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Tag: Senator Ron Wyden

  • Facebook Bans Researchers Investigating It

    Facebook Bans Researchers Investigating It

    Facebook is taking action, that appears to be retaliatory, against researchers that are investigating it.

    Researchers from New York University have been investigating how political advertising money is spent on the social media platform and shed a light on disinformation. The researchers created a browser plug-in that allowed users to capture ads they saw and post the data to a public database.

    Facebook has since blocked the researchers, claiming they are breaking the company’s Terms of Service by scraping data, saying so in a blog post:

    Today, we disabled the accounts, apps, Pages and platform access associated with NYU’s Ad Observatory Project and its operators after our repeated attempts to bring their research into compliance with our Terms. NYU’s Ad Observatory project studied political ads using unauthorized means to access and collect data from Facebook, in violation of our Terms of Service. We took these actions to stop unauthorized scraping and protect people’s privacy in line with our privacy program under the FTC Order. 

    There’s only one problem with Facebook’s stance: The data NYU’s browser plug-in captures is not from private individuals, but from ad companies whose ads are already publicly available — they wouldn’t be very effective ads if they weren’t.

    Facebook’s actions are already drawing criticism, with its actions being seen as a poorly veiled attempt to silence its critics. The result has been calls for increased scrutiny, including from no less that Senator Ron Wyden, well-known for his staunch pro-privacy stance.

  • The Cybersecurity Act Of 2012 Goes Up For Debate In The Senate Tomorrow

    2012 is shaping up to be the year of cyber legislation. After SOPA and PIPA were defeated early this year, all attention turned towards CISPA. Even though the Internet put forth a strong effort, the lack of support from major giants like Google or Wikipedia ensured its passing in the House. Whereas CISPA was passed without adding any amendments to protect consumer privacy, the Cybersecurity Act of 2012 will be going up for debate tomorrow over any proposed amendments.

    One of the major champions of Internet freedom, Sen. Ron Wyden, plans to introduce an amendment into the CSA tomorrow that would prevent warrantless GPS tracking. According to The Hill, Wyden feels it’s a natural fit with the CSA’s consumer protections:

    “Because the law has not kept up with the pace of innovation, it makes sense to include the GPS Act’s requirement that law enforcement obtain a warrant for GPS tracking in the Cybersecurity Act. This will protect Americans’ location information from misuse. Part of the goal of the cybersecurity legislation is to update rules for information collection and privacy for the digital age, which is what the GPS Act is all about.”

    Wyden’s amendment would be the latest privacy protection that has been introduced to the CSA. It would appear that the Senate is taking privacy concerns seriously as they debate and change the wording in their version of a cybersecurity bill. One such change is a clarification in the bill that only allows companies to share cybersecurity information with civilian agencies. CISPA puts this information in the hands of the NSA, a military agency.

    After the debate process, the CSA will be going up for a vote before the Senate leaves for its August recess. If we’re lucky, all the privacy protections will be retained. There will definitely be some skepticism in regards to the proceedings after CISPA was up for debate, but was instead pushed for an impromptu vote without allowing any amendments to be considered.

    We’ll keep you up to date on any changes that CSA may face. It’s the cybersecurity bill favored by President Obama so it may be the one that gets through.

  • Sen. Wyden Wants To Blow TPP Wide Open

    Sen. Wyden Wants To Blow TPP Wide Open

    The Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement is by far one of the more dangerous treaties being tossed around world governments because we know nothing about it. Despite a minor leak of an old version last year, we’re still none the wiser as to what’s actually going on. The only people who know about the details of the treaty are the President, the United States Trade Representative, and the MPAA. Wait, what?

    Sen. Ron Wyden, friend of the Internet, has been against every major treaty and piece of legislation that would harm the Internet. He was one of the co-creators of the OPEN Act, the far more tolerable alternative to SOPA. His latest target is TPP and he wants to know what’s going on.

    TechDirt is reporting that Sen. Wyden’s staff attempted to obtain details of the what the USTR is proposing in TPP. His staff has all the clearance they need that is legally required to obtain the treaty, but the USTR isn’t handing it over. Sen. Wyden says that it’s been more than two months now since he has requested the details as TechDirt put it, “the USTR gave him the finger.”

    Congress not being made privy to details on an important trade agreement is one thing, but the USTR is proving itself to be a friend of corporations instead of the American people and our government. Sen. Wyden has found that the USTR is providing intimate details on TPP to major U.S. corporations like Halliburton, Chevron, PHRMA, Comcast and the MPAA.

    It’s not so surprising when you consider that the MPAA was intimately involved with TPP discussions at a secret meeting in February. Those attending the meeting were even given a private tour of Hollywood studios after the meeting was over. It’s pretty obvious that the USTR is playing favorites and Sen. Wyden is having none of it.

    To combat this, he is introducing the Congressional Oversight Over Trade Negotiations Act. He says that it’s a clarification of the 2002 law, the Congressional Oversight Group. The idea was to increase transparency between the USTR and Congress, but it has obviously done little in that regard. The new law would make it so that the USTR would have to afford same level of clearance to Congress that it is obviously giving corporations.

    While all of this is obviously bad and we wish Sen. Wyden all the luck in getting more transparency in government, TPP might not be the big, bad treaty it once was. Reports surfaced earlier this month that suggested the treaty was on the ropes due to the smaller countries realizing how harmful it is to their own economies. When a treaty tells countries that IP protection is more important than stabilizing their own developing economy, those countries are going to realize sooner or later that such a treaty is absolutely asinine and self-serving.

    We’ll keep you updated on further efforts to increase TPP transparency and any other developments on this secret treaty. Considering that news has been slow to surface so far, I wouldn’t be surprised if we didn’t hear anything else on TPP until way later this year. Here’s hoping that’s not the case.

    To read the full statement from Sen. Wyden, check out the copy that TechDirt has graciously provided. It lays out exactly what the new law intends to enable while laying the smack down on the Obama Administration for keeping the American public in the dark in regards to TPP.

    wydentradeoversight

  • Sen. Wyden Comes Out Against Cybersecurity Act of 2012

    The drama surrounding the various cybersecurity bills floating around Congress is never ending. CISPA passed the House, but what’s next? The controversial bill will head to the Senate, but they have their own cybersecurity bill to deal with – the Cybersecurity Act of 2012.

    When the White House came out against CISPA last month, they offered their support for the CSA. They said that it offered better protection of personal privacy than CISPA. That may be true, but it’s still not good enough according to Sen. Ron Wyden.

    Speaking to The Hill, Wyden says that the CSA is similar to CISPA in that it “subordinate(s) all existing privacy rules and constitutional principles to the poorly defined interest of ‘cybersecurity.’” He says that the bill should be more specific about what kind of data can be shared between corporations and government. He also argues that it should companies should be not be able to get legal immunity so easily.

    Wyden’s remarks jive with the argument that the ACLU made last week. Their main contention was also in regards to how the bill can essentially ignore privacy laws. The ACLU addressed another point of the bill that Wyden neglected to mention though. CSA allows the government to share the data they collect with any governmental agency including the NSA.

    Where Wyden really hits it home, however, is when he says that the debate over CISPA and CSA is just like the debate from earlier this year on SOPA and PIPA. He says that both of these debates presented a “false choice” to congressmen. They either had to choose one or the other. Those in support of the bill argue that being for privacy rights make a congressman also in support of cyberterrorism. There is no middle ground, only extremes. Unfortunately, that seems to be the only way of debate in Washington these days.

    Wyden has a tough fight ahead of him though. Even though it seems more and more likely that CISPA will die in the Senate, CSA will probably pass in some form or another. The White House seems all too willing to sign the CSA into law so that’s where we’re obviously in trouble.

    As always, if you feel particularly strong about this issue, you can contact your senator via ACLU’s contact form. I received a pretty standard issue reply from Sen. Rand Paul when I sent one in, but maybe you’ll have better luck. At least it lets them know that their constituents, the ones that voted them in, are watching their every move.

  • Is OPEN Better than SOPA?

    Is OPEN Better than SOPA?

    During the initial SOPA hearings, the mockery that they were, Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, one of the loudest opponents to the Stop Online Piracy Act, suggested an alternative method of regulating the Internet, one both Google and Facebook endorse. Is Wyden’s suggestion — The OPEN (Online Protection and Enforcement of Digital Trade) Act — a satisfactory alternative to the entertainment industry-backed SOPA?

    We’ve profiled the OPEN Act when Wyden and Congressman Issa launched the KeepTheWeb#OPEN site/project, but now that SOPA is essentially twitching its remaining lifeforce away, the OPEN Act is becoming a legitimate option, if, for nothing else, because of some well known tech industry giants have endorsed the legislation, meaning it’s highly unlikely these companies would black their services out in order to protest its potential passing.

    Aside from Google and Facebook, other notable endorsers of the OPEN Act include Mozilla, LinkedIn, Yahoo, and Twitter, all of which opposed both SOPA and PIPA. In fact, these companies formed a consortium of their own to protest the previous Internet regulation bills.

    The question is, with the Internet industry giants giving support to the OPEN Act, is it a better alternative? Some, including The Daily O’Collegian, thinks so:

    There needs to be clear and sensible legislation protecting the intellectual property of Americans. OPEN is such a bill, for it focuses on illegal activity and does not cause collateral damage to the web.

    One of the primary reasons these Internet giants are openly supporting OPEN (pun intended) can be explained quite well with the following excerpt from the bill (PDF) itself:

    EXCLUSIONS: An Internet site is not an Internet site dedicated to infringing activity

    (i) if the Internet site has a practice of expeditiously removing, or disabling access to, material that is claimed to be infringing or to be the subject of infringing activity after notification by the owner of the copyright or trademark alleged to be infringed or its authorized representative;

    (ii) because the Internet site engages in an activity that would not make the operator liable for monetary relief for infringing the copyright under section 512 of title 17, United States Code; or

    (iii) because of the distribution by the Internet site of copies that were made without infringing a copyright or trade mark.

    The fact these designations exist at all is what helps separates OPEN from its predecessors, SOPA and PIPA. Another, which was pointed out by the The Daily O’Collegian concerns an allowance for a reasonable amount of time to remove infringing content, something both PIPA and SOPA ignored:

    The best solution is the Online Protection and Enforcement of Digital Trade (OPEN) Act, which is an alternate to SOPA. OPEN has the support of Google and Facebook because it contains exceptions for websites that remove pirated content in a reasonable time. This exemption would allow YouTube, Facebook and many other websites to remain unmolested.

    The question is, is the the kind of Internet regulation you’ll embrace, especially if companies like Google and Facebook are offering support? A comment from the DO’C’s article reveals another line of thinking:

    Alexander Cardosa
    OPEN does not sound any better than SOAP. We have a small part of the economy dictating what is going to happen to the Internet. Its all bad!

    Does this sum up your feelings, or does the support Google, Facebook and other industry giants give the OPEN Act the endorsements you need to accept it into your life?