On Monday, February 25th, 2013, the "Copyright Alert System" (CAS) was quietly implemented by five Internet Service Providers (ISPs): AT&T, Comcast, Cablevision, Time Warner and Verizon. Those five ISPs provide internet service to 75% of Americans. A trade association called "Center for Copyright Information" (CCI) is coordinating the system on behalf of large content providers like the Recording Industry of America and the Motion Picture Association of America.
I suspect everyone who uses the above mentioned ISPs will soon get an innocuous looking letter indicating their Terms of Service have changed. Buried somewhere in the small print of that document may be a description of the new CAS. It is an arbitrary system that allows content providers and your ISP to control your access to the internet.
Large content providers have hired "thug" companies to monitor public use of the web. If a surveillance company believes you are illegally downloading copyrighted material, they flag your IP (Internet Protocol) address and forward it to your
ISP. Content providers and ISPs have developed a "six strike rule." Each time a subscriber is flagged, they receive a penalty. It could start with a warning from your ISP. Additional flags might cause your ISP to slow down your internet speed or temporarily suspend your service. Finally, after five or six flags, they can accuse you of repeated copyright infringement and may terminate your internet service entirely.
Someone might say, "Hey, this doesn't apply to me. I don't illegally download music or movies. What have I got to worry about?" Well...plenty. Surveillance companies can't actually tell what you are downloading. They make an educated guess. Monitoring companies use software programs that determine the likelihood that your downloads are illegal. And, according to the website Daily Dot, they get it wrong a lot of the time.
Perhaps, you are downloading a manual for your furnace or a video of your grandchildren posted to a cloud site. You could be downloading files under the "fair use" exemption in copyright law. You might have digitized your LP music library and are downloading your own legal copies from an online storage site. You could be a small business that uploads and downloads large files to and from clients. You might operate or use a public wi-fi system like those commonly found in small coffee shops or libraries. It doesn't matter. Content providers and your ISP don't have to legally prove you're
engaging in illegal activity to deny you internet service.
Do you have any recourse once you're flagged? Yes, according to the CCI website. You pay a $35 fee to appeal to what the CCI calls "an independent review board" (hired by content providers) where you must prove your internet activity is legal. Surely, this is not what
Congress intended when they passed the DMCA (Digital Millennium
Copyright Act) in 1998.
How has the CCI convinced ISPs to penalize their own subscribers? The
CCI has taken the position that if ISPs do not implement the "Copyright
Alert System," ISPs lose their "safe harbor" protection under the DMCA.
In other words, CCI claims if ISPs do not have a termination policy for
repeat copyright offenders, they lose their protection from prosecution
under the law.
What can you do about it? First, your email attachments are probably safe. Surveillance companies that work for content providers are not monitoring email traffic. But, here are some steps you can take to guard your internet privacy: If you have a wireless network in your home,
password protect it so others cannot use it for illegal purposes.
Assume that any bit torrent type of data transfer will be monitored. Do
not trust that proxy servers or switch proxy settings on your browser
will protect your internet privacy. To be completely safe, do what tech
savvy Chinese and Iranians do to circumvent their national firewalls:
Get a VPN. Google the search string "What is a VPN" and learn about virtual private networks.
Using a VPN is easy, inexpensive, protects your privacy and won't slow your
internet speed. Protect yourself from the surveillance
monitoring and false accusations from your ISP. Get a VPN!
Thursday, February 28, 2013
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
No Greater Moral Imperative
Behind my house is a dense wooded area surrounding a creek that flows into a lake near my home. Deer often make their way up the creek bed during winter searching for food. Gaunt and weak, they come out of the woods at night to pick at the tree bark and eat branches off shrubs in my yard.
As they crowd around me on those cold, bleak, snowy nights, they stick their noses in the feed bucket as I pour a mixture of rolled oats and corn onto the ground. Feeding the deer is not nature's way, but nature didn't surround them with sub-divisions either. The city accuses me of contributing to an overpopulation of deer, but I reject that. If there is a deer problem in my area, it's because the city and county do not have a wildlife plan. Starvation is not a plan, it's the result of no plan.
In a similar fashion, I was shocked the other day to learn of a new public relations campaign in Kansas City encouraging community and church organizations to stop feeding the homeless. Led by the Police Department and officials at City Hall, the city council is threatening to pass an ordinance making feeding the homeless illegal. As incredible as their logic seems, the city contends that feeding the homeless contributes to a homeless problem. Does the city actually believe people are willing to give up their homes and live on the streets just to receive a free sandwich on cold February nights?
Each evening, food trucks roll out of community centers and churches, passing out blankets, shoes, coats and food to the homeless. However, to hear community leaders talk, that should be a crime. Quoting Leslie Caplan, president of a local neighborhood association (Kansas City Star, 2/2/13), "It's killing our wonderful neighborhoods and historic homes." Sean O'Byrne, of the Kansas City Downtown Council, says, "Throwing a sandwich to someone in a park is getting redemption on the cheap." Thankfully, community and church organizations are refusing to comply. Neal Jorgenson, of the Salvation Army, explained it this way, "We are not enabling them. We are keeping them alive tonight."
Eric Cantor (R-Va), the House Majority Leader, said in a speech last week before the American Enterprise Institute (2/5/13), "There is no greater moral imperative than to reduce the mountain of debt facing us..." It's the idea that if America can't afford to fund it's obligations, we should start by cutting social programs, instituting a sort of economic triage. Let's save the people who have jobs, who have money, while depriving the poor of food, shelter and medical care. That's not a moral imperative, it's the absence of one.
Funding social programs doesn't make the United States a welfare state. It is precisely those government programs, large in scope, that give our nation it's most effective tools to address problems in a cost effective way. For instance, only FEMA can bring to bear the overall resources needed in an emergency. Yet, the GOP finds it difficult to fund disaster relief at all. In the final passage of the recent Hurricane Sandy relief bill, 179 Republicans in the House, nearly 80% of their caucus, voted against it.
For all the faith in God that conservative Republicans profess to have, they conveniently forget that Christ had his budget problems, too. Yet, He managed to feed a multitude with five loaves of bread and two fish. How is that different from the Food Stamp program feeding 32 million children? Perhaps, our budget problems would disappear if we built our society from the bottom up instead of the top down. Feed the hungry, heal the sick and give shelter to the homeless. There is no greater moral imperative.
Eric Cantor, who wants to exact his pound of flesh from the poor to avoid paying higher taxes, would do well to heed Portia's admonition to Shylock in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, Act IV, Scene I:
"The quality of mercy is not strained.
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown.
His scepter shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings.
But mercy is above this sceptered sway;
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings;
It is an attribute of God himself;
And earthly power doth then show like God's
When mercy seasons justice."
As they crowd around me on those cold, bleak, snowy nights, they stick their noses in the feed bucket as I pour a mixture of rolled oats and corn onto the ground. Feeding the deer is not nature's way, but nature didn't surround them with sub-divisions either. The city accuses me of contributing to an overpopulation of deer, but I reject that. If there is a deer problem in my area, it's because the city and county do not have a wildlife plan. Starvation is not a plan, it's the result of no plan.
In a similar fashion, I was shocked the other day to learn of a new public relations campaign in Kansas City encouraging community and church organizations to stop feeding the homeless. Led by the Police Department and officials at City Hall, the city council is threatening to pass an ordinance making feeding the homeless illegal. As incredible as their logic seems, the city contends that feeding the homeless contributes to a homeless problem. Does the city actually believe people are willing to give up their homes and live on the streets just to receive a free sandwich on cold February nights?
Each evening, food trucks roll out of community centers and churches, passing out blankets, shoes, coats and food to the homeless. However, to hear community leaders talk, that should be a crime. Quoting Leslie Caplan, president of a local neighborhood association (Kansas City Star, 2/2/13), "It's killing our wonderful neighborhoods and historic homes." Sean O'Byrne, of the Kansas City Downtown Council, says, "Throwing a sandwich to someone in a park is getting redemption on the cheap." Thankfully, community and church organizations are refusing to comply. Neal Jorgenson, of the Salvation Army, explained it this way, "We are not enabling them. We are keeping them alive tonight."
Eric Cantor (R-Va), the House Majority Leader, said in a speech last week before the American Enterprise Institute (2/5/13), "There is no greater moral imperative than to reduce the mountain of debt facing us..." It's the idea that if America can't afford to fund it's obligations, we should start by cutting social programs, instituting a sort of economic triage. Let's save the people who have jobs, who have money, while depriving the poor of food, shelter and medical care. That's not a moral imperative, it's the absence of one.
Funding social programs doesn't make the United States a welfare state. It is precisely those government programs, large in scope, that give our nation it's most effective tools to address problems in a cost effective way. For instance, only FEMA can bring to bear the overall resources needed in an emergency. Yet, the GOP finds it difficult to fund disaster relief at all. In the final passage of the recent Hurricane Sandy relief bill, 179 Republicans in the House, nearly 80% of their caucus, voted against it.
For all the faith in God that conservative Republicans profess to have, they conveniently forget that Christ had his budget problems, too. Yet, He managed to feed a multitude with five loaves of bread and two fish. How is that different from the Food Stamp program feeding 32 million children? Perhaps, our budget problems would disappear if we built our society from the bottom up instead of the top down. Feed the hungry, heal the sick and give shelter to the homeless. There is no greater moral imperative.
Eric Cantor, who wants to exact his pound of flesh from the poor to avoid paying higher taxes, would do well to heed Portia's admonition to Shylock in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, Act IV, Scene I:
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown.
His scepter shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings.
But mercy is above this sceptered sway;
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings;
It is an attribute of God himself;
And earthly power doth then show like God's
When mercy seasons justice."
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