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Censorship

Domains Blocked By US Treasury 'Blacklist' 525

yuna49 writes "Adam Liptak of the New York Times reports today about the plight of a Spanish tour operator whose domain names have been embargoed by his domain name registrar (eNom). They pulled his domains after they discovered the tour operator's name on a US Treasury blacklist. It turns out he packages tours to Cuba largely for European tourists who can legally travel there, unlike Americans. The article cites 'a press release issued in December 2004, almost three years before eNom acted. It said Mr. Marshall's company had helped Americans evade restrictions on travel to Cuba and was "a generator of resources that the Cuban regime uses to oppress its people." It added that American companies must not only stop doing business with the company but also freeze its assets, meaning that eNom did exactly what it was legally required to do.' The only part of the operator's business in the United States is his domain name registration; all other aspects of his business lie outside the United States."
The Internet

Submission + - Judge Rescinds WikiLeaks Takedown Order (wired.com)

An anonymous reader writes: A federal judge rescinded his order to take down the Anonymous whistle-blower site WikiLeaks in the United States, just a week after ordering its American hosting company and domain registrar to shut down and lock the renegade's site from the internet.

The judge conceded the futility of attempts to censor information, in this instance private banking records, after it has been posted to the internet.
Judge Jeffrey White said he had "an obligation to get it right" and that "I took an oath to uphold the Constitution."

Google

Submission + - Google Gives All SF Homeless Free Voicemail (msn.com)

palegray.net writes: "Google is giving all homeless people in San Francisco voicemail for free. From the MSN article:

Google has made an announcement that could help hundreds of homeless people in San Francisco get back on their feet.

Every single homeless person in the city will be given a life-long phone number and voicemail, should they choose to accept it, NBC11's Lisa Bernard said.
"

Power

Submission + - 1 out of 100 US American Adults in Prison (nytimes.com)

Lunatrik writes: The New York Times in reporting that 1 out of every 100 American Adults are in prison, setting the stage for state budget woes and some hard decisions on how to handle both violent and nonviolent inmates. Taking this into account, is our legal system due for an overhaul? Alternatively, does our society simply need to get better at "rehabilitation"?
The Internet

Submission + - Bush Desperate for Retroactive Telecom Immunity (nytimes.com)

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes: "President Bush recently held a news conference demanding that Congress hurry up and pass a FISA bill that gives telecoms retroactive immunity for their crimes, claiming that 'their assistance was legal and vital to national security'. Without legal authorization to continue, 'we cannot protect our country from terrorist attack'. He also vowed to continue speaking on the matter until the American people understand. Sen. Kennedy replied that 'Adhering to the rule of law would not "aid our enemies" — it would uphold the very principles we are fighting for.'"
The Internet

Submission + - eBay sellers start weeklong boycott (news.com)

Anonymous Coward writes: "(I honestly dont know where this goes, not that it matters cause this submission won't be used.) You might see fewer items on eBay this week. Sellers angry over higher fees and other policy changes are launching a weeklong boycott of the auction site in protest. EBay recently announced plans to raise the commission sellers have to pay for items they sell, which goes into effect on Wednesday. The company also is banning sellers from offering any feedback on buyers, good or bad. eBay says some sellers were abusing the system, retaliating against customers who leave them negative feedback and making some buyers afraid to leave honest comments. Sellers argue that the change means they can't keep track of scammers."
Security

Submission + - Chroot in OpenSSH (undeadly.org)

bsdphx writes: OpenSSH developers Damien Miller and Markus Friedl have recently added a nifty feature to make like easier for admins. Now you can easily lock an SSH session into a chroot directory, restrict them to a built-in sftp server and apply these settings per user. And it's dead simple to do. If you need to allow semi-trusted people on your computers, then you want this bad!
Republicans

Submission + - Unhealthy Campus Gun Violence Focus On Reaganomics (thejunction.net)

mrinternet writes: "Better Federal Government polices can & should influence mental health care access and "better" utilization, but they have been arguably hog-tied by downsizing initiated by Reaganomics of the Ronald Reagan 80's.
Reagan's"New Federalism" served as a justification for relaxed federal "interference" in state issues, including mental health policy."

Google

Submission + - gTalk not quite as open after all?

wertigon writes: It appears that Google is going to break compatibility with XMPP for their GTalk service on Android. Dave Cridland has posted a blog post about why it's a bad idea. From the article:

The thing that pops out at me is Google saying The reason [for dropping XMPP] is that XMPP is too verbose and inefficient for mobile network connection.

Right This simply isnt true. It looks like it might be on first glance, and its perfectly true that XMPP is not ideally suited to some environments, but mobile IP is a fine environment for XMPP. And heres why
The Courts

Submission + - OSU "neglects" to respond to RIAA subpoena (blogspot.com)

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "Mysteriously, Oklahoma State University has, for the past three (3) months, "neglected" to respond to the RIAA's subpoena asking for the identities of 11 OSU students, despite "many reminders". This "neglect" is surprising since, according to documents filed by the RIAA (pdf), it was given assurances back in August by the university that there would be "no difficulty" providing the information. Could it be that, being a state university, OSU might have consulted with its state Attorney General, and learned that it has been violating federal law by failing to protect its students' privacy? Maybe the Oklahoma AG has read the papers of the Oregon AG pointing out that the RIAA is asking the university to violate federal law and that the RIAA has itself violated a cluster of laws, state and federal? I don't know, just asking."
Security

Submission + - Man Uses Camera and Net to Challenge DHS, 1

Speaker To Dirt writes: "Internal checkpoints are being used with increasing frequency to keep Americans' freedom of movement in check. One man has made use of digital cameras, knowledge of the law, the internet and a cool head in an attempt to protect his rights of travel. He has documented his attempts and posted a few movies showing his results of challenging the growing police state."
Software

Submission + - 10-Year Anniversary of Open Source (perens.com)

Bruce Perens writes: "Saturday is the 10-Year Anniversary of Open Source, the initiative to promote Free Software to business. Obviously, it's been incredibly successful. I've submitted a State of Open Source message discussing the anniversary of Open Source, its successes, and the challenges it will face in the upcoming decade."
Security

Submission + - Mysterious $2B in Homeland Security Budget (sefora.org)

An anonymous reader writes: There is an extra $2B in Bush's Homeland Security Research and Development budget posted at http://sefora.org/. I think you'll agree it is amazing that this hasn't come out yet. The money is probably supposed to go to Project Bioshield, but who knows. It's weird b/c it is in the facilities and equipment section of the budget.

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