] The Federal Open Market Committee decided today to raise
] its target for the federal funds rate by 25 basis points
] to 1-3/4 percent.
]
] The Committee believes that, even after this
] action, the stance of monetary policy remains
] accommodative and, coupled with robust underlying growth
] in productivity, is providing ongoing support to economic
] activity. After moderating earlier this year partly in
] response to the substantial rise in energy prices, output
] growth appears to have regained some traction, and labor
] market conditions have improved modestly.

Fed raises rates!

] Results 1 - 10 of about 421 for "Fraudulent Online
] Identity Sanctions Act" privacy.

"Largely uncontroversial." I've got 421 articles that say otherwise.

Google Search: 'Fraudulent Online Identity Sanctions Act' privacy

From the Congressional Record on September 21st, 2004 around 15:00:

Congressman Sensenbrenner (R Wisconsin)
"Because of the short time remaining in this session, H.R. 3632 also incorporates the text of three other noncontroversial bills, H.R. 3754, H.R. 112, and H.R. 4646, in the manager's amendment."

Congresswoman Christensen (D Virgin Islands)
"Title II of the bill before us contains the provisions of H.R. 3754, a largely uncontroversial bill reported out by the Committee on the Judiciary on a voice vote in June of this year. Title II is designed to improve the accuracy and completeness of the Whois database by providing additional civil and criminal remedies for domain name fraud."

Fucking lieing scum. Google "Fraudulent Online Identity Sanctions Act" (HR 3754) and look for yourself at how "largely uncontroversial" it is.

FOIST turns innocent IP infringement into "willful infringement" if its done with a domain name with inaccurate contact information. What can we expect if this becomes law?

] * Under current law, the author of an anonymous web
] log who innocently quotes a portion of a news article
] that a judge later decides to be too long to qualify for
] "fair use" protection would be considered an "innocent
] infringer" and subject to reduced statutory damages.
] Under H.R. 3754, the same "blogger" would face damages up
] to $150,000 and potential criminal liability.
]
]
] These changes would chill speech online.

(HR 3754 was attached to HR 3632 as an amendment. The amended bill passed the house on the 21st.)

EFF on FOIST

Your House of Represtatives passed this:

] If a defendant who is convicted of a felony offense
] (other than offense of which an element is the false
] registration of a domain name) knowingly falsely
] registered a domain name and knowingly used that domain
] name in the course of that offense, the maximum
] imprisonment otherwise provided by law for that offense
] shall be doubled or increased by 7 years, whichever is
] less.

Doubled. How many aggravating factors in sentencing DOUBLE the sentence? This seems extremely overzealous. But that's not what really pisses me off. What really pisses me off is this section:

] (a) Free Speech and Press- Nothing in this title
] shall enlarge or diminish any rights of free speech or of
] the press for activities related to the registration or
] use of domain names.

What the hell does this mean? I've never seen a section like this in any law I've ever read.

Are they trying to say that this law doesn't supercede the first amendment? They're damn right it doesn't! The U.S. House does not have the authority to pass bills by majority vote that supercede the first amendment!

So what does this mean? The fact that you say that "nothing in this title shall... diminish any rights of free speech" doesn't make it so! This bill is an attempt to scare people into publicly registering their official name, address, and phone number when they engage in SPEECH activity on the internet! The only way to avoid first amendment implications is to not pass this into law!

Are they thinking that this line will shield this law from being declared unconstitutional?! You can't just undo the constitution and claim its alright because you say that's not what you're doing!!!

The fact is that this bill was written in bad faith, advocated in bad faith, and passed in bad faith. These people know full well that this requirement is not necessary, not useful, and has significant implications for the first amendment, and they've included this wording in hopes of weasling out of the consequences of that.

They've sold out one of the most basic fundamental rights protected in our system of government in exchange for 10-20 thousand dollar campaign donations from media industries who find that buying Congress Persons is cheaper then the cost of filing subpoenas when they prosecute someone.

Disgusting.

(BTW, Marsha Blackburn co-sponsored this piece of crap. Update: Actually, FOIST was attached to the original bill as an amendment prior to passage. Blackburn cosponsored the original bill, but not the amendment. That honor goes to Lamar Smith and the abominable Howard Berman who wants to make it legal for the RIAA to hack into your computer.)

(ABTW, This section of this bill is called TITLE II FRAUDULENT ONLINE IDENTITY SANCTIONS. Or the Fraudulent Online Identity Sanctions Title. From now all I'll be referring to this thing as FOIST.)

Infuriating - H.R. 3632 Intellectual Property Protection and Courts Amendments Act of 2004

] The Department of Homeland Security ordered a United
] Airlines jet flying from London to Washington rerouted to
] Bangor, Me., on Tuesday afternoon so it could intercept a
] passenger, Yusuf Islam, the musician formerly known as
] Cat Stevens, two government officials said.
]
] Mr. Islam was "denied entry into the United States," said
] an official, and was in the custody of Immigrations and
] Customs Enforcement. The plan on Tuesday evening was to
] deport Mr. Islam, who is a British subject, the officials
] said.

The peace train Stevens was riding on was forced to land in Maine. Officials made a statement saying we should just remember there's a lot of bad and beware, beware, oh baby baby it's a wild world. Cat Stevens can no longer get by on just a smile, because he gave money to the wrong people.

The New York Times | Cat Stevens, threat to national security

] Reuters is reporting that the House of Representatives
] has recently passed the bill that would approve of
] penalties for those using fraudulent WHOIS records.

If privacy is outlawed only outlaws with have privacy. And this horse is gunna be black. Fuckers.

Slashdot | Whois Record Falsification Closer To Illegality

Report on Livejournal infrastructure.

Slashdot | Large Scale Web Apps Built on Open Source

] The creator of one of the world's most famous guns, the
] AK-47 assault rifle, has launched another weapon in
] Britain -- Kalashnikov vodka.

Brandtastic!

CNN.com - Kalashnikov launches liquid weapon - Sep 20, 2004

] Gmail was created by the web search company Google in
] April 2004 amid much excitement as every user is promised
] an unprecedented gigabyte of storage space for messages.
] Google encourages users to keep all their old messages
] and automatically searches these to determine what kind
] of web advertisements might interest users.
]
] But Gmail's copious storage space has inspired a number
] of programmers to come up with completely novel ways of
] using the service.
]
] These include a "weblog" or online message board that
] uses Gmail to store postings and a desktop file system
] that plugs straight into the Gmail system.

Article: Google's Gmail inspires imaginative 'hacks' | New Scientist