Author Archives: Michael Froomkin

SOPA, PIPA, and Internet Blackout Day

Posted on January 18, 2012 by Michael Froomkin

I have somewhat mixed feelings about Internet Blackout Day. Much as I sympathize with the motives, I have never much liked campaigns that try to take the oppressor’s symbols (pink triangles, yellow stars, what have you) and turn them around into pride symbols. The origins stick.

Similarly, I get the idea of fighting censorship with quiet. See what censorship will get you? But I still don’t like it. So I’ve run a compromise, with an overlay on this site that you can click through.

The cause is serious. Congress is contemplating two very dangerous Internet blacklist bills: SOPA (in the House) and PIPA (in the Senate). SOPA has been shelved, perhaps only temporarily, but PIPA is still alive and kicking.

EFF’s summary of the issues is right on target:

The “Stop Online Piracy Act”/”E-PARASITE Act” (SOPA) and “The PROTECT IP Act” (PIPA) are the latest in a series of bills which would create a procedure for creating (and censoring) a blacklist of websites. These bills are updated versions of the “Combating Online Infringements and Counterfeits Act” (COICA), which was previously blocked in the Senate. Although the bills are ostensibly aimed at reaching foreign websites dedicated to providing illegal content, their provisions would allow for removal of enormous amounts of non-infringing content including political and other speech from the Web.

The various bills define different techniques for blocking “blacklisted” sites. Each would interfere with the Internet’s domain name system (DNS), which translates names like “www.eff.org” or “www.nytimes.com” into the IP addresses that computers use to communicate. SOPA would also allow rightsholders to force payment processors to cut off payments and advertising networks to cut ties with a site simply by sending a notice.

These bills are targeted at “rogue” websites that allow indiscriminate piracy, but use vague definitions that could include hosting websites such as Dropbox, MediaFire, and Rapidshare; sites that discuss piracy such as pirate-party.us, p2pnet, Torrent Freak, torproject.org, and ZeroPaid; as well as a broad range of sites for user-generated content, such as SoundCloud, Etsy, and Deviant Art. Had these bills been passed five or ten years ago, even YouTube might not exist today — in other words, the collateral damage from this legislation would be enormous.

There are already laws and procedures in place for taking down sites that violate the law. These acts would allow the Attorney General, and even individuals, to create a blacklist to censor sites when no court has found that they have infringed copyright or any other law.

See also EFF’s blacklist site. PIPA is scheduled for a vote in the Senate next Tuesday, so if you are a US citizen this is a good time to call your Senators and tell them to oppose the bills.

Posted in Civil Liberties, Communications, Law: Free Speech, Law: Internet Law | 2 Comments

The Real Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Posted on January 16, 2012 by Michael Froomkin

Today’s Visionary: An Illustrated Guide to Dr. King’s 21st Century Insights from Crooks & Liars.

Posted in Civil Liberties, Econ & Money | Comments Off on The Real Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Figures

Posted on January 14, 2012 by Michael Froomkin

You know that financed-by-Newt-Gingrich-buddies Ultimate Mitt Romney Hit Video I wrote about the other day? Seems it has a few problems, much in keeping with the character of the candidate it is designed to help.

Like, accuracy. The people in Gaffney, SC say say the plant closing featured in the video wasn’t a big deal. Similarly, Marianna, Fla workers cry foul over anti-Romney film.

Posted in 2012 Election | 1 Comment

New York Times Wonders Whether it Should Report Whether Its Sources are Lying

Posted on January 12, 2012 by Michael Froomkin

I kid you not.

Should The Times Be a Truth Vigilante?.

Apparently, the Times does not believe, as a matter of its DNA, that if a person in a suit says something, it has any duty to check it out and report on whether that statement is factual.

Writes the Public Editor:

I’m looking for reader input on whether and when New York Times news reporters should challenge “facts” that are asserted by newsmakers they write about.

….on the campaign trail, Mitt Romney often says President Obama has made speeches “apologizing for America,” a phrase to which Paul Krugman objected in a December 23 column arguing that politics has advanced to the “post-truth” stage.

As an Op-Ed columnist, Mr. Krugman clearly has the freedom to call out what he thinks is a lie. My question for readers is: should news reporters do the same?

If so, then perhaps the next time Mr. Romney says the president has a habit of apologizing for his country, the reporter should insert a paragraph saying, more or less:

“The president has never used the word ‘apologize’ in a speech about U.S. policy or history. Any assertion that he has apologized for U.S. actions rests on a misleading interpretation of the president’s words.”

Actually, a better form of that paragraph would be

“The president has never used the word ‘apologize’ in a speech about U.S. policy or history. When asked, the Romney Campaign was unable to substantiate Romney’s claim with any examples.”

Brisbane’s column is a head-scratcher. I have never seen such a succinct example of the Stenography Theory of journalism. I do not know how on earth any news organization intends to get money from me on an on-going basis if all it does is an aggregation that my RSS reader can do plus some ordering of importance — which some content-recognition AI will do for me within a decade.

Fact-checking or ruin, people.

Posted in The Media | 8 Comments

Ultimate Mitt Romney Hit Video

Posted on January 12, 2012 by Michael Froomkin

When Mitt Romney Came To Town — Full, complete version

The amazing thing about this 28-minute-long Occupy Wall Street-style hit piece is who made it: Newt Gingrich’s Super PAC.

Barney Frank was widely quoted when he said, “I never thought I’d live such a good life that I would see Newt Gingrich be the nominee of the Republican party.” Turns out even if you lived only a sort of good life, Newt is just great as a spoiler.

Posted in 2012 Election, 99% | 2 Comments

The Heritage Foundation is Even Worse Than You Think

Posted on January 9, 2012 by Michael Froomkin

The Heritage Foundation Then and Now — Counterpunch.

Choice bits:

On December 26, 2012 the Director of Heritage’s Center for Foreign Policy Studies, Dr. James J. Carafano, published a commentary in the Washington Examiner, “What To Do about Obama’s Pound-Foolish Air Force.” Without saying so explicitly, he implied that the legendary Col. John R. Boyd, “a fighter pilot’s fighter pilot” in Dr. Carafano’s words, would favor what the good doctor wants: to reopen production of the $411 million F-22 and to buy more $154 million F-35s.

…

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’ decision to terminate F-22 production should be appreciated as his single most positive contribution to American air power—and certainly one of the very few issues he would have seen eye to eye with John Boyd.

…

It gets worse regarding the F-35. When Boyd died 15 years ago, the inevitable failure of the F-35 as a viable combat aircraft was already clear, though not as crushingly obvious as it is to today. In 2012, with the airplane just 20 per cent through its entirely inadequate flight test plan (over 80 per cent of the airplane’s performance characteristics will remain untested in any planned flight test), we already know we are facing across-the-board failures to meet original specifications. Moreover, if the F-35 lived up to 100 percent of its depressingly modest design specifications, it would still be a complete failure in combat utility: a bomber of shorter range, lower payload and far higher vulnerability than the Vietnam War’s appallingly flammable, underperforming F-105 Lead Sled; an air-to-air fighter so unmaneuverable and sluggish in acceleration that any ancient MiG-21 will tear it to shreds; and a close support fighter that is a menace to our troops on any battlefield, unable to hit camouflaged tactical targets and incapable of distinguishing friendly soldiers from enemies. Individually and collectively, we often fretted with Boyd on the irresponsibility of equipping our people with such foolishly complex weapons designs, so bereft of practical combat effectiveness—and on the deep corruption of acquisition programs, such as the F-35’s, that deliberately plan to buy a thousand or more units long before user testing has fully probed combat utility.

Dr. Carafano is free to pump out baloney that pleases his funders, but to invoke Boyd’s legacy to promote F-22 and F-35 spending goes beyond simple, and perhaps willful, misrepresentation. Here is a paradigm of the moral decay so visible among contemporary Washington defense “intellectuals.”

Like they say, read the whole thing.

Posted in National Security | 1 Comment