Prayer issue divides council

Mayor Tom DuPree opened the Madison City Council meeting Monday with a prayer, despite the recent requests of other council members to either not begin the practice or open with a minute of silence.

Immediately preceding the 5:30 p.m. call to order, DuPree rose and asked the Reverend Hoke Smith of Calvary Baptist Church to pray over the meeting; DuPree asked all of those who would like to stand and pray for local government, also.

About half of the 60 people present in the room stood for the invocation.

By 10:30 p.m., as the meeting was winding down and the agenda called for public comment, Smith rose again to address the remaining 20 or so people in the room.

Smith was distressed by the debate about prayer that had taken place previously in the meeting.

"I thought I?d died and gone to hell, and the devil said, ?You?re not going to pray down here,?" said Smith. "Then I looked over to the side and I saw Barry Lurey, a Jew, down here in Hell. Looked and I seen [sic] a Catholic down here, and I had to shake myself."

Council member Barry Lurey spoke out in protest.

"That?s not a very appropriate remark," said Lurey. "I was not going to Hell?you may think I was, but I?m not."

"Mr. Smith has the floor," said DuPree.

"You should be defending your councilmen," said Lurey to DuPree, visibly upset.

"And I will, as soon as Mr. Smith is finished," said DuPree.

Smith was allowed to finish his comments, and the he and Lurey exchanged a few more words.

"I apologize if I offended anybody," said Smith.

"You certainly offended me," said Lurey.

"Well, I was offended, too," said Smith.

"I absolutely cannot believe that you said you saw me in Hell," said Lurey. "That?s a very serious offense?"

"That?s the way that I feel, and I believe we all have a right to our opinion?"

"I love God as much as you do," said Lurey.

"Thank you," said Smith, as he returned to his seat.

The invocation

Earlier in the council meeting, there was extensive debate regarding the appropriateness of opening a public meeting with a benediction. After Smith?s opening prayer was completed without incident, Council Member Michael Naples almost immediately requested that a discussion of the proceedings be added to the agenda.

"I?d like to know, by what authority can the mayor ask someone to open the meeting with a prayer?" asked Naples, noting that the invocation was not on the agenda, nor did the mayor ask for a motion to add the prayer to the agenda. DuPree replied that he believed that he had the power, as presiding officer, to open the meeting as he saw fit. DuPree also called attention to the fact that the prayer was requested before the actual call to order.

"When I conduct these meetings, as presiding officer, I will open with a prayer," said DuPree.

Naples subsequently moved that the mayor "cease and desist" in his invocations until such a time as the council approved a motion allowing the mayor to pray before meetings, or alternatively, that the mayor move the prayer outside the meeting building. Naples also included in his motion a notification that the mayor should personally bear the cost of any litigation stemming from his decision to begin city meetings with a prayer.

That motion died for lack of a second. However, Naples immediately proposed a second motion, essentially requiring only that the mayor bear any and all litigation costs resulting from the new calls to prayer.

"I?ll second that motion," said council member Barry Lurey.

In the discussion surrounding the motion, council member Fred Perriman, who identified himself as a minister, was moved to tears.

"It pricks my heart, when we can?t come together as people under the nation of God," said Perriman. "I think we have a great mayor, a man who believes in God?we need prayer, to have a peaceful city."

Naples disagreed with the idea that the city had to begin with prayer in order to be effective.

"I certainly have nothing against prayer," he said. "I said before, there is nothing to stop anyone from praying in his car before the council meeting begins?I believe that every member of this council is guided by his religion." Naples then cited Matthew 6:5-13 from the Bible, in which Jesus exhorts those around him, "?do not be like the hypocrites?when you pray, go into your room."

"This is a rhetorical question, but how do you reconcile the words of Jesus, who is your savior, and mine too,?with [public prayer]?" asked Naples. "These public shows of religiosity do not always show what is in a man?s heart."

Naples talked about the concept that the majority is not always right.

"Most Americans claim to be Christians," he said. "But majority rule is not always right," he said, pointing to the Jim Crow laws that were once upheld by a majority of citizens in this region.

Naples pointed out that he represents Christians in Madison, but also four people practicing Hinduism, several Jews, and at least one person practicing Islam.

"We do not need the strife that a violation of the separation between church and state [will bring]," said Naples.

Council member Lurey concurred with Naples on many points, invoking the words of James Madison, who wrote about the religious turmoil that the founding fathers had been trying to escape, the "ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil with blood."

"This city council is about the people of the city of Madison," said Lurey. " And we need to include everyone."

DuPree had a chance to respond to Naples? and Lurey?s comments, he said that Naples had described Matthew 6:5-13 "out of context."

"When Christ was speaking about the hypocrites?and I don?t remember the names or the towns, but I certainly remember the story," said DuPree, "He found a group of church leaders that felt that they could live however they wanted to if they only prayed?that?s when he used those words," said DuPree. "They have to be put in context."

DuPree also cited the First Amendment, which guarantees free speech, and noted that the separation of church and state is not referred to in the United States Constitution or its amendments. He then made note of the fact that the constitution of all fifty states made references God.

"I?m troubled by your need to segregate out faith from our government," said DuPree, to Naples. "I believe that we as a people have gone too far away from the Almighty?and as long as I sit in this chair?I will open?with prayer," he concluded.

Naples responded, "It?s rather magnanimous of you to take this on in this litigious society, [when the courts] have [ruled] against prayer?all it takes is one dissenter to be affronted by what?s happening here, and we?re in court."

Naples also voiced his disapproval of what he views as the mayor?s continual focus on issues that are not the everyday business of the city.

"Since we began in January, it been about you and voting, you and the mayor pro tem, you and prayer?let?s get to the city?s business!" said Naples, to applause from some in the crowd.

In the end, Naples? motion requiring the mayor to personally fund any litigation costs stemming from the inclusion of prayer in the city council meeting passed, 3-2. Naples, Lurey, and council member Whitey Hunt voted in favor of the motion; Perriman and council member Rick Blanton were opposed.

Homeland Security opening private mail

WASHINGTON - In the 50 years that Grant Goodman has known and corresponded with a colleague in the Philippines he never had any reason to suspect that their friendship was anything but spectacularly ordinary.

But now he believes that the relationship has somehow sparked the interest of the Department of Homeland Security and led the agency to place him under surveillance.

Last month Goodman, an 81-year-old retired University of Kansas history professor, received a letter from his friend in the Philippines that had been opened and resealed with a strip of dark green tape bearing the words ?by Border Protection? and carrying the official Homeland Security seal.
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?I had no idea (Homeland Security) would open personal letters,? Goodman told MSNBC.com in a phone interview. ?That?s why I alerted the media. I thought it should be known publicly that this is going on,? he said. Goodman originally showed the letter to his own local newspaper, the Kansas-based Lawrence Journal-World.

?I was shocked and there was a certain degree of disbelief in the beginning,? Goodman said when he noticed the letter had been tampered with, adding that he felt his privacy had been invaded. ?I think I must be under some kind of surveillance.?

Goodman is no stranger to mail snooping; as an officer during World War II he was responsible for reading all outgoing mail of the men in his command and censoring any passages that might provide clues as to his unit?s position. ?But we didn?t do it as clumsily as they?ve done it, I can tell you that,? Goodman noted, with no small amount of irony in his voice. ?Isn?t it funny that this doesn?t appear to be any kind of surreptitious effort here,? he said.

The letter comes from a retired Filipino history professor; Goodman declined to identify her. And although the Philippines is on the U.S. government?s radar screen as a potential spawning ground for Muslim-related terrorism, Goodman said his friend is a devout Catholic and not given to supporting such causes.

A spokesman for the Customs and Border Protection division said he couldn?t speak directly to Goodman?s case but acknowledged that the agency can, will and does open mail coming to U.S. citizens that originates from a foreign country whenever it?s deemed necessary.

?All mail originating outside the United States Customs territory that is to be delivered inside the U.S. Customs territory is subject to Customs examination,? says the CBP Web site. That includes personal correspondence. ?All mail means ?all mail,?? said John Mohan, a CBP spokesman, emphasizing the point.

?This process isn?t something we?re trying to hide,? Mohan said, noting the wording on the agency?s Web site. ?We?ve had this authority since before the Department of Homeland Security was created,? Mohan said.

However, Mohan declined to outline what criteria are used to determine when a piece of personal correspondence should be opened, but said, ?obviously it?s a security-related criteria.?

Mohan also declined to say how often or in what volume CBP might be opening mail. ?All I can really say is that Customs and Border Protection does undertake [opening mail] when it is determined to be necessary,? he said.

Swedish pirates found political party

A new Swedish party has been founded by software pirates with the aim of abolishing copyrights, patens and trademarks. They founders want to be in the next election for the Riksdag (Swedish parliament, ed.) which is scheduled for September 24th and the party is a reaction to the stricter legislation against piracy introduced by the current Swedish government. Fittingly this new party has been christened ?Piratpartiet? ? the Pirate Party.

Should the Pirate Party gain the majority of votes in the election, its first move will be to remove all copyright according to the Party?s programme. This will be done without any delays or studies. The party also wants Sweden to declare to the UN that the country no longer will accept international treaties on the matter.

The party is currently looking for people who want to run for a parliamentary seat, of course they need to be software pirates.

In order to be able to be listed as a party in the upcoming elections the pirates needed 1.500 signatures. After they opened a website on January 1st they got nearly 5.000 electronic signatures, which now have to be verified. However, in order to gain the first seat in the Riksdag, they need 225.000 votes. But the pirates aren?t worried about that, according to their own estimates, 800.000 Swedes use pirate software/games/media.

Congress Passes Blatantly Unconstitutional Law Against Internet Speech

Declan McCullagh revealed today that buried inside some must-pass legislation from last year is a provision from Sen. Arlen Spector, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, that bans all anonymous Internet speech that "annoys."

Annoys? Excuse me? You may not know this, Arlen, but the Federalist Papers were extremely annoying. So were the anti-federalist papers. (You may not have known such existed, but they did.) All of this debate, which is at the heart of our system (and which predates the Bill of Rights, not coincidentally) was conducted anonymously. The Founders rightfully feared legal harassment from the several states for their annoying speech, and kept their names to themselves as they debated the questions publicly. One thing to emerge from all this, of course, was a promise to cofify specific rights of the people, of which Freedom of Speech would come in the First Amendment.

Since then we've had ample precedent and rhetoric upholding the principle that annoying speech, even anonymous annoying speech, is OK. (The legal problem emerges when you get into deliberate falsehoods, into libel or slander, not annoyance.) Among the most recent such defenses is one from Mr. Justice Thomas, in McIntyre vs. Ohio Election Comm., 1995.

Spector knew this piece of garbage would wilt in the light of day. That's why he snuck it through in the dark of night.

Of course, that's why we have courts. To toss this kind of stuff.

Maybe someone should ask Mr. Alito what he thinks of it.

Snap, Crackle ? Patents

A Cereologist at work.

Back in 2000, David Roth had one of those ?eureka? moments that are the stuff of American entreprenurial legend. After spotting a box of Cocoa Puffs hidden behind the desk of a Wall Street executive, Roth dreamed up a retail business that would sell cereal all the time. He and a partner opened the first Cereality in Tempe, Arizona, on the campus of Arizona State University. College students flocked; Roth followed up with stores in Philadelphia and Chicago; and news outlets from Time to CNN fawned.

But as is so often the case with good ideas, Roth wasn?t the only one to have it. Across the country, Rocco Monteleone was getting set to open Bowls, a cereal cafe in Gainesville, Florida, (near the University of Florida) when he found out that Cereality had beaten him to the punch. OK, he figured, no harm, no foul: It?s America. Anyone can open a restaurant selling cereal. Right?

Well, kind of. In May, Monteleone received a letter from Cereality?s attorney warning him that he may be in violation of a patent application the company had filed for its ?methods and system? of selling cereal. These included: ?displaying and mixing competitively branded food products? and adding ?a third portion of liquid.?
Cuckoo for patent law

Just 10 years ago, this kind of a patent would have been impossible even to consider. But a landmark shift in the law has made it possible to patent entire ways of doing business?a change that has prompted a rush on patent claims, opened a Pandora?s Box of litigation and threatens to put large swaths of American innovation under the control of big business. Given the transition from an industrial to digital economy, changes in patent law were inevitable and necessary. But critics argue that when it comes to business methods the traditional rationales for granting patents?they incentivize expensive research and encourage inventors to share their knowledge?don?t apply.

?You need incentives for people to innovate in technology,? says Jason Schultz, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation?s Patent Busting project. ?You?ve never needed that in businesses because if a business is successful you make money. It?s its own incentive.?

When the first U.S. patent board convened in 1790, with Thomas Jefferson serving as one of the members, it required inventors to submit a miniature model of their invention. The board expected to issue patents for machines and industrial processes, things like cotton gins or the proverbial ?better mouse trap? that were the engine of American economic growth. And for the first 200 years of the country?s history, that?s pretty much what they did.

But over the last three decades the category of patentable subject matter has expanded significantly beyond the widgets of the industrial age: In 1980, the Supreme Court decided that life-forms such as bacteria were patentable; soon thereafter the United States Patent and Trade Office (USPTO) began issuing patents for isolated genes, and in 1998, in the landmark case State Street Bank v. Signature Financial Group, Inc., the Third Circuit Court of Appeals ruled business methods patentable as well.

Signature had secured a patent for software it had developed that managed its system of pooled mutual fund assets. State Street used a similar system and when Signature told them to knock it off, State Street challenged the patent. A lower court sided with State Street, striking down the patent. Because it was software, the court ruled it was, at base, a mathematical algorithm, which the courts had traditionally viewed as an unpatentable ?abstract idea.? Also, since Signature?s entire business depended on the value of the mutual funds, the software qualified as a ?business method,? which, since 1908, courts had also viewed as unpatentable. But the Third Circuit disagreed and ruled that as long as a given business method or software produced a ?useful, concrete, and tangible? result?in this case the numerical value of the pooled mutual funds?it was suitable for a patent.

The decision came just as Internet commerce was exploding, and the USPTO, taking its marching orders from the courts, began issuing patents for everything from the hyperlink to the pop-up window to a ?method of effecting commerce in a networked computer environment in a computerized system.? In an early seminal case, Amazon patented its ?one-click? method of purchasing products, which forced Barnes and Noble to add an extraneous click to its own system to avoid a lawsuit. Between 1997 and 2001, the number of business method patent applications increased twenty-fold, and the litigation associated with patent infringements exploded.
Patent thickets

Schultz argues that conferring monopolies on certain business methods stifles competition and creates artificially high prices for consumers, since competitors must pay licensing fees to the patent holder. And since violations are enforced by the patent holder, the system benefits those with the resources to hire good lawyers.

?Let?s say you get a patent on something like a pop-up window,? says Schultz. ?Of course, you could, in theory, go after everyone on the Internet, but you don?t. What you end up doing is picking off the weak members of the herd, companies that don?t have the money to defend themselves or independent Web sites, or occasionally big companies that you think will not have very much backbone and will quickly settle.?

The proliferation of business method patents creates, in Schultz?s words, ?patent thickets,? areas of e-commerce so overgrown with patents they discourage anyone but the largest corporations from wading in. For all of these reasons, Europe, Japan and Canada do not allow business method patents.

Just four short years after the State Street decision, mounting criticism led the USPTO to tighten the scrutiny it applied to business method patents. While it reduced the percentage of business method applications it accepts, it has also continued to expand the domain of patentable subject matter, ruling earlier this year that business method patents don?t need to have a technological component in order to be patented. If these rules had applied for the last century, there conceivably could have been patents on everything from drive-thru fast food to overnight shipping.

If a tussle over Lucky Charms and Froot Loops seems like low stakes, consider that it?s just one small part of a growing trend toward privatizing more and more of what free culture proponents refer to as the ?knowledge commons.? Kembrew McLeod, author of Freedom of Expression (and holder of a trademark for the phrase ?Freedom of Expression?), says ?whether we?re talking about genes in patent law or what is essentially the elimination of the public domain with the extension of copyright,? in the last 25 years the entire intellectual property (IP) regime has moved toward ?creating new private property.?

McLeod says the shift started happening ?around the same time the U.S. government and the business interests were finally coming to terms with the fact that IP exports exceeded manufacturing exports. The reason we?ve seen the shift is simply because there?s so much money at stake.?

The few voices advocating a less rigidly privatized sphere of knowledge constitute an unlikely coalition of free-market libertarians, who view things like business method patents as odious forms of state interference with natural competition, and progressive ?copyleft? and free culture activists. ?The real quandary is whether business method patents are ultimately good for business or not,? says Nicholas Reville, of the free culture group Downhill Battle. ?They enrich specific, usually entrenched companies?which is what gets the Bush administration excited?but they are terrible for the economy as a whole because they reduce competition and add an incredible legal strain on innovators.?

While groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation, FreeCulture and Downhill Battle are growing, intellectual property issues still don?t command the same kind of attention as other progressive mainstays. But if the public doesn?t start agitating for reform, Americans are going to find themselves increasingly at the whim of the large corporations who own the ideas that form the foundation of the American economy.

As long as the laws (and their interpretation) stay the same, businesses like Cereality will continue to protect their competitive advantage by any legal means possible. Back at Bowls, Monteleone?s lawyer told him to ignore Cereality?s letter, which was probably good advice. In August, the USPTO issued a provisional ruling rejecting the application. Cereality?s spokesperson, Lisa Kovitz, could hardly muster a defense of the patent, saying that the company was instead focusing on its trademarks of the various aspects of the store?s branding, which include the name ?Cereologists? for its pajama-clad employees, and the name ?Moo Machines? for its milk dispensers.

This may prove more effective: A cereal store set to open in Iowa City decided to change its name from Cereology to the Cereal Cabinet after receiving a letter from Cereality?s attorneys. But name aside, Cereal Cabinet proprietor Ahmad Choudhry thinks his idea can?t miss. As he told the local paper: ?I?ve talked to so many other people, so many other students, and they all are very excited about this concept.?

When Theft Serves Art

Andy Warhol was an artist. He was also a businessman. As he famously quipped, "Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art." Warhol was great at both.

But Warhol's art was of a particular sort. Appropriationist is what some call it, as if there is art that doesn't draw from the culture around us. Remix might be a less charged moniker. Warhol created work that appropriated and remixed. Some of that culture was owned, meaning copyrighted or trademarked (think Campbell's soup cans). Some wasn't. But whether owned or not, the result was distinctly Warhol. He freely built on work that came before him.

When he died in 1987, his will called for setting up a foundation to manage his estate. From the beginning, that foundation faced an obvious question: What should it do when others used Warhol's images?

The artist didn't leave much of an answer­. He directed his executor to establish a "foundation for the advancement of the visual arts" and named three people to start the organization. But the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts had to define its own mission and, more important, the values it would stand for. Would it exercise the control the law gives it over Warhol's art to maximize its income? Or would it exercise that control the way Warhol practiced his art?

I've grown so cynical about these copyright and culture debates that I wouldn't have thought an organization in the Warhol Foundation's position would even ask such questions. Of course it would exercise its right to maximize control. Rabid intellectual property protectionism - IP extremism - is so rampant that if the foundation demanded that future Warhols pay for permission to build on Warhol's art, most people wouldn't even notice the hypocrisy.

So I was surprised to hear the foundation's president, Joel Wachs, describe its values to an audience of New York City bar association members gathered to learn about fair use. The Warhol Foundation is "vigorous in enforcing our rights when it comes to people wanting to use Warhol's art for commercial purposes," Wachs said. But when it comes to artists and scholars, the rules are very different. "We permit artists to use and reference Warhol work without charge and without challenge." And "we let scholars use Warhol imagery for just a nominal fee to cover the cost of administering the rights." Wachs told me later, "We're Lessig when it comes to artists and scholars" and "Disney when it comes to commercial use."

To people who live outside the IP-extremist­ culture, this sounds quite sen­sible. But inside that culture, the foundation's values are incomprehensible. Not only are artists free to create and profit from images that build on Warhol's, but the foundation doesn't even ask to see how his work will be used. To condition the freedom of scholars or artists to use Warhol's pieces upon such a review would be censorship, Wachs explained. And the foundation has learned that there are people on both the right and the left who are keen to engage in just this sort of censorship.

Compare this with the practice of major film studios, as reported in J. D. Lasica's book Darknet: Hollywood's War Against the Digital Generation. Lasica asked to use small clips from famous films in some home movies he wanted to make - footage he promised would never be shown to anyone outside of his friends and family.

Universal Studios told Lasica he would be "obligated to pay $900 for each 15 seconds." When he asked for two 10-second clips from a Daffy Duck movie, Warner Bros. said, "We do not ... allow our material to be edited or altered in any way." And the Walt Disney Company told Lasica it "had to establish a general policy" of - you guessed it - saying no. In Disney's view, no one - not even artists, not even noncommercially - is free to build on Disney the way Walt Disney built on the Brothers Grimm.

There's not much hope that Congress will begin to think sensibly about the IP extremism its laws encourage. But we'd achieve a great deal if copyright holders - and those who challenge them - started speaking and acting with a Warhol sensibility.

As a former Los Angeles city council­man and mayoral candidate, Wachs knows well the arguments of the extremes­. He and his foundation do creators and creativity a great service by resisting the demands of the extremes and practicing the values by which Warhol lived.

Your phone records available online

The Internet makes everything better?and if you don't believe me, just ask Chicago private investigator Ernie Rizzo, who routinely goes online to track down cell phone records. They help him answer such burning questions as whether a suburban police chief is having an affair, the answer to which is worth quite a bit of money to the police chief's wife. To Rizzo, such tools are like manna from heaven.

"I would say the most powerful investigative tool right now is cell records," Rizzo said. "I use it a couple times a week. A few hundred bucks a week is well worth the money."

Most people believe that their phone records are confidential, but it turns out that they are easily available to anyone with an Internet connection, a credit card, and US$150 to burn. Not even Canadian Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart is safe, as she found out in November when a reporter obtained both her personal and professional phone logs from a US-based company. The situation has gotten so bad that both the FBI and the Chicago Police Department have warned agents and undercover officers about the dangers posed by cell phones when the records are so easily available to criminals, gangsters, and terrorists. This has been a problem for some time (we covered it, in fact, a few months back), but it's now coming to the attention of the major media.

How, you ask, is this possible? Aren't your cell phone records private? The short answer is no?the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) last August identified more than 40 web sites that offer to sell calling records without the knowledge of the person making the calls. Verizon is suing several of these companies in court, but their actions are currently little more than a drop in the bucket.

How these web sites get this information is even more interesting. Three main ways are used to obtain the data: pretexting, hacking, and good-old-fashioned bribery. Pretexting is simply the art of social engineering, in which the online data broker calls the phone company and gains access to a customer's records by pretending to be that customer. This is made easier by the fact that most of these data brokers subscribe to other databases that give them access to customers' Social Security numbers, dates of birth, etc. Hacking is another popular option, especially now that most phone companies allow customers to manage their accounts online. Many customers never bother to set up these accounts, leaving them easy targets for determined hackers. Finally, when all else fails, throw money at the problem. Big payouts to individuals inside the phone companies can ensure that a data broker has access to any records it cannot get through other means.

Not surprisingly, the phone companies want the government to stay out of the matter; they would prefer to avoid regulation at all costs. This is why BellSouth, Verizon, AT&T (formerly SBC), and the industry group CTIA all favor increased law enforcement activity, but don't want to see any new regulation or legislation. Whatever your stance on government regulation, it does appear that at least one bit of legislation is necessary. As Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) points out, pretexting is only illegal when financial information is involved, and is not currently outlawed when it comes to phone records. Schumer's state recently passed a strict new data protection law, but we still have nothing like this at the national level. Has the time for the long-delayed federal data protection law finally come?

Prove Christ exists, judge orders priest

AN ITALIAN judge has ordered a priest to appear in court this month to prove that Jesus Christ existed.

The case against Father Enrico Righi has been brought in the town of Viterbo, north of Rome, by Luigi Cascioli, a retired agronomist who once studied for the priesthood but later became a militant atheist.

Signor Cascioli, author of a book called The Fable of Christ, began legal proceedings against Father Righi three years ago after the priest denounced Signor Cascioli in the parish newsletter for questioning Christ?s historical existence.

Yesterday Gaetano Mautone, a judge in Viterbo, set a preliminary hearing for the end of this month and ordered Father Righi to appear. The judge had earlier refused to take up the case, but was overruled last month by the Court of Appeal, which agreed that Signor Cascioli had a reasonable case for his accusation that Father Righi was ?abusing popular credulity?.

Signor Cascioli?s contention ? echoed in numerous atheist books and internet sites ? is that there was no reliable evidence that Jesus lived and died in 1st-century Palestine apart from the Gospel accounts, which Christians took on faith. There is therefore no basis for Christianity, he claims.

Signor Cascioli?s one-man campaign came to a head at a court hearing last April when he lodged his accusations of ?abuse of popular credulity? and ?impersonation?, both offences under the Italian penal code. He argued that all claims for the existence of Jesus from sources other than the Bible stem from authors who lived ?after the time of the hypothetical Jesus? and were therefore not reliable witnesses.

Signor Cascioli maintains that early Christian writers confused Jesus with John of Gamala, an anti-Roman Jewish insurgent in 1st-century Palestine. Church authorities were therefore guilty of ?substitution of persons?.

The Roman historians Tacitus and Suetonius mention a ?Christus? or ?Chrestus?, but were writing ?well after the life of the purported Jesus? and were relying on hearsay.

Father Righi said there was overwhelming testimony to Christ?s existence in religious and secular texts. Millions had in any case believed in Christ as both man and Son of God for 2,000 years.

?If Cascioli does not see the sun in the sky at midday, he cannot sue me because I see it and he does not,? Father Righi said.

Signor Cascioli said that the Gospels themselves were full of inconsistencies and did not agree on the names of the 12 apostles. He said that he would withdraw his legal action if Father Righi came up with irrefutable proof of Christ?s existence by the end of the month.

The Vatican has so far declined to comment.

THE EVIDENCE
# The Gospels say that Jesus was born to the Virgin Mary in Bethlehem, grew up in Nazareth, preached and performed miracles in Galilee and died on the Cross in Jerusalem

# In his Antiquities of the Jews at the end of the 1st century, Josephus, the Jewish historian, refers to Jesus as ?a wise man, a doer of wonderful works? who ?drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles?

# Muslims believe Jesus was a great prophet. Many Jewish theologians regard Jesus as an itinerant rabbi who popularised many of the beliefs of liberal Jews. Neither Muslims nor Jews believe he was the Messiah and Son of God

# Tacitus, the Roman historian who lived from 55 to 120, mentions ?Christus? in his Annals. In about 120 Suetonius, author of The Lives of the Caesars, says: ?Since the Jews constantly made disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus, Emperor Claudius expelled them from Rome.?

Music sales slide despite RIAA's crushing blows against piracy

Or because of them?

Opinion 2005 proved one thing. The music industry really is as dumb as you think.

US CD sales in 2005 fell 3.5 per cent year-over-year, according to Nielsen Soundscan. That's quite a blow given that CD sales actually rose by 2.3 per cent in 2004. A sane person might suggest that higher energy costs throughout 2005 ate up a few of those sales or that pricey iPods left less cash to spend on albums. This logic escapes the Recording Industry Association of American (RIAA), which again attributes the fall in sales to piracy and which last year attributed the rise in sales to better anti-piracy measures.

So which is it? Are the RIAA's anti-piracy measures affecting sales or not?

Well, in 2005, the RIAA filed 7,000 more lawsuits against consumers - bringing the all-time total to more than 16,000. Along with the movie crew, it also managed to shutdown many of the most popular BitTorrent hubs. In addition, the US Supreme Court handed the RIAA a convenient decision against Grokster that holds P2P sites liable for their users' actions. Last but not least, the Down Under version of the RIAA convinced a court to clamp down on Kazaa.

All in all, 2005 marked a banner year for quashing CD piracy in the courts and on the internet. You'd think sales would have gone up once again, if you buy into the RIAA's way of thinking.

While P2P networks still thrive, they're mostly full of porn and mangled media. No one in their right mind or at least with a day job would sit there trying to pull down these tunes when they can buy a perfect album at the store. Similarly, movies take forever to download and come out looking pretty shite for the most part. The P2P networks - not that they were ever that great - aren't what they used to be, if hunting for music is your main goal.

Given all this, it would seem like the RIAA has the piracy fiends by their song-swapping balls. If they don't, then what's the next course of action?

Well, there aren't many sites left to shut down. In fact, without major media hubs to go after, the music publishers are now reaching to examine sites that post lyrics to songs. (We've bought many a song after lyric hunting, but that's surely because we're odd, totally unique, not mainstream creatures.) Along with the evil lyric mongers, consumers will likely be targeted by another 10,000 or so lawsuits in 2006. Then the RIAA can wait for the year-end data and say either that its war on piracy really boosted sales or that piracy continues to undermine the very fabric of the creative process, and this pattern will continue until the music industry enjoys a protracted boom.

Sadly, the RIAA's current line of thinking and method of operation prohibits such a boom.

Without question, the lawsuits against children, parents and grandparents don't help the music industry's public relations campaign. Nor do advertisements portraying download-happy consumers as criminals. It is wrong to grab this music without compensating artists. That's clear. What isn't clear is if suing thousands of people a year to prove a point is a punishment that fits the crime or a strategy worth pursuing.

Lord knows, Bono put food on his table this Christmas, Britney Spears can still throw away her panties after a single use and Sheryl Crow can afford not to eat. It's a bit hard to feel sorry for these millionaires when a 12-year-old faces public scorn and thousands of dollars in fines for firing up this thing called Limewire.

In addition, the RIAA has not encouraged a diverse, healthy online music buying environment as some suggest.

Downloads did more than double in 2005. but they still account for less than 5 per cent of total music sales. Apple dominates this market with iTunes, leaving the likes of Real and Napster to fight over scraps. For example, despite noble efforts to attract new business at colleges and to confuse consumers with misleading anti-Apple ads, Napster continued to post loss after loss during 2005 and saw its shares drop from close to $10 to $3.50. Meanwhile, Apple's shares went up more than 100 per cent.

Other sites such as Pandora show just how hard the RIAA makes it to buy music. The folks at Pandora have done everything they can to circumvent online music restrictions by letting users set up a type of radio station. You pick the bands that you like, and then the Pandora service goes and finds new music that you might enjoy. You can let Pandora play in the background, and the service is to some degree addictive and useful.

On the other hand, you're only allowed to skip about six songs an hour because of music industry restrictions. Then, Pandora doesn't even sell you the songs directly. It links to iTunes and gains just a few pennies every time it facilitates a sale.

Bless the Pandora crew for finding a creative way to play within the rules, but this type of service goes to show just how hopeless the music industry is at making use of the internet.

The obvious motivation behind the music industry's fight against music trading on the internet is that it hoped to cash in on the new online music formats just as it had done with the move from records to tapes and then CDs. The pigopolists wanted you to buy entire music collections once again. The labels, however, didn't come up with online stores quick enough and have spent the last few years trying to stop companies that did create such stores.

The hope has long been that online music would drive a new boom and that artists, publishers, moguls and device makers would all benefit.

Well, they haven't. Instead, Apple has benefitted. Apple has made billions off the iPod and even breathed new life into its computer business as a result of the device. It now owns the vast majority of the download market and has the labels scrambling for a way to deal with the company. New York's Attorney General Eliot Spitzer has subpoenaed the major labels to make sure they're doing this dealing in a fair way.

The very company with the "Rip, Mix, Burn" slogan so hated by the music and movie industry has come to own the delivery of music and even TV shows on the web. That's got to make Apple's CEO Steve Jobs laugh but does little for consumers who are stuck with DRM (digital rights management) locks on their music regardless of who wins the current battle.

The truth of the matter is that the music industry will go on searching for this boom for a long, long time. It will keep blaming piracy and not itself for failing to reach the end goal. Thousands of music buyers will be sued. The music labels themselves will probably be sued. Companies like Pandora will pop up, die and pop up again. Napster will keep floundering. And consumers will continue reading the fine print of DRM handouts included with CDs and online to tracks to figure out when and where they can play the music they own. In this environment, music sales can't do anything but decline.

It won't happen in 2006, but eventually the music labels will realize how wrong they've been. This cycle has run its course before, dating all the way back to the player piano and the first recordings of live performances. One day, a smarter than average pigopolist will realize that DRM-laced downloads, gimpy online services and lawsuits aren't the best means for winning consumers' hearts. That's when music sales will rise again.

So, while we might be in the dark ages of online entertainment, we do have hope. And that's something, although not something to be particularly proud of.

Web Sites Fight Proof-of-Age Rules For Porn Performers

The adult-entertainment industry is embroiled in a legal battle with the federal government over new regulations that many online purveyors fear could put them out of business.

At issue are rules established last year requiring any Web site carrying sexually explicit videos or photographs to maintain records proving that the performers are at least 18 years old. The rules apply whether the Web site owner produced the content or merely republished it. And they were made retroactive, so site operators must maintain records for all content filmed or photographed in the past 10 years. First-time violators face prison sentences of up to five years.

The Justice Department issued the regulations after Congress instructed it to update a 1988 child-protection law applying to filmmakers and magazine photographers. The new concern, the government has said in court filings, is the proliferation of Internet sites promoting content featuring "teens" and "young-looking performers."

Critics say the record-keeping rules are overly burdensome and part of a widening assault by the Bush administration against legal forms of sexually explicit material. "This has nothing to do with protecting children," Lawrence G. Walters, a Florida lawyer who represents several porn sites, said of the new regulations. "They're trying to shut down the adult-entertainment industry with overregulation."

There aren't any reliable data on the size of the online adult-entertainment industry: Most sites are private businesses that don't report revenues. Many are operated by just a few people working out of small offices or their own homes. David Card, an analyst at Jupiter Research, a New York-based technology-research firm, estimates that adult content on the Web may generate only about $250 million a year in U.S. revenue. At the other extreme, Adult Video News, an industry publication, estimates the figure at $2.5 billion.

The new regulations -- known in the industry as "2257" because of their section of the U.S. criminal code -- apply to content produced after July 3, 1995. They require Web sites to collect a performer's date of birth, a copy of a form of government-issued identification and every alias ever used in the industry. The records must be stored for seven years along with copies of any content in which the performers appeared.

The new rules don't apply to Web-hosting companies, which provide computer space for storing online content, or to Internet-access providers, nor do they apply to sites that publish links to sexually explicit content but don't actually publish images.

An adult-entertainment industry group, the Free Speech Coalition, has filed suit in federal court in Denver seeking to have all record-keeping provisions of the 1988 law thrown out on the grounds that they violate the First Amendment. The court issued a preliminary injunction in December blocking the Justice Department from enforcing the new regulations against so-called secondary producers, who merely republish existing material. But the judge indicated he was unlikely to side with the group on the broader challenge. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit is set to hear an appeal from the Coalition. A Justice Department spokesman declined to say how the law has been applied. He also declined to make any officials available for interviews, citing the pending suit.

If the regulations survive, they could prompt thousands of adult-oriented sites to shut down or move overseas, industry executives say. Some executives say they doubt that moving overseas would protect a site from prosecution. Mark Prince, whose Montreal company, 2much Internet Services Inc., sets up live, sex-oriented chats with women filmed via Web cams, says he is complying with the U.S. rules by collecting documents from his performers, because of business relationships with U.S. companies. Several of his performers have quit over privacy concerns, since their information could be shared with other adult sites, he says, adding that more than 100 women working for his company's U.S. clients have done so, too. "Some of the performers were terrified," he says.

Some sites have already shut down. The Web master of one shuttered site, ladieslinks.com, posted a message blasting the government for using "child pornography prevention as a cover to eliminate adult materials all together."

The new rules have prompted a number of companies outside the adult-entertainment industry to ban certain images. Tribe.net, a social-networking site based in San Francisco, had allowed users to post sexually-explicit photos, but now has started prohibiting such content even though it wasn't clear that the rules would apply, says Jan Gullett, chief executive of Tribe Networks Inc. "We really didn't want to take any chances," he says.

Production of child pornography has been outlawed under federal and state law since the late 1970s. The 1988 law required filmmakers, photographers and other primary producers of sexually explicit content to keep records documenting that their models and actors were at least 18. But the law didn't impose the rules on producers of computer-generated or digital images, which have grown exponentially in the Internet age.

Jeffrey J. Douglas, chairman of the Free Speech Coalition and a criminal-defense lawyer, says the regulations accomplish "absolutely nothing." Existing laws barring distribution of child pornography already are "sufficient incentive," he says, to keep adult-oriented businesses from publishing images of minors.

The government has been stepping up enforcement against child pornography. Last year, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales announced that one of his top priorities was to fight obscenity. In the 12 months that ended Sept. 30, 2005, the Federal Bureau of Investigation opened 2,402 cases under the Innocent Images National Initiative, a program focusing on investigations of sexual predators who use the Internet or other online services. That compares with 113 cases in 1996, according to a Federal Bureau of Investigation spokesman.

Porn-site operators complain that compliance with the new record-keeping regulations is difficult because many adult-content producers have no desire to reveal personal information about performers, out of concern for their privacy. Also, many sites such as video retailers stock libraries going back several years. Tracking down information on such content would be prohibitively expensive if not impossible, especially in the case of production companies no longer in business.

Scott Coffman, who runs AEBN Inc., a Charlotte, N.C., company that sells digital copies of 40,000 adult movies online, says his company has failed to persuade several filmmakers to provide information about actors. AEBN, which has 180 employees, has spent more than $300,000 to hire five extra workers and buy computers to try to comply with the rules, he says. So far, the company has complete records for only about half of the movies it sells, he says.

"I don't see how me and another 10,000 sites storing the records helps, because the only records I'm storing is what the manufacturers are giving me," Mr. Coffman says. He has no way to confirm that the information he receives is accurate, he adds.

The Justice Department has said in court documents that the new rules aren't overly burdensome. It said there are legitimate concerns that adult-entertainment companies may use underage performers. It introduced a copy of a Web page describing a model as "young, cute and innocent looking." When it announced the rules, the agency said minors are "often forced to engage in sexually explicit conduct."

Another provision causing concern in the new rules is a requirement that Web sites list the address where records are kept. For many Web site operators, this is their home. "A lot of people don't feel comfortable saying, 'Guess what, I run adult Web sites,' " says Connor Young, vice president of the Free Speech Coalition's board who runs Ynot Network LP, an information portal for the adult industry.

The 15-year-old Free Speech Coalition, based in Canoga Park, Calif., had more than 600 members in June when it filed its lawsuit against the government. Its membership has since jumped to more than 3,500, says Mr. Douglas, the group's chairman.

In its lawsuit, the Free Speech Coalition contends the government has never conducted an inspection of anyone under the 1988 recordkeeping law. And in court, a Justice Department attorney acknowledged a 2004 U.S. government report to Congress stating that there hadn't been any inspections under the law since it was enacted.

District Court Judge Walker D. Miller issued the preliminary injunction barring the government from going after secondary producers and also blocked a requirement that operators of sexually explicit Internet chat rooms store copies of all their sessions. But as to striking down the broader law, he said the industry coalition hadn't established "a strong likelihood of success on their First Amendment claim."

Boy Charged With Felony For Powdered Sugar

Police Say Sugar Brought To School Look-Alike Drug

(CBS) AURORA Police in Aurora have confirmed that a 12-year-old boy who said he brought powdered sugar to school for a science project last week has been charged with a felony for possessing a look-alike drug.

The sixth grade student at Waldo Middle School in Aurora also was suspended for two weeks from school after showing the bag of powdered sugar to his friends.

The boy, who is not being identified because he is a juvenile, said two other boys asked if the bag contained cocaine after he showed it to them in the bathroom Wednesday morning. The boy's mother said he told them it did, but then added, "just kidding."

Aurora police arrested the boy after a custodian at the school reported the boy's comments. The youngster was taken to the police station and detained before being released to his parents that afternoon.