September 2014

Literary Lions Unite in Protest Over Amazon’s E-Book Tactics

The authors are uniting.

Last spring, when Amazon began discouraging customers from buying books published by Hachette, the writers grumbled that they were pawns in the retailer’s contract negotiations over e-book prices. During the summer, they banded together and publicly protested Amazon’s actions. Now, hundreds of other writers, including some of the world’s most distinguished, are joining the coalition. Few if any are published by Hachette. And they have goals far broader than freeing up the Hachette titles.

They want the Justice Department to investigate Amazon for illegal monopoly tactics.

They also want to highlight the issue being debated endlessly and furiously on writers’ blogs: What are the rights and responsibilities of a company that sells half the books in America and controls the dominant e-book platform?

The battle for digital supremacy

Control of the Senate isn’t the only big prize for the November midterms. Bragging rights are also up for grabs in the deeply partisan arms race over who has the edge with political technologies.

Democrats hope the experience they’ve gained using data, social media and digital advertising in President Barack Obama’s two winning White House campaigns will pay off in 2014 and maybe even help save the day in some of their closest races. But with the playing field and technology budgets much smaller this cycle, Republicans insist they’re finally entering the home stretch at something close to parity. After all, both parties are blasting out carefully-crafted emails to potential donors. Both maintain they’re running pitch-perfect online ads that targets the undecideds not watching live TV. And both say they will be monitoring and responding to real-time data on early voting totals in the most critical battleground states.

Netflix founder and CEO Reed Hastings expanding political muscle

Santa Cruz resident and Netflix founder and CEO Reed Hastings is wading into politics again, but like an actor wanting to avoid being typecast, he is branching out in new directions. Long a supporter of school reforms, Hastings has put $247,000 toward Prop 47, a measure that would continue recent efforts at criminal justice reform by rolling back penalties for low-level, nonviolent crimes. With barely five weeks until the Nov. 4 election, polls show the measure has strong public backing.

Digital War Takes Shape on Websites Over ISIS

The Islamic State group has demonstrated a skill and sophistication with social media previously unseen in extremist groups. Richard A. Stengel, the under secretary of state for public diplomacy, believes the United States has no choice but to counter their propaganda with a forceful online response.

“We have to be tougher, we have to be harder, particularly in the information space, and we have to hit back,” said Under Secretary Stengel. The State Department division that Under Secretary Stengel heads has tried a range of approaches for engaging with the Middle East since 9/11, from slick, Madison Avenue-style ads to traditional international-visitors and exchange programs. But now, digital operators at the State Department are directly engaging young people — and sometimes jihadists — on websites popular in Arab countries, publishing a stream of anti-Islamic State messages, and one somewhat shocking video, on Facebook or YouTube or Twitter, using the hashtag #Think Again Turn Away.

Spy Agencies Urge Caution on Phone Deal

An obscure federal contract for a company charged with routing millions of phone calls and text messages in the United States has prompted an unusual lobbying battle in which intelligence officials are arguing that the nation’s surveillance secrets could be at risk.

The contractor that wins the bid would essentially act as the air traffic controller for the nation’s phone system, which is run by private companies but is essentially overseen by the government. And with a European-based company now favored for the job, some current and former intelligence officials -- who normally stay out of the business of awarding federal contracts -- say they are concerned that the government’s ability to trace reams of phone data used in terrorism and law enforcement investigations could be hindered. A small Virginia company, Neustar, has held the job since the late 1990s, but a private phone-industry panel has recommended to the Federal Communications Commission that an American division of Ericsson, the Swedish-based technology company, get the work instead. No final decision has been made.

Facebook and tech industry can appeal “bulk search warrant” ruling in key test of online privacy rights

Five judges of the New York State Supreme Court agreed to hear an appeal of a sweeping order from July that forced Facebook to turn over information about 381 accounts at once in a controversial “bulk warrant” process. And significantly, the judges also gave permission to a group of outside companies and organizations -- ranging from Google to Kickstarter to the ACLU -- to participate in the proceedings.

The case itself is about a fraud scandal in which hundreds of New York public employees, including firefighters and police officers, claimed disability payments, even as Facebook photos allegedly showed them engaging in activities like deep-sea diving and teaching karate lessons. But on a legal level, the case turns on what the government must do to obtain such information from Facebook. While New York prosecutors say they need to get the information in a way that prevents defendants from deleting it, Facebook has argued that the sweeping request amounts to a general search warrant of a kind that is forbidden by the US Constitution.

Tim Berners-Lee calls for Internet bill of rights to ensure greater privacy

Tim Berners-Lee, the British computer scientist who invented the web 25 years ago, called for a bill of rights that would guarantee the independence of the Internet and ensure users’ privacy.

“If a company can control your access to the internet, if they can control which websites they go to, then they have tremendous control over your life,” Berners-Lee said at the Web We Want festival on the future of the Internet in London. “If a government can block you going to, for example, the opposition’s political pages, then they can give you a blinkered view of reality to keep themselves in power.” “Suddenly the power to abuse the open internet has become so tempting both for government and big companies.”

Advocates for News Media to Meet Turkish Officials

An international delegation representing two leading press-freedom advocacy groups left for a weeklong visit to Turkey, where it plans to talk with Turkish officials, possibly including President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, about harassment and persecution of foreign and domestic journalists whose reporting is deemed hostile or unfair by the government. The 20-member delegation is composed of representatives from the Committee to Protect Journalists, a New York-based organization, and the International Press Institute, based in Vienna. It has been promised a meeting with Erdogan, who is known for castigating journalists and their news organizations over articles that he considers a challenge to his authority.

Privacy is tech’s latest marketing strategy

The proliferation services and devices offering more secure methods of communication suggest there is a very real market for individuals who want to keep their private communications, well, private. With their recent changes -- along with less visible technical upgrades over the past year -- major tech companies like Apple and Google appear to be banking on average consumers taking the security into account when making purchasing decisions. But not everyone is happy about this shift.

FBI Director James Comey had harsh words for the companies: "What concerns me about this is companies marketing something expressly to allow people to place themselves above the law." Many cybersecurity professionals say "backdoor" access or lawful intercept technology introduces insecurity into the larger ecosystem -- arguing that if there is a secret entrance for law enforcement, cybercriminals are likely to discover and exploit it as well.

The toughest case: What if Osama bin Laden had an iPhone?

In rebuking Apple and Google for their new smartphone encryption polices, FBI Director James Comey became the latest law enforcement official to evoke worst-case scenario arguments: What of the child predator, the murderer, the terrorist? Wouldn’t you want police to be able to get into their phones? This type of argument can be brought into even sharper relief by posing the hardest imaginable case: What if the FBI got its hands on Osama bin Laden’s iPhone? This example illuminates the complicated new legal and technical terrain created by Apple’s decision to release a mobile operating system that is so thoroughly encrypted that the company cannot unlock its devices for police, even if they have a search warrant.

Benton

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