Indiana legislators (over?)reacting to pair of sex offenders earning early prison release

This new AP story, headlined "Early prison release for sex offenders irks lawmakers," provides a telling and notable how sex offenders can get into trouble and prompt a harsh legislative response for, in essence, just being good prisoners. Here are the details:

Indiana lawmakers are planning changes to the state’s early release law in response to this week’s slated release of two convicted sex offenders who significantly shortened their prison terms by earning college degrees.

Republican Sen. Jim Merritt of Indianapolis said Tuesday the law’s shortcoming is illustrated by the case of Christopher Wheat, a former high school swim coach convicted of having a sexual relationship with a 14-year-old female swim student.

Wheat, 38, is scheduled for release Thursday from the New Castle Correctional Facility after serving less than two years of his eight-year sentence.  Merritt said Wheat “manipulated the system” to cut his sentence to about 20 months by earning two computer science degrees behind bars. “I think he gamed the system.  And we need to make sure nobody does that anymore,” Merritt said.  “We all believe education in prison should be for the rehabilitation of one’s character and preparing them for their life as an ex-offender.”...

Wheat was sentenced to eight years in September 2010 following his conviction on two counts of sexual misconduct with a minor and one count of child solicitation.  His victim was a then-14-year-old student he coached at Lawrence North High School in Indianapolis.

Doug Garrison, a spokesman for the Indiana Department of Correction, said Wheat was sentenced to 15 years in prison, with five years suspended and another two years in community corrections, leaving him with an eight-year sentence.  It was cut to four years for good behavior and another two years and three months were removed when he earned an associate degree and a bachelor’s degree. Garrison said Wheat must wear a GPS-monitored ankle bracelet following his release from prison.

Merritt said he’s working with Sen. Randy Head, R-Logansport, to draft legislation for the next General Assembly that would likely include making convicted sex offenders unable to shave time off their sentences by earning degrees in prison.  It might also seek to prevent inmates from using previously accumulated college credits toward their degrees, as Wheat had done....

Merritt said the slated release of another convicted sex offender -- also Thursday from the New Castle prison -- demonstrates that changes are needed to the state’s early release law. Daniel J. Moore, a 53-year-old former New Whiteland Baptist Church pastor, pleaded guilty in March 2010 to child solicitation and sexual misconduct with a minor for a sexual relationship with a 15-year-old girl who was a church member.  His 10-year sentence was cut to five for good behavior, and he earned associate and bachelor’s degrees in human services, further paring his sentence to about two and a half years.

State Sen. Pat Miller, R-Indianapolis, said she also will push for changes to the early release law “to fix this terrible situation.” “Sexual predators are a menace to our society. The pain they inflict upon their victims lasts a lifetime, and it makes no sense that these violent offenders are being released early from prison,” Miller said in a statement.

DHS Considers Collecting DNA From Kids; DEA and US Marshals Already Do

Documents just released by US Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) in response to one of EFF’s Freedom of Information Act requests show that DHS is considering collecting DNA from kids ages 14 and up—and is exploring expanding its regulations to allow collection from kids younger than that.

The proposal appears to be working its way through DHS in the wake of regulations from the Department of Justice that require all federal agencies—including DHS and its components such as ICE—to collect DNA from individuals arrested for federal crimes as well as “from non-United States persons who are detained under the authority of the United States,” whether or not they have been involved in criminal activity. While the law specifically exempts a few classes of “aliens,” the documents we received show DHS may start DNA collection from anyone it fingerprints. Currently, that’s any child over 14 who’s detained, but we also found records that show ICE could lower that age even more.

DHS estimates that as many as 1 million people who are subject to administrative detention or arrest annually could now be subject to DNA collection. But it’s important to note that many of these people are not involved in criminal activity. Collecting DNA from anyone detained by the government for any number of non-criminal reasons—especially juveniles—seems to be yet another step on the slippery slope to collecting DNA from everyone in the United States, no matter their status.

ICE is the first component within DHS to collect DNA under the new DOJ regulations. ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) offices in San Diego, St. Paul, and San Juan, Puerto Rico are part of a 6-month pilot program to test out the new procedures and were set to start collecting DNA around July 2010. After the pilot program, the rest of HSI’s offices (more than 200 throughout the US and abroad) will start collecting DNA and presumably all other DHS components will follow suit shortly thereafter.

When the DOJ expanded its DNA collection regulations in 2009, it specifically required agencies to collect DNA from all populations they fingerprint. DHS regulations allow the agency to collect biometrics from aliens coming into the US who are 14 and older, so DHS can currently collect DNA from kids this age as well. However, the agency may also be considering collecting biometrics from kids younger than 14. A slide presentation from March 2011, titled “Working Group on Expanding the Biometric Age Range” notes that some DHS programs are already collecting biometrics from kids younger than 14 and proposes expanding the age range for more DHS entities (including ICE). Because of the DOJ regulations, this would mean that DHS could collect DNA even from very young kids.

It turns out that DHS is not the first federal or even state agency to collect DNA from juveniles. The records ICE released show that the US Marshals are required to collect DNA from juveniles whenever the Marshals collect fingerprints. And the Drug Enforcement Agency’s (DEA) internal regulations make clear that “Both adults and juveniles who are fingerprinted are subject to DNA sample collection.” Its agents may also collect DNA from non-United States persons who are merely detained (not formally arrested). And according to the Council for Responsible Genetics, twenty-eight states already collect DNA from juvenile offenders, as well.

However, a DNA collection program run by DHS feels very different because it could affect so many people who have no involvement with the criminal justice system. EFF has strongly criticized warrantless DNA collection in criminal contexts, as we’ve discussed here, here and here. The DOJ argues that collecting DNA from all people arrested and non-US persons detained will allow it to find and identify more criminals, solve more crimes, and “prevent and deter subsequent criminal conduct.” but it is hard to see how that argument couldn’t be extended to apply with equal force to mandated DNA collection from everyone.

DNA reveals an extraordinary amount of private information about you, including family background, medical history, predisposition for disease, and possibly even behavioral tendencies and sexual orientation. Once the federal government collects a DNA sample—no matter which agency does the collection—the sample is sent to the FBI for storage, and the extracted profile is incorporated into the FBI’s massive CODIS database, which already contains over 10.5 million “offender” profiles. It is next to impossible to have your DNA expunged from the database once it’s already in there, and once it’s in CODIS it is subject to repeated warrantless searches from all levels of state and federal law enforcement.

For the short term, DHS’s DNA collection program may be quite limited. ICE has redacted most concrete information about the timetable for implementation, but it is not clear that DHS has begun collecting any DNA. The documents ICE released indicate some agency infighting between the DOJ (which requires the DNA collection) and DHS (which considers this requirement to be an expensive unfunded mandate), and it is not clear if the two agencies have yet worked this out.

DHS also appears to recognize the political costs of collecting DNA from people outside the criminal justice system. In a March 22, 2010 letter from DHS Secretary Napolitano to Attorney General Holder, Napolitano sought an exemption to DNA collection from juveniles under 18. Hidden text within one of the documents1 recognizes that collecting DNA from juveniles could increase “ICE's exposure to criticism” and notes:

[t]here is a high likelihood that ICE would face litigation and other opposition from community and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) if ICE were to sample all juvenile detainees.

Further, it appears DHS is trying to avoid publicizing the roll out. Hidden text on another page of the documents notes that “OCR and OPA [ICE's Office of Congressional Relations and Office of Public Affairs] intend to respond to inquiries, rather than making announcements of the DNA sampling pilot program.”

DHS’s stalling is good for privacy in the short run. However, given the hard line the DOJ has taken in past court cases challenging DNA collection, the expansion of DNA collection from an ever-broader array of Americans and immigrants appears imminent.

Follow these links to view all the documents we received from ICE:

- ICE DNA Collection Documents - pages 1-92

- ICE DNA Collection Documents - pages 93-201

- ICE DNA Collection Documents - pages 202-297

- ICE DNA Collection Documents - pages 298-353

Philly Police Union Looks To Oust Retired Cop Monday, May 7th, 2012

The Philadelphia Fraternal Order of Police is looking to strip a retired captain of his union membership, because he had sex with a 14-year-old girl illegally raided immigrant-owned bodegas across the city, then stole from and threatened their owners illegally arrested and nearly killed a man for legally carrying a firearm beat his girlfriend and threatened to “stamp” her “heart out” sexually assaulted three women during drug raids . . . hmm. It appears to have been none of those.

So what could he possibly have done?

The retired Philadelphia police captain committed an act so heinous, so unforgivable in the eyes of the FOP, that union president John McNesby filed a rare grievance that could result in Lewis being permanently expelled from the FOP and stripped of union benefits such as life insurance and free legal assistance.

“It’s quite unusual. We had to dig into the books to see what we could do and couldn’t do,” said FOP pension director Henry Vannelli, who made the motion to refer Lewis’ case to the union’s grievance committee. “We don’t want that guy around.”
Lewis’ inexcusable offense?

He wore his police uniform to the Occupy Wall Street protest in Zuccotti Park last year. He wanted to show the world that the economic-equality movement is not just the pink-haired potheads and scatterbrained anarchists that some media outlets tend to focus on. He makes sure to tell people he’s retired.

“They thought everyone thought of them as dirty hippies. I made their concerns legitimate to the masses,” said Lewis, 60, explaining how he was greeted by the protesters last year. “Their gratitude was overwhelming.”

Lewis, who wore his police uniform to Southwest Philadelphia’s Elmwood Park on Tuesday for a May Day rally with Occupy Philly and labor leaders, became somewhat of an Occupy celebrity, appearing in Time magazine and on cable news.

All of which continues to infuriate McNesby and other FOP officials. The grievance committee could complete its Lewis investigation by the end of the month.

“He’s not respecting the uniform,” McNesby said. “People died for that uniform. It’s not Halloween.”

Not only should Lewis be punished by the union, McNesby said, he “absolutely” should be locked up every time he sets foot in Philly with his uniform on.

Only problem: Nothing Lewis did was illegal.

Also, here’s a bonus, fun glimpse at police union logic:

But if it’s all about the uniform, why doesn’t the FOP take issue with Philadelphia lawyer Jimmy Binns? The wannabe cop has been photographed with a Glock on his hip in a look-alike Philadelphia police uniform on a Harley-Davidson that says “police” on the side and is nearly identical to those ridden by city cops.

Simple, the FOP’s Vannelli says: “Binns is a very good friend of police.”

Our Response To Unsealed Court Documents In Dajaz1 Domain Seizure

by Mel



The documents were finally unsealed in the seizure against this domain and they proved quite interesting. The good folks over at Wired, The EFF, and the California First Amendment Coalition were so kind as to go after the unsealing of the documents (Thanks Guys!) and did pretty great write up’s on them so be sure and check those out.

Over the weekend Ben Sisario from The New York Times, who has covered this story from the beginning, reached out letting us know that the RIAA had provided to him an additional statement saying “Rights holders and the R.I.A.A. were requested to assist law enforcement and made every attempt to do so in a complete and prompt manner” and asking for comment. So without further ado here is our full official response to these matters via our super awesome attorney Andrew P Bridges of Fenwick and West LLP:

The owner of Dajaz1.com appreciates the fact that the United States Government, on studying the matter further with all the information the RIAA could furnish, determined that there was in fact no probable cause to seek a forfeiture of the domain it had seized and held for a year.

That exoneration, however, did not remedy the harms caused by a full year of censorship and secret proceedings — a form of “digital Guantanamo” — that knocked out an important and popular blog devoted to hip hop music and has nearly killed it.

The original seizure was unjustified. The delay was unjustified. The secrecy in extensions of the forfeiture deadlines was unjustified.

Five details are notable here.

First, the seizure occurred pursuant to language the PRO-IP Act authorizing seizures of property used in connection with the making of, or trafficking in, “articles” in violation of copyright law. In that context, “articles” are physical items. The law does not authorize seizure of domains that link to other sites. So from the beginning this seizure was entirely legally unjustified, no matter what the allegations about infringement.

SEC. 2323. FORFEITURE, DESTRUCTION, AND RESTITUTION.
(a) CIVIL FORFEITURE.-
(1) PROPERTY SUBJECT TO FORFEITURE.-The following property is subject to forfeiture to the United States Government:
(A) Any article, the making or trafficking of which is, prohibited under section 506 of title 17, or section 2318, 2319, 2319A, 2319B, or 2320, or chapter 90, of this title.
(B) Any property used, or intended to be used, in any manner or part to commit or facilitate the commission of an offense referred to in subparagraph (A).
(C) Any property constituting or derived from any proceeds obtained directly or indirectly as a result of the commission of an offense referred to in subparagraph (A).

Second, seizing a blog for linking to four songs, even allegedly infringing ones, is equivalent to seizing the printing press of the New York Times because the newspaper, in its concert calendar, refers readers to four concerts where the promoters of those concerts have failed to pay ASCAP for the performance licenses.

Third, RIAA’s grand and sweeping attacks on dajaz1.com suggest that RIAA’s powers of demonization far exceed its ability to substantiate its malicious statements with specific and credible facts.

Fourth , when I explained that the blog publisher had received music from the industry itself, a government attorney replied that authorization was an “affirmative defense” that need not be taken into account by the government in carrying out the seizure. That was stunning.

Fifth, when discussing the secret extensions with the U.S. Attorney’s office in Los Angeles, I repeatedly asked the government attorney to inform the court that my client opposed any further extensions and asked for an opportunity to be heard. Not once did the government reveal those requests or positions to the court. The government should be embarrassed for keeping that information from the court.

This entire episode shows that neither the government nor the recording industry deserves any additional powers with new so-called “antipiracy” legislation, especially in the context where copyright law has been expanded and new anti-piracy remedies have been crafted ***16 times*** since 1982. This episode shows that the copyright establishment and the government are very much the “rogues” that deserve to be reined in.

One additional note to this whole thing – the assertion that filing extensions under seal was necessary as we might somehow find out about the criminal investigation is pretty ridiculous. Caption Obvious pointed that out in the scary banner that lived on this website for year. With wording like five and ten years in federal prison it wasn’t rocket science.

Scientists Decode Brain Waves So We Can “Hear” Imagined Speech

Abstract

It’s receiving global media coverage, so you may already have heard about this, but the news from researchers at University of California, Berkeley is that neuroscientists may one day be able to hear the imagined speech of a patient unable to speak due to stroke or paralysis.

Background

Frequency spectrograms of the actual spoken words and the sounds as reconstructed by two separate models based solely on recorded temporal lobe activity in a volunteer subject. The words – Waldo, structure, doubt and property – are more or less recognizable, even though the model had never encountered these specific words before.

These scientists have succeeded in decoding electrical activity in the brain’s temporal lobe – the seat of the auditory system – as a person listens to normal conversation. Based on this correlation between sound and brain activity, they then were able to predict the words the person had heard solely from the temporal lobe activity.

Investigator comments

“This research is based on sounds a person actually hears, but to use it for reconstructing imagined conversations, these principles would have to apply to someone’s internal verbalizations,” cautioned first author Brian N. Pasley, a post-doctoral researcher in the center. “There is some evidence that hearing the sound and imagining the sound activate similar areas of the brain. If you can understand the relationship well enough between the brain recordings and sound, you could either synthesize the actual sound a person is thinking, or just write out the words with a type of interface device.”

“This is huge for patients who have damage to their speech mechanisms because of a stroke or Lou Gehrig’s disease and can’t speak,” said co-author Robert Knight, a UC Berkeley professor of psychology and neuroscience. “If you could eventually reconstruct imagined conversations from brain activity, thousands of people could benefit.”

In addition to the potential for expanding the communication ability of the severely disabled, he noted, the research also “is telling us a lot about how the brain in normal people represents and processes speech sounds.”

Methodology

People undergoing brain surgery participated in the study, to determine the location of intractable seizures so that the area can be removed in a second surgery. Neurosurgeons typically cut a hole in the skull and safely place electrodes on the brain surface or cortex – in this case, up to 256 electrodes covering the temporal lobe – to record activity over a period of a week to pinpoint the seizures. For this study, 15 neurosurgical patients volunteered to participate.

Pasley visited each person in the hospital to record the brain activity detected by the electrodes as they heard 5-10 minutes of conversation. Pasley used this data to reconstruct and play back the sounds the patients heard. He was able to do this because there is evidence that the brain breaks down sound into its component acoustic frequencies – for example, between a low of about 1 Hertz (cycles per second) to a high of about 8,000 Hertz –that are important for speech sounds.

Pasley tested two different computational models to match spoken sounds to the pattern of activity in the electrodes. The patients then heard a single word, and Pasley used the models to predict the word based on electrode recordings.

Investigator comments

“We are looking at which cortical sites are increasing activity at particular acoustic frequencies, and from that, we map back to the sound,” Pasley said. He compared the technique to a pianist who knows the sounds of the keys so well that she can look at the keys another pianist is playing in a sound-proof room and “hear” the music, much as Ludwig van Beethoven was able to “hear” his compositions despite being deaf.

“This research is a major step towards understanding what features of speech are represented in the human brain” Knight said. “Brian’s analysis can reproduce the sound the patient heard, and you can actually recognize the word, although not at a perfect level.”

Knight predicts that this success can be extended to imagined, internal verbalizations, because scientific studies have shown that when people are asked to imagine speaking a word, similar brain regions are activated as when the person actually utters the word.

“With neuroprosthetics, people have shown that it’s possible to control movement with brain activity,” Knight said. “But that work, while not easy, is relatively simple compared to reconstructing language. This experiment takes that earlier work to a whole new level.”

Scholar: regulating Google results would violate First Amendment

Google-funded white paper says search results are free speech.

 by Timothy B. Lee

A prominent First Amendment scholar has co-authored a white paper arguing that search engines enjoy the same high level of First Amendment protections as traditional media outlets. Google commissioned the paper, presumably to help ward off calls for government regulation of its search results.

As Google has grown in size and influence, it has attracted a growing chorus of critics who accuse it of anti-competitive conduct. Some Google critics have promoted the concept of "search neutrality," though others have labeled the concept "incoherent." The company is also increasingly targeted by those who demand that Google scrub unwanted details from specific searches.

The new Google-commissioned paper, written by well-known UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh and attorney Donald Falk, argues that such regulations would be preempted by the First Amendment. Google's search engine, they write, "uses sophisticated computerized algorithms, but those algorithms themselves inherently incorporate the search engine company engineers' judgments about what material users are likely to find responsive to these queries."

The authors argue that this selection process is no different, constitutionally speaking, from a newspaper editor selecting wire stories to run, a guidebook deciding which attractions to feature, or a parade organizer choosing which floats to include. The courts have ruled that all of these editorial processes are fully protected by the First Amendment.

Moreover, the paper argues, the courts have held that First Amendment rights generally trump antitrust law—something of increasing concern to a dominant company like Google. "Antitrust law cannot be used to require a speaker to include certain material in its speech product," Volokh and Falk write. They point to a 1945 case in which the courts found the Associated Press had violated antitrust laws, but stressed that its ruling did not "compel AP or its members to permit publication of anything which their 'reason' tells them should not be published." Newspaper editors have the right to decide which stories should be included in their newspapers and which ones make the front page. This suggests that Google has similarly wide discretion to decide which links and other content will appear, and in which order, in response to any given search query.

The limits of promotion

Ars asked Frank Pasquale, a law professor at Seton Hall University who has previously suggested the creation of a "Federal Search Commission," to comment on the white paper. He drew a distinction between "editorial judgments" (which he concedes receive full First Amendment protection) and search engines that deliberately promote their own subsidiaries.

Pasquale said he was "coming around" to the view that Google has the right to give its own products, such as Google Maps, prominent placement in search result pages. However, he still believes that "disparate or unfair treatment in a stable product" raises more serious concerns.

German police fired 85 bullets in 2011

The use of firearms on duty at the police declined slightly in Germany: Last year, officers fired 36 times at a person. Six people died and 15 were injured.
info

Schwerin - 85 cartridges fired police officers in Germany in 2011, Germany in pursuit of criminals, 49 of these were warning shots. Gave the police 36 times from aimed shots. While 15 people were injured and six killed, as is evident from the statistics of the German Police University in Münster, Westphalia.

This was presented on Tuesday in Schwerin, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern's Minister Lawrence Caffier (CDU) as chairman of the Conference of Interior Ministers (IMK). "Our police officers are not" thugs in uniform. "You are only obliged to the law and fulfill the task that we as a society to them, based on the rule of law," said Caffier.

The German Police University raises annually for the IMK data on service use of weapons. In 2010, seven people had come by a police bullet killed and 17 people were injured. Overall, Germany has 37 times shot at people, 59 warning shots were fired.

"It is gratifying that the tendency of all forms of firearms by police officers against persons is declining," said Caffier. It was important that the interior minister and interior senators showed the citizens that the police officers exercising their constitutional right of the monopoly of the state legally.

The number of shots on dangerous, sick or injured animals fell - by about five percent on 8812 cases (2010: 9336). In almost all situations, the animals were freed from their suffering, according to IMC from injuries resulting from traffic accidents.

Cop Kicks Pregnant Woman In Stomach, Dept. Says He Was Within Policy

Officer says he didn't know the woman was pregnant.

Just when you thought the police ran out of ways to disgust you.

Dekalb County police officer Jerad Wheeler was called to a home to settle a domestic dispute involving a pregnant woman named Raven Dozier, her brother and his child and baby's mother.

As things escalated Wheeler pulled out his taser and used it on Dozier's brother. She says that's when she started crying and asking the officer why he used a taser on her brother.

Wheeler must not have been in a talking mood because after he used the taser on him, he then kicked Dozier in the stomach.

"I think he really just didn't want me asking him any questions, questioning him, and when I did question him is when he kicked me," she tells Atlanta's Channel 2 Action News. "I was upset because I couldn't believe an officer would kick me, with my child in my stomach."

Dozier was almost nine months pregnant and wound up giving birth via an emergency C-section two weeks after the kick left a bruise. The now 4-month old baby was born and is healthy.

"What kind of a human being kicks a pregnant woman?" says Dozier's attorney Mark Bullman. "I mean, forget whether or not it is a police officer that is supposedly protecting people."

Officer Wheeler says that he couldn't tell that Dozier was pregnant and that he only kicked her because she came at him aggressively. He also described the kick as "a front push kick to the abdomen, as he was taught to do at the academy," in his police report.

On top of getting kicked in the stomach, Dozier was also charged with obstruction, a charge that was later dropped. She also filed a complaint with the Dekalb County Police Department, but the matter was never investigated and they said that Officer Wheeler's actions were within department policy.

This isn't the first time Wheeler has acted questionably. In 2011, he was accused of manhandling a 53-year old woman, twisting her arm behind her back and shoving her face down into a patrol car. She says she was only trying to check on her grandchildren who had just got in a car wreck with their mother. This past January, Wheeler was accused of showing up to the wrong address when called, and then shooting that family's dog.

Wheeler is currently under criminal investigation.

Holding transcripts hostage

Colleges' withholding of transcripts of graduates who've fallen behind on loan payments makes it even less likely that the student can get a job and resume loan payments.

By Dave Lindorff

Students traditionally have a soft spot for their alma maters. But as growing numbers of students run up debt in the high five and even six figures to pay for college, that may change. Especially when they discover their old school is actively blocking them from getting a job or going on to a higher degree.

That's what increasing numbers of students are finding when they try to obtain an official transcript to send to potential employers or graduate admissions offices.

It turns out many colleges and universities refuse to issue these critical documents if students are in default on student loans, or in many cases, even if they just fall one or two months behind.

This is happening at a time when recent grads are finding it particularly hard to find work, not just in their chosen fields, but anywhere. About half of recent college degree-holders were unemployed or underemployed last year, according to an Associated Press study released last week. And the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau estimates student loan debt has passed $1 trillion, an amount greater than all outstanding credit card debt. The Department of Education put the default rate at 8.8% of student borrowers as of September 2010.

It's no accident that colleges are using the withholding of official transcripts to punish students behind in their loan payments. It turns out the federal government encourages the practice. Schools are not required by law to withhold transcripts, but a spokeswoman at the Department of Education confirmed that the department "encourages" them to use the draconian tactic, saying that the policy "has resulted in numerous loan repayments."

It is a strange position for colleges to take, however, since the schools themselves are not owed any money. Student loan funds come from private banks or the federal government. For federal Perkins loans, schools get a pool of federal money to apply to students' financial aid, and if students don't pay, that pool gets smaller. But the creditor is still the government, not the college. And in the case of so-called Stafford loans, schools are not on the hook in any way; they are simply acting as collection agencies, and in fact may get paid for their efforts at collection.

In Southern California, USC's website makes it clear that unmet loan obligations can prevent students from getting transcripts. As for the University of California, Kate Jeffery, director of student financial support for the system, says transcripts are withheld in the case of delinquent Perkins loans. She concedes it's a difficult issue but says that "it's the only tool we have to make them pay."

Schools don't keep transcript extortion a secret, but for many students who miss the fine print, it's a cruel surprise. A music major — and summa cum laude grad — at Philadelphia's Temple University was making payments on his $62,000 student debt after graduation while working as an adjunct professor for Temple. Laid off after three years, he was unable to find work, fell far behind in his payments and went into default. He decided to try to return to school to earn a doctorate and better his chances of getting teaching work. He was accepted at another university and offered free tuition and a $26,000-a-year stipend for five years. That would allow him to clear his default and defer his loans until graduation. The problem: The grad school program requires an official transcript of his Temple work, and Temple so far has said no.

He asked that his name not be used because he's afraid it would only make it harder to get help from Temple. "With these policies," he told me, Temple is "helping to crush" students who will "end up with debt that they can never repay."

Andrew Ross, an NYU professor who helped spark the Occupy Student Debt movement in November, says of the no-transcript tactic: "It's worse than indentured servitude. With indentured servitude, you had to pay in order to work, but then at least you got to work. When universities withhold these transcripts, students who have been indentured by loans are being denied even the ability to work or to finish their education so they can repay their indenture."

The Obama administration, which has made much of trying to ease the student debt burden, could with a simple directive reverse the Education Department's recommendation that schools withhold transcripts. It's past time to do just that.

When Same-Sex Marriage Was a Christian Rite

Contrary to myth, Christianity's concept of marriage has not been set in stone since the days of Christ, but has constantly evolved as a concept and ritual. Prof. John Boswell, the late Chairman of Yale University’s history department, discovered that in addition to heterosexual marriage ceremonies in ancient Christian church liturgical documents, there were also ceremonies called the "Office of Same-Sex Union" (10th and 11th century), and the "Order for Uniting Two Men" (11th and 12th century).

These church rites had all the symbols of a heterosexual marriage: the whole community gathered in a church, a blessing of the couple before the altar was conducted with their right hands joined, holy vows were exchanged, a priest officiatied in the taking of the Eucharist and a wedding feast for the guests was celebrated afterwards. These elements all appear in contemporary illustrations of the holy union of the Byzantine Warrior-Emperor, Basil the First (867-886 CE) and his companion John.

A Kiev art museum contains a curious icon from St. Catherine's Monastery on Mt. Sinai in Israel. It shows two robed Christian saints. Between them is a traditional Roman ‘pronubus’ (a best man), overseeing a wedding. The pronubus is Christ. The married couple are both men.

Is the icon suggesting that a gay "wedding" is being sanctified by Christ himself? The idea seems shocking. But the full answer comes from other early Christian sources about the two men featured in the icon, St. Sergius and St. Bacchus, two Roman soldiers who were Christian martyrs. These two officers in the Roman army incurred the anger of Emperor Maximian when they were exposed as ‘secret Christians’ by refusing to enter a pagan temple. Both were sent to Syria circa 303 CE where Bacchus is thought to have died while being flogged. Sergius survived torture but was later beheaded. Legend says that Bacchus appeared to the dying Sergius as an angel, telling him to be brave because they would soon be reunited in heaven.

While the pairing of saints, particularly in the early Christian church, was not unusual, the association of these two men was regarded as particularly intimate. Severus, the Patriarch of Antioch (AD 512 - 518) explained that, "we should not separate in speech they [Sergius and Bacchus] who were joined in life". This is not a case of simple "adelphopoiia." In the definitive 10th century account of their lives, St. Sergius is openly celebrated as the "sweet companion and lover" of St. Bacchus. Sergius and Bacchus's close relationship has led many modern scholars to believe they were lovers. But the most compelling evidence for this view is that the oldest text of their martyrology, written in New Testament Greek describes them as "erastai,” or "lovers". In other words, they were a male homosexual couple. Their orientation and relationship was not only acknowledged, but it was fully accepted and celebrated by the early Christian church, which was far more tolerant than it is today.

Contrary to myth, Christianity's concept of marriage has not been set in stone since the days of Christ, but has constantly evolved as a concept and ritual.

Prof. John Boswell, the late Chairman of Yale University’s history department, discovered that in addition to heterosexual marriage ceremonies in ancient Christian church liturgical documents, there were also ceremonies called the "Office of Same-Sex Union" (10th and 11th century), and the "Order for Uniting Two Men" (11th and 12th century).

These church rites had all the symbols of a heterosexual marriage: the whole community gathered in a church, a blessing of the couple before the altar was conducted with their right hands joined, holy vows were exchanged, a priest officiatied in the taking of the Eucharist and a wedding feast for the guests was celebrated afterwards. These elements all appear in contemporary illustrations of the holy union of the Byzantine Warrior-Emperor, Basil the First (867-886 CE) and his companion John.

Such same gender Christian sanctified unions also took place in Ireland in the late 12thand/ early 13th century, as the chronicler Gerald of Wales (‘Geraldus Cambrensis’) recorded.

Same-sex unions in pre-modern Europe list in great detail some same gender ceremonies found in ancient church liturgical documents. One Greek 13th century rite, "Order for Solemn Same-Sex Union", invoked St. Serge and St. Bacchus, and called on God to "vouchsafe unto these, Thy servants [N and N], the grace to love one another and to abide without hate and not be the cause of scandal all the days of their lives, with the help of the Holy Mother of God, and all Thy saints". The ceremony concludes: "And they shall kiss the Holy Gospel and each other, and it shall be concluded".

Another 14th century Serbian Slavonic "Office of the Same Sex Union", uniting two men or two women, had the couple lay their right hands on the Gospel while having a crucifix placed in their left hands. After kissing the Gospel, the couple were then required to kiss each other, after which the priest, having raised up the Eucharist, would give them both communion.

Records of Christian same sex unions have been discovered in such diverse archives as those in the Vatican, in St. Petersburg, in Paris, in Istanbul and in the Sinai, covering a thousand-years from the 8th to the 18th century.

The Dominican missionary and Prior, Jacques Goar (1601-1653), includes such ceremonies in a printed collection of Greek Orthodox prayer books, “Euchologion Sive Rituale Graecorum Complectens Ritus Et Ordines Divinae Liturgiae” (Paris, 1667).

While homosexuality was technically illegal from late Roman times, homophobic writings didn’t appear in Western Europe until the late 14th century. Even then, church-consecrated same sex unions continued to take place.

At St. John Lateran in Rome (traditionally the Pope's parish church) in 1578, as many as thirteen same-gender couples were joined during a high Mass and with the cooperation of the Vatican clergy, "taking communion together, using the same nuptial Scripture, after which they slept and ate together" according to a contemporary report. Another woman to woman union is recorded in Dalmatia in the 18th century.

Prof. Boswell's academic study is so well researched and documented that it poses fundamental questions for both modern church leaders and heterosexual Christians about their own modern attitudes towards homosexuality.

For the Church to ignore the evidence in its own archives would be cowardly and deceptive. The evidence convincingly shows that what the modern church claims has always been its unchanging attitude towards homosexuality is, in fact, nothing of the sort.

It proves that for the last two millennia, in parish churches and cathedrals throughout Christendom, from Ireland to Istanbul and even in the heart of Rome itself, homosexual relationships were accepted as valid expressions of a God-given love and committment to another person, a love that could be celebrated, honored and blessed, through the Eucharist in the name of, and in the presence of, Jesus Christ.

NY Twitter Decision Fails to Recognize Content and Location Data Require a Warrant

A New York judge's broad opinion, ordering Twitter to comply with a subpoena (PDF) and turn over account information about one of its users arrested for disorderly conduct in connection with an Occupy Wall Street protest, is worse the deeper you dig into it.

The judge ruled (PDF) that the user, Malcolm Harris, lost ownership of his tweets once he posted them online, and therefore had no legal standing to challenge the subpoena. This decision prompted several worried responses, including our own, because our Fourth Amendment privacy rights should not be surrendered simply because we use online service providers that store information remotely. Even Twitter stepped in to defend Harris, filing a motion to quash (PDF) the subpoena.

But two other troubling legal rulings in the opinion have received less scrutiny, even though they also put basic privacy rights in jeopardy. The court threw away one of the most important procedural protections enshrined in our constitution -- the Fourth Amendment's search warrant requirement -- by lowering the standard for government access to both the contents of communication, and information about a person's location.

First, the court allowed the government to get the contents of communication -- in this case, Harris' tweets -- with a mere subpoena. But consistent with the Fourth Amendment, Congress made clear that the contents of communication can only be accessed by law enforcement with a search warrant. The Stored Communications Act (SCA) details how the government can obtain certain types of information from electronic storage providers. And while there has been debate about the legal standard that applies for obtaining non-content records like cell phone location information -- we think a search warrant is required, and the government does not -- the SCA is absolutely clear that a search warrant is required for content that is less than 180 days old. For that reason, when we first wrote about this case we predicted that the government's request for tweets was unlikely to succeed because consistent with the SCA, Twitter's law enforcement guidelines required a search warrant in order to access this information.

Unfortunately, the Court was led astray by the government, who argued (PDF) that the SCA didn't even apply because the tweets were public, although the text of the SCA doesn't distinguish between public and non-public content. (The government's argument makes us wonder, if the tweets were public, then why did the government need a subpoena anyway?) As a result, the court allowed the government to access content -- the tweets -- without a search warrant, even though some of the content was less than 180 days old. And although the SCA suggests content older than 180 days old can be obtained without a search warrant, we helped convince the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals that the Fourth Amendment's search warrant requirement applied to email regardless of how long its been in electronic storage. The same rule should apply with respect to tweets too.

But its not just about privacy. Allowing government access to the content of communication without the judicial oversight that comes with a search warrant also presents real First Amendment problems too. Just like we said when we previously challenged the government's attempts to get information from Twitter, allowing access to all of a person's tweets, whether related to Occupy Wall Street or not, chills free speech. That's abundantly clear here where the government is pursuing a criminal charge about as serious as a speeding ticket (disorderly conduct has a maximum punishment of 15 days in jail, or a $250 fine) during an internationally reported political protest and rally.

Unfortunately, there are other problems with the Court's order. The judge also allowed the government to get access to location information without a search warrant. Twitter keeps a record of a user's IP address when he logs in to post a tweet. Since the majority of Twitter users access the site through mobile phones, these IP addresses are keys that help unlock a person's location. As the order states, the government wants the information

to refute the defendant’s anticipated defense, that the police either led or escorted the defendant into stepping onto the roadway of the Brooklyn Bridge. The People claim the defendant’s anticipated defense is contradicted by his public statements, which identifies the @destructuremal account as likely belonging to the defendant and indicates that while on the Brooklyn Bridge the defendant may have posted Tweets that were inconsistent with his anticipated trial defense.

When we first wrote about this case, we believed it was all about location, location, location. The real reason NYC prosecutors wanted this information was to get location data that would give the government information about the workings of the Occupy Wall Street movement and its members. That explains why Harris was singled out: he had over 1,500 followers, 7,200 tweets and was outspoken about his involvement in the Occupy movement.

But as we've explained many times before, the government needs a search warrant to get location information. Earlier this year, the Supreme Court issued its groundbreaking opinion in United States v. Jones that found attaching a GPS device to a car to track a person's movements for 28 days was a "search" under the Fourth Amendment, and thus could only be done with a search warrant. In her concurring opinion, Justice Sotomayor questioned "whether people reasonably expect that their movements will be recorded and aggregated in a manner that enables the Government to ascertain, more or less at will, their political and religious beliefs, sexual habits, and so on."

That's precisely what's happening here. While the NYC prosecutors may be interested in Harris' movement on the day of his arrest, the subpoena requested three months of information from Twitter, far more than the 28 days at issue the Supreme Court found violated the Fourth Amendment. And by figuring out where Harris was for three months, the government can learn much about him and the Occupy movement. A search warrant ensures that location information can be an effective law enforcement tool in cases where there is probable cause to believe evidence of a crime will be found, but strikes a balance with a person's right to privacy, and ensures that this information won't be misused for politically motivated witch hunts based on trivial criminal charges.

The court's acceptance of the government's arguments for disclosure has resulted in a broad opinion that has far reaching consequences to free speech and privacy. The judge now has an opportunity to correct this error and grant Twitter's motion to quash the subpoena. If he doesn't, we hope that the New York appeals court will follow the direction of the Sixth Circuit with respect to contents of communications, and the Supreme Court with respect to location information, and insist on the protections of the Fourth Amendment.

An Inconvenient Lawsuit: Teenagers Take Global Warming to the Courts

By Katherine Ellison

Industry giants say their case is misguided. But that isn't stopping a group of high school students from using the legal system to make environmental demands.

Alec Loorz turns 18 at the end of this month. While finishing high school and playing Ultimate Frisbee on weekends, he's also suing the federal government in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.

The Ventura, California, teen and four other juvenile plaintiffs want government officials to do more to prevent the risks of climate change -- the dangerous storms, heat waves, rising sea levels, and food-supply disruptions that scientists warn will threaten their generation absent a major turnabout in global energy policy. Specifically, the students are demanding that the U.S. government start reducing national emissions of carbon dioxide by at least six percent per year beginning in 2013.

"I think a lot of young people realize that this is an urgent time, and that we're not going to solve this problem just by riding our bikes more," Loorz said in an interview.

The youth -- represented, pro bono, by the Burlingame, California, law firm of former U.S. Republican congressman Paul "Pete" McCloskey, a co-founder of Earth Day -- filed the suit, Alec L. et. al vs. Lisa P. Jackson, et. al, in May of last year. Defendants include not only Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson but the heads of the Commerce, Interior, Commerce, Defense, Energy, and Agriculture departments. This Friday, U.S. District Court Judge Robert L. Wilkins, an Obama appointee, will hear arguments on the defendants' motion to dismiss the complaint.

While skeptics may view the case as little more than a publicity stunt, its implications have been serious enough to attract the time and resources of major industry leaders. Last month, Judge. Wilkins granted a motion to intervene in the case by the National Association of Manufacturers, joined by Delta Construction Company, Dalton Trucking Inc., Southern California Contractors Association, and the California Dump Truck Owners Association.

"At issue is whether a small group of individuals and environmental organizations can dictate through private tort litigation the economic, energy, and environmental policies of the entire nation," wrote National Association of Manufacturers spokesman Jeff Ostermeyer in an email. Granting the plaintiffs' demands, he added, "would carry serious and immediate consequences for industrial and economic productivity -- increasing manufacturing and transportation costs and decreasing global competitiveness." The manufacturers' legal brief says the restrictions being sought "could substantially eliminate the use of conventional energy in this country." It also argues that the plaintiffs haven't proved they have a legal right to sue.

The plaintiffs contend that they have standing to sue under the "public trust doctrine," a legal theory that in past years has helped protect waterways and wildlife. It's the reason, for example, that some state government agencies issue licenses to catch fish or shoot deer, particularly when populations are declining. The doctrine has never before been applied to the atmosphere, and it's a trickier prospect, not least because the sources of atmospheric pollution are so diffuse and wide-ranging, extending to other countries whose actions the United States may not be able to influence.

Defense attorneys have, in fact, have argued that the plaintiffs are essentially seeking for a court to make foreign policy decisions. To this, the plaintiff's attorneys counter that other nations' supposed inaction on climate change shouldn't be used as an excuse for the United States to do nothing. "That is like saying poverty exists everywhere, other countries have poverty, so it is ok for us to permit poverty," attorney Phil Gregory wrote in an email.

While teenagers serve as the public face of the lawsuit, the idea itself came from Julia Olson, an attorney based in Eugene, Oregon. Olson founded an organization called Our Children's Trust after watching the Al Gore documentary An Inconvenient Truth while she was seven months pregnant. Her idea to invite kids to become plaintiffs in a suit against the government was partly inspired by her colleague Mary Christina Wood, director of the Environmental and Natural Resources Law Program at the University of Oregon. Wood has spent her career studying the public trust doctrine, most recently devising a strategy she has dubbed Atmospheric Trust Litigation to apply that theory to the climate.

Wood told Olson about a case from the Philippines, where in the early 1990s a combative environmental attorney named Antonio Oposa represented 43 children, including some of his relatives, in a class action suit to defend the archipelago's small vestige of old-growth forest from logging firms. The children's case against the country's head of Environment & National Resources was ultimately upheld by the Philippines' Supreme Court, inspiring similar suits throughout the world.

Olson and other supporters of the suit believe that having kids as plaintiffs makes a particularly visceral appeal to adults to take action. Indeed, many of the adults involved said that their own children and grandchildren had inspired them. "Becoming a grandfather motivated me to speak out," said climate scientist James Hansen, the director of the U.S. NASA Goddard Space Institute and the man who first brought Loorz and Olson together. Hansen, in his free time, is a conscientious objector to U.S. energy policy who has been arrested three times at peaceful protests.

In support of the children's suit, Hansen has drawn up recommendations as to how the U.S. government can meet the greenhouse-gas reduction goals, through cuts in fossil-fuel-powered electricity and reforestation. "My talents are mainly in the sciences," he said, "but it just became so clear that no one is doing anything to prevent what is becoming scientifically a very clear picture. I didn't want my grandchildren to say that "Opa" (Dutch for "grandpa") knew what was happening but didn't do anything about it."

The tall, lanky Loorz is an especially compelling spokesman for the U.S. children's lawsuit. He became a climate activist at age 12, when, like Olson, spurred to action after watching An Inconvenient Truth -- in his case, twice in one evening. He went on to found an organization called Kids vs. Global Warming, and traveled the world, giving more than 200 speeches at schools and other venues to more than 100,000 people altogether.

The federal suit, which was first filed in California and then relocated to Washington, D.C., was initially coordinated with a dozen similar lawsuits against individual states. Four of those suits have been dismissed, while eight are still active, according to organization spokeswoman Meg Ward. With both the executive and legislative branches having been stymied on any major climate-change progress for more than two decades, the federal lawsuit represents a kind of Hail Mary pass, trusting that courts might bring about a speedier solution.

"The judicial branch is much less influenced by special interests such as the fossil fuel industry," said Hansen, who recalled that U.S. courts have succeeded in breaking such policy logjams in the past, including in the successful cases against tobacco firms and the enforcement of racial integration during the Civil Rights battles.

When it comes to climate change, however, it's unclear how far U.S. judges may be willing to proceed. In 2009, six states, New York City, and several land trusts sued utilities operating fossil fuel-powered electricity plants, in a somewhat similar effort to cut greenhouse gas emissions. The plaintiffs argued that the emissions' contribution to climate change constituted a "public nuisance," under common law. But last June, the U.S. Supreme Court blocked their effort. Writing for the court, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said the U.S. Clean Air Act passed by Congress didn't allow for what she called a "parallel track" of enabling federal judges to control emissions.

While the adults continue their argument, Loorz says kids his age are much more worried about climate change than many of their parents might imagine. Indeed, one British survey found that children between the ages of 11 and 14 worry more about climate change (74 percent) than about their homework (64 percent). "I used to play a lot of video games, and goof off, and get sent to the office at school," he said. "But once I realized it was my generation that was going to be the first to really be affected by climate change, I made up my mind to do something about it."

It may seem ironic that the hyper-focused Loorz is one of the more than five million youth diagnosed with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder. In this case, however, Loorz contends that it's the grownups who are suffering from disabling distraction. He argues that U.S. politicians are so preoccupied by the lingering economic crisis and this year's presidential campaign that they're ignoring an environmental threat that could ultimately bring about devastating consequences.

"Sometimes I do ask myself, like is there really any chance to solve this problem?" Loorz acknowledged. "I feel a lot of despair sometimes, but when I talk to Dr. Hansen, he says there is still hope, so I have to trust that he knows more than I do about this."

Mask ban bill penalty doubled to 10 years

By Laura Payton

MPs studying a bill that would make it illegal for rioters to cover their faces have doubled the proposed penalty to 10 years.

Conservative MPs on the House justice committee changed the proposed law Thursday, sending the legislation back to the House of Commons with a maximum penalty of 10 years in jail rather than five.

The committee was studying Bill C-309, a proposed law that would make it a crime for people rioting or at an unlawful protest to conceal their identities.

Robert Goguen, parliamentary secretary to the justice minister, put forward the change.

The bill should be back in the House of Commons next week for a final vote before going to the Senate.

Blake Richards, the Conservative backbencher who proposed the new legislation, says he was open to the change because it harmonized with a section in the Criminal Code that already criminalizes the wearing of a disguise.

"The idea is they’re trying to harmonize it with Section 351 of the Criminal Code which deals with similar types of offences, so obviously it makes a lot of sense," he said.
Giving police new tool

Section 351 already makes it illegal for anyone to wear a disguise to commit an indictable offence, which one expert told the committee made Richards's bill unnecessary.

Richards said he had heard from police that it was almost impossible to use that offence to charge rioters, because it was intended to be used in cases of armed robbery. He wrote C-309 to give police another tool to prosecute rioters, he said.

"The idea here is that this applies to individuals who are participating in an unlawful assembly or in a riot, so the separate offence of the mask is an aggravating factor, of course, to participating in that kind of event."

Participating in a riot is an indictable offence that would be covered under the existing provision. But taking part in an unlawful assembly is a less serious crime, which wouldn't be covered by the existing law. An unlawful assembly is a gathering that causes fear.

It's up to city officials to decide what constitutes a riot.

NDP MP Françoise Boivin wanted the committee to change the language in the bill so the wording matched the existing measure.

The current law is phrased as wearing a disguise "with intent to commit" an offence, but Richards's bill simply says "commits an offence."
Lawyers will 'have a field day'

Boivin, a lawyer, said defence lawyers will "have a field day with it."

"Definitely it’s going to be contested," Boivin said.

Richards said Boivin's change would have made the bill "useless."

"That’s why it’s difficult for police to apply," he said.

The problem for police isn't in finding a crime with which to charge violent or destructive rioters, she added. It's about identifying those who commit the crimes if their faces are masked. Boivin said she fears police will see the bill as a way to pre-emptively arrest masked protesters, even if they're peaceful.

"Nothing in this bill is going to change that fact," she said. "It would seem they would arrest at random … you have a mask and we'll sort it out at the police station, but that's not how it's supposed to be."

"Let’s not oversimplify. I don’t want to protect those thugs or those criminals. I just don’t want to arrest innocent people."

DOJ Official: Any Privacy Protection is Too Much Privacy Protection for Cell Phone Tracking

Jason Weinstein, a deputy assistant attorney general in the Department of Justice's criminal division, told a panel at the Congressional Internet Caucus Advisory Committee's "State of the Mobile Net" conference yesterday that requiring a search warrant to obtain location tracking information from cell phones would "cripple" prosecutors and law enforcement officials. We couldn't disagree more.

For years, we've been arguing that cell phone location data should only be accessible to law enforcement with a search warrant. After all, as web enabled smart phones become more prevalent, this location data reveals an incredibly revealing portrait of your every move. As we've waged this legal battle, the government has naturally disagreed with us, claiming that the Stored Communications Act authorizes the disclosure of cell phone location data with a lesser showing than the probable cause requirement demanded by a search warrant.

Since the new year, a number of significant developments has led to increased awareness on this important topic. First, the Supreme Court issued its landmark decision in United States v. Jones which held that the warrantless attachment of a GPS device on a car violated the Fourth Amendment's right to be free from unreasonable government searches. In concurring opinions, Justices Sotomayor and Alito both noted that technology had the power to shrink privacy, particularly with respect to locational privacy, as the information gleaned from web enabled smartphones supplanted the need for law enforcement to physically install GPS devices in order to track someone. Then in March, we filed an amicus brief along with a number of other civil liberties organizations, urging the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals to rule that cell phone location data requires a search warrant. In April, the ACLU released the results of a coordinated FOIA request that found law enforcement officials throughout the country were routinely obtaining cell phone location tracking information with differing legal methods and standards, and were frequently getting this information without a search warrant.

Its this last point -- the differing standards for disclosure and legislative attempts to make those standards uniform -- that sets up Weinstein's comments (you can hear the full audio here). Noting that Jones requires a warrant for GPS data, but that courts have reached conflicting opinions on whether a search warrant is necessary for cell phone location tracking records that are held by wireless company providers, he rightfully noted "there really is no fairness and no justice when the law applies differently to different people depending on which courthouse you're sitting in." But unfortunately, the DOJ's solution for this problem is for Congress to say that cell phone location tracking records held by third parties -- typically the cell phone providers -- are not subject to the search warrant's probable cause requirement, as it would "cripple" law enforcement. To be clear, despite Weinstein's comments that he's only speaking for himself, DOJ's explicit position is that no warrant is necessary, as that's what they've consistently told courts, including the Fifth Circuit.

The problem with the DOJ's position is that it fails to take into account privacy. The only way to ensure "fairness" and "justice," is to demand that our Fourth Amendment rights not be violated by law enforcement working closely with cell phone providers to access your location information without your knowledge. We've already seen that despite the ruling in Jones, law enforcement and the wireless industry are finding ways to continue their pre-Jones practices of warrantless surveillance amid a stunning lack of transparency. We're slowly seeing legislative action in the right direction on these important issues. On the federal level, Senator Ron Wyden (D-Or) has proposed the GPS Act, that would require law enforcement to obtain a search warrant to access location information. In California, we sponsored a bill with the ACLU of Northern California, to require law enforcement to get a search warrant anytime it wants location information about another person in California. And earlier this week, Representative Ed Markey (D-Mass) sent a request (PDF) to the biggest wireless carriers, demanding information about their relationship with law enforcement.

Requiring the police to obtain a search warrant -- the traditional method for balancing law enforcement needs with individual privacy -- and demanding the wireless industry be transparent about how they deal with law enforcement requests for location information are critical steps in the right direction, towards "fairness" and "justice," location privacy and transparency.

Growing Mistrust of India’s Biometric ID Scheme

In India, a massive effort is underway to collect biometric identity information for each of the country’s 1.2 billion people. The incredible plan, dubbed the “mother of all e-governance projects” by the Economic Times, has stirred controversy in India and beyond, raising serious concerns about the privacy and security of individuals’ personal data.

The plan is moving ahead at a clip under the auspices of the National Population Register (NPR) and the Unique ID (UID) programs, separately governed initiatives that have an agreement to integrate the data they collect to build the world’s largest biometric database. Upon enrollment, individuals are issued 12-digit unique ID numbers on chip-based identity cards. For residents who lack the necessary paperwork to obtain certain kinds of employment or government services, there’s strong incentive to get a unique ID. While the UID program is voluntary, enrollment in the NPR program is mandatory for all citizens.

The NPR program's stated objectives are to streamline the delivery of government services such as welfare or subsidies, prevent identity fraud, and facilitate economic development, but some critics contend that the plan has its roots in an agenda focused on national security. Indian journalist Aman Sethi argues in a New York Times Op-Ed that the NPR originated with a 1992 government campaign to deport undocumented Bangladeshi immigrants, and that the creation of a comprehensive identity database was intended “exclusively to assist law enforcement.” And while UID was originally created to target India’s poorest 200 million citizens to facilitate service delivery, it has since been expanded to cover the country’s entire population.

The UID program is administered by the Unique Identity Authority of India (UIDAI), an executive body created to oversee the issuance of unique ID numbers for the stated purpose of facilitating access to benefits and services. At the helm of UID is Nandan Nilekani, a billionaire who made his fortune in the tech industry before ascending to his current role as chairman of the UIDAI.

While the NPR program has been moving ahead since 2004 with a relatively low level of public opposition, the more recently introduced UID project has sparked controversy. UID took center stage during a political feud last December when Parliament’s Standing Committee on Finance rejected a bill establishing the National Identification Authority of India, which would have granted the UID program statutory mandate. Although the bill was submitted in 2010, the UIDAI had already begun processing individuals and issuing numbers pending Parliamentary approval of the legislation, operating under the authority of the executive branch. The committee rejected the reasoning that they had the authority to do so, calling the program’s legality into question.

In late January, a compromise deal was struck between the NPR and the UID program administrators following a political turf war, when officials announced “the NPR and UID projects would proceed side by side to ensure that all Indian citizens have a unique number by June 2013.” Project administrators from UIDAI and India’s Ministry of Home Affairs, which oversees the Indian Census and the NPR program, announced that they would collaborate to de-duplicate the data to eliminate overlap for integration purposes.

Collecting Biometric Data

To date, some 170 million individuals have been registered in the UID program. To perform the data collection, the UIDAI has executed Memoranda of Understanding (MOU) with partners -- including states, union territories and 25 financial institutions -- to act as registrars for implementing the scheme, according to a Parliamentary committee report.

The registrars, in turn, contract with tech firms such as Wipro, a company that has issued at least 6 million UID numbers in Maharashtra. Agents gather the data by going from village to village to set up processing camps, toting laptops and scanning equipment along with them and scrambling to process as many individuals as possible each day. In addition to demographic information, individuals’ biometric information is collected with iris scanners, fingerprint scanners, and face cameras that employ facial recognition technology. Morpho, a technology company, is a primary UID contractor that develops and maintains systems to crosscheck new applications by sifting through the biometrics database and prevent actual or fraudulent duplication.

The UID program is known as Aadhar, which also refers to the unique 12-digit number citizens are issued upon enrollment. According to recent news reports, a pilot program will link Aadhar with financial and banking services in 50 districts in a move that the UIDAI program director says will “change the financial landscape of the country.”

Nilekani has championed the UID program as a tool that can aid low-income sectors of India’s population by streamlining the delivery of public services and creating a system that is more inclusive to the poor. Yet R. Ramakumar of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in Mumbai pushes back against this point in an op-ed in The Hindu, charging, “the UID would be an alibi for the state to leave the citizen unmarked in the market for social services.”

And if the interviews with Delhi’s poorest residents in this report is any indication, there’s also a danger that some marginalized individuals could slip through the cracks altogether.

An issue of greater concern, however, is that the biometric database could open the door to significant violations of personal privacy. The Aadhar system became mired in controversy last December surrounding the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance’s rejection of legislation that would have given it statutory mandate. In a report, lawmakers based their disapproval on concerns about security, data theft and the fact that that a national data protection law has yet to be enacted.

“The collection of biometric information and its linkage with personal information of individuals without statutory amendment appears to be beyond the scope of subordinate legislation,” committee members wrote.

They also seized on the risk, uncertainty, and potential for privacy violations that would be ushered in under the massive scheme:

“Considering the huge database size and possibility of misuse of information, enactment of a national data protection law, which is at a draft stage, is a prerequisite for any law that deals with large scale collection of information from individuals and its linkages across separate database…The committee is afraid that the scheme may wind up being dependent on private agencies…”

Despite these concerns, the UID program continues, while at the same time, biometric data collection for the NPR moves ahead on a separate track. Mandatory registration for all citizens in the NPR went into effect with the 2004 amendment of the Citizenship Act, providing that “the Central Government may compulsorily register every citizen of India and issue National Identity Card[s].”

Civil Society Responds

The Center for Internet and Society (CIS) has criticized the system due to design flaws that pose security and privacy concerns.

"We don’t need Aadhar because we already have a much more robust identity management and authentication system based on digital signatures that has a proven track record of working at a ‘billions-of-users scale on the Internet with reasonable security,” CIS Director Sunil Abraham noted in a Business Standard op-ed. “The UID project based on the so-called ‘infallibility of biometrics’ is deeply flawed in design. These design disasters waiting to happen cannot be permanently thwarted by band-aid policies.

"Biometrics are poor authentication factors because once they are compromised they cannot be re-secured unlike digital signatures. Additionally, an individual’s biometrics can be harvested remotely without his or her conscious cooperation. The iris can be captured remotely without a person’s knowledge using a high-res digital camera." (For more detailed information on CIS's work on India's UID program, see here, here, here, here, here, and here.

Delhi-based NGOs have also condemned UID as an affront to civil liberties that violates citizens' basic constitutional right to privacy.

In his Op-Ed, Ramakumar echoes Indian economist Amartya Sen in arguing that the system could open the door to abuse by law enforcement:

“There is a related concern: police and security forces, if allowed access to the biometric database, could extensively use it for regular surveillance and investigative purposes, leading to a number of human rights violations. As Amartya Sen has argued elsewhere, forced disclosure and loss of privacy always entailed ‘the social costs of the associated programs of investigation and policing.’ According to him, ‘some of these investigations can be particularly nasty, treating each applicant as a potential criminal.’"

Meanwhile, famed activist Arundhati Roy voiced scathing criticism against India’s biometric collection scheme, saying, “The UID is a corporate scam which funnels billions of dollars into the IT sector. To me, it is one of the most serious transgressions that is on the cards. It is nothing more than an administrative tool in the hands of a police state.”

It is irrationally excessive to collect this sensitive biometric data in a centralized nation-wide ID scheme. The massive collection of biometric information in a centralized ID scheme is not necessary nor proportionate in a democratic society.
EFF has documented (here, here, and here) the function creep risks that this data collection poses to privacy and security, including in those countries with data protection laws like the European Union. Informed analysis of the long-term consequences of the misused and secondary uses of this data collection and its impact in people’s lives should have been given to all citizens before the collection even started. There is still time to ask the Indian government to dismantle that colossal database, like the UK did.

Pastafarianism in the military

by Bobby Henderson

Here’s a guest post by Justin Griffith. Justin is well known for his fight against the idea that “there are no Atheists in Foxholes”. He was recently profiled in the New York Times for his activism.

A little while ago, news broke about a Pastafarian winning the right to wearing a pasta strainer on his head for his official driver’s license photograph *edit: it seems that there was no legal battle*. Coincidentally, around the same time, I got a few emails from the contributors to a Wikipedia article on Religious Symbols in the US Military asking if I would contribute a photograph of my Atheist dog tags.

Shortly after I donated the photograph to Wikipedia, the photo was added to the Flying Spaghetti Monster entry as well. Awesome.

I actually have a few funny stories about FSM and the Army. *warning: quoting a Drill Sergeant is NSFW*

Why the Flying Spaghetti Monster was bigger than Jesus in boot camp.



There are strict rules about what non-military texts you can posses during boot camp. They only allow one book, and it must be a holy book from your religion. As you’d expect from this rule, there were a few Bibles, a Koran, and even a Book of Mormon in various wall-lockers in my company. Most people just didn’t have a book at all.

I, however, brought my copy of The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

My book was incredibly popular, and people kept talking about it during the few short breaks you get during the typical boot camp day. Then other people would hear about it and ask me if they could borrow it. Everyone laughed like a bastard, and really enjoyed it.

Many people told me that the book really made some sense to them. I must have accidentally converted dozens of people, as the humorous parody religion’s messages actually sank in.
Drill Sergeant VS Flying Spaghetti Monster

At one point my Drill Sergeant tried to take it away from me. He thought it was just some book that I smuggled in. Keep in mind that Drill Sergeants are professionally trained in the art of not laughing at anything (yelling and freaking out are more appropriate responses to most situations.)

Anyway, this is the gist of the conversation:

Drill Sergeant: “Private Griffith – is that some contraband?”

Me: “No, Drill Sergeant. It’s my holy book.“


Drill Sergeant: “Give that to me…” *Yoink!* “Flying Spaghetti Monster!? What the fuck?”

Me: ”I’m a Pastafarian, Drill Sergeant.”

[he shot me a look like he was t minus 5 seconds from throwing me into the Sun]

Drill Sergeant: “Are you fucking with me? Are you fucking with me at 0600, Private Griffith? Before I even get some goddamned breakfast?”

[I did my best to return the intensely humorless stone face.]

Me: “No, Drill Sergeant.”

Drill Sergeant: “Flying Spaghetti Monster!? I don’t fucking believe it!!!”

Me: “I believe it, Drill Sergeant.”

Drill Sergeant: “What the hell is wrong with you, warrior?”

[I went for broke]

Me: “Drill Sergeant, I’m afraid I can’t really talk to you about this any further unless I’m in my religious clothing. I need to be in full pirate regalia, or at the very least wearing an eye patch.”

….Then he just looked at me for about 30 seconds. Crickets. Time stopped… The other soldiers that were around were extremely scared of the coming mass punishment they imagined that I had surely just earned them.

Then he flipped through the book. He read a few sentences out loud. And then it happened.

He smiled.

Then he handed me my book and told me to do some push ups – a slap on the wrist. And my punishment was really only for making him smile, not for anything else. He just couldn’t bring himself to treat this situation like every other situation.
My recruiter put his own religion on my forms, instead of Atheist.

First off, I actually had quite an ordeal simply getting my ID tags to accurately reflect my atheism. When I was speaking to Army recruiters, the first one that I worked with was a very religious person. Normally, this isn’t relevant. However, when asked what my religion was, I answered “Atheist”. He entered a “Baptist” variation.

At one point he asked me to look over his computer screen for any errors, and I hastily fixed this. I only had a few seconds, so I scrolled through the list and found “NO-REL-PREF”. A few days later, I had more issues with this recruiter and asked to be assigned to another one. He was great, but I guess he forgot to fix my religious preference on my forms as I requested. A similar set of circumstances prevented the mistake from being corrected when they were being issued at Basic Training.

YES-REL-PREF

Religious Preference – that’s the Army’s term. It’s a little garish and awkward, but it does the job. I was pissed off that I was stuck with dog tags that said “NO-REL-PREF”. I do have a religious preference – “none for me please… Atheist!” That’s not the same as “I don’t have a religious preference”.

I’ve thought about religion quite seriously, and I most certainly have a preference. Atheist has been on the military’s approved list of responses to this question for quite some time, so I was not breaking any barriers. I was finally told that I could (and did) change my religious preference to Atheist on my paperwork, but that I couldn’t receive updated dog tags. I was told that soldiers change their last names and religious preferences frequently enough, but must get their updated dog tags made off post at their own expense.

I was a little bit angered that I now had to buy my own set of ID tags to fix this, but at least I had an answer and a way forward.

FLY-SPA-MON

Being a former creationist, I really identified with Flying Spaghetti Monster meme. Leaving creationist indoctrination was a long and painful journey for me. Absurd as FSM might be, it’s as culturally significant to me as religion is to many others. I truly identify with it, appreciating both the humor and the reality underpinning the parody religion.

Obviously, a strictly serious answer to the question about my religious preference is “Atheist”. But given the amount of hassle I went through to get my dog tags corrected – I decided it was time for some levity. Unfortunately, the limited writing space is a factor. I considered these:

FLY-SPA-MON
PASTAFARIAN

But I wanted to include ATHEIST too, so in the end I settled with

ATHEIST / FSM

And I’m happy with that. Yes, these are legitimate ‘officially accepted’ dog tags by the way. Interestingly, there are more than a few that legitimate sets that say “Jedi Knight”.

You can check out Justin’s excellent website Rock Beyond Belief here.