Police suspected a woman of fraud and, with a warrant, siezed her computers.  One of these computers was password protected and running PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) security software so the police IT experts were not able to ese the usual back doors to crack it.  The police believed that this computer contained data that would incriminate their suspect, Ramona Fricosu.

What to do?

The Colorado police went to a judge and got an order compelling Ms. Fricosu to reveal the password to the police.

This is highly problematic, on several fronts.  The PopSci article quotes the DOJ’s :

“Failing to compel Ms. Fricosu amounts to a concession to her and potential criminals (be it in child exploitation, national security, terrorism, financial crimes or drug trafficking cases) that encrypting all inculpatory digital evidence will serve to defeat the efforts of law enforcement officers to obtain such evidence through judicially authorized search warrants, and thus make their prosecution impossible.”

The other side – both the defense and the civil liberties groups whose attention was turned to this case – has, in my never-humble-opinion, a much more solid position:

“The Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination is not necessarily a right to prevent you from giving bad things over to the government, but you are protected from disclosing your thoughts,” said Hanni Fakhoury, a staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which filed an amicus brief in this case. “We argued that providing access to the contents is the equivalent to her ‘emptying the thoughts of her mind,’ because it would require her password.”

What a can of worms this one is…

Thoughts?

I have a fundamental problem with giving the government – any government – the right to regulate clothing.  From public nudity to the burqa – I am not owned by anyone else and therefore, I do not accept anyone else’s authority to dictate what I do or do not wear.

Having said this, I do agree with Mr. Fatah on just about all the important points:  private businesses must retain the right to assert dress codes on their property, even if it is open to the public.  In other words, ‘No shoes, No shirt, No face – No service’ must be at the discretion of the private business or individual (this would include taxis and private transportation firms as well as real property).

In addition, I also agree with Mr. Fatah that the government has the right – I would assert the responsibility – to ensure that people in publicly owned spaces, buildings and receiving publicly operated services (like, say, public transport) reveal their faces for ready identification, much as the Quebec government has asserted.

Perhaps some people think that this is ‘splitting hairs’, that ‘banning the burqa’ and ‘demanding facial visibility while on public property’ are the same thing.

I would beg to disagree:  they may have the same effect in the sense that a person who wishes to partake in our society must show their face to do so.  However, they are very different things because they are rooted in different principles.  (And, contrary to popular belief, that does mean something.)

The banning of a particular piece or style of clothing sets up the precedent that the government has the right to tell us how to dress.  I don’t happen to think it does.  If my neighbour decides to start walking their dog in the buff, that is their own business – I might snigger or gossip, but I certainly do not have the right to demand they ‘cover up’, so I cannot delegate that right to my elected members of parliament:  hence, the government does not have the right to tell us what to wear.

(Yes, I know, as shown in the above link, the Ontario courts of appeal have just recently upheld laws against public nudity:  and I disagree with their belief they have the jurisdiction to rule on this subject.)

Because if we give the government the power to rule over what we may or may not wear, the chador is not far off….just wait for the demographics to change a little bit.  No – we’d be much safer clearly setting the precedent that governments have no jurisdiction whatsoever over what we wear and how we wear it when we are on our own time, as private citizens.

However…

Governments do have a responsibility to deliver citizen and resident services safely and effectively.  This cannot be done if the citizens receiving/delivering the services are not readily identifiable.  Therefore, I recognize the governments’ right to demand that faces be visible for the purposes of receiving/delivering public services (and driving, voting, and so on).

In addition, governments have taken upon themselves the responsibility to deliver services without discrimination, especially without discrimination to disabled individuals.  Many people with hearing impairments partially or fully read lips in order to understand what is being said to them.  It is therefore essential that hearing disabled citizens, whether receiving or providing a government service, must be able to read the lips of all those around them – which is also a valid reason for accommodating the ‘uncovered face in public places’ policy.

So, rather than expanding government powers to cover clothing, we should use already existing laws made in order to have an inclusive society to achieve this end.

To me, there is a huge difference between the two approaches, because, after all, the means define the end!

How different would our world be if you were also facing jail time?

What if not following the manufacturer’s instruction – even just to add chocolate chips to the mix – meant that you could be arrested and criminally charged?

Well, that is actually quite similar to what used to happen to people who used their electronic devices in slightly different ways than what the manufacturer said they should.  For various reasons, the manufacturers of electronic devices argued that even though a person has purchased and 100% owns an electronic device, they are not allowed to add the ‘chocolate chips’ (like, say, Linux) to ‘the cake mix’ in a process so persecuted, it has been dubbed ‘jailbreaking’.

Why are the manufacturers opposed to this?  It really just boils down to a loss of control over their customer, making it harder for the companies to spy on their customers to obtain loads of data they could monetize…

Luckily, consumer (we really should say ‘citizen’) groups have won this battle:  jailbreaking smartphones became OK through an exemption in the DMCA.

A temporary exemption.

Which is about to run out…

bunnie Huang, standing shoulder to shoulder with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, has drafted a letter and a petition to extend the jailbreaking exemption, both in time and in scope:

‘Three years ago, the Copyright Office agreed to create an exemption to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act so that folks could jailbreak their smartphones. But that exemption is about to expire. We need you to renew that exemption and expand it to cover jailbreaking gadgets with similar computation potential. These are all siblings to the PC, yet unlocking their potential as versatile and powerful computers is burdened with legal murkiness.’

You can sign the petition here.

Unless, of course, you don’t think people should be allowed to add chocolate chips to their cake mix…

If things are like this under existing laws (DMCA), imagine the situation under SOPA or SOPA-like laws!

This latest article is at The Eaminer, by Walker Morrow.

That is exactly the message from Michael Geist:

‘While SOPA may be dead (for now) in the U.S., lobby groups are likely to intensify their efforts to export SOPA-like rules to other countries. With Bill C-11 back on the legislative agenda at the end of the month, Canada will be a prime target for SOPA style rules. In fact, a close review of the unpublished submissions to the Bill C-32 legislative committee reveals that several groups have laid the groundwork to add SOPA-like rules into Bill C-11, including blocking websites and expanding the “enabler provision”to target a wider range of websites. ‘

…

‘The music industry is unsurprisingly leading the way, demanding a series of changes that would make Bill C-11 look much more like SOPA. ‘

…

‘Several lobby groups also want language similar to that found in the infamous Section 103 of SOPA. That provision, which spoke of sites “primarily designed or operated for the purpose of…offering goods or services in a manner that engages in, enables, or facilitates” infringement, raised fears that it could be used to shut down mainstream sites such as YouTube.’

This is something we must stay on top of!

We are also calling for simultaneous events and acts in defence of free expression on 11 February in countries world-wide.

The call follows an increased number of attacks on free expression in the UK, including a 17 year old being forced to remove a Jesus and Mo cartoon or face expulsion from his Sixth Form College and demands by the UCL Union that the Atheist society remove a Jesus and Mo cartoon from its Facebook page. It also follows threats of violence, police being called, and the cancellation of a meeting at Queen Mary College where One Law for All spokesperson Anne Marie Waters was to deliver a speech on Sharia. Saying ‘Who gave these kuffar the right to speak?’, an Islamist website called for the disruption of the meeting. Two days later at the same college, though, the Islamic Society held a meeting on traditional Islam with a speaker who has called for the death of apostates, those who mock Islam, and secularist Muslims.

Whilst none of this is new, recent events reveal an increased confidence of Islamists to censor free expression publicly, particularly given the support received from universities and other bodies in the name of false tolerance, cultural sensitivity and respect.

The right to criticise religion, however, is a fundamental right that is crucial to many, including Muslims.

Clearly, the time has come to take a firm and uncompromising stand for free expression and against all forms of threats and censorship.

11 February is our chance to take that stand.

You need to be there.

Enough is enough.

NOTES:

Contact us for more information or with details of actions or events being organised outside of London:
Maryam Namazie
Anne Marie Waters
Spokespersons
One Law for All
BM Box 2387
London WC1N 3XX, UK
Tel: +44 (0) 7719166731
onelawforall@gmail.com
www.onelawforall.org.uk

To help with the costs of the rally and donate to the crucial work of One Law for All, please either send a cheque made payable to One Law for All to BM Box 2387, London WC1N 3XX, UK or pay via Paypal.

The One Law for All Campaign was launched on 10 December 2008, International Human Rights Day, to call on the UK Government to recognise that Sharia and religious courts are arbitrary and discriminatory against women and children in particular and that citizenship and human rights are non-negotiable. To join the campaign, sign our petition here.

From Wired.com:

‘An evolutionary transition that took several billion years to occur in nature has happened in a laboratory, and it needed just 60 days.

Under artificial pressure to become larger, single-celled yeast became multicellular creatures. That crucial step is responsible for life’s progression beyond algae and bacteria, and while the latest work doesn’t duplicate prehistoric transitions, it could help reveal the principles guiding them.’

Check out the full article - it includes photos.

What is interesting about this is that the ‘evolutionary pressure’ applied to the yeast was nothing other than selective breeding:  the simplest, time-tested method we have been applying in agriculture for millenia.

It also demonstrates, once and for all, that selective breeding resulting from evolutionary pressures is sufficient to cause ‘macro-evolution’ because what we have seen here is undeniably the emergence of a new species from an old one:  the emergence of multicellular yeast from single-cell yeast!

For your reference, here is the citation:

‘“Experimental evolution of multicellularity.” By William C. Ratcliff, R. Ford Denison, Mark Borrello, and Michael Travisano. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Jan. 17, 2012.‘

P.S.

I wonder how many religious leaders (of all the creationist religions which also deny evolution:  i.e. Islam,  some Christian sects plus other, smaller religions) who had claimed this was impossible will step up and admit their error.  Now that their beliefs have been demonstrably falsified, they have no choice but to change their beliefs or admit that their faith is at odds with reality.