Summary excerpted from the Scout Report:

The library of the United Kingdom's House of Commons has published this research paper entitled The Campaign against International Terrorism: prospects after the fall of the Taliban_, available for download in .pdf format from the Parliament Website. The authors are Tim Youngs, Paul Bowers and Mark Oakes of the International Affairs and Defence Section. Contents of the text include details of fighting and bombing in Afghanistan, the Bonn Agreement and future political arrangements in Afghanistan, the Al-Qaeda in other countries, and measures by the United Nations to counter terrorism. The 65-page report includes the text of the Bonn Agreement and a nicely detailed color map of Afghanistan.

The Campaign against International Terrorism: prospects after the fall of the Taliban [PDF]

A 184 page book, published this month, takes a case study approach to the practice of ethics online. The table of contents suggests that it covers a fairly wide range of topics, given its (relatively) small size (for a technical book).

"The exponential growth of the Internet is one of the most remarkable technological phenomena of the last century. As the virtual world begins to displace the physical one, we must grapple with many controversial social problems. Cyberethics: Morality and Law in Cyberspace takes an unbiased look at four perennial issues: free speech, intellectual property, privacy, and security. This book draws from the work of legal scholars and philosophers to develop a comprehensive framework that will facilitate analysis of the moral and legal dilemmas that arise in these four areas. Cyberethics is quite versatile, and can be used as a companion text for law, ethics, and policy courses taught in law schools, schools of management, and philosophy departments. It is ideally suited for computer ethics and Internet ethics courses."

CyberEthics: Morality and Law in Cyberspace

"Foreign correspondent Robert D. Kaplan talks about his days among the mujahideen, the killing of Abdul Haq, and why the U.S. must not be afraid to be brutal"

The View From Inside: interview in The Atlantic Monthly

by Yochai Benkler, professor of law at New York University.

"New communications technologies offer the potential to be used to promote fundamental values such as autonomy and democratic discourse, but, as Professor Yochai Benkler discusses in this Article, recent government actions have disfavored these possibilities by stressing private rights in information. He recommends that laws regulating the information economy be evaluated in terms of two effects: whether they empower one group to control the information environment of another group, and whether they reduce the diversity of perspectives communicated. Professor Benkler criticizes the nearly exclusive focus of information policy on property and commercial rights, which results in a concentrated system of production and homogenous information products. He suggests alternative policies that promote a commons in information, which would distribute information production more widely and permit a greater diversity of communications.

Outline:
* Autonomy, Law, and Information for Context-Bound Individuals
* Property and Influence
* Social Patterns of Information Flow and Personal Autonomy
* Conclusion: Paths for the Taking

Siren Songs and Amish Children: Autonomy, Information, and Law [PDF]

The forum: seeks to bring technologists into the debate; will follow the model of ACM's successful RISKS Forum. [...] The moderator is Edward W. Felten."

ACM Forum on Legal Regulation of Technology

Sponsored by the Technology and Culture Forum at MIT, "An Evening with Noam Chomsky" will be held on Thursday, October 18, 2001 at 7:00 pm. All forum events are broadcast live online.

"The Technology and Culture Forum's speakers represent a wide variety of viewpoints and frequently raise important questions not often heard at MIT in community-wide public forums. The timeliness, importance and unusual character of the perspectives presented at Technology and Culture Forum programs make a special contribution to the intellectual life at MIT."

Noam Chomsky: The New War Against Terror

"Guerrilla News Network (GNN) is proud to present a series of heretofore classified videos created by video jam gurus Emergency Broadcast Network (E.B.N.). These videos, never publicly released, were leaked to GNN by a former high-level E.B.N. official, Joshua Pearson." [...] Recently [...] founder Joshua Pearson created a suite of videos about the 2000 elections in the traditional E.B.N. style... these videos, called OTV News, are now viewable at Oddcast.com. Currently, Pearson is working on special projects with GNN co-founder Josh Shore.

EBN - The Lost Tapes

This excellent New York Times special report was prepared in the wake of the August 7, 1998 embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. Among other things, it details the (persistent but ineffectual) efforts of the US ambassador to Kenya to prepare for and prevent the attacks.

"The CIA and the FBI had been amassing increasingly ominous and detailed clues about potential threats in Kenya, officials said. But the State Department bureaucracy still dismissed [the ambassador]. She was even seen by some at the State Department as a nuisance who was overly obsessed with security, according to one official."

Before Bombings, Omens and Fears