Dear Everyone,
Hacklab will be open from 1-3pm at the FreeSkool on Sundays, again.
Yay.

Good-bye signatures of happiness,
Hacklabbers

Due to a lack of volunteers, the borderlands Hacklab at the City Heights Free Skool will be closing until further notice. It is likely that we will reopen in late august, after some hacklab volunteers have returned from traveling, but right now the project is not sustainable.

It often seems to me that when projects lose members and are too small to be sustainable, it becomes more important to put energy into reorganizing, rethinking and finding new people than to keep slogging on with the same focus, trying to hold the project together with just one or two people. If there isn't enough enthusiasm in San Diego for a community based hacklab and a collective dedicated to providing tech solutions for radical projects and for people usually excluded from tech culture like women, people of color and queer people, then maybe it's time has come and gone.

I hope that's not the case. I hope people just haven't gotten around to telling us they'd like to volunteer yet. If you'd like to see the borderlands Hacklab at the City Heights Free Skool continue to stay open for the residents of City Heights and anyone else who needs free access to computers and internet, please email us at sdhacklab A+ lists d()t riseup [d0T) net

More info at http://sdhacklab.org and http://cityheightsfreeskool.org

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After months of frustration, the hosting provider for DIYmedia.net has saved my day by stepping in and graciously providing me with independent, unrestricted e-mail capability. I'll never have to rely on Comcast again for that application (provided Comcast's general broadband network uptime remains reliable, which is a questionable proposition).

You know you've got a systemic problem when the first prompt a customer encounters at your 1-800 number is, "For trouble with your service...."

Secondly, Paul the Mediageek and I had extended conversations on my late-spring adventures in Budapest, which he's subsequently made into shows. You can listen at these links.

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What a difference a weekend makes.

Last week, Congress passed a bill retroactively legalizing and expanding the surveillance of the communications of U.S. citizens. This bill may have and negative effects on the campaign to re-instill the principle of network neutrality as a point of law.

Shortly after Congress' action, two developments took place: both the Electronic Frontier Foundation and American Civil Liberties Union filed lawsuits against the FISA Amendments Act, challenging its constitutionality on a number of levels. Notably, none of the principals of the media-reform movement have signed onto these legal efforts as of yet.

Secondly, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin made noises that his agency was preparing to sanction Comcast, the nation's second-largest broadband-service provider, for violating its "principles of broadband network management practices" (i.e., engaging in widespread data-discrimination across its network). Many net-neutrality advocates interpreted these words as a "victory" for the principle; I even speculated that Martin's move was timed in part because Congress' work on the surveillance issue may have inadvertently undercut the agency's jurisdiction and authority over the network neutrality issue.

After about a day and a half of happy-buzz, Martin and the FCC clarified their position - Comcast will not be substantially penalized in any meaningful fashion for its data-discrimination practices. There will be no further investigation, no priority inquiry, not even a monetary forfeiture: instead, the FCC will require the company to "disclose" its bandwidth-management practices and "encourage" Comcast to adopt more "protocol-agnostic" methods of shaping the traffic that flows over its pipes. Any "order" that comes out of the FCC's August 1st meeting will be more of an admonishment than a "precedent-setting win" for the principle of network neutrality.

As a result, I stand behind my original worry about the risk that "network management" becomes synonymous with "national security" as an unintended consequence of expanding an unconstitutional surveillance program, and we must examine and confront the network neutrality dilemma through this new prism.

I also am inclined to believe, as Matthew Lasar commented on last week's Mediageek radio show, that the FCC may be making a more symbolic move in order to reiterate a claim of administrative jurisdiction over the network neutrality issue. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has also made noises about asserting authority over network-management practices, and Martin's posturing may be a sign of something more akin to the iteration of an agency turf-struggle than substantive movement in the direction of regulation to promote a more democratic online environment.

I'm sure there will be plenty of conjecture and preemptive spin regarding net neutrality before the FCC's August meeting, but only the Commission knows what it will do - and truth be told, it probably really doesn't even know at present. Chairman Kevin Martin has a penchant for cutting backroom deals, pulling controversial items off Commission's agenda at the last minute, and even delaying or canceling meetings when the policy-stars aren't lining up just his way.

This all could very well end up being much ado about nothing, save for the publicity-mileage the various constituencies who dominate discussion of the issue will get out of it. The most likely remedy for all of this will ultimately be found in Congress or the courts. It was the judiciary (and the FCC) which got us into the net neutrality mess in the first place, and that leaves Congress. Given that the "Internet Freedom Preservation Acts" are stuck in neutral themselves, telecommunications companies and broadband service providers will continue to get away with business as usual. The longer business as usual stays in effect, the harder attaining the goal of making network neutrality a point of law again becomes.

Although Congress may have just inadvertently given telecommunication companies a huge legal boost to engage in network management via the pretext of "terrorism-related" surveillance, it is a long shot from being a done deal. For starters, the Electronic Frontier Foundation has launched the first in what is expected to be a multi-lateral legal attack on the constitutionality of the FISA Amendments Act; the starting point is a claim that the law violates the separation of powers clause of the Constitution, in that Congress' action unconstitutionally empowered the Executive branch while emasculating any judicial oversight or reprimand of abuses conducted under the permission of the legislature.

Should the entire FISA Amendments Act be declared unconstitutional - and not just the provision granting telecom companies retroactive immunity for spying on us without proper legal justification - the diminishment of network neutrality under the auspices of national security would be undermined, perhaps fatally. That would be a very good thing. EFF's legal experts don't expect action on their lawsuit to really begin to gain traction until later this year - right around (or shortly after) the November elections. The case itself won't likely be resolved until sometime next year at the earliest.

The other glimmer of hope is Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin's intent to sanction Comcast in some way, shape, or form for unjustly interfering with communications across its network. The actual penalty remains to be determined, but will most likely involve a monetary forfeiture. The sanction-proposal is currently being drafted at the FCC, and it is reported that the full Commission may vote on the issue at their August 1st meeting.

This is quite a change of stance for Martin and the FCC. Although the agency has opened an inquiry into just what network neutrality is (and should be), it has undertaken this task reluctantly, and prior comments by Martin had suggested that he'd rather let "the marketplace" sort out the issue. The fact that Martin's newly-stated intention comes just shortly after the passage of the FISA Amendments Act suggests perhaps that the agency itself is aware of how the legislation may limit its options for dealing with future policy, which has forced the FCC to move more forcefully against Comcast than it might have originally intended.

Meanwhile, the "Internet Freedom Preservation Act" languishes in committees in both the House and Senate; passage of the bill is not likely during this session of Congress, which means the grassroots lobbying effort to enshrine the principle as law legislatively will most likely have to start over next year.

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Today the U.S. Senate voted to approve legislation that essentially legalizes the warrantless surveillance of the communications of U.S. citizens. We know such behavior's been going on for more than two years, when a whistleblower stepped forward to disclose that AT&T had been working closely with the National Security Agency (NSA) - so much so that the NSA now has its own special rooms in AT&T communications backbone facilities. In these rooms are giant, electronic taps that essentially monitor, record, and allow for the analysis of every phone call, facsimile transmission, and all other electronic communications passing through AT&T's network.

As the largest telecommunications provider in the United States, it is virtually impossible for any communications network traffic to travel from point A to point B without transiting some node in AT&T's vast infrastructure. Which in effect means that for as long as this program has been going on, we've all been under Big Brother's scrutiny to some degree.

After the stunning scope of the surveillance program came to light, civil-liberties advocates started digging deeper, and found that AT&T wasn't the only telecom company that was "assisting" the U.S. government in its "war on terror" by snooping on innocent Americans. This set off a flurry of litigation urging the courts to force AT&T and its corporate colleagues to disclose just how far beyond the Constitution they went in their support of the U.S. Justice Department's requests for information - and, by extension, just how far the Executive Branch of the government overstepped its own Constitutionally-defined authority.

"No fear," thought the telecoms, "we'll just go to our friends in Congress, who have such a stellar record at protecting civil liberties, and they'll give us a 'get out of jail free' card."

And that is essentially what the Senate did today. It not only legitimized the continuous, warrantless surveillance program currently in place, but expands some parts of it (which parts, we don't exactly know), and retroactively immunizes telecommunications companies from punishment over laws (privacy and otherwise) they've broken (and continue to break) at federal behest. This even though more than two-thirds of the Senate still doesn't know the true extent of the NSA/DOJ surveillance program, because the NSA/DOJ won't tell them.

The next likely occupants of the White House, who are both Senators, split on the issue - though not like you'd think. John McCain (R-AZ) abstained from voting on the bill, while Barack Obama (D-IL) voted for it. The White House is thrilled; president Bush plans to sign the bill into law with no delay.

The full implications of this decision remain to be seen. It could have disastrous consequences for the ideal of "network neutrality," or the notion that all communications traffic routed over the Internet should be treated equally and not discriminated against based on content, sender, or receiver. Telecom companies have already done much to make the Internet a more closed, proprietary space; now, Congress may have inadvertently given them the legal legs on which to continue to engage in - and intensify - so-called "network management" practices.

After all, what better reason for "network management" is there than surveillance? And hey, if the government says it's okay, then who the f*ck cares whether or not we throttle, shape, or otherwise block other traffic, like file-sharing programs or voice-over-IP telephony? "Network management" might have just become synonymous with "national security," and if that is the case, all bets are off. What good is an "Internet Freedom Preservation Act" if one of the fundamental freedoms of Internet communication has just been squelched?

The "FISA Amendments Act of 2008" is but just one of several bad things happening on the privacy and freedom-of-expression fronts in Washington, D.C. Another stinker working its way through Congress right now is the "PRO-IP Act." Like lots of other bills, this one has a clever name, which stands for "The Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property." As the culture industry more generally is now one of the United States' top exports, and major media companies have been working for years to warp copyright law to reduce public creativity with regard to the use of cultural products, passage of the PRO-IP act would be quite a coup.

The PRO-IP Act is especially scary for two reasons. The first is that it would create a federal "copyright czar" to work with major media companies to investigate and prosecute copyright infringement on several levels. This would more directly make the federal government an agent of Big Media, placing the onus for copyright prosecutions on the very same institutions that are supposed to, you know, guarantee freedom of speech through transformative expression and fair use.

What's worse, the PRO-IP act would also essentially apply the federal "war on drugs" forfeiture laws to copyright-related crimes. Just as law enforcement agencies across the country discovered the bounty they could reap by seizing assets they believed were used in the commission of drug crimes - resulting in the confiscation (rightfully or not) of billions of dollars of cash and property - the same frame of mind will be applied to copyright-related crime.

Imagine this scenario: you've decided, for your own reasons, to get rid of your personal CD collection, but first you digitize the music. On your hard drive, you now have copies of copyrighted material - copies which you rightfully own, because you bought the CDs. Now, let's say your home is destroyed by fire - your CDs are melted but somehow your computer survives.

Once you've gotten back on your feet, you re-connect to the Internet and engage in some innocuous file-sharing with friends (let's even assume you're sharing legal files). Since we already don't know just how much power telecom companies have to monitor and control our communications, and they're demonstrably more than willing to bend to the government's wishes, let's assume that the fact that you're engaged in file-sharing sets off some warning bells in a network operations center somewhere. You become a suspect; they somehow discover that you have copyrighted information in your possession, and you may be sharing it with others.

Under the PRO-IP Act, the Justice Department would then become involved. They'd open an investigation on you, allowing them to scrutinize your communications records - up to and including the information stored locally on your own devices. If they (meaning the RIAA/MPAA, prompted by the Justice Department) determine that you've committed a copyright violation, you'd be liable for both monetary and criminal damages. In addition, if reasonable cause can be found that you've somehow unjustly benefited from the sharing of copyrighted material, then the drug-forfeiture schema comes into play - allowing law enforcement to seize your computer and any other of your possessions it believes you received as a form of "unjust enrichment".

The PRO-IP Act, which was actually introduced late last year, has already and overwhelmingly been approved by the House of Representatives; currently it awaits hearing in the Senate's Judiciary Committee. An earlier provision which would have made it possible for people to be fined up to $30,000 per "unauthorized file" on their computers or other portable media devices was removed during House deliberations.

Finally, there is a piece of trade law under development that would forcibly apply U.S. copyright law - including, potentially, the draconian provisions of the PRO-IP Act - to several other countries. This measure is called the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, or ACTA. ACTA originally began as a trade agreement designed to track and interdict the counterfeiting of real goods, like designer clothes and prescription medicines. At the behest of U.S. authorities, ACTA's purview was secretly expanded to include intellectual property. Under the new definition, "counterfeiting" involves the "unauthorized" copying of any digital media.

Here's another hypothetical: you decide to take a trip overseas, and bring along digital media devices. Upon your return, or at the customs checkpoint of any ACTA-participating country, you are stopped and asked to remove all of your digital media devices (laptops, cell phones, iDevices, etc.) for "inspection." Your items are then scanned for "unauthorized (read: counterfeit or copied)" information. The customs officer demands you show proof that you rightfully own the data you carry. You cannot. Your devices are confiscated, and you may face further penalty.

ACTA is also imminent: during the G8 Summit this week, the ACTA plan was endorsed and a timetable for implementation envisioned by the end of the year. The United States has already sullied itself quite thoroughly in the court of public opinion at fora like the World Trade Organization, so ACTA's being pushed as a multilateral agreement, whereby the U.S. individually pursues, entices, and/or coerces countries into accepting our principles of information freedom.

So far, Australia, Canada, most of the the European Union, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Russia, South Korea, and Switzerland have nominally committed to the implementation of ACTA. Combined with the PRO-IP Act and Congress' outright dereliction of duty with regard to the protection of our Constitutional liberties more generally, you might say the outlook is bleak; you might even say focusing on a fight over something like network neutrality alone is now strategically misplaced, because by the time you get what you think you want the meaning of "neutrality" has been redefined out from under your feet.

If you want to learn more about the PRO-IP Act and ACTA, check this conversation Skidmark Bob and I had a couple of weeks back on Freak Radio Santa Cruz.

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It's summer! Hooray! And that means that it's hot in San Diego, and that lots of people are traveling to various protests like the G8 in japan and the upcoming RNC/DNC protests. Also, people are moving in and out of the Free Skool, so thinkgs are a bit in flux.

Basically, right now we only have one volunteer to cover sundays and open the lab and that's not enough to stay open. We've been here for a year and regularly have kids from the neighborhood come to use the computers. It helps if you speak spanish, but its not necessary at all. We're so in need that we just need someone to open the doors and be here from 1-3pm. If there's another time that works for you, we can check the calendar and put out signs and open when you can come, but we have people who regularly come on sundays, so that's best.

We are creating the world we want to see instead of asking for it or waiting for it. Help us do that!

If you can help, please email us at sdhacklab A+ lists d0t riseup d0t net, or call the city heights free skool at 619-528-8060.

More info at http://sdhacklab.org and http://cityheightsfreeskool.org or click "read more" or the article title for more details...

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