GovExec.Com Survey finds data mining widespread among agencies

"Eight months after Congress killed a controversial Pentagon program to comb through private computer records to sniff out suspicious activity, 36 other government programs are engaging in similar activities, according to a new General Accounting Office report."

" At least 122 of the 199 projects made use of identifying information like names, e-mail addresses, Social Security numbers and driver's license numbers."

Wired News GAO: Fed Data Mining Extensive

"The report also uncovered 54 projects with data supplied by private companies, such as credit reporting agencies and credit card issuers. Of those 54 projects, 36 involved personally identifiable information such as names, Social Security numbers and driver's license numbers, raising concerns about the unregulated nature of government data mining."

redux [05.18.04]
The New York Times Panel Urges New Protection on Federal 'Data Mining'
[requires 'free' registration]

"A federal advisory committee says Congress should pass laws to protect the civil liberties of Americans when the government sifts through computer records and data files for information about terrorists."

"The eight-member panel, which includes former officials with decades of high-level government experience, found that the Defense Department and many other agencies were collecting and using "personally identifiable information on U.S. persons for national security and law enforcement purposes." Some of these activities, it said, resemble the Pentagon program initially known as Total Information Awareness, which was intended to catch terrorists before they struck, by monitoring e-mail messages and databases of financial, medical and travel information."

The New York Times The Times and Iraq
[requires 'free' registration]

"Over the last year this newspaper has shone the bright light of hindsight on decisions that led the United States into Iraq. We have examined the failings of American and allied intelligence, especially on the issue of Iraq's weapons and possible Iraqi connections to international terrorists. We have studied the allegations of official gullibility and hype. It is past time we turned the same light on ourselves."

"Looking back, we wish we had been more aggressive in re-examining the claims as new evidence emerged — or failed to emerge."

Editor & Publisher 'NY Times' Admits Errors: Too Little, Too Late?

"A "collective guilt" syndrome infects the convoluted effort of the editors of the Times, well over a year after the United States invaded Iraq, to atone for journalistic sins in misreporting some of the biggest stories driving the war. It is comparable to the growing phenomenon in Washington for civilian and military alike to claim, up and down the line, that "we all" bear some responsibility for the shame of Abu Ghraib. That is, everyone is responsible, but no one is individually accountable, certainly not at the higher levels.

Imagine a great newspaper in a democracy, hanging its reputation on defectors and partisan sources in the government."

redux [02.20.04]
Editor & Publisher 'NY Times' Fails to Acknowledge Its Role in WMD Hype

"The New York Times offered a sharp editorial Tuesday critiquing the indisputable role of the White House in distorting the intelligence on Iraq and weapons of mass destruction, and in stampeding Congressional and public opinion by spinning worst-case scenarios -- "inflating them drastically" -- to justify an immediate invasion last March to repel an alleged imminent threat to the United States. Indeed, the logical implication of the editorial might well have been to charge senior officials -- in particular the vice president -- with an impeachable offense.

However, strangely missing from the paper of record was any indictment of the national press, starting with the Times, for its obvious role in gravely misleading the institutions of government and the public when hyping the WMD threat."

redux [02.09.04]
The New York Review of Books Now They Tell Us

"Watching and reading all this, one is tempted to ask, where were you all before the war? Why didn't we learn more about these deceptions and concealments in the months when the administration was pressing its case for regime change--when, in short, it might have made a difference? Some maintain that the many analysts who've spoken out since the end of the war were mute before it. But that's not true. Beginning in the summer of 2002, the "intelligence community" was rent by bitter disputes over how Bush officials were using the data on Iraq. Many journalists knew about this, yet few chose to write about it."

redux [01.28.04]
Editor & Publisher Editorials Question Bush's Role in 'Cooking' Up a War

"In the wake of the latest revelations from weapons inspector David Kay, many of the largest U.S. newspapers are belatedly pressing the Bush administration for an explanation of how it could have gotten the question of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq so wrong in the march to war last year. A growing number are raising the possibility that Bush and his team may have "cooked" the intelligence to support their case for war.

An E&P survey of the top 20 newspapers by circulation found that as of Wednesday, 13 had run editorials on Kay's resignation as chief U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq last Friday, and his statement that no WMDs exist in Iraq, and likely did not exist in Iraq during the U.S. run-up to war."

redux [07.11.03]
Editor & Publisher Media Must Explain Lack of 9/11-Saddam Link

"On this second anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, there is much to think about, especially in New York City under pure blue skies so cruelly reminiscent of that day. One of many things for the press to think about today is a simple fact: more than two-thirds of all Americans, two years after the tragedy, continue to think that Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the attack, despite the fact that no credible evidence has surfaced which links him to the crime (and even his indirect al Qaeda associations are unproven or marginal at best)."

Now, how much can we blame the media for this woeful misinformation?"

Washington Post Hussein Link to 9/11 Lingers in Many Minds

"A number of public-opinion experts agreed that the public automatically blamed Iraq, just as they would have blamed Libya if a similar attack had occurred in the 1980s. There is good evidence for this: On Sept. 13, 2001, a Time/CNN poll found that 78 percent suspected Hussein's involvement -- even though the administration had not made a connection. The belief remained consistent even as evidence to the contrary emerged.

"You can say Bush should be faulted for not correcting every single misapprehension, but that's something different than saying they set out deliberately to deceive," said Duke University political scientist Peter D. Feaver. "Since the facts are all over the place, Americans revert to a judgment: Hussein is a bad guy who would do stuff to us if he could.""

redux [05.30.03]
Columbia Journalism Review The Lies We Bought

"Shortly before American military forces invaded Iraq, a troubled Ellen Goodman raised a singularly important question about the Bush administration's propaganda campaign for war -- "How we got from there to here ."

There , according to Goodman, was innocent 9/11 victimhood at the hands of religious fanatics; here , was bullying superpower bent on destroying a secular dictator. I assumed that someone as astute as Goodman would reveal at least part of the answer -- that the American media provided free transportation to get the White House from there to here. But nowhere in her nationally syndicated column did she state the obvious -- that the success of "Bush's PR War" (the headline on the piece) was largely dependent on a compliant press that uncritically repeated almost every fraudulent administration claim about the threat posed to America by Saddam Hussein."

redux [05.14.03]
The New York Review of Books The Unseen War

"Before arriving in Doha, I had spent hours watching CNN back home, and I was sadly reminded of the network's steady decline in recent years. Paula Zahn looked and talked like a cheerleader for the US forces; Aaron Brown kept reaching for the profound remark without ever finding it; Wolf Blitzer politely interviewed Washington's high and mighty, seldom asking a pointed question. None of them, however, appeared on the broadcasts I saw in Doha. Instead, there were Jim Clancy, a tough-minded veteran American correspondent, Michael Holmes, a soft-spoken Australian, and Becky Anderson, a sharp and inquisitive British anchor. This was CNN International, the edition broadcast to the world at large, and it was far more serious and informed than the American version.

The difference was not accidental."

Global Vision News Network How Media Helped Bush Sell the War

"Behind the president were seated a small group of about 40 Iraqi Americans, some Shiites and some Chaldean. The audience was not seen, but the impression was created that it was an enthusiastic crowd representative of Michigan's 400,000 plus Arab Americans.

Cameras never focused on the audience, no one saw that the room was only one-third full - an estimated crowd of 300. The fact that the group was personally invited by the White House and was carefully screened to include Republicans and supporters of the president was not reported. Instead, the impression was created that the president was giving a victory message full of optimism and hope to his Arab American supporters. That was what the White House wanted to convey, and that was the story the media allowed them to uncritically convey."

Wired News RIAA Bags 493 More Swappers

"A U.S. music industry group says it has sued 493 more people for copyright infringement as part of its campaign to stop consumers from copying music over the Internet.

The Recording Industry Association of America has now sued nearly 3,000 individuals since last September in an attempt to discourage people from copying songs through peer-to-peer networks like Kazaa and LimeWire."

redux [04.29.04]
BBC US sues 477 more 'song-swappers'

"The US recording industry has sued a further 477 people for online copyright infringement as part of its effort to stop music piracy."

"Wednesday's action was directed at file sharers using commercial internet service providers (ISPs) as well as people at universities such as Brown, Emory and Princeton."

redux [03.30.04]
News.Com Music sharing doesn't kill CD sales, study says

"For the study, released Monday, researchers at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina tracked music downloads over 17 weeks in 2002, matching data on file transfers with actual market performance of the songs and albums being downloaded. Even high levels of file-swapping seemed to translate into an effect on album sales that was "statistically indistinguishable from zero," they wrote.

"We find that file sharing has only had a limited effect on record sales," the study's authors wrote. "While downloads occur on a vast scale, most users are likely individuals who would not have bought the album even in the absence of file sharing.""

redux [08.19.03]
Wired News RIAA: We'll Spare the Small Fry

""RIAA is in no way targeting 'de minimis' users," wrote Cary Sherman, the group's president, in a letter the subcommittee released Monday. "RIAA is gathering evidence and preparing lawsuits only against individual computer users who are illegally distributing a substantial amount of copyrighted music.""

"Sherman said that in cases it brought last year against college students who were illegally distributing tens of thousands of songs, the RIAA settled cases for $12,500 to $17,000 each."

redux [08.11.03]
The New York Times Internet Providers Question Subpoenas to Stop File Swapping
[requires 'free' registration]

"Arguing that the record industry is trying to force its members to become the "police of the Internet," a group representing over 100 Internet service providers plans to deliver a letter to the industry's trade association today. The letter asks a series of pointed questions about plans to sue people suspected of illegally trading music files online.

""There has to be a better answer than litigation," the letter says."

The Register Did Loyola University Chicago lose its innocence to the RIAA?

"A U.S. law professor has exposed the feeble backbone of Loyola University Chicago - an institution that handed its students' names over to the pigopolist mob's subpoena machine without so much as a grumble. The precedent set by the university's nonchalance toward privacy bodes poorly for students should the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) get its way and place the children before a court of law.

""A school or university should consider carefully whether it wants to be co-opted into the law enforcement business," D'Amato wrote in the Chicago Sun-Times."

SFGate Download warning 101

"Next week, incoming students at UC Berkeley will receive more than just campus maps and classroom tours: They'll learn about the perils of sharing digital music and movies files online.

Specifically they'll be warned they can lose their Internet access or get slapped with a costly copyright infringement lawsuit if they aren't careful about uploading and downloading files using programs like Kazaa."

redux [07.28.03]
Time Downloader Dragnet

"Bob Barnes never dreamed that the long arm of the music industry would reach into his personal computer. Sure, the bus operator from Fresno, Calif., had used Napster to grab music files off the Internet. And when that file-swapping service was put out of business, he switched to its most popular successor, Kazaa. But he was careful not to leave a trace, transferring all his downloaded songs to separate discs. A visiting teenage grandson wasn't so careful, however, and last week Barnes, 50, was slapped with a subpoena from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). It alleged that he had posted online -- for the world to steal -- digital copies of songs by Savage Garden, Marvin Gaye and the Eagles. "This is like shock and awe," says Barnes. "Blitz them until they submit."

Barnes may be a pirate, but he has plenty of company."

The New York Times Subpoenas Sent to File-Sharers Prompt Anger and Remorse
[requires 'free' registration]

"Those on alert include several college students, the parents of a 14-year-old boy in the Southwest, a 41-year-old Colorado health care worker and a Brooklyn woman who works in the fashion industry.

"They could have used some other way to inform people than scaring the bejiminy out of them," said a mother who received a copy of the subpoena last Wednesday, listing several songs that her 14-year-old son had made available for others to copy from his computer. "If someone had sent me a letter saying `this is wrong,' you can bet your sweet potatoes that would have gotten my attention. This just seems so drastic.""

SecurityFocus "Copying is Theft ..."

"As the war over P2P downloading heats up, and the record companies launch the novel marketing technique of suing their customers, I think it is an appropriate time to settle some of the pervasive myths about U.S. copyright law which fuel both sides of the debate."

redux [07.10.03]
BBC File swappers 'buy more music'

"The survey's findings oppose the music industry's long-standing argument that internet downloading is responsible for a slump in CD sales, with album sales falling 5% in the last year.

Market research company Music Programming Ltd (MPL) said 87% of its respondents who downloaded music admitted they bought albums after hearing tracks through the internet."

redux [06.25.03]
Wired News RIAA Threatens Orgy of Lawsuits

"A recording-industry trade group said Wednesday it plans to sue hundreds of individuals who illegally distribute copyright songs over the Internet, expanding its antipiracy fight into millions of homes."

""The RIAA, in their infinite wisdom, has decided to not only alienate their own customers but attempt to drive them into bankruptcy through litigation. So therefore they probably won't be able to afford to buy any music even if they want to," said Grokster President Wayne Rosso, who added he does not support copyright infringement."

redux [03.18.02]
Matt Haughey The future of music

"Everyone with a computer I know uses them, rips them from their CDs, and shares them with others. Napster (and later on, Kazaa) built massive worldwide networks based on the sharing of these files, spreading terabytes of files to millions of users. And yet, you can't walk into a store anywhere in America and buy a physical form of media embedded with mp3s."

"Given the ubiquity of mp3s among consumers, the continued rise in popularity of the format despite anything that's been put in place to stop them, and the millions of dollars being spent on mp3 encoding/decoding software and hardware, I no longer think the RIAA operates solely on fear. At this point, they're simply running on stupidity."

redux [05.02.00]
Infoworld Napster sends a message to music industry: 'Your customers aren't happy'

""The Recording Industry Association of America wants to educate consumers with the message, "Artists deserve to be compensated -- artists won't make music if they can't make money." I can only imagine the public service announcements with multimillionaire artists pleading for their right to a seventh Porsche in the driveway.

There's no rationalization for piracy; it is what it is. However, rampant music piracy online indicates that the music industry's distribution and pricing model is out of whack with what people want. The problem isn't the piracy; the problem is unhappy customers.

And the music industry had better do something about it. This is a dinosaur moment -- with the big rock looming overhead -- where the music industry needs to ask itself how it will adapt."

Financial Times 'Contract interrogators hired to avoid supervision'

"Several high-ranking military legal officers believe the Pentagon used private contractors to interrogate prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan in a deliberate attempt to obscure aggressive practices from congressional or military oversight, according to a civilian lawyer who has spoken with them."

""They believed that there was a conscious effort to create an atmosphere of ambiguity, of having people involved who couldn't be held to account," he said."

redux [05.03.04]
Financial Times Scandal throws spotlight on private contractors

"The mounting scandal over the torture of Iraqi prisoners at a US military prison in Baghdad has again focused attention on the Pentagon's extensive - and sometimes controversial - use of private military contractors in the Iraq war.

Employees from two companies, CACI International and Titan, participated in interrogation sessions at the Abu Ghraib prison as both interrogation specialists and linguists, according to an internal army report completed in late February."

NPR: All Things Considered Contractors Called on for Iraqi Security

"NPR's Adam Hochberg reports on the growing use of private contractors to provide security in Iraq."

redux [04.15.04]
Salon Warriors for hire in Iraq

"More than 15,000 employees of private military contractors, from giant Halliburton to tiny commando firms, are working, fighting and dying alongside U.S. soldiers. But who calls the shots in an outsourced war?"

"Known as "private military firms" (PMFs), they range from small companies that provide teams of commandos for hire to large corporations that run military supply chains. This new military industry encompasses hundreds of companies, thousands of employees, and billions of revenue dollars."

Independent Online, South Africa Deaths of scores of mercenaries not reported

"At least 80 foreign mercenaries - security guards recruited from the United States, Europe and South Africa and working for American companies - have been killed in the past eight days in Iraq."

"At least 18 000 mercenaries, many of them tasked to protect US troops and personnel, are now believed to be in Iraq, some of them earning $1 000 (about R6 300) a day. But their companies rarely acknowledge their losses unless - like the four American murdered and mutilated in Fallujah three weeks ago - their deaths are already public knowledge."

Global Guerrillas Mercenaries Unbound

"Private military services are big business. Currently, there are hundreds of firms that generate over $100 b a year in revenue (about 1/4 of the entire US military budget, and if taken in aggregate the second largest military in the world) and is growing at many times the rate of the DoD.

PMCs (private military corporations) are central to the US effort in Iraq. With between 10-15,000 PMC mercs in Iraq, they represent the second allied military force in theater. They are also used extensively in hot spots across the world (over 50 countries). Given this widespread use, large size, and the sensitive nature of their services; it is surprising that the industry is relatively free of regulation."

MSNBC Database firm gave feds terror suspects

"Before helping to launch the criminal information project known as Matrix, a database contractor gave U.S. and Florida authorities the names of 120,000 people who showed a statistical likelihood of being terrorists -- sparking some investigations and arrests."

"The scoring incorporated such factors as age, gender, ethnicity, credit history, "investigational data," information about pilot and driver licenses, and connections to "dirty" addresses known to have been used by other suspects."

redux [03.31.03]
MSNBC Profiling by grocery receipts?

"The U.S. government has discovered a powerful resource in its war against terrorism -- credit-card records, hotel bills, grocery lists and other records detailing the private lives of its citizens. Government investigators are turning to commercial databases to track down and isolate possible hijackers and suicide bombers before they strike, raising fear among privacy advocates that long-standing protections against government snooping may be eroded."

" Officials and many security experts say such "data mining" techniques are necessary to flush out a foe that does not wear a uniform but blends in with ordinary civilians to infiltrate and undermine American society."

redux [12.02.02]
Wired News Total Info System Totally Touchy

"Can a massive database of information on Americans really preempt terrorist attacks?"

""The proposal is do-able and feasible, but the idea of making it into a single window onto disparate information and integrating it on a massive scale is the real challenge," said Chris Sherman, associate editor of Search Engine Watch."

"Others in the industry question the system's feasibility."

redux [04.12.02]
The New York Times Magazine Silicon Valley's Spy Game
[requires 'free' registration]

"''I feel like Alice has fallen through the looking glass,'' Ellison said. His voice rose; he was starting to get a little testy. ''Does this other database bother you here? We can't touch that database because I won't be able to use my credit card. Like, I won't be able to go to the mall!'' He took on the voice of Sean Penn's stoner from ''Fast Times at Ridgemont High.'' ''Like, that's really disturbing. Like, don't mess with my mall experience. O.K., so people have to die over here without this, but that's not going to affect my experience going to the mall.'' He exhaled, and in his regular billionaire voice asked, ''I mean, what the hell is going on?''"

redux [10.12.01]
Fortune Above the Crowd: From Wired to Wiretapped

"In the weeks following the World Trade Center tragedy, many government officials were actively lobbying for increased Internet surveillance as a method of restricting terrorist activity."

"But putting aside any debate on civil liberties, a stronger case against the government's Internet surveillance attempts is that there may well be huge problems in both implementation and effectiveness. One predicament is just how much of the genie is already out of the bottle."

redux [09.27.01]
MSNBC Is FBI asking for data overload?

"The Bush administration is pressing Congress to approve the most sweeping expansion of federal law-enforcement authority since the Cold War. But would U.S. officials even know what to do with the deluge of information their new power could make available?"

"Yet even if the president gets his way, it could give rise to one of the classic problems of the information age: The capacity to produce oceans of data often isn?t matched by sufficient tools to sort and interpret it."

Database Nation Chapter 9: Kooks and Terrorists

"The question we face, then, is a simple one: is it possible to prevent future incidents of terrorism by systematically monitoring all potential terrorists and imprisoning them before they can strike? And, if so, are such measures worth the cost?"

"So here is the root of the conflict: new technologies are creating tremendous new opportunities for violent groups to inflict death and destruction on society as a whole. At the same time, new technologies are also giving law enforcement agencies the ability to conduct universal surveillance of the citizenry in ways that have never before been imaginable. Should law enforcement organizations engage in widespread, pervasive surveillance to deal with the rising risk of megaterrorists?"

redux [02.15.01]
The Atlantic Online The Reinvention of Privacy

"The debate over these questions illustrates one irreducible truth: privacy is not so much a legal or technical concept as a social one. "The dominant feature of the current privacy debate," Fred Cate told me when I asked him to try to sum things up, "is its irrationality. The drivers are emotional." I think he's right. The crucial question about privacy today is the same it has always been - namely, whom should you trust?

A lot of people instinctively don't trust technology, especially in the hands of businesses, to protect privacy. But, as Robert Ellis Smith and others have pointed out, contemporary notions of privacy have in many cases evolved not despite new technology but because of it. "Privacy," the influential journalist and editor E. L. Godkin famously wrote, in Scribner's magazine in 1890, "is a distinctly modern product, one of the luxuries of civilization." Phil Agre made a related point to me, a bit more bluntly. "The idea that technology and privacy are intrinsically opposed," he said, "is false.""

The New York Times 2 PC Makers Favor Bigger Recycling Roles
[requires 'free' registration]

"Dell and Hewlett-Packard, the nation's largest personal computer makers, said on Tuesday that they were moving to support more recycling and taking more of the financial burden for the recycling of used computers off consumers and local governments."

""We're opposed to taking it out of the control of producers," said Steve Rockhold, Hewlett-Packard's worldwide program manager for recycling. The company, based in Palo Alto, Calif., recycles 100 million pounds of electronic equipment every year, though the company charges consumers per item for recycling."

redux [05.12.04]
News.Com Dell puts a number on its recycling efforts

"The Round Rock, Texas, PC maker on Wednesday made public its plans to increase the amount of materials it collects by 50 percent, by weight, during fiscal 2005. Dell said that during its fiscal 2004, which ended Jan. 30, it collected 35 million pounds of computer gear for recycling.

As previously reported, Dell is the first large PC maker to offer up its recycling efforts to public and industry scrutiny. Its actions could prompt other PC makers to follow, helping establish a universal measure--most likely weight--for tracking the recycling of computer equipment, according to environmental activists such as the Calvert Group, an investment fund company that worked with Dell to help the PC maker establish its goals."

redux [04.16.04]
News.Com Weighing the results of PC recycling

"With Earth Day just around the corner, Dell and other PC companies are stepping up their efforts to recycle old computing gear that businesses and consumers have been sitting on for years."

"By making its recycling goals public, Dell will likely put pressure on competitors such as Hewlett-Packard and IBM to follow suit. That could help encourage more recycling and establish a de facto method of measuring recycling trends for the PC industry as a whole. It could also help quell criticism that the industry has been slow to act on what environmentalists and legislators have deemed a growing pollution problem."

redux [04.07.04]
MSNBC Intel to launch environmentally friendly chips

"For environmental reasons, Intel Corp. plans to reduce the amount of lead in its microprocessors and chip sets by 95 percent starting this year."

"The Santa Clara, Calif.-based chip maker, the world's biggest, said it is working with the rest of the industry to remove the remaining amount of lead that's needed to connect the processor's core with its packaging."

redux [03.09.04]
Wired News Short-Lived PCs Have Hidden Costs

"It turns out your computer is a much bigger material and energy hog than previously believed. The most effective way to reduce its oversized environmental footprint is to increase its useful lifespan, according to a new book released Monday, Computers and the Environment , by the United Nations University in Tokyo.

The average desktop PC and 17-inch CRT monitor takes an SUV-sized 1.8 tons of water, fossil fuels and chemicals to make, the book reports."

redux [07.07.03]
News.Com HP's take on recycling

"Most people viewing the carcass of an abandoned motherboard would see a useless collection of plastic shards and mangled wires.

Hewlett-Packard's Chris Altobell sees silver and gold.

Altobell is the marketing manager of HP's Product Recycling Solutions unit in Roseville, Calif., which processes 3 million pounds of used computer machinery each month, transforming giant corporate printers and cast-off 386 consumer machines into materials that can be spun into precious metals and plastic containers."

The New York Times Dell to Stop Using Prison Workers
[requires 'free' registration]

"Responding to concerns from both customers and environmental advocates, Dell Computer announced yesterday that it would no longer rely on prisons to supply workers for its computer recycling program.

Dell, the world's largest seller of PC's, said it had canceled its contract with Unicor, a branch of the Federal Bureau of Prisons that employs prisoners for electronics recycling and other industries."

redux [06.27.03]
The New York Times PC Makers Given Credit and Blame in Recycling
[requires 'free' registration]

"The nation's two largest personal computer makers, Dell and Hewlett-Packard, handle recycling of the waste from computer products in remarkably different ways, according to a report by environmentalists released today.

The report was prepared by the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition, a group that also focuses on health issues, and the Computer Take Back Campaign. It commended Hewlett-Packard for using "state of the art" practices in partnership with an expanding commercial recycling industry, while criticizing Dell for using low-cost prison labor in association with Unicor, an industrial prison system within the Justice Department."

redux [06.04.03]
BBC Recycling law boosts hi-tech transfer

"Every year, 1.5 million old, but working, computers are buried in landfill sites. Now, an impending EU directive could mean these discarded machines, and many others, enjoy a more useful life.

The Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (Weee) Directive makes electronics firms responsible for what happens to the gadgets and devices they produce once people have done with them."

redux [02.25.03]
The Straits Times: Singapore Toxic e-waste

"This is the end of the road for the toxic end-product of the computer age.

In towns such as this one on China's south-eastern coast, vast quantities of obsolete electronics shipped in from the United States, Europe and Japan are piled in mountains of waste."

"The real costs are being borne by the people on the receiving end of the 'e-waste'. In towns along China's coast as well as in India and Pakistan, adults and children work for about US$1.20 (S$2.08) a day in unregulated and unsafe conditions."

redux [02.05.03]
News.Com HP: Don't trash that old computer

"The computer maker is testing a program that gives those who recycle their old computers, monitors, printers or other gear a coupon worth up to $50 for any purchase of $60 or more on HP's online store. Under a program announced nearly two years ago, HP charges anywhere from $17 to $31 to recycle products. The company says the coupon will offset the amount customers must pay for the service, which ensures none of the gear ends up in landfills.

The need for recycling is growing, particularly as nonprofit agencies become less willing to accept older gear, said Renee St. Denis, manager of HP's recycling effort. The problem of what to do with all this aging equipment has become a major issue facing the tech industry."

redux [01.26.03]
The Japan Times Chips with everything makes for a hi-tech mess

"So what are the environmental impacts of producing and using a 32-megabyte DRAM computer chip that weighs a mere 2 grams? The UNU team found that to make every one of the millions manufactured each year requires 32 kg of water, 1.6 kg of fossil fuels, 700 grams of elemental gases (mainly nitrogen), and 72 grams of chemicals (hundreds are used, including lethal arsine gas and corrosive hydrogen fluoride).

To make matters worse, Williams believes his findings are conservative. "We think the real numbers may be twice that," he said, adding that rapid advances in technology aggravate the problem. "The fact that a chip has such a short lifespan, because the technology turns over so quickly, exacerbates the environmental impact.""

redux [01.10.03]
Wired News E-Waste: Dark Side of Digital Age

""The leadership continues to be by and large the Japanese companies, and the U.S. companies tend to be far behind," Smith said.

"A lot of (U.S. manufacturers') initiatives are piecemeal and not really designed to address the vast majority of consumer concerns," he added. "There is still an enormous amount of computer waste being exported to China.""

"The report also criticizes Dell's use of federal prison labor to recycle old computers, which it says exposes inmates to toxic chemicals without the same health and safety protections as workers at other facilities."

redux [12.03.02]
The Mercury News In switch, HP announces support for e-waste bill

"In a shift that will change how toxic electronic waste is recycled in California and possibly nationwide, Hewlett-Packard has said it will support state legislation to require PC manufacturers to bear the cost of computer disposal.

""The combined HP-Compaq company is the single largest manufacturer of PCs in the world. They are the linchpin for producer responsibility,'' said Smith, whose group helped expose the primitive recycling industry in China. ``The fact that they have changed their position vastly improves the likelihood we'll get a very good e-waste bill in the new session.""

redux [11.13.02]
Salon Silicon hogs

"If we all had to lug around the true environmental weights of the microchips in our iPods, cellphones or laptops, most of those portable gadgets would never make it off their docking stations, much less out the front door.

It takes 3.7 pounds of fossil fuels and other chemicals and 70.5 pounds of water to produce a single two-gram microchip, according to a forthcoming study in the Dec. 15 issue of Environmental Science & Technology, a publication of the American Chemical Society."

redux [05.22.02]
Wired News Tech Toxics' Tarnished Legacy

"California high-tech manufacturing companies are degrading the environment in developing countries, a new research report confirms.

Case studies done in Taiwan, Malaysia, India, Thailand, and Costa Rica by the California Global Corporate Accountability Project document water pollution and inadquate waste management resulting from component production."

redux [04.06.02]
NPR: All Things Considered Activists Push for Safer E-Recycling

"Americans will throw out about 10 million old computers this year. About two-thirds of these will be shipped to Asia for dismantling by rural villagers. The computers all contain mercury and lead, and the resulting toxic waste has become a threat to villagers' health and environment.

"A coalition of activists and lawmakers has been working to improve the situation, and in recent weeks they've gotten a signed pledge from electronic manufacturers in the United States to consider a new solution."

redux [05.04.00]
San Francisco Bay Guardian Silicon Hell

"Behind the well-paid geeks in cubicles and the sharp-dressed entrepreneurs is an industry that consumes as many resources, uses as many lethal chemicals, and generates as much toxic waste as some of the worst culprits of the pre-Internet age. And both industry workers and the people who live near the plants are feeling the effects: the toxins damage aquatic life in the bay, poison drinking water, and, increasing evidence suggests, kill high-tech industry workers.

While the federal government, local agencies, and hundreds of thousands of Bay Area residents and company workers are dealing with the computer industry's mess here in America, the same (or worse) problems are spreading worldwide."

The New York Times Panel Urges New Protection on Federal 'Data Mining'
[requires 'free' registration]

"A federal advisory committee says Congress should pass laws to protect the civil liberties of Americans when the government sifts through computer records and data files for information about terrorists."

"The eight-member panel, which includes former officials with decades of high-level government experience, found that the Defense Department and many other agencies were collecting and using "personally identifiable information on U.S. persons for national security and law enforcement purposes." Some of these activities, it said, resemble the Pentagon program initially known as Total Information Awareness, which was intended to catch terrorists before they struck, by monitoring e-mail messages and databases of financial, medical and travel information."

redux [09.25.03]
News.Com House vote stymies TIA spy plan

"The U.S. House of Representatives has approved a spending bill that eliminates money for the Terrorism Information Awareness project, effectively putting an end to the controversial Pentagon antiterrorism plan, which sought to assemble computerized dossiers on Americans."

"Sen. Ron Wyden, the Oregon Democrat who led opposition to the TIA project on Capitol Hill, said in a telephone interview that the "program that would have been the biggest and most intrusive surveillance program in the history of the United States will be no more. The lights are going out at the office.""

Chicago Sun-Times Privacy advocates fear 'Matrix' database

"While privacy worries are frustrating the Pentagon's plans for a far-reaching database to combat terrorism, a similar project is quietly taking shape with the participation of more than a dozen states -- and $12 million in federal funds."

"Dubbed "Matrix," the database has been in use for 18 months in Florida, where police praise the crime-fighting tool as exhaustive. It cross-references the state's driving records and restricted police files with billions of pieces of public and private data, including credit and property records."

redux [07.14.03]
Wired News Funding for TIA All But Dead

"The controversial Terrorism Information Awareness program, which would troll Americans' personal records to find terrorists before they strike, may soon face the same fate Congress meted out to John Ashcroft in his attempt to create a corps of volunteer domestic spies: death by legislation.

The Senate's $368 billion version of the 2004 defense appropriations bill, released from committee to the full Senate on Wednesday, contains a provision that would deny all funds to, and thus would effectively kill, the Terrorism Information Awareness program, formerly known as Total Information Awareness."

redux [03.25.03]
The New York Times Data Expert Is Cautious About Misuse of Information
[requires 'free' registration]

"As the government gears up its domestic security program, the chief executive of a venture capital firm founded by the Central Intelligence Agency warned today of the danger of amassing a large, unified database that would be available to government investigators -- as some technology executives have advocated.

"I think it's very dangerous to give the government total access," said Gilman Louie, chief executive of In-Q-Tel, a venture fund established by the C.I.A. in 1999."

redux [02.12.03]
The New York Times Conferees in Congress Bar Using a Pentagon Project on Americans
[requires 'free' registration]

"House and Senate negotiators have agreed that a Pentagon project intended to detect terrorists by monitoring Internet e-mail and commercial databases for health, financial and travel information cannot be used against Americans."

"One important factor in the breadth of the opposition is the fact that the research project is headed by Adm. John M. Poindexter. Several members of Congress have said that the admiral was an unwelcome symbol because he had been convicted of lying to Congress about weapons sales to Iran and illegal aid to Nicaraguan rebels, an issue with constitutional ramifications, the Iran-contra affair."

WashFile FBI Chief Says Al-Qaeda Threat Still Strong

"If we are to defeat terrorists and their supporters, a wide range of organizations must work together. I am committed to the closest possible cooperation with the Intelligence Community and other government agencies. Accordingly, I strongly support the President's initiative to establish a Terrorist Threat Integration Center (TTIC) that will merge and analyze terrorist-related information collected domestically and abroad. This initiative will be crucially important to the success of our mission in the FBI, and it will take us to the next level in being able to prevent another terrorist attack on our nation."

redux [01.29.03]
News.Com Bush proposes antiterror database plan

"A forthcoming government database will compile information from all federal agencies and the private sector on people deemed possible terrorist threats, President Bush said Tuesday evening."

" The White House offered few details about how TTIC will evolve, but critics of an existing data-mining program under development by the U.S. government were quick to draw comparisons to the controversial Total Information Awareness (TIA) project."

"The Justice Department did not immediately respond to questions on Wednesday about what information on Americans would be accessible to the TTIC. One government official with knowledge of the center, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said it was not designed to supplant Poindexter's efforts but was instead "an effort by the president to bring together elements of agencies that are focused on terrorism.""

The Washington Post Terrorism Agency Planned

"The threat integration center will analyze intelligence and ensure the information is shared throughout the federal government as well as with state and local authorities. It also will have the authority to set requirements for all intelligence agencies and assign collection operations to the CIA, the Pentagon, the FBI and, through Homeland Security, to state and local law enforcement authorities.

"This will be the first time in our history that all of these elements come together," the official said."

GovExec.Com Bush orders FBI, CIA to build new terror intelligence office

"The new terrorist information center would be headed by a senior government official reporting to the director of the CIA, which raises the question of how much control over intelligence operations the FBI is being given, even in light of its expanding mission."

"Treverton added that the new intelligence structure probably reflects some battling over turf among intelligence agencies. The CIA director, George Tenet, will not cede any of his authority over intelligence collection and analysis under the new plan, nor will his access to the president decrease. Quite the opposite, Anderson said. "It will probably strengthen his role and his visibility.""

Miami Daily Business Review Count Crisis?

"A scathing internal review of the iVotronic touch-screen voting machines used in Miami-Dade and Broward, Fla., counties, written by a Miami-Dade County elections official, has raised fresh doubts about how accurately the electronic machines count the vote.

The review, contained in a June 6, 2003, memo that came to light last month, concludes there is a "serious bug" in the voting machine software that results in votes potentially being lost and voting machines not being accounted for in the voting system's self-generated post-election audit. "

redux [04.30.04]
The New York Times California Bars a Firm's Voting Machines in November Election
[requires 'free' registration]

"California will prohibit the use of 15,000 of voting machines from Diebold Inc. in the November election because of of security and reliability concerns, Secretary of State Kevin Shelley announced today."

"The Shelley decision comes after more than a week of furor in California over glitches that plagued the Super Tuesday primary in several counties. Mr. Shelley has said Diebold's missteps "jeopardized the outcome" of the primary, in part because thousands of San Diego voters were turned away from polling places when Diebold equipment malfunctioned. At public hearings about the voting problems, Diebold Election Systems' president, Robert J. Urosevich, said in the company's defense that "We're not idiots, though we may act from time to time as not the smartest.""

redux [04.21.04]
News.Com Voting panel grills Diebold

""Diebold marketed, sold and installed its TSx (voting machine) in these four California counties prior to full testing, prior to federal qualification, and without complying with the state certification program," read a staff report on the investigation of Diebold Election Systems released Tuesday. An audit of all 17 California counties using the company's equipment, the report went on to say, "discovered that Diebold had, in fact, installed uncertified software in all its client counties without notifying the Secretary of State as required by law, and that the software was not federally qualified in three client counties."

Diebold and its handful of competitors are under intense scrutiny as states across the nation struggle to upgrade their voting systems in time for the November presidential election."

Oakland Tribune Diebold knew of legal risks

"Attorneys for Diebold Election Systems Inc. warned in late November that its use of uncertified vote-counting software in Alameda County violated California election law and broke its $12.7 million contract with Alameda County."

"Yet despite warnings from the state's chief elections officer, Diebold continued fielding poorly tested, faulty software and hardware in at least two of California's largest urban counties during the Super Tuesday primary, when e-voting temporarily broke down and voters were turned away at the polls."

redux [03.29.04]
Wired News How E-Voting Threatens Democracy

"Clicking on a link for a file transfer protocol site belonging to voting machine maker Diebold Election Systems, Harris found about 40,000 unprotected computer files. They included source code for Diebold's AccuVote touch-screen voting machine, program files for its Global Election Management System tabulation software, a Texas voter-registration list with voters' names and addresses, and what appeared to be live vote data from 57 precincts in a 2002 California primary election.

"There was a lot of stuff that shouldn't have been there," Harris said."

redux [03.02.04]
Wired News E-Vote Glitches Found in Election

"Scattered technical problems were reported in the early hours as voters in 10 states, including California, New York and Ohio, went to the Super Tuesday polls to choose a Democratic presidential nominee and decide primary contests for congressional and state races.

Advocates of electronic voting say paperless ballots save money and eliminate problems common to old systems. But the technology brings a new breed of security concerns, like software errors and hackers that could make the results unreliable."

Guardian Unlimited The hacks in the machine

"More worryingly, with public opinion so evenly divided, a president can be elected on the basis of 537 votes in one state. The new systems appear so easy to crack that a hacker armed with a telephone and the right numbers can dial into numerous access points, change a few votes for each precinct or hundreds of votes in several - leaving no trail.

There is nothing fanciful about the possibility of things going wrong. In one election last year in Indiana, the new electronic equipment recorded more than 100,000 votes in an election with only 19,000 registered voters."

redux [02.13.04]
Mercury News Opponents of change a threat to electronic voting

"Fear of change is a universal human emotion, and it often erupts when new technology comes along to alter an established and comfortable way of doing things.

This fear can sway people away from thoughtful consideration of risks and rewards, pushing them into panic reactions where new ideas are weighed down by unfair expectations.

That's happening right now with electronic voting."

Wired News E-Vote Machines Drop More Ballots

"Six electronic voting machines used in two North Carolina counties lost 436 absentee ballot votes in the 2002 general election because of a software problem, raising increasing doubts about the accuracy and integrity of voting equipment in a presidential election year."

""If this happened with one version of the firmware, how can we be sure that it didn't happen with other versions of the firmware?" asked Dill. "How can we be sure that other counties didn't lose votes that they didn't catch?""

Salon Will the election be hacked?

"While I sat at his computer, March helped me open a file containing actual results from a March 2002 primary election held in San Luis Obispo County, Calif. -- a file that March says would be accessible to anyone who worked in the county elections office on Election Day. Following March's direction, I changed the vote count with a few clicks. Then, he explained how to alter the "audit log," erasing all evidence that we'd tampered with the results. I saved the file. If it had been a real election, I would have been carrying out an electronic coup. It was a chilling realization."

redux [02.12.04]