So remember, when John McCain and his surrogates call me a "celebrity," they're not insulting me; they're insulting you.

The phrase "celebrity culture" is an indictment of the culture, not the celebrity.

The Anonymous Liberal: How Obama Should Respond to the 'Celebrity' Charge

Thinking about the genesis and consequences of the Iraq War and the recently passed FISA law that authorizes wholesale wiretapping, I recalled a relevant party game described by philosopher Daniel C. Dennett in his book "Consciousness Explained." It's a variant of the familiar childhood game requiring that one try to determine by means of Yes or No questions a secretly chosen number between one and one million.

In Dennett's more interesting and suggestive game, one person, the subject, is selected from a group of people at a party and asked to leave the room. He is told that in his absence one of the other partygoers will relate a recent dream to the other party attendees. The person selected then returns to the party and, through a sequence of Yes or No questions about the dream, attempts to accomplish two things: reconstruct the dream and identify whose dream it was.

The punch line is that no one has related any dream.

War, Spying and Party Game Delusions

The White House is expected Thursday to unveil the largest overhaul of intelligence powers in a generation, spelling out the responsibilities of each intelligence agency in the wake of several reforms following the 2001 terrorist attacks, according to government officials familiar with the plans.

The revised order states that the new law will be the only law that governs surveillance, in an attempt to quell the concerns of lawmakers who contend that Mr. Bush ignored the law when he authorized a warrantless-spying program after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Some on Capitol Hill were frustrated that the administration kept Congress in the dark on this historic overhaul. "They did not consult Congress at all," said one congressional official.

Overhaul Elevates Intelligence Director

On behalf of the President and the Director of National Intelligence, I am pleased to present this second Annual Report to the Congress on the Information Sharing Environment (ISE). We believe it demonstrates a solid record of accomplishment by the Office of the Program Manager, the many agencies represented on the Information Sharing Council, and our partners in State, local, and tribal (SLT) governments. In the past year we have made significant progress in a number of important areas of information sharing. Issuance of a new framework for marking and handling Controlled Unclassified Information, establishment of the Interagency Threat Assessment and Coordination Group at the National Counterterrorism Center, completion of a functional standard for terrorism-related suspicious activity reporting, and publication of the first version of an enterprise architecture framework for the ISE are only a few of the important achievements.

Notwithstanding these achievements, there is still much more to be done. In particular, Information Sharing Council (ISC) member agencies must work to fully implement the ISE; assure full participation by our SLT partners; and help secure and make safe our communities and nation by effectively sharing information. So, in addition to describing 2007-08 accomplishments, the Report outlines the status, outcomes and activities that are needed to continue to improve information sharing.

Annual Report to the Congress on the Information Sharing Environment

It has long been assumed that most of the works published from 1923 to 1964 in the US are currently in the public domain. Both non-profit and commercial digital libraries have dreamed of making this material available. Most programs have recognized as well that the restoration of US copyright in foreign works in 1996 has made it impossible for them to offer to the public the full text of most foreign works. What has been overlooked up to now is the difficulty that copyright restoration has created for anyone trying to determine if a work published in the United States is still protected by copyright. This paper discusses the impact that copyright restoration of foreign works has had on US copyright status investigations, and offers some new steps that users must follow in order to investigate the copyright status in the US of any work. It argues that copyright restoration has made it almost impossible to determine with certainty whether a book published in the United States after 1922 and before 1964 is in the public domain. Digital libraries that wish to offer books from this period do so at some risk.

Copyright Renewal, Copyright Restoration, and the Difficulty of Determining Copyright Status

I have to admit that despite the fact that I read Glenn Greenwald’s blog and have followed his numerous posts on FISA, until recently I haven’t fully understand the law or how it recently changed. I think the complexity of the issue is one of the reasons there isn’t more outrage about or opposition to the revised FISA law.

So I took the time to do some careful reading, diagramming as I went. I thought these might be useful to others.

What you’ll see below are two diagrams comparing Old and New FISA.

Understanding Recent Changes to FISA — A Visual Guide

Bellovin on Decius's HOPE topic:

There's been a lot of attention paid recently to the issue of laptop searches at borders, including a congressional hearing and a New York Times editorial. I've seen articles with advice on how to protect your data under such circumstances; generally speaking, the advice boils down to "delete what you can, encrypt the rest, hope that Customs officials don't compel production of your key, and securely clean up the deleted files". If you need sensitive information while you're traveling, the usual suggestion is to download it over a secure connection, per the EFF:

Another option is to bring a clean laptop and get the information you need over the internet once you arrive at your destination, send your work product back, and then delete the data before returning to the United States. Historically, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) generally prohibited warrantless interception of this information exchange. However, the Protect America Act amended FISA so that surveillance of people reasonably believed to be located outside the United States no longer requires a warrant. Your email or telnet session can now be intercepted without a warrant. If all you are concerned about is keeping border agents from rummaging through your revealing vacation photos, you may not care. If you are dealing with trade secrets or confidential client data, an encrypted VPN is a better solution.

But is it?

FISA and Border Searches of Laptops

“We can see how you can get to $100,” he says. “At $140, I just don’t know how to explain it. We’re surprised.”

For the rest of the country, the feeling is more like shock. As gasoline prices climb beyond $4 a gallon, Americans are rethinking what they drive and how and where they live. Entire industries are reeling — airlines and automakers most prominent among them — and gas prices have emerged as an important issue in the presidential campaign.

Even as politicians heatedly debate opening new regions to drilling, corralling energy speculators, or starting an Apollo-like effort to find renewable energy supplies, analysts say the real source of the problem is closer to home. In fact, it’s parked in our driveways.

From the archive:

Every now and then I meet someone in Manhattan who has never driven a car. Some confess it sheepishly, and some announce it proudly. For some it is just a practical matter of fact, the equivalent of not keeping a horse on West 87th Street or Avenue A. Still, I used to wonder at such people, but more and more I wonder at myself.

Driving is the cultural anomaly of our moment. Someone from the past, I think, would marvel at how much time we spend in cars and how our geographic consciousness is defined by how far we can get in a few hours’ drive and still feel as if we’re close to home. Someone from the future, I’m sure, will marvel at our blindness and at the hole we have driven ourselves into, for we are completely committed to an unsustainable technology.

Also:

In 1947, when Kerouac began his travels, there were three million miles of intercity roads in the United States and thirty-eight million registered vehicles. When “On the Road” came out, there was roughly the same amount of highway, but there were thirty million more cars and trucks. And the construction of the federal highway system, which had been planned since 1944, was under way. The interstates changed the phenomenology of driving. Kerouac’s original plan, in 1947, was to hitchhike across the country on Route 6, which begins at the tip of Cape Cod. Today, although there is a sign in Provincetown that reads “Bishop, CA., 3205 miles,” few people would dream of taking that road even as far as Rhode Island. They would get on the inter-state. And they wouldn’t think of getting there fast, either. For although there are about a million more miles of road in the United States today than there were in 1947 (there are also two more states), two hundred million more vehicles are registered to drive on them.

American Energy Policy, Asleep at the Spigot

The movement has no single charismatic leader, no institutional center, and no specific goals. It doesn’t even have a name. But it is nonetheless posing the first major challenge to the religious right in a quarter of a century.

Annals of Religion: The New Evangelicals

Athan Theoharis: (h/t TLF, [2])

FBI officials were interested in the sexual indiscretions of elected members of Congress. FBI agents were specifically encouraged to report and record any such discoveries and to do so discreetly. During an interview with the so-called Pike Committee in 1975, a former FBI agent described this practice. Puzzled over why such information was being collected, the agent claimed to have consulted his boss, FBI Assistant Director Cartha DeLoach. He then recounted DeLoach’s response: “The other night we picked up a situation where the Senator was seen drunk, in a hit-and-run accident, and some good-looking broad was with him. He [DeLoach] said, ‘We got the information, reported it in a memorandum’ and DeLoach—and this is an exact quote—he said ‘by noon of the next day the good Senator was aware that we had the information and we never had any trouble with him on appropriations since.’”

From the archive:

The evidence suggests that from an executive perspective, the most desirable employees may no longer necessarily be those with proven ability and judgment, but those who can be counted on to follow orders and be good "team players."

The FBI & American Democracy: A Brief Critical History