link back to where the content lives,” Systrom said in a statement, citing recent improvements to Instagram’s website.

“A handful of months ago, we supported Twitter cards because we had a minimal Web presence,” Systrom said, noting that the company has since released new features that allow users to comment about and “like” photos directly on Instagram’s website.

The move escalates a rivalry in the fast-growing social networking sector, where the biggest players have sought to wall off access to content from rival services and to their ranks of users.

The government can read your e-mail, texts, & track your location using your phone WITHOUT A WARRANT. Help save privacy

NEW YORK, NY — Hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers navigated a still powerless reality on Wednesday, the second day after Superstorm Sandy flooded and crippled much of the city.

The powerlessness was felt especially in Manhattan below 39th street, where electricity had been partially shut off preemptively on Monday by local utility ConEdison to avoid more extensive flooding damage from the storm surge. (The location where TPM’s own New York offices are located, also without power at the time of this article’s publication).

So it shouldn’t have been a surprise that Manhattanites descended upon the city like an army of zombies, not in search of brains but rather power for their dead devices: cell phones, tablets, laptops, mp3 players and the rest of the gadgets that run on rechargeable — not easily replaceable — lithium ion batteries.

“If you plan on coming into Manhattan, bring cash, a phone charger, and cigarettes,” tweeted one resident. “You will automatically be Mayor. #NYC #Sandy”

“It’s like there’s two cities, everybody above 39th street is going along like nothing’s happened while everybody below is staggering around without power,” said David Walke, CEO of goCharge, a New York City-based startup that provides mobile device charging kiosks in bars and restaurants, and bills itself as the “world leader in mobile device charging,” in a phone interview with TPM.

Since early 2011, goCharge has 50 free to use electronics charging stations throughout bars in Manhattan, but only 17 of those were active as of Wednesday, all of them above 39th street, Walke told TPM.

“Backup diesel generators are designed to provide emergency response for critical functions, such as access lighting around doors and stairways, and power for escalators and elevators so passengers aren’t trapped,” said Allen Schaeffer, executive director of the nonprofit Diesel Technology Forum, which advocates for and educates about diesel fuel use, in an interview with TPM, “So the fact that folks can’t find outlets that are adequately charged even in buildings that may have lights, that explains why.”

However, Schaeffer said that as smartphones and tablets become more integral to the functioning of critical services like health care and safety going forward, operators of backup generator systems should consider expanding their capacity to power personal devices.

“When you see images of a swarm of people around one power strip, cords everywhere like a bunch of spaghetti lying there, those are important images to think about going forward,” Schaeffer told TPM.

The desperate search for places to recharge in New York came despite earlier articles warning residents to keep their devices powered up and use them scarcely to conserve energy during an outage.

Of course, even once mobile devices owners recharged, there were still other gadget-related problems with which to contend: Dropped calls were a recurring issue into Wednesday, as up to 25 percent of all transmission sites in the Northeast were still offline, as The New York Times reported. Again, Lower Manhattan seemed to be the epicenter of that outage, as well, according to The Wall Street Journal.

H/T: Carl Franzen at TPM

Pinterest is still a relatively new kid on the block. Up to this point, the site launched new features by talking about them on its Facebook wall and then waiting for the comments to start rolling in.

Consistently among the first comments after each Facebook post? A Pinterest Android app. The requests are so common that it has become a Pinterest in-office joke with each launch: How long will it take for someone to ask for an Android app?

Well, the wait for Android fans ended on Tuesday. Pinterest officially launched an app for Android as well as iPad, and also launched an updated version of its iPhone app.