June 2012

Administration Took Accidental Path to Setting Record for Leak Cases

Under fire from Republicans who claim that the White House has leaked classified information to make him look tough, President Obama has pointed to his administration’s unmatched record in prosecuting leaks. The statistics are certainly on his side: six leak-related prosecutions in Obama’s first term, compared with three under all previous presidents combined.

It is a record that has heartened security hawks while drawing criticism from advocates for whistle-blowing. But a closer look reveals a surprising conclusion: the crackdown has nothing to do with any directive from the President, even though he is now promoting his record as a political asset. Instead, it was unplanned, resulting from several leftover investigations from the Bush administration, a proliferation of e-mail and computer audit trails that increasingly can pinpoint reporters’ sources, bipartisan support in Congress for a tougher approach, and a push by the director of national intelligence in 2009 that sharpened the system for tracking disclosures.

Obama’s Lawyer Demands Information on Group’s Donors

The lawyer for President Obama demanded that Crossroads GPS disclose its donors, saying in a complaint to the Federal Election Commission that the group is plainly a “political committee” subject to federal reporting requirements.

In the complaint, Robert F. Bauer, the campaign’s chief counsel, writes that the group — founded by Karl Rove, among others — can no longer shield the identity of its donors by defining itself as a “social welfare” organization. “Crossroads seems to believe that it can run out the clock and spend massive sums of money in this election without accounting for a trace of its funding,” Mr. Bauer wrote in the complaint. “Now, a federal appellate court has issued a ruling that makes clear that Crossroads is out of time.” The case Bauer cites is “Real Truth About Obama v. FEC,” in which the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled that the government must determine the “major purpose” of groups like Crossroads.

Free Speech for Computers?

[Commentary] Do machines speak? If so, do they have a constitutional right to free speech? This may sound like a fanciful question, a matter of philosophy or science fiction. But it’s become a real issue with important consequences.

In today’s world, we have delegated many of our daily decisions to computers. On the drive to work, a GPS device suggests the best route; at your desk, Microsoft Word guesses at your misspellings, and Facebook recommends new friends. In the past few years, the suggestion has been made that when computers make such choices they are “speaking,” and enjoy the protections of the First Amendment. This is a bad idea that threatens the government’s ability to oversee companies and protect consumers.

Music-Merger Bid Plays Out

On June 21, Universal Music Group Chief Executive Lucian Grainge will press his case for a merger with EMI before the Senate's subcommittee on antitrust and consumer rights.

His argument boils down to this: Piracy and digital giants such as Apple and Google are such threats to traditional record companies that Universal needs to swallow its smaller rival to survive. It will be up to the Federal Trade Commission to approve the deal, in whole or in part, or to sue to block it. The European Commission has set a deadline of Sept. 6 to rule on the bid by Universal and its Fremch parent, Vivendi SA. In California, the state's attorney general is investigating whether the deal could harm consumers. Universal and Vivendi say they are confident they will win approval from both American and European regulators.

Apple's Data-Hogging App

Apple’s recent decision to bring its popular video-calling application FaceTime to cellular networks could give wireless carriers a boost as they look to find new ways to charge for data usage.

Data consumption from FaceTime could be significant for regular users and, depending on their plans, leave them needing a larger monthly data allotment. While that may tap the wallets of some users, the total increase of usage will continue the trend of data sales driving a bigger portion of wireless revenue at carriers. FaceTime uses a camera on the iPhone to connect with others on their phones, iPads or Mac computers. The application has been available for use only when both users are connected to Wi-Fi, but, with iOS 6—Apple's newest mobile operating system, coming this autumn—it can be used on cellular networks. According to one analyst's estimate, those on a data plan that offers a single gigabyte per month could use up the allotment by making just one five-minute call a day on FaceTime.

What happens when Uncle Sam tells Google he doesn’t like your YouTube video?

Say you posted a YouTube video that members of the local, state or federal government don’t like. A law enforcement entity or government lawyer asks Google to take down your video. Do they? The answer is: not always. But the number of requests is going up.

For now, Google appears to have stood its ground more often than it has given in. It’s easy to imagine a dystopian future, however, in which actions like urinating on a passport or posting videos of police activities would be seen as subversive and grounds for a possible criminal investigation. And it’s also easy to imagine a future where governments would want to hide certain information from Google’s search engine results or censor the types of free political speech allowed online. From this perspective, the Google Transparency Report is a step in the right direction when it comes to holding the U.S. government responsible for its actions and alerting us to the ways that authorities foreign and domestic are attempting to bend the Internet to their own purposes.

California's online poker problem

[Commentary] Despite federal and state bans on online poker, as many as 1 million Californians spend a total of about $300 million annually playing the game — typically on websites based outside the country. Lawmakers have been debating for more than four years whether to create a legal outlet for these players but have been stymied by opposition from powerful Indian gambling interests. Those forces appear to have scuttled a new proposal by state Sens. Roderick Wright (D-Inglewood) and Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) that was sidelined by a Senate committee last week just before a scheduled vote. There's a good argument to be made for legalizing and regulating online poker or, conversely, working more aggressively to ban it. With the tribes pulling the strings in Sacramento, however, California isn't doing either.

Tax rebate deals with Apple, Amazon and Netflix are bad news for communities

[Commentary] Amazon has finally agreed to pay sales taxes to the state of California, but that doesn't mean it has stopped trying to weasel out of paying everything it should.

Amazon is reportedly trying to strike deals with two local communities that would cut the sales taxes it pays, according to recent media reports. Outrageous, sure, but not unprecedented. In the Bay Area there are several companies that either have similar deals or have their hands out asking for them, including Apple and Netflix. In such an arrangement, a company agrees to funnel more of its sales through a city and the city agrees to refund some portion of the extra sales tax money it's getting back to the company. Nobody knows how common such arrangements are. State Sen. Mark DeSaulnier, D-Concord, who is thinking of introducing a bill to stop or limit such deals, said his office is trying to figure out the extent of their use.

Google’s Schmidt: technology wave leaving many behind

Google’s executive chairman, Eric Schmidt, warned that vast numbers of the world's population are missing out on the advantages brought by the Internet.

Schmidt said that about 2 billion people, less than a third of the world's population, have Internet access, and 1 billion have smartphones. "The World Wide Web has yet to live up to its name," he said. "Technology does not produce miracles, but connectivity, even in modest amounts, changes lives." Schmidt also warned about Internet privacy, saying the "lack of a delete button" online meant incriminating posts could spell disaster for unwary Web users. "If you upload a video of your young friend drunk without their permission, you may be ruining their life."

Conference looks at social, mobile possibilities

With the convergence of social networking and mobile phones becoming more pronounced, tech companies are working toward a future when those devices are beyond smart and become intuitive, speakers at a San Francisco conference said.

Using built-in accelerometers, GPS systems and compasses, a phone can have a "sixth sense" in determining when its owner is driving to work or sitting down to lunch, speakers at the Social-Loco Conference said. And then the phone can tap into a social network to make contextual recommendations, such as routes to get around a traffic jam or a new dish to try. "It should be able to understand you automatically," said Sam Liang, founder and chief executive officer of Alohar Mobile, a Palo Alto company that is working on just such a mobile platform.

Benton

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