If you're a blogger, this website is for you

EFF: Fighting for Bloggers' Rights

If you're a blogger, this website is for you.

EFF's goal is to give you a basic roadmap to the legal issues you may confront as a blogger, to let you know you have rights, and to encourage you to blog freely with the knowledge that your legitimate speech is protected.

To that end, we have created the Legal Guide for Bloggers, a collection of blogger-specific FAQs addressing everything from fair use to defamation law to workplace whistle-blowing.

http://www.eff.org/bloggers/

Internet serves as 'social glue' ...

The internet has played an important role in the life decisions of 60 million Americans, research shows.

Whether it be career advice, helping people through an illness or finding a new house, 45% of Americans turn to the web for help, a survey by US-based Pew Internet think-tank has found.

It set out to find out whether the web and e-mail strengthen social ties.

The answer seems to be yes, especially in times of crisis when people use it to mobilise their social networks.

New community

In the past, it has been suggested that the internet and e-mail could diminish real relationships.

But the report, entitled The Strength of Internet Ties, found that e-mail supplements rather than replaces offline communications.

"The larger, the more far-flung, and the more diverse a person's network, the more important e-mail is," said Jeffrey Boase, one of the report's authors.

TURNING TO THE NET 21 million Americans use it to get additional career training Helps 17 million when dealing with major illness 17 million use it for choosing a school for a child 16 million use it to buy a car 16 million use it for a major financial decision 10 million use it for finding new place to live 8 million use it when changing job 7 million use it to cope with family illness Source: Pew Internet and American Life Project

"You can't make phone calls or personal visits to all your friends very often, but you can 'cc' them regularly with a couple of keystrokes. That turns out to be very important," he said.

The old cliché that times of crisis reveal who your real friends are seems to hold as true in cyberspace as it does in the offline world.

"When you need help these days, you don't need a bugle to call the cavalry, you need a big buddy list," said John Horrigan, associate director for research at the Pew Internet Project.

The internet is providing Americans with a path to resources, whether it be dealing with family crises or finding a new job.

The reliance and accessibility of the web is creating a new social phenomenon according to sociologist Barry Wellman.

Co-author of the report, he identifies what he terms as the rise of networked individualism - where users of modern technology are less tied to local groups and increasingly part of more geographically scattered networks.

"This creates a new basis for community. Rather than relying on a single community for social support, individuals often actively seek out a variety of appropriate people and resources for different situations," he said.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4644666.stm

google flunks a big test ...

JAY AMBROSE: Google sells out
Scripps Howard News Service Associated Press

January 26, 2006
" (SH) - Google sometimes seems like half my life. I start my days looking at Google News on the Internet, and often spend hours using the Google search engine to learn more about subjects I am going to write about. Little did I know I was dancing with the devil.

It's true, though. For the sake of this very rich company getting still richer, it has agreed to collaborate with China in subverting the promise of the Internet as an extraordinary means of liberation and in keeping the Chinese people in a state of abject subjugation.

More specifically, it is reported, Google will practice Chinese-style censorship, making sure that none of the 100 million Web surfers in China will be able to use Google to find anything by typing in such words as "democracy" or "human rights," or by trying to locate non-government information on such topics as Tibetan freedom, Taiwan independence, the Falun Gong religion or atrocities committed by their own officials.

In return for thus blocking entry to more Web sites than there probably are books in a dozen major libraries, as well as pulling the trigger on blogging and e-mail, Google gets a grin, a handshake and a have-at-it agreement from Chinese autocrats who had previously done their best to censor the search engine themselves.

Now Google will do financial battle in this major Internet market - second only to the United States - with Yahoo, Microsoft and Chinese firms as it tries to stack more money on top of the Everest-high pile it has already accumulated. As my columnist friend Thomas Lipscomb has reported, Google's stock value is in excess of $80 billion, more than that of the entire newspaper industry.

All of which means it's time to make excuses, and they have not been long in coming.

Google co-founder Sergey Brin, as quoted in a Reuters news accounts, says he "came to the conclusion that more information is better, even if it is not as full as we would like to see." No longer will Google have to confront "the Great Firewall" of censorship erected by Chinese officials, he said.

"France and Germany require censorship for Nazi sites," he is also quoted as observing, "and the U.S. requires censorship based on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. These various countries also have laws on child pornography."

Yes, the best can sometimes be enemy of the good, as Brin suggests, but the leaders of these high-tech companies have something to offer China that it needs, and by standing firm, by being tough, could conceivably have bent China more in the direction of responsible, civilized behavior as it moves ahead to superpower status.

Google - along with Yahoo and Microsoft - is abetting a crime against humanity while making it seem more or less OK.

The agreement to keep French and German Internet users from Nazi sites is a regrettable abridgement of free inquiry, but does not begin to compare to siding with some of the world's most devoted enemies of freedom in their iniquitous mission.

As for calling the protection of copyrighted movies and music censorship, that's blather, and to liken laws prohibiting child pornography to what the Chinese are doing is laughable.

Google's motto, as any number of news accounts and commentaries have noted, is, "Don't Be Evil." That's not exactly the world's highest standard. It's about like saying that a new mother's chief obligation is not to throw her baby out a second-story window. The startling fact is that Google now has done something evil, has tossed the baby out the window, and has put itself in a position of doing greater evil. Yahoo - which had earlier made Google-style compromises - says it was just going along with Chinese laws when it then helped identify a Chinese journalist who had written an e-mail about the Tiananmen Square revolt of 1989. For that deed, the journalist is spending 10 years in prison.

I am among those who have argued that the Internet could be the most powerful instrument since the printing press in disseminating information and ideas that will empower and free people, but what I left out of the calculation was the need for those in positions of corporate authority to cling to their integrity, no matter how much the almighty dollar tugs at them. I haven't given up hope. I still believe in the Internet. That belief would be strengthened if Google would become a respectable dancing partner by renouncing its China deal. "

Jay Ambrose, formerly Washington director of editorial policy for Scripps Howard newspapers and the editor of dailies in El Paso, Texas, and Denver, is a columnist living in Colorado. He can be reached at SpeaktoJay@aol.com.

Copyright 2005 Star Tribune. All rights reserved.

Create an e-annoyance, go to jail ...

Perspective: Create an e-annoyance, go to jail
By Declan McCullagh
Published: January 9, 2006, 4:00 AM PST


Annoying someone via the Internet is now a federal crime.

It's no joke. Last Thursday, President Bush signed into law a prohibition on posting annoying Web messages or sending annoying e-mail messages without disclosing your true identity.

In other words, it's OK to flame someone on a mailing list or in a blog as long as you do it under your real name. Thank Congress for small favors, I guess.

This ridiculous prohibition, which would likely imperil much of Usenet, is buried in the so-called Violence Against Women and Department of Justice Reauthorization Act. Criminal penalties include stiff fines and two years in prison.

"The use of the word 'annoy' is particularly problematic," says Marv Johnson, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union. "What's annoying to one person may not be annoying to someone else."
It's illegal to annoy

A new federal law states that when you annoy someone on the Internet, you must disclose your identity. Here's the relevant language.

"Whoever...utilizes any device or software that can be used to originate telecommunications or other types of communications that are transmitted, in whole or in part, by the Internet... without disclosing his identity and with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass any person...who receives the communications...shall be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than two years, or both."

Buried deep in the new law is Sec. 113, an innocuously titled bit called "Preventing Cyberstalking." It rewrites existing telephone harassment law to prohibit anyone from using the Internet "without disclosing his identity and with intent to annoy."

To grease the rails for this idea, Sen. Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican, and the section's other sponsors slipped it into an unrelated, must-pass bill to fund the Department of Justice. The plan: to make it politically infeasible for politicians to oppose the measure.

The tactic worked. The bill cleared the House of Representatives by voice vote, and the Senate unanimously approved it Dec. 16.

There's an interesting side note. An earlier version that the House approved in September had radically different wording. It was reasonable by comparison, and criminalized only using an "interactive computer service" to cause someone "substantial emotional harm."

That kind of prohibition might make sense. But why should merely annoying someone be illegal?

There are perfectly legitimate reasons to set up a Web site or write something incendiary without telling everyone exactly who you are.

Think about it: A woman fired by a manager who demanded sexual favors wants to blog about it without divulging her full name. An aspiring pundit hopes to set up the next Suck.com. A frustrated citizen wants to send e-mail describing corruption in local government without worrying about reprisals.

In each of those three cases, someone's probably going to be annoyed. That's enough to make the action a crime. (The Justice Department won't file charges in every case, of course, but trusting prosecutorial discretion is hardly reassuring.)

Clinton Fein, a San Francisco resident who runs the Annoy.com site, says a feature permitting visitors to send obnoxious and profane postcards through e-mail could be imperiled.

"Who decides what's annoying? That's the ultimate question," Fein said. He added: "If you send an annoying message via the United States Post Office, do you have to reveal your identity?"

Fein once sued to overturn part of the Communications Decency Act that outlawed transmitting indecent material "with intent to annoy." But the courts ruled the law applied only to obscene material, so Annoy.com didn't have to worry.

"I'm certainly not going to close the site down," Fein said on Friday. "I would fight it on First Amendment grounds."

He's right. Our esteemed politicians can't seem to grasp this simple point, but the First Amendment protects our right to write something that annoys someone else.

It even shields our right to do it anonymously. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas defended this principle magnificently in a 1995 case involving an Ohio woman who was punished for distributing anonymous political pamphlets.

If President Bush truly believed in the principle of limited government (it is in his official bio), he'd realize that the law he signed cannot be squared with the Constitution he swore to uphold.

And then he'd repeat what President Clinton did a decade ago when he felt compelled to sign a massive telecommunications law. Clinton realized that the section of the law punishing abortion-related material on the Internet was unconstitutional, and he directed the Justice Department not to enforce it.

Bush has the chance to show his respect for what he calls Americans' personal freedoms. Now we'll see if the president rises to the occasion.
Biography
Declan McCullagh is CNET News.com's Washington, D.C., correspondent. He chronicles the busy intersection between technology and politics. Before that, he worked for several years as Washington bureau chief for Wired News. He has also worked as a reporter for The Netly News, Time magazine and HotWired.

http://news.com.com/Create+an+e-annoyance,+go+to+jail/2010-1028_3-6022491.html

A word about Hype

Do you get caught up in the hype machine? Do you drop everything you're doing and sign up immediately when you see the word's PRE-LAUNCH? Or LIMITED TIME ONLY?

What you should do when you see these word's is run like hell!! If it is a program, product or service that is TRULY of value. It won't matter whether you get in today or in 6 months, you will be able to learn or earn from it.

The net is overrun with HYPE, what HYPE means to me is that the product or service won't sell on it's own so they have to make it seem more important by creating a false sense of urgency to join or buy. Usually these programs/products are of no special value other than the value created for the person who starts or creates them. What's usually in it for you is another product you'll never use or a service that is of no real value.

Well, how do I select a program or product you ask? Simple, through the network you've developed, ask around. Really do some networking, ask your group that you communicate with what they use or promote. What's working for them? What's not working for them? This is another value of the list that you build for yourself is the sharing of information. Keep an open line of communication with everyone you make contact with in your online venture's.

I know about the HYPE machine ohh too well. I have been caught in the hype of several programs over the last couple of years and have lost and or wasted my fair share of money doing it. I have made more money with the tried and true programs that have been around for years than I ever did with a pre-launch hype machine. Riding the HYPE machine causes you to bounce from program to program and in doing this, you never know what works and what doesn't because you never stick with a program long enough to TRULY know it's value. It's called Leapfrogging and it is the quickest way to fail in your online ventures. Leapfrogging should be left as the game you played in grade school on recess. Not how you try to create an online business or income.

Communicate with your network and find out what is working for them. Then, create a plan of attack to make it successful for you, using the information you've gathered from the people in your network.

Remember, the list you build is for more than just selling to. It's also for learning from and sharing with!!

Avoid the HYPE machine and stick to the NETWORK machine you're creating!!

http://weeklynetworker.com/issue/13a/word.shtml

10 Paradoxical Commandments

1. People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered.
Love them anyway.

2. If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
Do good anyway.

3. If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies.
Succeed anyway.

4. The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway.

5. Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway.

6. The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds.
Think big anyway.

7. People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs.
Fight for a few underdogs anyway.

8. What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
Build anyway.

9. People really need help but may attack you if you do help them.
Help people anyway.

10. Give the world the best you have and you will get kicked in the teeth.
Give the world the best you have anyway.

There is a whole world we can influence, but we cannot control.

What we do control is our own inner life.

We get to decide who we are going to be and how we are going to live.

What does it mean to live a paradoxical life?

It means you focus on loving and helping people and becoming part of something larger than yourself.

Go and Grow !

Canned Spam

You know, if it works for you, I want to be the very last one to
discourage you ... and then would prefer to remain silent anyway.

Just got a call from "Out of Area" and answered as I sometimes will, just to see who is there.

From Joyce. I picked the spelling of "Joyce" because I do not know
Joyce. Her message was recorded, inviting me to call back a number included in the recording if I would be interested in "making thousands of dollars a day returning phone calls"

Of course I would love to think that just by calling someone back after they have called me that I would be paid thousands of dollars a day ... hardly even having time to run to the bank, maybe have to hire someone to make my deposits for me, eh ?

Whew !

I like Joyce's message - simple, short, easy question. Either I have
time available to return phone calls or I do not - easy to decide.

Her message does not insult me the way a caller does in saying " Don't
worry, James. I am not calling to sell you anything ... " duh " Then
why are you calling me ? " is what I usually am too polite to respond
with ...

Or callers who start with " James ! I hear you are interested in
starting a home-based business ! "

Hello !

What is remarkable is that such trolling really does get some bites,
even if it is canned audio spam.

Also remarkable foolishness - mining for that "one gem in a thousand prospects" ... not doing the math - failing to realize if you are buying leads from your "opp" and 10 or 20,000 others are buying their leads from the same source, a FEW of you will be delivering the same message to the same people to the point that the "same people" start saying, even YELLING - " Enough "

latest gotcha ...

First problem comes when your computer's alarm bells and
whistles start going off, after which you smack yourself.

Second problem ...
_______

First thing this morning I searched for news of e-Gold closing,
because ...

Last night I received a message:

Subject: **Notification E-Gold Ltd. CLOSING**

Please tell me you did not click on the link in that message.
_______

There is no news of e-Gold closing - would be BIG news if it were
so. Only found reports dated this time last year when someone was
spreading rumour that e-Gold and eBullion would be closing soon ...

" ...sources assure us that these rumours are false and designed to
unsettle the industry (for reasons unknown at this time). "