The Economist magazine has just released an important feature article entitled, “Sex Laws: Unjust and Ineffective.” In an indirect way, the article makes a point that I have been trying to get across in my work on this issue: If you want to keep your kids safe from real sex offenders, we need to scrap our current sex offender registries and completely rethink the way we define and punish sex offenses in this country. That’s because, currently, a significant percentage of those people listed in sex offender registries pose almost no threat to children, making it difficult for us to know who really does pose a threat to our kids and what we should do about them.
Simply stated, we’ve dumbed-down the notion of “sex crimes” in this country. As a nation, we have foolishly come to equate almost all sex offenses equally. While sex offender registry laws vary from state to state, many basically say that that two teens caught engaging in consensual oral sex in high school belong on the same list alongside child rapists. That is insanity. And it leaves many in the public, especially parents, thinking that the whole world is full of predators lurking on every corner just waiting to snatch, rape, and kill their children. [
For the actual facts, see the appendix I have included down below: “Is America Suffering from a National Child Abduction Epidemic”?] In reality, as The Economist feature story points out, the truth is quite different: Continue reading →
by Eric Beach & Adam Thierer
In our ongoing “Privacy Solutions Series” we have been outlining various user-empowerment or user “self-help” tools that allow Internet users to better protect their privacy online. These tools and methods form an important part of a layered approach that we believe offers a more effective alternative to government-mandated regulation of online privacy. [See entries 1, 2, 3, 4] In this installment, we will be exploring CCleaner, a free Windows-based tool created by UK-based software developer Piriform that scrubs you computer’s hard drive and cleans its registry. We’ll describe how CCleaner helps you destroy data and protect your private information.
Whenever you move files to the recycling bin and subsequently purge the recycling bin, the affected files remain on your computer. In other words, deleting files from the recycling bin does not remove them from the computer. The reason for this is important and, in many ways, beneficial. In some respects, many computer file systems work like an old library catalog system. A file is like a catalog card and contains the reference to the actual place on the hard drive where the information contained in the file is stored. When a user deletes a file, the computer does not actually clean all the affected hard drive space. Instead, to extend the analogy, the computer simply removes the card catalog entry that points to the hard drive space where the file is contained and frees up this space for new files. The reason this is usually beneficial is that cleaning the hard drive space occupied by a file can take a while. If you want evidence of this, look no further than the length of time required to reformat a hard drive (reformatting a hard drive actually clears the disk’s contents). The practical implication of the way hard drives work is that when you delete an important memo from your computer, it is not actually gone. Similarly, when you clear your browsing history, it is not gone. The bottom line is that an individual who can access your hard drive (a thief, the government, etc.) could view many or all of the files you deleted.
The solution to this problem is to ensure that when a file is deleted, the space on the hard drive occupied by that file is not simply flagged as available space but is entirely rewritten with unintelligible data. One of the best programs for accomplishing this is CCleaner (which formerly stood for “Crap Cleaner”!)
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PFF Adjunct Fellow Mike Palage, who served on the ICANN board from 2003 to 2006, filed these comments (PDF) on the NTIA’s recent Notice of Inquiry regarding ICANN’s future. Mike’s four key points were as follows:
- ICANN’s Periodic Review of its internal operations and supporting organizations has failed, and has become nothing more than a “perpetual motion machine of public comments and documentation producing no meaningful results.” Only a second Evolution and Reform Process can solve ICANN’s current deficiencies;
- ICANN must hardcode into its policies and its contracts the principle that its policies cannot supersede national laws;
- ICANN must cease any operational role in technical infrastructure as required by its bylaws and focus instead on its mission as a technical coordinator; and
- Congress must avoid “kicking the JPA can down the road” and instead provide much-needed leadership by creating a solid foundation for ICANN 3.0 in legislation after proper consultation with the Government Accountability Office.
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I’ve been working closely with PFF Adjunct Fellow & former ICANN Board member Michael D. Palage on ICANN issues. Michael had this to say about the ongoing saga of ICANN’s attempt to create new gTLDs.
During the recent ICANN Board meeting in Mexico City, the Board authorized the creation and funding of an Implementation Recommendation Team (IRT). This team was to be comprised of “an internationally diverse group of persons with knowledge, expertise, and experience in the fields of trademark, consumer protection, or competition law, and the interplay of trademarks and the domain name system to develop and propose solutions to the overarching issue of trademark protection in connection with the introduction of new gTLDs.” This IRT is tasked to produce a report for consideration by the ICANN community at the Sydney meeting.
The IRT consists of 24 members:
- Chairwoman Caroline G. Chicoine; and
- Seventeen members; and
- Six ex officio members: Four IPC-elected officers and two-GNSO elected Board Directors (Bruce Tonkin and Rita Rodin Johnston).
I have a number of friends and colleagues serving on this team and I wish them well in their important endeavor.
I’ve previously proposed a number of rights-protection mechanisms that IRT should consider. Today, I offer a few suggestions that I hope will guide IRT as they embark on their important work tomorrow. In particular, I hope they’ll implement some of my suggestions intended to make the IRT process more transparent-so the rest of the global Internet can follow along with their important work and provide constructive input where possible.
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By Mike Palage, PFF Adjunct Fellow & former ICANN Board Member
TPI’s Tom Lenard and Larry White released a study yesterday entitled ICANN at a Crossroads: A Proposal for Better Governance and Performance (PDF). ICANN is, indeed, at a crossroads: A number of critical Internet governance issues will be decided over the next 6-12 months-such as:
- How to roll out new gTLDs like .BLOG, which I’ve discussed here and here (PDF).
- ICANN’s future as an increasingly independent organization, which I’ve discussed here.
There is an acute need to better educate the public and policymakers about these complex issues and about how ICANN works-something that will be addressed by my upcoming primer on ICANN. For that reason, I welcome TPI’s contribution to this important debate about the future of the Internet. I share TPI’s concerns about the inadequacy of mechanisms currently in place to ensure ICANN’s accountability and the absence of any checks on ICANN’s ever-expanding budget.
But I strongly disagree with TPI’s conclusion that:
ICANN should remain a nonprofit organization, but it should be governed by and accountable to its direct users: the registries and the registrars. The seats on ICANN’s board could be rotated among the major operators in a manner that would reflect the diversity of viewpoints among the registries and registrars.
Having worn many hats in the ICANN eco-system-as a consultant for
both registries and registrars and as a business user and IP attorney-I must say that adopting this model of direct-user control would be suicidal for ICANN. Filling the ICANN Board with registries and registrars would create at least the appearance of a cartel, allowing those opposed to ICANN’s underlying model of public/private-partnership to capture the organization. Neither capture by private interests opposed to the “public” part of the model nor a counter-attack by those who object to the “private” part of the model would be a good thing for Internet users or ICANN stakeholders.
Having invested over 10 years of my life in ICANN’s diverse and inclusive public/private partnership model, I speak from first-hand experience that ICANN is
far from perfect as an organization. I’ve often feared that ICANN is heading in the wrong direction and I’ve never hesitated to say so. But despite these shortcomings, the various stakeholders I work with in the seemingly byzantine “ICANN process” remain as committed as ever to the principles set forth in NTIA’s 1998 White Paper as the foundations of Internet governance. The staying-power of this shared belief in a common set of principles among all stakeholders reaffirms my faith in the public/private partnership-whatever other changes need to be made.
Lenard and White are right about one thing: We
do need a new model for ensuring ICANN’s accountability after the expiration of ICANN’s current relationship with the U.S. Government. But the model they suggest isn’t it—as Steve Delbianco has pointed out.
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