You say toe-may-toe
I say toe-mah-toe
You say man of
integrity
I say “What the hell
were you thinking?”
Video:
Edward Snowden wins Sam Adams award
This week Edward
Snowden received the Integrity Award from the Sam Adams Associates
for Integrity in Intelligence. These videos from the award ceremony
are the first of Mr Snowden after being granted asylum in Russia.
Amusing, but using you
attorney's copyrighted photo? Priceless.
The
retaliation begins: Google profiles get Schmidt-faced
… In a stunningly
predictable decision, Google has decided to use your name and profile
to
bolster the blinding authenticity of its advertising.
Yes, without paying
you. Well, this is the free economy, isn't it?
Oddly, some people seem
stunned by this -- despite the fact that the program largely
resembles Facebook's
Sponsored Stories.
So, evidence of a small
movement against Google's ploy has emerged. It
involves putting naked Photoshopped pictures of Google's Larry Page,
clutching a rose to his face, on everyone's profile page.
In theory, the SSAN
isn't used as identification, so why the kerfuffle?
There’s a somewhat
bizarre case brewing in Montrose
County, Colorado, where a Montrose Memorial Hospital trustee
has refused to provide his Social Security number for a background
check. He claims he’s under no obligation to, but the hospital
board of trustees says the hospital stands to lose its status as an
eligible Medicaid and Medicare provider if he doesn’t comply with a
bylaw.
Read about the dispute
on The
Watch.
[From
the article:
Harding, in response to
the request to disclose his social security number, said he believes
he is under no obligation to do so, and has asked Montrose County
staff to investigate whether he is required to do so. At the Sept.
16 meeting of the Montrose County Commissioners, County Manager Rick
Eckert said his investigation concluded that the board of trustees
has no legal basis for requiring a social security number.
Harding said on
Wednesday that according to his research on the matter, the Office of
Inspector General at the Department of Health and Human Services, the
Joint Hospital of Accreditation Commission and the Colorado
Department of Public Health and Environment all state he doesn’t
have to provide his social security number.
… Harding went on
to say that he agreed to sign a form to allow a background check, and
on that form, providing a social security number was marked
“optional.” He questioned the board of trustees’ distrust of
him.
Yesterday over lunch my
favorite Law School professor and I discussed creating a “Willie
Sutton, because that's were the money is” award. Once they have
all this data in one place, (collection paid for by the Feds) who
else would like a copy?
WWNT Radio reports
that Alabama’s state board of education has “adopted a policy
that supposedly protects student privacy while it allows the
collection, data-mining and sharing [Translation:
selling Bob] of private, non-academic information on
students without parental permission.”
Why would they do this?
Follow the money and federal strings:
“ALDOE
received one-half billion dollars from the 2009 Stimulus Bill
in exchange for developing a state longitudinal data system. Also,
when the Board applied for a waiver from No Child Left Behind, it
agreed to implement the standards, aligned assessments, and
data-mining; and it will receive additional multi-millions of
dollars. The Board no longer has the power to protect student
privacy because they’ve ‘sold’ their right to the federal
government. Only the State Legislature can help us now.”
Personal
data unrelated to academics will include some students’
behaviors and psychosocial attributes. Zeanah stated, “Children
can be asked about their sexual preferences, drug use, political and
religious beliefs, etc. Given the recent examples of how the federal
government uses data to punish its political enemies and picks
winners and losers, why would the Superintendent and state board
(with the exception of Stephanie Bell and Betty Peters who voted
against the policy) want to subject our children to this threat? The
only way to protect our children is to not collect compromising
information in the first place. Let’s hope the Legislature will
right this wrong.”
Obviously, this is not
just a problem or concern in Alabama, but a nationwide problem.
EPIC’s challenge to the 2011 changes in FERPA failed for lack of
standing. It is not clear whether they will try again with different
plaintiffs who might meet the requirements for Article III standing.
That so many parents nationwide have not risen up to organize and
fight these massive databases is concerning. And as much as I don’t
want to see any database leaked, I’m wondering what it will take
before the public wakes up and realizes the danger of compiling so
much sensitive info on children.
Wake up, people, before
it’s too late for your kids.
He would not have had
the same impact if he had merely said, “...because some pervert
might use your photo in a seminar.”
A painful lesson on “no
reasonable expectation of privacy,” but will this serve as a
cautionary tale for our youth, as district personnel may have
intended? I doubt it.
A
judge tossed out parts of a lawsuit filed against the Fayette County
School District after an administrator displayed a
student’s bikini picture during a seminar on Internet safety.
“I
was embarrassed. I was horrified,” Chelsea Chaney told Channel 2′s
Rachel Stockman. “It never crossed my mind that this would ever,
ever happen to me.”
Chaney,
who is now a college sophomore at University of Georgia, said the
Fayette County Schools Director of Technology used a photo taken from
her Facebook profile to tell parents and students about the dangers
of posting pictures on the Internet and the long-term effects. The
presentation happened at a district-wide seminar.
Read more on WSB
Radio.
Considering a BYOD
policy?
Law360.com reports:
An
Ohio federal court recently found that a former Verizon Wireless
employee could pursue Stored Communications Act claims alleging her
supervisor read her personal emails on a company-issued BlackBerry
without consent, serving as a warning that employers
risk liability under the criminal statute without clear policies on
personal use of company devices and use of personal devices in the
office, attorneys say.
Read more on Law360.com
(subscription required). The case is Lazette v. Kulmatycki
(3:12-cv-02416), Northern Ohio.
The legal equivalent of
crying “Wolf!”
UK
Report Challenges copyright Claims Against Online File Sharing
Copyright
& Creation – A Case for Promoting Inclusive Online Sharing,
Bart Cammaerts; Robin Mansell; Bingchun Meng. The London School of
Economics and Political Science Department of Media and
Communications.
“The implementation
of the Digital
Economy Act (DEA) 2010 is not expected before 2015, a lengthy
delay. The September
2013 report of the House of Commons Culture Media and Sport Committee
fervently advocates quick implementation, despite evidence of
controversy. This policy brief contributes to debate about the DEA’s
measures for copyright enforcement by examining evidence on the way a
changing digital culture is affecting the creative industries and on
the potential impact of the DEA’s copyright enforcement measures.
The DEA introduced a graduated response to online copyright
infringement, i.e. Internet ServiceProviders send warning notices to
individuals who are suspected of infringing and pass annonymous lists
of suspected infringers to the rights holders. The rights holders
can go to court to request the identities of infringers in order to
take action against citizens. If this approach is ineffective in
suppressing online infringement, technical measures could be used
such as limiting internet access. We published a policy brief on
Creative
Destruction and Copyright Protection: Regulatory Responses
to File-Sharing – in 2011 that examined online copyright
infringement, practices of file sharing and its consequences for the
music industry. Our key observations were:
1. Data provided by
the music industry were misleading; contrary to what lobbying
organisations were claiming, the music industry was doing reasonably
well.
2. Declining sales of
recorded music (mainly CDs) could also be explained by factors such
as a squeeze on household expenditure on leisure goods and changing
patterns of music consumption.
3. Declining sales of
recorded music were offset by increasing revenue from live
performances and growing digital revenues, including streaming
services.
4. Intervention to
enforce copyright infringement legislation on individual file sharers
risks stifling innovation and criminalises a thriving online
participatory culture. This policy brief provides additional
evidence that counters claims that the creative industries are
suffering overall revenue decline. We show that new business
models are enabling the industry to gain advantage by building on a
digital culture based on sharing and co-creating. We find that
the experience of France and countries that have started to implement
graduated response measures targeting citizens is mixed. We conclude
the DEA should not be implemented and that the measures should be
reconsidered based on an independent assessment of the social,
cultural, and political impact of punitive measures against citizens,
and the risk that incentives for innovation and growth will be
weakened.”
For faculty and
students. Now do you see why I want my students to write their own
textbooks?
AAUP
– Intellectual Property: An Education & Action Toolkit
“Intellectual
property (IP) at colleges and universities refers most
importantly to the products of faculty, staff, and student research
and scholarship. IP falls into two groups—work covered by patent
law and work covered by copyright law. Both categories have
undergone significant change over the last generation. In response,
university policies have either evolved or been radically revised.
The most troubling changes have occurred in university patent
policies, with major research universities leading the way in
limiting or eliminating faculty members’ traditional rights to
decide what happens to their discoveries or inventions. Many campus
copyright policies remain good, but they are being undermined by the
online course revolution, including the wave of interest in MOOCS,
since many institutions have sought to deny faculty members their
traditional rights to the instructional materials they author.
Campus patent policies, however, have taken a radical turn for the
worse, with a number of campuses revising them to mandate automatic
institutional ownership of the fruits of scholarly work. We provide
recommended language both for patent and online instruction policies.
The AAUP believes it is now appropriate to issue a warning: your
intellectual property is in danger. In trying to reassert the
principles inherent in the US Constitution, two centuries of patent
law, and a landmark 2011 US Supreme Court decision, the first task is
educational. Everyone on campus needs to learn more about the law,
the issues at stake, and the rights they can assert through
collective action. This AAUP IP web section has been assembled to
help you with the information you need to participate in informed
discussion and organize for better campus policies. We are launching
a national campaign in fall 2013 to publicize the website and inform
people about the issues at stake.”
Every week Audrey give
me articles to giggle over.
… the military
has stopped
financial aid payments for active-duty service
members. Several universities, including Southern
New Hampshire University, say they’ll cover the
tab.
… Newsela,
a startup that rewrites news articles for different
reading levels, has raised a $1.2 million round of seed
funding. [Dumbing down the news rather than teaching
new words. Wonderful. Bob] More on the startup, which
certainly is marketing itself to meet the new Common Core standards
that push for students to read more “informational texts,” via
Edsurge.
… The Houston-area
Fort Bend School district has scrapped
its $16 million iPad initiative.
… The Corvallis
School District in Oregon will delay
its iPad rollout, as it addresses concerns about
students being able to bypass security software.
… LAUSD
is still dealing with the fallout from its iPad
fiasco. The
school board says they're going to review the project. (Um,
didn't they do this before deciding to spend $1 billion on it?!)
… Schools in
Guilford County, North Carolina are putting their
(Amplify) tablet initiative on pause after hardware
and safety issues, including overheating chargers and easily
broken screens. “Teachers will continue delivering instruction in
other formats,” reports
a local paper. PHEW!
… Faculty at
Rutgers have voted to block the university’s plans
to partner with Pearson to provide online degree
programs. More
details via Inside Higher Ed.
… The Kapor
Center for Social Impact has released a report (PDF)
and a database on CS education programs.
