Seeing is Believing

Last week’s revelations that the “President’s Surveillance Program” was–no surprise–a whole hell of a lot larger than anyone admitted (AP via ABCNews) have stoked a little flame under Congressional Democrats, and even under Attorney General Eric Holder:

A senior Justice Department official close to Holder stressed anew yesterday that the attorney general had reluctantly come to lean toward naming a criminal prosecutor from inside the department, after months of reading classified material including a still-secret 2004 CIA inspector general report.  (Washington Post)

And, as noted, it appears the Dems want to get in on the party.

Ms. Feinstein, a Democrat of California, said on “Fox News Sunday” that Mr. Panetta had told senators last month about Mr. Cheney ordering that the program not be disclosed to Congress.

If Congress were kept in the dark, she said on Fox News Sunday, “that’s something that should never, ever happen again.”

Senator Richard Durbin of Illinois, a Democrat, said that “absolutely” warranted an investigation.

“The executive branch cannot create programs like this one and keep Congress in the dark,” he said on ABC’s “This Week.” “To give the president unbridled authority goes way beyond the United States Constitution.” (New York Times)

But, like most things involving the amazingly Teflon-coated Bush, anything approaching an investigation resulting in anything that might be beneficial to the country will have to be seen to be believed.

Animal “Terrorism”

Looks like there’s a Constitutional challenge happening in San Jose.  At issue, in a nutshell, is whether the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act is overbroad and squelches legitimate free speech.  (Source.)

The law, codified at 18 U.S.C. § 43 reads, in pertinent part, as:

(a) Offense.— Whoever travels in interstate or foreign commerce, or uses or causes to be used the mail or any facility of interstate or foreign commerce—

(1) for the purpose of damaging or interfering with the operations of an animal enterprise; and

(2) in connection with such purpose—

(A) intentionally damages or causes the loss of any real or personal property (including animals or records) used by an animal enterprise, or any real or personal property of a person or entity having a connection to, relationship with, or transactions with an animal enterprise;

(B) intentionally places a person in reasonable fear of the death of, or serious bodily injury to that person, a member of the immediate family (as defined in section 115) of that person, or a spouse or intimate partner of that person by a course of conduct involving threats, acts of vandalism, property damage, criminal trespass, harassment, or intimidation; or

(C) conspires or attempts to do so;

shall be punished as provided for in subsection (b).

…

…

(d) Definitions.— As used in this section—

(1) the term “animal enterprise” means—

(A) a commercial or academic enterprise that uses or sells animals or animal products for profit, food or fiber production, agriculture, education, research, or testing;

(B) a zoo, aquarium, animal shelter, pet store, breeder, furrier, circus, or rodeo, or other lawful competitive animal event; or

(C) any fair or similar event intended to advance agricultural arts and sciences;

(2) the term “course of conduct” means a pattern of conduct composed of 2 or more acts, evidencing a continuity of purpose;

(3) the term “economic damage”—

(A) means the replacement costs of lost or damaged property or records, the costs of repeating an interrupted or invalidated experiment, the loss of profits, or increased costs, including losses and increased costs resulting from threats, acts or vandalism, property damage, trespass, harassment, or intimidation taken against a person or entity on account of that person’s or entity’s connection to, relationship with, or transactions with the animal enterprise; but

(B) does not include any lawful economic disruption (including a lawful boycott) that results from lawful public, governmental, or business reaction to the disclosure of information about an animal enterprise;

(4) the term “serious bodily injury” means—

(A) injury posing a substantial risk of death;

(B) extreme physical pain;

(C) protracted and obvious disfigurement; or

(D) protracted loss or impairment of the function of a bodily member, organ, or mental faculty; and

(5) the term “substantial bodily injury” means—

(A) deep cuts and serious burns or abrasions;

(B) short-term or nonobvious disfigurement;

(C) fractured or dislocated bones, or torn members of the body;

(D) significant physical pain;

(E) illness;

(F) short-term loss or impairment of the function of a bodily member, organ, or mental faculty; or

(G) any other significant injury to the body.

(e) Rules of Construction.— Nothing in this section shall be construed—

(1) to prohibit any expressive conduct (including peaceful picketing or other peaceful demonstration) protected from legal prohibition by the First Amendment to the Constitution;

(2) to create new remedies for interference with activities protected by the free speech or free exercise clauses of the First Amendment to the Constitution, regardless of the point of view expressed, or to limit any existing legal remedies for such interference; or

(3) to provide exclusive criminal penalties or civil remedies with respect to the conduct prohibited by this action, or to preempt State or local laws that may provide such penalties or remedies.

Violating the statute could potentially lead to spending up to life in prison (if death occurs), but there is a sliding scale, pegging the penalty at a maximum of 1, 5, 10, or 20 years imprisonment depending on the physical harm and/or economic damage caused.  (18 U.S.C. § 43(b))

So, what is being argued here?  You can go to the Civil Liberties Defense Center, which has filed a brief (PDF) to dismiss the indictment, to find out.

Spoonerisms

I suppose this isn’t a true spoonerism, such as thinking that Jimi Hendrix was saying “’scuze me while I kiss this guy,” rather than saying “’scuze me while I kiss the sky,” but I found this headline somewhat amusing:

“Swearing Makes Pain More Tolerable.”

I initially thought it said “Swearing Makes Palin More Tolerable.”  And I thought, you know, that’s actually kinda true.

But then I read the article and discovered I was wrong about what was being said, though, in truth, it’s an interesting read nonetheless.

Changing Dynamics?

I think this is how it’s going to have to be if there’s any future for on-line content.  According to Gawker.com, which sources a Bloomberg article, the New York Times is considering charging a subscription fee, perhaps only $5 or so, to read its content.  This follows news that very popular (and very good) on-line music service, Pandora.com will allow users to stream music for up to 40 hours a month, and anything above that will come with a flat $.99 fee for the rest of the month.

I’ve mentioned the problems with whole freeconomy stuff before, and I think that the NYT is doing the right thing here.  Of course, people want things for free; who doesn’t?  And if things are offered for free, it’s awfully difficult to rely on people to just give you money for it.  But the reality is that people ought to be rewarded for their intellectual work, and if that means that a subscription fee is required, then so be it.

Ringtones and ASCAP

Browsing through Yahoo! News this morning, a PC World story about ringtones caught my eye.  I’ve always thought that ringtones occupy an interesting place in our culture.  Remember when Apple raised its prices from $.99 to $1.29 and there was a fair bit of howling?  I always thought it was a bit odd that people would moan about paying $1.29 for a full song that they can play over and over again, when there are scads and scads of people willing to fork over at least twice that much to hear the song in terrible quality for only about 30 seconds or so.  (AT & T’s Media Mall; Verizon’s Media Store; Sprint’s Digital Lounge)

One would think, given that people who buy ringtones are paying a premium for the license (and yes, it’s a license) to have their phones pump out music, that would satisfy ASCAP.

Nope.

ASCAP is suing AT&T over ringtones, saying that a royalty is owed every time the phone rings, because, in ASCAP’s mind, such ringing is tantamount to a public performance.  Bollocks, says the EFF.  Copyright law, it argues in an amicus brief, does not reach “public performances ‘without any purpose of direct or indirect commercial advantage’,” sort of like driving with your windows down.

Now, getting at what sort of license you actually have when you get a ringtone from AT&T is pretty difficult.  Sprint, for its part, clearly states what you are able to do with your ringtone:

Product License

This is a limited, nonexclusive, nontransferable license to use this content for personal use until it expires, subject to any restrictions provided with the product purchased and in the Premium Services Terms of Use.  You agree not to sell, transfer, copy, publicly perform, create derivative works from or otherwise reproduce, modify or revise the content.  The content provided is protected under applicable laws, including copyright laws.

(Source)

Verizon has a limited amount of information about its ringtones, and it’s a bit harder to find than Sprint’s; I ended up just using Bing to search for the license:

Ringtones Terms and Conditions

Subject to Customer Agreement.  Each ringtone purchased is only valid for use on the handset to which it is delivered.  The ringtone will be delivered to your handset via a MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service) message.  If your account has SMS or MMS block enabled at the time you confirm this purchase you will not be able to receive the MMS message containing the ringtone.  However, your account will still be billed.  You must save the ringtone to your handset, otherwise when you delete the MMS message containing the ringtone, you will no longer have access to the ringtone and will need to purchase it again if you want to use the ringtone.  Please note, based on the type of handset you are using the sound quality of the ringtone you are purchasing may differ from the sound quality available through the Preview on the Verizon Wireless website.

(Source)

AT&T’s license, also is difficult to find.  In fact, I’m just going to give up on finding it.

The main point is, whether ASCAP is actually sincere about their concerns that ringtones might comprise a public performance, it seems like all they want to do is gouge money out of cell providers, especially since they don’t appear to have any notion of actually going after consumers for the public performance.

On a related note, I wondered if “ringtone” is a registered trademark of anyone, given the kerfluffle over Intel’s use of the term “netbook” I mentioned a while back.  Surprisingly, there appears not to be a registration on “ringtone” in and of itself.  There is an application for one, but it doesn’t appear to be registered yet, taken out by Young Executives, Inc.  (Serial No. 77589426).  Interesting.