Could the whole Internet really crash in a digital 2012?

MSN featured an article Thursday “What if the Internet broke?” The link was here ("What if the Internet breaks" by Katherine Reynolds Lewis). We see this kind of digital-2012 scenario once in while in scaremongering articles or sci-fi scenarios.

Because the Internet is decentralized and has many redundancies, it sounds unlikely. But hackers could undermine the integrity of the DNS system (resulting in emergency meetings in July 2008, covered on my ID theft blog in August 2008), or the dozen or so companies that host big DNS servers.

Banks and hospitals do have manual and paper records and could process locally on mainframes as they had in the past. Electric power would stay up but power companies could not send signals.

It’s common for big regional routers to fail, which usually results in a user’s being able to visit some websites but being unable to connect to others for a couple of hours. Sometimes a cable company loses connection to one of these routers, resulting in partial but not complete disruption of broadband Internet service.

As the article explains, the original Internet was around in limited fashion for DOD and certain universities back in 1969, when I was tucked away in the Army.

Texts, tweets, posts fodder for divorce lawyers as well as employers and insurance companies

ABC Good Morning America gave Internet posters a tongue-lashing this morning with the appearance of Parry Aftab and the story “If You Want to Keep It Hidden, Don't Text or Post it Online, Experts Say: Text Messages Can Now 'Make or Break' a Divorce Case, Attorney Says”, by Andrea Canning, Linda Owens and Suzan Clarke, link here. Divorce and trial lawyers, employers, insurance companies, perhaps landlords, and somtimes police love to track down digital footprints that people didn't have to leave.

There are two kinds of issues here. Yes, if you want to check up on your spouse or child and have the resources, it may be possible to retrieve his or her texts or tweets, or social network posts, even if made with privacy settings, even if made by the improved privacy settings recently proposed by Facebook, which wants to restore the sort of privacy in socializing that we used to have in the "real world" for those who want it.

Then the poster will kick himself and say, "I didn't have to do it."

The other issue is global publication, search-engine sensitive, where the speaker wants to be found (perhaps to become a social or political “player”, Robert Altman style), but where others may react much more negatively that expected, possibly for “existential” reasons. The news story mentions Heather Armstrong (dooce.com) . What Heather Armstrong says about her firing is worth quoting: “What I was doing was completely benign," she said. "I never, you know, mentioned any trade secrets. I never mentioned the company. And so, I was really shocked when this had happened, because I didn't think that this could be a reason”. Usually, people don’t get into trouble until they “name names”, but in some cases the circumstances are so recognizable that others consider the posting compromising. This is related to the “libel in fiction” problem discussed here earlier (as July 27, 2007).

And then IBM-Quebec employer Natalie Blanchard was denied sick-leave benefits when her employer’s insurance company found compromising material in the open on Facebook.

As for the "player" concept, that loops back to "the privilege of being listened to." Can the mere fact that someone placed himself in the limelight with "positive controversy" be used against him propsectively?

Blogger exposes TSA security lapse

Hurray for bloggers. “Wandering Aaramean”, that is Seth Miller, 32, has exposed a security scandal at the TSA, which posted all of its screening policies for contractors ("Screening Management: Standard Operating Procedures"), and used a program to cover up classified words, which a programmer could easily disable. It would have been safer just to use 1920s technology -- an ink blot pen.

Here is his blog.

The person who posted the document(s) was a contractor, but several TSA managers have been placed on administrative leave for the laspe.

I applied for a job a security screener in 2002, and once again as a parttimer in 2003. You’re supposed to keep the application secret when you are in process, and back in 2002 the TSA 800 numbers were very hard to reach. I think I’ve covered why it broke down on the blogs before. Yet they were “gung ho” to hire screeners then, although it was less clear whether screeners needed previous experience.

Are there legal problems with deliberately exposing a security breach that you find? As they say, it ain't that hard to do. Look at the posting here about the Salahi's Nov. 26.
Maybe, as with journalists shield laws in Congress, it could matter if you're "professional".

"Security through obsurity" never works (CNN). Look at the controversy a couple years ago over bump keys.

Why "The Rules" are so important to some people; redux on "the privilege of being listened to"

While watching the tense POW scenes involving the Taliban’s capture of the American Marine captain in the movie “Brothers” (as played by Tobey Maguire) Saturday, I was struck by the way the radical Islamist characters are so taken by a world under absolute rules and laws, and how they feel that Americans and westerners have taken moral certainty away from them. You get the impression that a belief that everyone adheres to “The Rules” is very important to them in a personal way in their own family lives (however their treatment of women comes across to westerners). That may help explain the psychology that led relatively privileged young Saudi men into 9/11. (It’s easy, by the way, to understand the personal “shame” that radical Palestinians feel about the West Bank settlement issue; its much harder for individualistic-thinking westerners to understand the more abstract sense of invasion of Islamic lands as mentioned in the film.)

There’s one aspect of extremely conservative religion: the laws are dictated by “God” or “Allah”, and as long as everyone can be forced to obey them, no one can cheat the system; no one can get out of things, no one can benefit from a hidden dependence on others, and there should be no "double standards". Of course, we may say that is not really true (look at the regal lifestyles of Saudi Arabia’s royal family), but people of that persuasion believe it is true. There is no “democratic debate” on the “rules”: they are supposedly dictated in the Koran. Likewise, with a lot of conservative (sometimes “evangelical”) Christianity, the rules are laid out in the Bible and not subject to debate. And again, no one gets out of stuff (so they think). Indeed, some conservative religious groups, like the Mormon Church (LDS) do a good job of having its members share social responsibility at a deep level. On the other hand, there have been secular attempts to enforce a similar view of “morality”: look at the Cultural Revolution of Red China back in the 1960s, when intellectuals were forced to take their turns becoming peasants (described by some left-wing authors as an exercise in "absolute justice"). Isn’t this what the Cold War came down to?

It’s pretty clear that radical Islam (whether Sunni or Shiite) is as vitriolic in its treatment of homosexuals as any society since the Third Reich. I look back at what happened to me, with my college expulsion in 1961 and the subsequent period, and a related, if somewhat different, set of values is apparent. Back in the 1950s, one of the main purposes of anti-homosexual views (and sodomy laws) was to “guarantee” parents that their kids would be loyal to the families that they (pro)created. This was seen as an important “insurance policy” for the longevity and stability of marriage itself, that everyone share in the cultural value of biological lineage (just see how lineage plays out in the Old Testament). As an only child, this was especially critical for me, yet I did not understand this at, say, age 18 because I had never dated girls or even been interested in heterosexual experience myself. But, yup, to some parents this kind of loyalty really was that important (and still is today – look at the confrontation scene in the film “Latter Days” between the “boy” and his mother). The mandatory sharing of family responsibility was viewed as a social temporizer, a way to make class divisions (even as segregation started to come to an end) morally acceptable.

Of course we know what happened. The “sexual revolution” that started in the 60s and that draws so much criticism from cultural conservatives now really was born on the need for social diversity in order to have the intellectual capital it took to win wars. That is, we couldn’t win WWII without Alan Turing (who was gay), and we couldn’t win the Cold War without pampering geeks and intellectuals, who were often too self-absorbed to care much about procreation. This would play out in the moral conflict over student deferments in the Vietnam era draft, a problem that would bear a curious contraposition to “don’t ask don’t tell” today.

Then, starting pretty much in the supposedly “collectivist” 1970s, individualism and objectivism started to gain credibility as moral theories. The Libertarian Party was born and gradually grew. Individualism could be challenged by problems ranging from oil shocks in the 1970s to AIDS in the 1980s, but, ironically in large part because of Reaganism, it flourished. (In many ways, the 80s were the best years of my life. I hate to say it, but I miss the Reagan years.) With a focus on personal responsibility (including “safer sex” and medical research) we were solving our problems.

We’ve seen a lot of this unravel, especially during the second Bush presidency, especially since 9/11 and now during the financial meltdown. There’s a new concern about the basis of our moral values, and the idea that there is too much inward focus on the self, not enough “generativity” necessary for a sustainable future. A childless person, so the theory goes, might not care about how much carbon he or she puts into the air.

This brings up the position of the Vatican, not just recently in the DC gay marriage debate, but on the whole panoply of homosexual orientation and conduct (one could extend this discussion to the attitude of the military). The Vatican says that the “Teachings” of the “Church” (which are not debatable or negotiable with them any more than with the Koran) require that any access to sexuality (even fantasy or masturbation) requires “openness to procreation” and the continuation of life – generativity. It goes way beyond the bounds of the usual debate on abortion. It requires that everyone share some of the responsibility for raising the next generation and, particularly now given suddenly longer life spans, the previous generation(s). Family responsibility comes from the fact that one has a life in a community at all; it doesn’t come about just because someone has heterosexual intercourse and creates a pregnancy. The point has become particularly relevant because medicine today makes it possible to extend life much longer, particularly for the elderly; there will be many more people with disability or a need to depend on others for long periods of time than there were even two decades ago. Therefore, the notion that “everyone plays” (something we see in the health care debate with proposals regarding mandatory insurance and higher premiums for younger people) becomes morally relevant, perhaps compelling. But it’s also possible, as Jonathan Rauch points out, to imagine a world where this is so (and were filial responsibility laws are enforced) and welcome gay marriage as long as it is really “expected” and understood as offering an “alternative” path to lifelong responsibility for others. As long as “nobody gets out of things” marriages (straight or gay) will be better motivated and remain stable. People become important relative to media and fantasy and “creativity”. But one important benefit of this world view is that in a community, everyone’s life has intrinsic value because everyone has some interpersonal obligations, even those who did not beget their own children. That seems to be the real aim of the Vatican’s mandatory “openness to procreation,” and the uncertainties or risks any family faces (despite “personal responsibility”) when having children. (It doesn’t seem to apply to priests – because they are supposed to have no access to sexuality – believe that!)

This is really difficult. Even fifteen years ago, we were talking like we could base civil rights legislation (including equality for gays, in terms of service in the military as well as domestic relationship benefits) on the idea of “absolute personal responsibility for the self.” Sometimes President Clinton seemed to embrace that idea in the 1990s, even as he did tell the Democratic Convention back in 1996 “we aren’t going back to the days of fending for yourself.” Well, we did, given the course of the health care debatwe! Today, we find that “equality” is a much trickier notion. In a community, no two beings are exactly equal in everything they do; there is always some interdependence, and in families there is usually a lot of with the Vatican likes to call “complementarity”.

We are left, then, with debate, in a pluralistic society, where not everyone functions on the same “moral vector basis” when it comes to responsibilities one has for others besides the self (as well as basic genetic luck and “where one started in line”). Until the Internet age, most political matters like this were settled by organizing and funding of groups, and tended to involve a lot of bargaining among special interests, in a way not morally or intellectually satisfying.

Then, with Internet innovation, individuals like me enter the debate and “keep ‘em honest” (as Anderson Cooper says it). I think it really works. But it brings up that notorious notion “The Privilege of Being Listened To.” Others question, why is involvement in all of these political matters “my business” when I can put myself and perhaps drag others into the firing line, given the self-generated limelight -- perhaps by playing devil's advocate and making those "autistic connections", connecting the dots and showing new ways for things to fail (as in I.T. person, I was paid well to do that for thirty-plus years). “What can you do about it?” they say. “You still belong to a family”. (Some people tell me they do not think there is any point in an average Joe's following the news!) It’s no longer about choice, it seems; it’s about accepting the uncertainty necessary for a worthwhile and reasonably free community to grow with some overall sustainability. In religious terms, it’s about Grace rather than equality and individual justice as we usually see it. Yet it seems sad. We have lost a lot of ability to determine the courses of our own lives, to make our own choices (let alone take moral responsibility later for these choices), to call our own shots, as Cameron Johnson says it. The bad Bush Decade has taught us that we are much more interdependent, and much more dependent on the unseen sacrifices of others, than we were ever able to admit.

Yet, for the time being, I am in. There is nothing to do but press on. Keep them honest.

EFF writes about TOS and AUP issues: there's a lot under the surface

Ed Bayley has an interesting article at Electronic Frontier Foundation, “The Clicks that Bind: Ways Users ‘Agree’ to Online Terms of Service,” link here.

He goes into two concepts: “Clickwrap” and then “Browsewrap,” the latter of which means that a user assents to the terms just by using the product.

I can recall that back in the 1990s, AOL (when Steve Case was CEO) went to great pains to write “rules of the road” in plain English as well as legalese. Then, a lot of people did not grasp the harm that could come from inappropriate behavior online; but that’s remained true, with the range of perils (like the P2P copyright issue and the DMCA) just keeps growing. Now, parents in many families still have to grope with the “risks” of the new world, until their teen kids are mature enough (in terms of “seeing around corners” as Dr. Phil puts it) to grasp their responsibilities.

Telecommunications companies, ISP’s and service providers (like Blogger itself) typically call these agreements either “Acceptable Use Policies” (AUP’s) or “Terms of Service”. They range from unreasonable use of bandwidth (applicable in the network neutrality debate) to intellectual property violations like copyright infringement, libel, invasion of privacy, harassment or hate speech, cyberbullying, or outright criminal behavior (such as child pornography or that behavior so well documented by Chris Hansen on Dateline).

Another little potential legal trap is indemnification. As with book publishers, ISP’s sometimes state in their AUP’s that they can pursue users for any downstream liability judgments, although for the most part Section 230 and the notorious DMCA “takedown” already protect ISP’s (some people in Congress want to change that). Few users are aware of this. And they’re rarely enforced except in really egregious cases (otherwise the providers would have no business model).

All of this looks toward an environment where media perils insurance becomes more of an issue, perhaps complicated or at least enriched by the development of more sophisticated privacy controls by companies like Facebook, which could well require that users learn to use them.

Military, journalism, other professions use DVD's to train in ethical choices: is self always last?

Here’s a challenge for budding filmmakers: to make videos taking one through ethical choices. Actually, the Ethics Center at the Newseum im Washington offers visitors that experience from a journalist’s perspective; but the US Naval Academy is trying this for midshipmen.

The news story is “Charting morally murky waters: Midshipmen study ethical dilemmas in interactive DVDs, by Ashley Halsey III in the Metro Section of the Friday Dec. 4 Washington Post, link here.

The Navy has a hierarchy of priorities: “ship, shipmate, self”. That sounds like the Christian “Jesus first, others second, me last” – quite anti-objectivistic. But, really, loyalty fits into the military concept of unit cohesion, as well as rank and command. In the real world, it seems to wander into Rick Warren territory: how much control should a person have over his own implementation of right and wrong? Warren warns that this can entail “too much responsibility” in his “Purpose-Driven Life”.

Even so, in the Navy example, the midshipman does not substitute his own moral thinking for loyalty to shipmates; he uses moral rules developed for the greater good of the group ("the ship").

The examples in the story deal with covering for a shipmate who gets drunk on shore. But it isn’t hard to imagine situations where doing so puts everyone in danger. And academics at all the service academies follow a strict Honor Code: you can never cover up someone for an Honor Violation.. Joe Steffan went into the puzzles that could create in his 1992 book “Honor Bound”, and it doesn’t take too much imagination to see how this contradicts “don’t ask don’t tell.”

"The Washington Times", DC's "convservative" paper, will downsize, no longer be full service news

Not two weeks after the “restructuring” of the Washington Blade, across the cultural-war aisle the Washington Times (“TWT”) admitted that it is having to trim down. December 2, it gave all employees a mandatory 60-day advance letter that anyone may be laid off, and 40% of the staff will be gone by about Feb. 1. The conservative paper plans to change to a “free print” edition with mostly national issues news and arguments. The story by Jennifer Harper is here. The website will be enhanced, and perhaps combined with “The Conservatives” (link).

But The Washington Post has a more candid story today by Howard Kurtz, “Washington Times cuts in staff, coverage cue new era” here. That article discusses the role of the Unification Church and Rev. Sun Myung Moon.

Earlier in 2009 the Washington Times had dropped printing a Saturday edition.

John Solomon had led the paper until recently, and had curtailed some lowball practices like putting quotes in the phrase ‘gay “marriage”’. Sometimes the paper has, in the past, zeroed in on some sordid episodes at most tangentially related to the gay community, such as a particularly graphic crime in Washington State back in 1989. During the 1990s, while the debate on gays in the military boiled, I sent five letters to the Times, and four were published (an .800 "slugging average"). I had a letter published Aug. 22, 2008 (see that day here) on teachers. However a longer Forum contribution on substitute teachers in October 2008 was not published. An editorial in the Washington Times on October 12, 2005 was coincidentally related to an incident when I was substitute teaching (see July 27, 2007).

Very much to its credit, TWT has often presented libertarian-leading columnists, such as Deroy Murdock.

It is with some amusement that I note that when I lived in Dallas in the 1980s, TWT stood for “This Week in Texas”, a gay-oriented weekly.

Newspaper people say that the Washington Times downsizing is a sign that it is very hard for marginal "professional journalists" to make a good living today. The implication is that the blogosphere and social media (previous post here) are forcing journalism to redo its entire business model. As so often, it's "The Kids" who change our world (and so do some seniors).

Facebook considers revising its privacy paradigm: an example for all social media and even self-publishers?

Facebook’s CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg has announced a change in the overall design of its privacy controls, in a blog posting made December 1, with direct link here.

The original privacy control concept was that of a “regional network” which stemmed from the origin of the service as most suited for educational campuses. As it spread, Zuckerberg explains, some networks became so large that they essentially amounted to granting full public access.

Instead Facebook envisions three levels of control: friends, “friends of friends”, or everyone (full public access, as with most regular websites). But – and this sounds like a critical privacy concept – members will be able to set different privacy settings for each individual content item. That would correspond to being able to control at what level every file or application on a personal website can be viewed.

This concept could set an important example for web publishing as well as for social networking or for “social media” as we have come to understand the concept. For example, employers, at least for associates in management or otherwise sensitive positions, could demand that the associates restrict their personal web activity according to some combination of levels that follows the Facebook example. Or in time insurance companies offering “media perils” could set premiums along the lines of how much access is offered. In the long run, such developments could affect the capability of "amateur" bloggers to function as "citizen journalists".

The concept of “publication” in the law is tricky. Sometimes it means communication to just one person who understands it (sometimes that’s enough for libel). But when a book is published (which is how I got into this), it’s available to all, and the writer is not entitled to know who has purchased or read it.

Admittedly, Zuckerberg could make a different argument for what Facebook plans. In the physical world prior to the Internet era, people would share personal "secrets" and have to trust people theu told (without the idea that such information every became "public"). I remember personal situations like this myself, particularly in the 1970s. Therefore he could try to reproduce the same capability in the digital world.

Zuckerberg’s “Wall” uses his diagonal black-and-white thumbnail repeatedly, and it is curiously effective. I like the Sao Paolo pictures.

Here is the 60 Minutes interview from Jan. 2008 with Leslie Stahl. Yup, note the label “toddler CEO”. The report is pretty interesting as to explaining how “privacy” and “publication” concepts evolve on the site.


Watch CBS News Videos Online

MSN Slate has a piece (Dec. 4) by Farhad Manjoo, "Can Anyone Stop Facebook?; Twitter couldn't. Google couldn't", link here with discussion of Facebook Connect.

My own Profile is still under "gradual construction" here. My thumbnail would not be so effective as "wallpaper"; it has too much resemblance to Marlena's coffin in an epsiode of "Days of our Lives" in 2004.

Update: Sat. Dec. 5

CNN has a story about the ending of "geographical distinctions" here. CNN says that all users will have to use "transitional tools".

EPIC (Electronic Privacy Information Center) has a link discussing Facebook privacy here.

One month to the end of the "00" decade: It is about "us"

Time Magazine has created stir with its Pearl Harbor Day issue with the lead story by Andy Serwer, “The Decade from Hell: And why the next one will be better”. The online link for the story about the “00’s” is (web url) here.

In a simple phrase, we had been living beyond our means, and it caught up with us. Call it “sustainability.” One problem that former political activists know is that, even as an “average individual”, living off unseen sacrifices of others is a bad thing. Commies talk about exploitation of workers. Radical Islam talks about exploitation of Muslim lands and resources and religious and cultural intrusion. In the Middle East, it’s clear that, even from a libertarian perspective, individual Israelis could be regarded as having “benefited” from involuntary takings from individual Palestinians.

We’ve seen a shift in culture in our country, to one where one derives a sense of belonging from family and community to an individualism-based system where one accounts for oneself. The Internet, born of individualism, ironically has exposed some of the problems that occur with this. Christianity, with its emphasis on Grace, maintains that some values are more important than just “the measure of a man” (or Rick Warren’s “it’s not about you”) – perfect earthly justice is incompatible with freedom (rather as is true in modern physics). However, some conservative forms of Christianity (like LDS) and many other religions (Judaism and Islam both) seem very concerned with the assessment of and eventual judgment of the performance of the individual.

In recent years, I have come to understand how some self-concept in radical Islam works, and why well-off young men do some of the terrible things they have done. It’s true, the “measure” of virtue in Islam is very strict and includes “paying your dues” as well as faithfulness to gender within the context of ‘family”, resulting in very low personal crime, paradoxically contrasting to the violent and suicidal behavior sometimes demanded of men in radical religious belief. Virtue, or the belief that it has been preserved, becomes its own end, and even becomes a source of mental pleasure, even reinforcing marital values for men. The idea that others will not be allowed to violate “the rules” makes satisfying them more exciting, for some.

Different religious persuasions lead to different implementations of “sacrifice.” Communal early Christianity, with its deep psychological socialism, would have hid it entirely for the welfare of the group, and in modern society that corresponds to the (easily abused) notion that the family is more important as a fundamental unit that the “particulate” individual. But some religious systems see sacrifice as a natural “paying your dues”, winding up in eternity with “what you deserve” relative to what others have to do. All of this can invite totalitarianism. No wonder libertarians want the simple free market to make all moral decisions. And yet, the markets, say people like Al Gore, don’t look ahead far enough to give us a sustainable future. Think about it. It may require the sharing of "sacrifice."

One could mute the notion of sacrifice by saying that sometimes a "sacrfice" is really a repayment of a hidden debt, perhaps related to the notion that today's concerns about sustainability will require "generativity" from everyone as a fundamental moral value!

What makes a blogger tick?

So, why do I blog?

I’m in transition, and I am trying to set up my next set of “quasi retirement” opportunities, but here are some of the more tangible benefits:

I am interested in doing a film project. A library of film reviews, heavily cross-referenced by category and addressing film-related as well as social issues would help build interest in potential production companies or investors. The book review library provides a similar benefit. It’s true, it would be better to have all the “movie-related” reviews on one blog instead of three, as they are now.

The reviews of classical or even rock music concerts, along with discussions of certain issues in music, would help network with newer musicians and composers.

The discussions of the “intersection data” for law and technology – in areas like COPA, “implicit content”, online reputation, DMCA, downstream liability, prospective trademark dilution, FTC or FEC regulatory attempts, media perils insurance (which could become quasi-mandatory) and employer blogging policies -- would help attract the attention of those looking for analytical help in solving some of these big concept problems that can eventually undermine freedom of speech on the Internet.

The specific blog on identity protection fits my background because in the past I have worked “professionally” on NCOA.

The blog on the information technology job market logically follows from my 31 years in conventional – mostly mainframe – I.T. I can shed a lot of light on what really goes on in recruiting, hiring and firing.

But, then, “you” ask, why play Chicken Little, with a blog about all possible disasters that might happen (as demonstrated in the movies or on the History Channel). In the Disney film, Chicken Little himself made a fool of himself on the Web in the way he drew attention to himself (to the consternation of his dad). Or why, on the issues or retirement blogs, remind viewers of how people “mess up” with upsidedown mortgages or (in the health care debate, for example) make others pay for their “behavioral” problems? Isn’t that drawing attention without walking in the shoes of others. And, wow, talking about refusing to make some kind of bodily sacrifice, of bragging about hidden shame, one asks. What existential conclusions does this lead to? Aren’t these postings a bit sadistic in intent?

Well, Okay, we can refer back to libertarian arguments about “personal responsibility”, and when it fails, it invites government to walk in and take all of our freedoms away. (The health care debate has elements of that.) That’s true, I’d like to see people get beyond “I need” and just sign prewritten form letters to their representatives in petition drives led by others. I’d like to see people learn to use their own words, at least. (Remember that “we’ll give you the words” problem?)

One problem is that, if we don’t learn to work smart on some issues, we really will see “sacrifice” (and “unfairness”) like we’ll never known it. Look at our performance on H1N1. We should be ramping up on H5N1, not just swine flu. (By the way, all flu is “bird flu” anyway.)

And there are other problems that the main media (both mainstream and gay-specific) have totally missed, like filial responsibility laws in conjunction with changing demographics and severely stressed public safety nets.

Yes, I think when an individual writer is out there and willing to stick his name and “reputation” on addressing these things, politicians eventually notice, and the end result is at least more nuanced that what we get with the traditional operations of K Street alone.

But the ultimate point is not to aim at some specific solution (even to a problem like “don’t ask don’t tell” which started me out on this journey and which, with some malignancy, spread to envelope everything else, like metaphysics – we live in a “don’t ask don’t tell” – “don’t mention” – world; sometimes intact social structures and families matter more to people than global truth). One of my points is to trace the evolution of the issues as we have them today. We migrated away from socially-driven values to individualism in a time when we thought some things were “private” – and then the Internet turned everything upside down, like an hourglass, and made the entire meritocratic world buttressed in “privacy” very social indeed.

I have talked about restructuring the blogs, and I think that may well happen by the end of 1Q of 2010. There would be fewer blogs, so that materials (especially book and movie reviews) could be crossed referenced more effectively, and it would be moved off of a “free service” onto one domain so that it could not be knocked off and could be properly insured.

DVD purchasers (and "creative users") are not pirates!

Check out this article (Nov. 20) by Electronic Frontier Foundation counsel Fred Lohmann, “DVD Customers Are Not Movie Pirates”. He makes numerous important points: innovators who would allow legally purchased DVD’s to be used at multiple locations in a house with hard drive access get sued.

Studios are also trying to prevent amateur video enthusiasts from making derivative works or parodies (I won’t get into the legal definitions here) from DVD’s to post them on YouTube and similar sites. Ironically this could become more “just legal” if based on a pirated video!

But why do studios consider this such a threat? Even actual camcorder piracy (no theater allows photography from a movie theater showing; people have been prosecuted for this), while not ethically defendable, hardly creates a real financial threat.

The real problem may be off-kilter, more like what faces newspapers. Some people see the unsupervised nature of amateur work, often done for emotional satisfaction rather than profits, as the ultimate threat to media company business models, especially to publicly traded companies that have a fiduciary responsibility to shareholders.

Virginia couple seeks Facebook fame by "crashing" White House state dinner

A Virginia couple, Tareq and Michaele Salahi, trying to get on the upcoming show "The Real Housewives of Washington" got into the expanded state dinner at the White House Nov. 24 even though they were not on the list as invited guests.

The interesting thing is that their ruse was discovered when they posted their pictures on Facebook. People associated with the Bravo cable network said they believed that the couple had legitimate invitations.

The dinner was so big as to require a special tent to be built, and had a vegetarian meal, for the prime minister of India (including the "chick peas" from "Cold Souls" (aka "Old Souls"!) .

Is this like the “balloon boy” case in Colorado, where a couple or persons seek easy fame?

No one knows yet how the couple got past layers of security, but lying to the Secret Service, even without an oath, can be a felony.

After first having some trouble because of misspelling in some news stories, I found the pictures on Facebook, here.

I did a little maintenance on my own account, adding my domain. I haven’t used it much yet, but that will soon pretty soon as I get more into trying to agent my screenplay “projects”.

But remember, Facebook can be very public. But that’s what some people want. Remember, at one time Facebook was limiteds to college and high school campuses, and it was originally intended to be used in a "quasi-private" or conversational manner, with privacy settings. Now it is a really effective broadcast.




Here's a Showhype link to the Facebook photos story.

Florida Beach Renourishment provides another test of private property rights

In August on this blog I covered a controversial eminent domain case on the Texas Gulf Coast, along with the right to speak and write freely about the case.

Here is a new test of property rights, in Florida. In the Panhandle, as in a community called Destin (not far from Pensacola) the state has been adding sand to beaches in front of waterfront homes (called “Beach Renournishment”), and then claiming that the additional “land” is public property. Local homeowners claim that this violates the Takings Clause, since it deprives them of waterfront property. The Florida Supreme Court (remember it from the 2000 election?) agrees with the State.

There is a blog by D. Benjamin Barros, a law professor at Widener, with an analytical article here. There’s another blog with the humorous title “Inverse Condemnation”, link here.

Robert Barnes has a front page story Nov. 24 in The Washington Post, “Landowners on Florida beaches fighting to be sand owners, too: Supreme Court to examine 'taking' of private property”, link here.

The case is Stop the Beach Renourishment Inc. v. Florida Department of Environmental Protection.

This doesn't sound quite as big brotherish as the Texas case.

Update: Dec. 4, 2009

The Washington Post has a major editorial "Shifting sands: Beachfront property, owners' rights and the Supreme Court", link here. The conclusion of the editorial is important enough to quote here directly: "But government entities should not have the right to unilaterally change the nature of private ownership -- and potentially the nature of the property itself -- without the consent of the owners or, alternatively, without paying "just compensation" to owners whose rights have been breached or whose property has been seized. The compensation should not depend on whether those rights were taken by eminent domain or as a result of a judicial decree."

Blogger jailed for court contempt in Texas; courts see bloggers as "publishers"; more on media perils insurance

Bloggers generally don’t realize that courts tend to regard them as “publishers” as well as just engaging in conversation or social networking. That’s the recent spin over a few bizarre suits. Kate Murphy in Agence-France Presse reports that a real estate agent in Houston, TX was jailed for failing to turn in her computer to a court after she was sued for comments made about Anna Nicole Smith by the late model’s mother. The story is “Blogger jailed in defamation suit”, link here. Lyndal Harrington spent four nights in jail and claimed that her computer had been taken in a burglary. The news story repeats some of what she had apparently posted (I won’t). The story was posted in June 1, 2009, and reports that the defendant has been ordered again to produce the computer.

But a bizarre fact about this case is that she was sued for comments made on someone else’s blog. It’s true that comments are published speech that could carry libel liability, but it’s unusual for comments on blogs or forums to wind up in court. Section 230 would protect the blog host, but some people want to change that. But other bloggers were named in the suit. Howard K. Stern and Larry Birkhead, often covered in the media, are also named.

Defamation cases against bloggers, especially SLAPP cases, have tended to come from local sources like real estate developers, local politicians, or unusual cases involving “celebrities.” People have gotten into trouble for “complaining” about eminent domain or developer behavior, and for “gossip girl” talk. (I think the CWTV show ought to have a nice lawsuit in its plot concerning the mobile blog.) Typically the plaintiffs claim that the "false" postings have complicated their business or personal plans in some bizarre way. Truth is an absolute defense to libel (in the US, but not always in Britain -- ask Kitty Kelly).

Media Bloggers Association said in a posting May 21 that its blogger insurance coverage starts at $540 a year in some cases, is offered by AXIS Capital Holdings Ltd, and covers copyright infringement as well as defamation (some media risks policies don’t cover copyright cases). The link is here.

Conservative Christians offer "Manhattan Declaration" urging defiance of the Law, honoring "Biblical" (as they see it) views of family and "life"

Conservative Christian, especially conservative Roman Catholic, leaders released (on Friday) a statement called the “Manhattan Declaration: A Call of Christian Conscience”, dated Oct. 20, 2009, a 4700 word, 30 page document, with PDF link here.

The media is reporting that the document encourages a measure of deliberate civil disobedience, not to comply with “secular” laws allowing abortion or recognizing same-sex marriage. For example, the Metro section of the Washington Post Saturday Nov. 21 has an article by Michelle Bourstein and Hamil R. Harris, “Christian leaders take issue with laws: defense of beliefs urged; same-sex marriage measure in spotlight:, web URL link here. The appearance of the article coincides with recent threats by the Catholic archdiocese in Washington to cut off services to the poor for the City if they have to honor same-sex marriage in their employment practices. Imagine how that looks! The last paragraph of the Declaration, on p 30, after talking about the “common good”, says belligerently, “ we will not comply with any edict ….” and goes on with its list to be above the Law.

The document itself is rather brutal reading. It gets in to making something extra of a marriage between man and woman and elevates experience of gender complementarity as a moral mandate; those who do not, even if by reason of some inborn treatment, are somehow viewed as tainted by sin in this view. The Post article says that the document regards “social ills” as having been “exacerbated by the election of President Obama, an abortion advocate as well as a general erosion of what he calls ‘marriage culture’ with the rise of divorce, greater acceptance of infidelity, and the uncoupling of marriage from childbearing.”

Actually, that sentence probably understates some former Vatican statements. In the past, the Church has presented openness to procreation and the risks and responsibilities it incurs as an essential duty of all those who don’t take vows of poverty; other conservative faiths (LDS, “evangelicals”, etc.) take similar positions (without trying to save a place for a celibate priesthood and convent order). That line of thought is what undergirds the opposition of the Church to homosexuality. In this view, participation in intergenerational responsibility (or “generativity” or “sustainability”) becomes an important moral principle, requiring the childless (even more than those with their own children) to maintain filial responsibility, blood loyalty, and be open to accepting the demands of others for emotional attachments. This used to be part of the “unwritten curriculum” of society, suppressed gradually starting with the liberation of the 1960s, but some forces are trying to make it come back. The concept gets expressed in the law sometimes, as with filial responsibility laws on the books in 28 states. This sort of thinking is concerned with unseen sacrifice, ill-gotten gain and motivational integrity, all of which are answered by insisting on "generativity."

The document does not talk about pornography, or cultural media “distractions” from the emotional connections of family, as did Rebecca Hagelin in her recent book (reviewed on the Books blog). But one can imagine an extension of the document: anyone should have accountability to others, especially for family, before being heard from. The problem is that in a few states that may already be the law, although few people seem to realize it.

The late civil rights attorney William Kunstler (as in a film that I saw yesterday and reviewed on the movies blog) said that tyrants operate by making their operations "legal". But it seems like some conservative Christians don't even care to go that far.

San Francisco cops seize laptops, DJ equipment at after hours parties without arresting people

Here’s a new one: cops in San Francisco (perhaps other cities) have been seizing laptops and audio equipment from after hours parties without making any arrests. A number of fund raisers and events have been raided, supposedly because the promoters did not have proper permits. Police would seize equipment not only of DJ’s but of other people attending the parties, and would hold the property for three months or more for “investigations.”

What's next, netbooks or Blackberries? Be careful about the after hours parties you go to?

The story is in the San Francisco Weekly, by Jennifer Maertz, Nov. 16, 2009, “S.F. cops may have gone too far in seizing DJ gear at underground parties”, link here. It sort of reminds me of the former Washington Blade (now DC Agenda) having to fight to get its Archives back.

Electronic Frontier Foundation headlines this story today.

Check out "procon.org" for another approach to the "opposing viewpoints" concept

Before, on the books blog, I’ve talked about the “Opposing Viewpoints” series of books and the concept. There is a website, called “ProCon”, with a similar concept, with this link. I heard about this site on the car radio, PBS classical music station WETA, while driving out of Tysons Corner today. ProCon is a 501(c)(3).

The site has a number of divisions, including Business, Health & Medicine, Law, Politics, and Sex & Gender. Each division has a number of “core questions” that are presented with a one-minute overview, and ten top pro-cons. One of the questions is “Is sexual orientation determined at birth?” There are separate subordinate questions, like “should federal law protect people from job discrimination based on their sexual orientation?” Each section has Projects, such as a same-sex marriage timeline.

There are many other issues functionally decomposed in this way, such as health care reform and Wall Street bailouts.

The site has a subsection for teachers and librarians, and a key aim is to stimulate critical thinking among high school and college students.

Washington Times subject to EEOC complaint from former editor: how independent are "private" newspapers?

Here’s a good one to followup on yesterday’s story on journalism. Richard Miniter, a former editor at The Washington Times, has filed an EEOC discrimination complaint when he refused to attend a religious ceremony and mass wedding conducted by Rev. Sun Myung Moon. The expenses to the ceremony would have been paid, and it was not clear if the trip was part of his regular job duties.

The Washington Post Metro section as a story about this by Howard Kurtz, “Washington Times editor files EEOC complaint: “Disclosing his dismissal, Miniter says paper forced him to attend religious event” on Wednesday Nov. 18, link here.

The Washington Times, owned by Moon’s Unification Church, was founded in 1982 and is supposed to be editorially independent. But it probably does not have the bottom line pressure of many other newspapers, including the Washington Blade, as in yesterday’s story.

I recall the subway signs advertising Moon’s gatherings in New York City as early as 1974.

Here is the Washington Times link from March 2009, "Miniter Named to Lead Editorial Pages at Times", link here. Try it. The headline comes up and comments, but I don't see the story text.

What troubled newspapers and troubling bloggers have in common

Monday morning we learned that a number of gay newspapers had been shut down abruptly because the holding company that owned them was being liquidated. That leads me to ponder a “paradox” of sorts inherent in what we call “democratic capitalism”: people will use their own money and private money, even investor money, for political activism or to inform the public on matters of social importance, and people will feel that their message is more important than money for its own sake. But, ultimately, media companies have to make money to stay in business. If they are publicly traded, they have a fiduciary responsibility to maximize earnings for shareholders. This is really an issue in the motion picture business, explaining why the “culture” of big budget major studio filmmaking is so different from that of independent film. Agents keep saying that ultimately all media business is “numbers driven.” That’s an interesting problem for public movie companies like Lionsgate, which want to get into progressive subject matter but depend on horror to feed the bottom line.

Yet, we see “business money” invested in media from both “liberal to progressive” causes (as with most gay publications) to conservative causes (newspapers like The Washington Times and book publishers like Regnery). Even the media companies have places on the political spectrum, with Fox supposedly notorious for its “conservatism.” Still, ultimately, all such businesses are vulnerable to the bean counters.

At the other end of the media spectrum are the independent bloggers or webmasters, who don’t try to make money at all, who run their sites as proprietorships so that they don’t have to report to anyone (except the IRS). Yet, in a legal sense their operations are often “commercial”, leading to legal questions explored on these blogs (COPA, implicit content, reputation, media perils, and the like).

It may be the implicit content issue that is the most nettlesome for “non-monetary” speech. That is, if the speech doesn’t seem to have a monetary motive or isn’t sponsored by an organization, readers or persons who find it might attribute existential motives to the speech. This could lead to some kinds of issues: enticement, hostile workplace, etc. It also is interpreted by some people as "disloyal", especially who see familial or social cohesion as a more important virtue than global "truth" (particularly from rogue speakers). Remember John Stossel's (ABC 20/20) broadcast on speech codes: "you just can't talk about that!"

This concern came to mind with a film I saw last weekend, called (ironically) “Untitled”, about output from certain musicians and artists whom the public resented as just trying to make them feel bad (I discussed this Sunday Nov. 15 on the movies blog). So the same observation could be made about some blogs, I suppose.

It’s true, that my blogs amount to an “inventory” of “problems” that could undermine our individualistic implementation of freedom. The “problems” are reported in the order that I encounter them, not in a logical sequence; they are reported as “news.” Yes, they harp on “personal responsibility” (so does South Park sometimes) but one real point is to encourage people to imagine constructive solutions rather than just take sides and turn the problems over to special interests and politicians. Yet, some people react as if merely talking about some troubling things (like the “personal responsibility” and “socialism” aspects of the health care debate) merely comes across as a way of belittling people who are less fortunate or expressing social disloyalty.

Actually, we can get beyond this turf-oriented reaction. If we did implement a Swiss-style approach to health care, for example, yes, some people, especially the young, would pay “more” for “other people’s problems”, but soon we would get used to the system, find that it works better and the whole “karma” thing would cease to seem controversial. There are grave threats to our way of life both in man-made areas (terrorism, EMP) and nature (not 2012, but asteroids, oceanic landslides as from Cumbre Vieja, and probably climate change), but if we “work smart” we really can solve these problems. For example, besides H1N1 vaccination issues, why are we so far behind the eight-ball on H5N1, which may be much more dangerous?

Nevertheless, many people, particularly in older generations, less affluent or religious conservative cultures, see life in terms of social structures and people-centered interactions rather than in ideas like “station in life” (money, fame, political or social influence, physical presence, etc). So they may feel they have less to lose if there is some massive disruption. Our modern “expressive” way of life is less relevant to people with a familial or group-centered social consciousness. But the challenge for “individualists” is an exercise in projective geometry, to map older styles of thinking about public morality into deeper understanding of ethics in an individualistic environment. We wind up with a system like “pay your dues” as well as “pay your bills.” One of the biggest problems is that many people benefit from the “hidden sacrifices” of others. It is much harder to get and keep what you want without infringing on others than “you” think. Think about how this mediates the debate over “don’t ask don’t tell” and then recall what it was like when we had a draft – and let a lot of people out with deferments.

Earlier generations understood this kind of conundrum (seeming to necessitate “double standards”), and that’s one reason why they spent so much effort in inculcating that “hidden curriculum”, social values that encourage complementarity and interdependence, and the willingness to mediate one’s own personal ambition by the needs of family and community; the capacity to do this was thought to be a foundation for stable martial sexuality. If we fail to solve some of these huge show-stopper issues, we could “slide back” to a world that places a lot more emphasis again on familial socialization.

Society, of course, became more individualistic, and people, in a society driven especially by modern communications technology (including the Net with all its social media and self-promotion tools) believe they are more on their own, often leaving some people behind (when the “family” would have taken care of things before). But it gets harder to maintain individualism as these challenges like sustainability, climate change, energy, and social demographics (like eldercare) force people back into accepting more social interdependence.

There were a lot of bad things in the older societies – economic exploitation, racism, and various inequalities hidden by “family values”. (We criticize these things, as well as primitive tribalism, in radical Islam today.) Yet, in a free society, people are never exactly equal. The “Freedom Principle” sounds almost like the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle of modern physics.

Indeed, I hope my postings, while hinting at solutions, do build an inventory of matters of “right and wrong.” Some people will say, we don’t need individual speech like this: we already have all our “rules” spilled out in the Koran, the Torah or the Bible. God has told us how to live. (Even God can’t rewrite mathematics, unless He does something like create an alternate universe without the Axiom of Choice.) But not really; I think that righteousness for its own sake turns out to be an underground way of making certain modes of sexuality work in some people; worship of “beauty” for its own sake can lead to worship of the “State” in such a way that real people get cut out, and freedom is then gone.

Nevertheless, in a “free society” there will always be uncertainty and some inequality; there will always be less than perfect justice; there will always be ways to get better. Calls for absolute justice will go down the path of revenge and eventual self-destruction. No wonder we need concepts like forgiveness, and the Christian notion of Grace. Even so, in a free society, there will always be competition, and some people will do better and come out ahead of others, in some real sense. So it is right to be concerned that those who come out ahead do so legitimately. Blogs can help us do this, just as did the Washington Blade (and as I hope it will again).

Do (public school) teachers have a right to sell their own lesson plans?

Do teachers (especially as employees of public school systems) own their own intellectual property rights to lesson plans that they develop?

That question occurs in a front pages story in the New York Times Sunday November 15, by Winnie Hu, “Selling lesson plans online, teachers raise cash and questions”, link here.

Is a set of course notes, quizzes and homework assignments on Macbeth a “derivative work”?

More importantly, do teachers have a right to sell their own work when developed on an employer’s dime, or should the school district get the bounty? I suppose that when teachers do this, they are setting some sort of example for kids with respect to honoring copyright law and the employment relationship.

I can imagine that a geometry teacher could make a lesson plan based on the dimensions of major league baseball stadiums, and come up with something original enough to sell well. Or a physics teacher could do something like this by making up problems about the trajectory of a batted baseball or passed pigskin (and make fun of the Nationals and Redskins). Sports statistics make a great source of math test problems or lessons. I have my own math test here April 2009.

Creativity in making tests is less welcome today, as so many tests are standardized. But people are employed (especially as contractors) to write multiple choice test questions for the ETS, for state SOL’s, or even private certification companies like Brainbench.

Attribution link for picture of outfield of New York Mets new Citi Field in Queens NYC. It really doesn’t look like Ebbets Field to me. I’d love to see a Polo Grounds rebuilt.

ACTA agreement being negotiated in Korea could undermine protections against downstream liability for ISP's; mandatory "3 strikes" in the offing?

The negotiations going on recently in Seoul, Korea for an Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement have leaked information that very troubling, according to Kailtin Mara of Intellectual Property Watch. The title of the article is “ACTA Internet Chapter Leak Signals Far Reaching Copyright Policy,” with link here, dated Nov. 5, 2009.

Signatories would have to provide for third-party liability, the dreaded concept that could shut down “free entry” blogging and even social networking on the Web as we have come to use it. That is, it sounds like, if it remained out of control, it could eventually gut Section 230 protections in US Law (from the 1996 Telecommunications Act) or the indirect “protections” (however unconvincing to many people) of the DMCA takedown provision.

However, further leaked provisions suggest a “safe-harbor” for telecommunications companies or ISP’s that would include “would include having policies to remove incentives for unauthorised storage and transmission of information thought to be infringing, and having notice and takedown provisions in place so ISPs can be informed of and act on allegedly copyright violating content.” Is this the same as the DMCA takedown in US law? Not exactly. Commentators think this is inviting a “three strikes” law more like that which has been fiddled with in Europe (especially France).

The United States has a proposed ACTA agreement (link).

The Electronic Frontier Foundation wrote that the leak confirms its “worst fears” and Gwen Hinze has an article “Leaked ACTA Internet Provisions: Three Strikes and a Global DMCA” (Nov 3). The article suggests that even the US is urging a global “three strikes” or “graduated response” policy which apparently is still pushed by major US media and music content companies. Apparently US providers would have much less flexibility in terminating alleged copyright infringers than is now the case. The article notes that Three Strikes has already been rejected by the European Parliament. The link for the EFF article is here.

Major content companies are still at war with consumers, it seems, or at war with upstart, low-cost challenges to their older business models, as outlined by William Paltry in his book “Moral Panics and Copyright Wars”, reviewed on the books blog Oct. 2. Check out his blog here.

Major health insurer pressures employees to help lobby against health care reform; what are an employee's free speech rights?

The Washington Post contains a story by Dan Eggen about an employer’s pressuring its associates to support them on a political position by asking them to email or write local newspapers and legislators, apparently following a form-letter script. The title of the story is “Insurer enlists employees to fight health reform: Consumer group accuses United Health of intimidating workers”, link here, on p A11 in print.

Consumer Watchdog also has the story here and provides this link to the letter. In fairness, one must note that the UHC PDF letter document says that empployee participation is "voluntary" and employees may say what they like.

In the past, some of my employers have had “political action committees” which they have mentioned in employee manuals but none of them pressured “non management” employees (even highly paid individual contributors like computer programmers, which I was) to contribute.

I have expressed concern on my blogs that once someone is in management, they are less free to express their own personal opinions on political issues, be it health care reform or anything else. However, as I’ve noted here before, many employers have “blogging policies” which merely state that employees must, on personal blogs or sites or social networking profiles, label their personal opinions as their own. I’ve seen many people identify their employers on blogs in situations where it did not appear wise to do so.

In the 1990s, I worked for a company that, among other businesses, specialized in selling life insurance to military officers. When I became personally involved in the political debate over “gays in the military” (leading to “don’t ask don’t tell”) and decided to write a book, I transferred to a larger division of a company that acquired the company I was working for, to avoid what I perceived as “conflict of interest”.

People may say that United Heatlhcare's behavior is prohibited by the First Amendment, but the Bill of Rights applies to what the federal government (and sometimes, by the incorporation doctrine, states and local governments) may or may not do to citizens. It does not directly apply to private employers like United Healthcare, who could apply "employment at will" policies, although there could be other federal or state laws or Labor Department fair employment rules that regulate such employers with respect to employee speech. Possibly the practice could invoke rules involving lobbying and campaign finance (the FEC).

UHC was my insurer when I had retiree insurance from my last employer, and it is my AARP-supported Medicare Part B Supplemental now.

Employer management, as whole, as well known, however, for influenyial campaign contributions and organized lobbying.

Supreme Court judge holds school paper to "prior review" over his speech there; what about "Gossip Girl" bloggers?

The New York Times has an interesting conjecture about publication today, “Should school newspapers be subject to ‘prior review’”, in a column by Holly Epstein Oljavo. The term “prior review” means that sources (such as outside speakers) and sometimes school administrators approve coverage before going to press. The web URL link is here.

The question links to a front page story today, Nov. 11, in The New York Times, by Adam Liptak, “You Can Quote Me Next Week” in print, “From Justice Kennedy, A Lesson in Journalism”. Justice Anthony Kennedy spoke at Dalton, a private school in New York City, but Justice Kennedy insisted that his “office” approve any article discussing his talk before publication. This from a proponent of the First Amendment, including freedom of the press (and more freedoms than that).

Justice Kennedy seems to be overlooking the “Gossip Girl” effect (particularly in a private school): what’s to stop some “Blake Lively” type to cover it all in a blog and draw more attention than the school paper. Maybe school blogging policies. Then we get into what is enforceable when students write on their own time. (Don’t English teachers like to see students keep journals?)

In Baltimore Harbor, I board another submarine (it isn't yellow)

Today (Nov. 10, 2009), as a bonus on a visit to the National Aquarium in Baltimore, I boarded and took a brief self-guided tour of the World War II diesel-powered submarine, the USS Torsk.

In May 1993, while researching for the first book that I would write, I visited and boarded the USS Sunfish, a nuclear powered submarine built in 1963 (now decommissioned) at Norfolk Naval Base.

The Trosk seemed even more cramped that had the Sunfish. To go from one compartment to the next, one had to squeeze through like an octopus.


Of course, the cramped conditions on submarines are a “worst case scenario” for some of the debate over homosexuals in the military, with the “hot bunking” and lack of “privacy.” Nevertheless, midshipman Joseph Steffan had spent a summer cruise on a submarine, described in his 1992 book “Honor Bound”. Another apt observation is that very tall men (more numerous now than in the 1940s) could not fit on a submarine (or in some fighter jets – I don’t know what the height ranges are). And women were not allowed on submarines often until recently, until they were allowed on two subs according to an April 2008 New York Times story by Seymour Conch and James Boswell, link here.


Above, note the typewriter and teletype (1940s); no PC's yet.



Last picture: a Coast Guard cutter.


This picture: coelenterates (jellyfish), but not the notorious box jellyfish (cubozoa).

More cases of frivolous litigation against bloggers, other Internet users occur

Here’s an older story from May 21, 2009 from the Wall Street Journal about the increasing risk of litigation against bloggers, web url link here, by M.P. McQueen.

The story goes into litigation against Shellee Hale of Belevue, WA for postings about alleged hacker attacks on a company that makes software to track sales from “adult oriented” websites. And the problem here wasn’t COPA. The litigation appears to relate to comments made on a forum hosted by another site, not to a personal blog.

Some property casualty companies are offering coverage for blog postings, sometimes not including copyright or DMCA-related claims, however, for as little as $30 a year. But it’s not yet clear that they could always cover large volumes of postings or “controversial” material, a problem that the National Writers Union ran into in 2001 trying to offer media perils coverage.

The story also discusses Rogers Caddenhead, of the Drudge Retort, created in 1998.

The practical problem for bloggers may be defending against frivolous suits, which is one reason to press for federal anti-SLAPP legislation. Some companies aggressively scour the Internet for derogatory statements made against them or for what they perceive as copyright infringement or “piracy,” as the tools for such vigilance have grown more powerful. California has a fairly strong anti-SLAPP law but many states don’t. Tort reform is an issue with online liability just as it is with health insurance reform.