What Should Be In a Technology Bill of Rights? 247
snydeq writes "The Deep End's Paul Venezia argues in favor of the creation of a Technology Bill of Rights to protect individuals against malfeasance, tyranny, and exploitation in an increasingly technological age. Venezia's initial six proposed articles center on anonymity rights, net neutrality, the open-sourcing of law enforcement software and hardware, and the like. What sort of efficacy do you see such a document having, and in an ideal world, which articles do you see as imperative for inclusion in a Technology Bill of Rights?"
How 'bout this, for starters re: search/seizure (Score:1, Interesting)
What should be in a "Technology Bill of Rights"
Current technology makes it easy and difficult for law enforcement to capture and seize and retain
equipment, information, and data of or about or owned by a target of an investigation or persons
tangential to the target of said investigation. Technology also makes it possible and not unreasonable for
persons visit, collect, dispose of, and maintain data over a variety of devices, streams, and locations.
Persons under investigation or not under investigation shall not be required to live their lives as if
they must be at-the-ready to facilitate Law Enforcement to bring charges against said person or persons
related to the subject of an investigation. People today use computers to facilitate communication,
operation of business, continuance of education, and to do any number of other things that may be legal or
illegal, but not of an illegality sufficient to warrant seizure (even if remote search and surveillance
are conducted) of the equipment.
Unnecessary, spiteful, specious, punative and groundsless search is disturbing and seizure detrimental if
not permanently destructive to the privacy or conduct of business or education of persons who ultimately
are not arrested or are arrested but released on Own Recognizance or for lack of cause or for
technicalities or procedural abberations in violation of subject's rights.
Therefore:
Persons under surveillance who have not committed a crime nor are being charged with a crime SHALL NOT
have their personal property seized. Seizure may occur in extremely grave situations of bona fide national
security or flight risk concerns, but ONLY IF the person is in an immediate position of destroying data
that was not already captured via technical means which may or may not be disclosed to the subject nor the
subject's attorney.
Persons who voluntarily offer to law enforcement an opportunity to reasonably copy target's data
concurrent to/related to the scope of the investigation SHALL NOT BE SEPARATED from the investigation and
SHALL BE ALLOWED personal or technical proxy representation, full custody of, and a written receipt or
copy log of what os obtained.
Law enforcement shall arrive to the premises equipped to take copies of data by whatever means devices
allow the recording of data which may be stored on equipment as old as 25 years or current. The ill-
preparation of LE to copy data SHALL NOT JUSTIFY seizure nor freezing of subjects' assessts simply for
convenience of Law Enforcement. Only in extremely grave cases of risk of destruction of information shall
LE be permitted to monitor "that last bit" of uncaptured information via orders to a subject (by now
compromised) to not destroy information.
If LE determines a person or business warrants surveillance, it should be publicly expected that by the
time a subject is arrested or detained and removed from home or business, LE should have by technical
means obtained what it needed. The seizure of equipment shall result in the turning over of the equipment
to a NEUTRAL THIRD PARTY who will not buckle to police, nor allow the pending-defendant's counsel to
tamper with evidence.
Lets see... (Score:5, Interesting)
2. Right to control what software is on your computer
3. Right to copy anything you own for your own personal use
4. Right to use software that does not interfere with anyone else's right
5. The Right to publish any information that is true without fear of takedown notices
6. The Right to possess any information
7. The Right to control your own hardware
8. The Right to use any device for any purpose that does not interfere with rights of others
9. The Right to remain anonymous
10.The Right to have free, uncensored speech on your own servers
Have all these and we would have a good start.
Be careful what you wish for (Score:4, Interesting)
These things have a habit of A) never becoming law and B) being subverted if and when they do become law.
For example:
Article 2: No network provider may constrain or restrict access to the Internet in any way, shape, or form other than agreed-upon access speeds
Really: Cart Blanche to do any amount of illegal acts on the net without fear of having your use cut off? Really? Required car analogy: I can do anything in my car as long as I don't exceed the speed limit? Really? You've thought this thru, have you Paul?
Article 3. No individual shall be held liable for effects of malware or malicious code unknowingly run on a personal computer
This exonerates those who write malicious code. They release a virus to the internet, but have no knowledge of which computers it becomes installed on. Therefore, they are not liable.
Number 4: Why should anyone be obligated implement mandatory update checks in any software?
What if I don't want my software calling home?
The more you read this screed the less well thought out it becomes.
removal of government (Score:1, Interesting)
Governments are the only ones who violate us using our technology. Remove the government to solve 99% of problems. The rest can be solved privately and personally.
How about... (Score:3, Interesting)
Material you create on an electronic device is *yours* and if that is encrypted or "protected" by some third party technology you always have the right to break that technology to get to the content you rightly own.
Yes.. this is directly in contrast with the DMCA... and it's outrageous.
Re:Gaaah! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Lets see... (Score:3, Interesting)
1. Right to access the internet if you pay for it
-- Does my home FIOS plan (asynchronous, no static IP, servers explicitly banned) count as "internet access"? I would argue that it technically does not, though it is very close.
2. Right to control what software is on your computer
-- What about the related immunity from liability for things running on your computer without your knowledge?
3. Right to copy anything you own for your own personal use
--Fair enough
4. Right to use software that does not interfere with anyone else's right
--I don't follow.
5. The Right to publish any information that is true without fear of takedown notices
--There has to be some takedown process though, for information that is untrue. You never get to publish without any fear, there just needs to be a counter-takedown notice process.
6. The Right to possess any information
--So, no copyrights? What about stolen credit card numbers? I'm actually in favor of this one, by and large, but I do feel that something here needs to be more precise: possession of data is *never* a crime by itself. (A civil matter, sure. Evidence of a crime, sure. Not a crime on it's own).
7. The Right to control your own hardware
--Damn straight.
8. The Right to use any device for any purpose that does not interfere with rights of others
--How is this different from 7?
9. The Right to remain anonymous
--Except when violating the rights of others? Do I have the right to anonymously make false statements defaming people? (Again, I'm not opposed to the idea, but playing devil's advocate).
10.The Right to have free, uncensored speech on your own servers
--Except when violating the rights of others? Do I have the right to freely display images of you that I obtained illegally? (Devil's advocate again).
Re:Gaaah! (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't know why its scary: the Bill of Rights itself is the product of discussion, debate, and democratic process. Sure, they reflect a means of protecting what at least a significant portion of those discussing and debating thought were fundamental rights in natural law, but they were no less a product of political process than any other law.
The treatment of the Constitution (whether the main text or the Bill of Rights) as some sort of quasi-religious revealed document given by quasi-divine Founders, rather than a political document created by men and subject to debate on its merits, is what I find scary.
Re:Lets see... (Score:3, Interesting)
You're just shuffling the problem around. For example, let's say I pay $20 a month for DSL and host controversial mp3s, etc. Ultimately, the process repeats until you get to my computer, and I find your use of punch the flashing monkey ads controversial and choose to remove them from my view of your site.
It's currently not possible to host anything entirely on your own. Anything you put "on the internet" changes hands many times between where it leaves your server and reaches the requester's computer. Property rights suggest that any of these have the right to say "no" to this transaction.
Personally, I'd replace your #10 with:
10. The right to use encryption without the assumption that a crime is being committed.
All Knowledge is Human Knowledge!!! (Score:3, Interesting)
All Knowledge is Human Knowledge!!!
Start with that premise, and then restrict defaulting back to that assumption unless otherwise specifically restricted for good reason. Similar concept of State and individual rights structure found in the U.S. constitution (well in theory anyway).
It does not belong to one company, it does not belong to one person, or country, it belongs to the humanity. No one thinks up the next great invention in a vacuum. They went to school, they read other peoples ideas, they used a human language to express it. It belongs to humanity.
Yes, there should be certain restrictions on who can make use of the knowledge (e.g. how to make atomic bombs, what I had for breakfast), but without compelling reason it should default to the public domain.
Please, don't ever let this guy write the law (Score:3, Interesting)
Every single one of the six points is silly.
1. Any individual shall be able to choose anonymity when posting to Internet sites
Well, we've done this one plenty before, but it's still ultimately down to the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory. With freedom comes responsibility. An anonymous party cannot effectively be held accountable for their actions. QED.
Oh, and please spare us the sob story about a hypothetical oppressive regime where anonymous speech on the Internet will bring the cure for cancer and world peace. This is not the US a few centuries ago. In modern countries where free speech with your name attached is not protected, anonymity on the Internet is pretty far down the list of priorities and hardly going to be the decisive factor in making things better (not least because if you have access to the Internet at all, it's probably strictly monitored by the state and your identity is known before you ever reach a keyboard anyway).
2. No network provider may constrain or restrict access to the Internet in any way, shape, or form other than agreed-upon access speeds
Ah, yes, let's have the lawyers interfere with running the Internet, because that always works out well.
What is wrong with a non-neutral Internet anyway? All that really seems to mean is giving preferential bandwidth to some services over others, and frankly, if you think your five-reader blog is as important as Google or BBC News then you're the deluded one. Likewise, if you see a high-bandwidth future where streaming services and remote applications are popular or even the norm, you'd better start studying economics if you think the current financial models are going to support it.
As for crushing the little guy, I have yet to see an argument that isn't pure FUD. A huge amount of Internet traffic isn't from the big businesses who are really going to be affected by such laws, and there is always going to be a demand for the valuable part of that traffic, creating a market for providing such access. We already have competition laws in place should anyone start actually abusing the system to close out that market artificially, and otherwise, why isn't it just commercial dealing, on which foundation we seem to have managed to get this far?
3. No individual shall be held liable for effects of malware or malicious code unknowingly run on a personal computer
Throw in something about negligence and perhaps. But if you're one of the dumbfucks who connects a computer to the Internet and then spews out lots of spam because you're too ignorant to learn basic security, then you are a liability to the rest of the world and deserve to be cut off until you learn better.
One court case with a stupid outcome does not negate this point, incidentally.
4. A company that produces and sells closed source software for use on computers shall be responsible for the security of that product, and a user has a right to seek damages in the event of a failure to secure their product
Way to go, you just undermined the entire software development world. Little, if any, of the software running on most computers today would have been developed under this model, because there would be no sound business case for taking on such a risk under conditions that will never be perfect. Most consumers, private and business alike, simply don't need — or want to pay the disproportionate cost for — that level of quality.
Oh, and spare us the blatant Open-Source-by-the-back-door pitch, please. If you want to compete, make a better product. Forcing competition out of the market through dubious legal tricks is pathetic when big business tries it to prop up their dying business models, and it will be just as pathetic if the OSS world tries it if it turns out that they don't really make better products after all.
5. Any software or hardware used to conduct or support laws and public policy shall be open-source
I think the debate over whether it should be (Score:3, Interesting)
Anyway, here are some items I think should be added to the ones in TFA:
(A) Any digital information published or disseminated to the public by any government agency shall be distributed in an open, non-proprietary format. (This is prompted by my local city bureaucracy insisting on publishing "public" information in the latest version of Word... which a great many people have no way to easily read. Yes, I am aware that Microsoft makes available a free Word reader, but almost nobody outside of IT knows about it.) This would also have the effect of goading software companies to better support open standards.
(B) The fruits of University and other research that is subsidized by public funds belong in the public domain. Repeal the Bayh-Dole act, which sought to motivate University researchers, but which instead has resulted in corporate ownership of publicly funded inventions and discoveries.
Democrats, Republicans, and Rights (Score:3, Interesting)
No wonder Democrats so frequently assume that the 2nd amendment means something that it doesn't--they believe (or at least, appear to believe) that rights and apparently human dignity are government-granted...!
Except Republicans oppose rights, small "r" not capital, as well. For instance Republicans [cthouserules.com] support Three Strikes Laws [wikipedia.org] and manditory minimum sentencing laws. [cbsnews.com] Though some Democrats support them as well most Republicans love drug laws. During the 2008 presidential campaign only Republican Ron Paul wanted to get rid of these laws. Former Reform politician Jessy "The Body" Ventura has been vocal about getting rid of them too. A few days ago on CNN's Larry King show he said they should be legalized.
Falcon
The right to a independent experts for court cases (Score:3, Interesting)
The right to a independent experts for court cases dealing with Technology that both sides can use and right to be able to use one for free as well as being to have your own.
My ideas (Score:2, Interesting)
1. Any hardware or software product that is no longer sold must have all source code available under an open-source (not necessarily free) license.
2. It must be legal and possible to backup anything that one has paid for.
LK
To be fair to the publishers (Score:3, Interesting)
I'd also go further and require that any software shipping with DRM that restricts any fair use rights should be required to have exactly what rights it restricts, and how it restricts them, labelled on the outside of the box.
Re:Nothing (Score:2, Interesting)
The Bill of Rights is not a force field that will keep government's hands off your rights. Stop thinking of it that way; I have the feeling those in power would prefer schools to keep teaching it that way so that people will sit quietly by while the government does as they like.
Instead, think of the Bill of Rights like a bunch of canaries in the coal mine. The moment you see any of those canaries drop dead, it's time to do something with the warning you've been given.
Re:To be fair to the publishers (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd also go further and require that any software shipping with DRM that restricts any fair use rights should be required to have exactly what rights it restricts, and how it restricts them, labelled on the outside of the box.
What about future Fair Use rights? Fair Use, until very recently, was not codified, and even today, the enumeration in Title 17 is not a complete listing of all Fair Use rights (for instance, most people consider copying mp3s to a portable player or a phone to be Fair Use, but nowhere in the codified law does it say this is Fair Use, and a strict reading of the law would lead one to the conclusion that this activity was certainly illegal). Before codification and even now, many Fair Use rights are decided by precedent in the courts. How could a label cover all that?
Still, I like the direction your thoughts are taking :-) A Surgeon General's style warning might be nice: "DRM has been known to cause fits of rage and even strokes in some individuals."
Re:Nothing (Score:4, Interesting)
The other point is where you get these rights from? GOD? This is scary, as the move to make this country secular puts your rights on thin ice.
Just because the source of these inalienable Rights is unknown or, better yet, undefined does not mean that they are dependent upon such a source. I do not believe that Jehova had a deal with the Founding Fathers to strike anybody with lightning who willingly violated the Constitution. The reason these rights are inalienable is this: These are in many ways the minimum Rights necessary for the system to function. By threatening any of these Rights for any individual, everybody's Rights are threatened. These Rights come from nature as there is no way to guarantee Rights for some but not for all without tyranny.
Therefore, you can assign any origin to these Rights you want: physics (it is a property of reality), logic (it does make sense to do it any other way), God (if a being created everything, that being should be able to take credit for the properties within that creation), the Tao (it is impossible to enforce Rights for some in the absence of Rights for all), or even Jefferson (smart guy). I think the reason the terms "inalienable" and "natural" were chosen for a reason. They avoid this fixation on a specific creed and allow people of all faiths or no faith to have the same belief in Freedom.
Re:Nothing (Score:3, Interesting)
Then you're being an arrogant and placing your culture above theirs.
I have no problem doing so as long as my culture respects freedom and self determination and theirs does not. Ours is clearly superior and it's about time that we recognized that instead of rationalizing the bad behavior of others as some sort of cultural difference. African tribes routinely slice off the clitoris of young girls but we don't celebrate that behavior because of their culture. We condemn it and use what influence we have to change it.
China oppresses individual rights, is wiping out the Tibetan culture/way of life, practices female infanticide and forced abortions. I can think of nothing redeeming to say about the Chinese regime and earnestly hope their people will break free of it within our lifetimes.
You wouldn't say so if you had lived through the end of the 19th century in America.
It's all about perspective. From my perspective I would rather live in environment with no nanny state trying to micromanage my vices and behavior than the current environment where the state "looks out" for me in the manner of a parent with OCD.
In fact, I dare say you won't be singing the same song 3 years from now, as the tyranny of the greenback takes away your right to have food, clothing, and shelter.
I'm not worried about that because I have a marketable skill and used the boon times to build up a healthy reserve of funds. While the rest of this country was out living beyond their means I was living in a 500 sq foot apartment and socking away 25% of my salary (more if you count my retirement investments) into savings. I have little sympathy for those that were greedy and bought houses they couldn't afford and SUVs that got 15 miles to the gallon when gasoline was above $4/gal.
When this was pointed out to me, I suggested cobalt warheads, with their 100 mile radius blast pattern, might be in order.
I find it interesting that a bleeding heart such as yourself is advocating nuclear warfare as a solution to terrorism. It seems to me that if we had just deployed our 100,000+ troops to Afghanistan instead of Iraq we could have solved the problem without using any nuclear weapons. Oh well, at least we ensured friendly airspace for the Israeli's when they deal with Iran for us.....