January 2014

A federal court has tossed out a lawsuit trying to prevent the government from searching laptops, cellphones and other devices at US border checkpoints. The circuit judge’s decision to uphold the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) policy was a blow to civil liberties groups that argued the practice violated the Constitution’s protection against unreasonable search and seizure.

According to government documents, officials at the border search and copy the contents of thousands of people’s devices each year and can detain the devices for a short period of time without a reasonable suspicion that the traveler has committed a crime. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers filed a lawsuit challenging the DHS policy in 2010, on behalf of the National Press Photographers Association and Pascal Abidor, a French-American man whose laptop was confiscated at the Canadian border. But in his opinion, Judge Edward Korman wrote that the groups did not have standing to dispute the DHS searches because “there is not a substantial risk that their electronic devices will be subject to a search or seizure without reasonable suspicion.” Judge Korman wrote that border agents did indeed have “reasonable suspicion” to check the laptop, since Abidor had recently returned from Lebanon and was carrying pictures of Hezbollah and Hamas rallies. The ACLU said it was considering an appeal of the decision.

[Dec 31]

[Commentary] I am growing very tired of this meme: Another reporter writes about how the US is falling behind international rivals in the supply of broadband. There are serious issues to debate, but this standard meme takes attention away from them. The latest version of this article came from the New York Times. It had the title “US Struggling to Keep Pace in Broadband Service,” and it brought out the usual concern that all US growth will fall behind if the US does not have the fastest broadband in the world.

Why is this tiring? Let me count the ways.

First, while it is irritating to have slow service at home, US productivity does not depend much on that. Household broadband is less important for economic growth than the broadband to business. And what really matters for productivity? Speed to business.

Second, as for household speeds, many people simply don’t want them and do not want to pay for them.

Third, if we study demand, can we all acknowledge that demand is very skewed in the US? 10% of the users account for far more than 50% of the data to households, and 20% of the users get most systems to more than 80% of the data use. And it is growing at levels from median to highest part of the skew, so there is good reason to think demand for data is growing for all major users. Will there be capacity to handle those intensive users of data? The answer is unclear. That hints at an open question that is worth debating. Not everyone pays the same price because flat rate pricing has been so common across the US. The top 10% of users pay very low prices per megabit. Even if total expenditure per month for the biggest users is twice as expensive in the US in comparison to other countries, it is still pretty cheap.

[Greenstein is the Kellogg Chair of Information Technology, and a member of the Management and Strategy Department at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University]

[Dec 31]

The American Civil Liberties Union sued the Obama Administration for more information about how intelligence agencies conduct surveillance.

The civil liberties group filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit in a New York federal court seeking information on an executive order originally signed by President Ronald Reagan that is frequently used by the administration to justify National Security Agency actions. The ACLU in its suit said the NSA is using the order to justify the collection of “vast quantities of data worldwide,” including “nearly 5 billion records per day on the location of cell phones, including Americans' cell phones." It also said the agency used the order to obtain “information from Google and Yahoo user accounts as that information travels between those companies' data centers located abroad.” The group cited "recent revelations" in the press to back up its claims. Its lawsuit was joined by Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic at Yale University. In its complaint, the ACLU said recent revelations "have confirmed that the government interprets that authority to permit sweeping monitoring of Americans' international communications.”

[Dec 30]

Apple faces opposition from the Department of Justice in the company’s bid to block an antitrust monitor appointed in the electronic books price-fixing case from interviewing top executives and directors, including chief executive officer Tim Cook and board member Al Gore.

The government said the monitor, former Justice Department inspector general Michael Bromwich, should be allowed to interview the company’s leaders, as such activities are “standard procedure in monitorships,” according to a filing in Manhattan federal court. Bromwich was appointed in October by US District Judge Denise Cote to evaluate Apple’s antitrust compliance policies. Apple said in court papers filed in November that the monitor was operating in an “unfettered an inappropriate manner,” and was overstepping his authority by pressing for immediate interviews with senior management. “Stripped of its blustery rhetoric and personal attacks, Apple’s motion is about its desire to shield its highest-level executives and board members from the perceived inconvenience of having to sit for these interviews,” Justice Department lawyers said. Apple’s claim that Bromwich’s request would result in loss of market share growth at the world’s biggest technology company is “wholly unbelievable,” the US lawyers said.

[Dec 31]