Articles by Jim Harper

Jim is the Director of Information Policy Studies at The Cato Institute, the Editor of Web-based privacy think-tank Privacilla.org, and the Webmaster of WashingtonWatch.com. Prior to becoming a policy analyst, Jim served as counsel to committees in both the House and Senate.

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CONTROVERSIES ROCK ALF 7 – ORGANIZERS PLEDGE TO CARRY ON

by Jim Harper on November 4, 2008 · 7 comments

WASHINGTON – November 4 /TLF News Service/ — The recently announced Alcohol Liberation Front event, Thursday, November 6 from 5:30pm on at Gazuza (1629 Connecticut Ave NW), has already roiled the social media world, but organizers pledge to carry on despite the ALF 7 controversies.

“I ain’t a quitter. People ask me to quit. ‘Stop Tweeting – it’s hurting my eyes,’ they say,” said someone other than Brooke Oberwetter, ALF 7 organizer. “But I ain’t a quitter. I’m keepin’ on keepin’ on. ‘Keepin’ on keepin’ on’? Did I just invent that! Better Tweet it!”

Trading on shares of privately-held Facebook remained suspended on the major markets today after it was revealed that the platform doesn’t permit the names of events to be changed. A typo rendering ALF 7 as ALF 6 on the Facebook event page threatens to bring down the social networking giant.

“Facebook won’t let me change the event name,” roared an enraged Berin Szoka on the Facebook page announcing the event. “I pledge to do everything in my power to destroy Facebook,” he didn’t say.

Meanwhile, one pageview of the Facebook event page displayed an ad that caught TLFer Jim Harper as an outrageous effront to the law of trademark. The image at right, displayed exclusively here on TLF and anywhere someone deems it appropriate, shows a screenshot of an ad that may violate Apple’s rights in the iPod trademark.

“It’s not outrageous. Don’t say that. I just think that calling a shaver the ‘iPod of shaving’ has the potential to cause consumer confusion as to the source of the shaver by suggesting that it’s an Apple product. There are so many mistaken allegations about trademark law – this could be a real trademark violation, and it’s worth pointing out.”

Asked if he would be an expert witness in any case brought by Apple, Harper replied, “You’re not funny, you know. You’re writing this yourself, by yourself, and not interviewing anybody. Oh yeah. You’re being ‘meta’ or something. Whatever. How stupid.”

“Sourpuss” Harper will be one of the attendees at the Alcohol Liberation Front event, Thursday, November 6 from 5:30pm on at Gazuza (1629 Connecticut Ave NW).

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Should a National ID be Required for Voting?

by Jim Harper on November 4, 2008 · 10 comments

Over on the Cato@Liberty blog, I’ve highlighted some recent talk of a creating a national ID system for voting. Worrisome thinking from people who should be more circumspect.

“A Breezy Slide From Vote Integrity to National ID” is the post.

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Government Data Mining: The Need for a Legal Framework

by Jim Harper on November 3, 2008 · 8 comments

Indiana University law professor Fred Cate writes with characteristic thoroughness and organization in his article Government Data Mining: The Need for a Legal Framework, published in the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review this summer.

It took me a while to get around to reading it – a little longer to write it up. Don’t make the same mistakes I did! It’s good!

Here’s a snippet from the abstract:

The article describes the extraordinary volume and variety of personal data to which the government has routine access, directly and through industry, and examines the absence of any meaningful limits on that access. So-called privacy statutes are often so outdated and inadequate that they fail to limit the government’s access to our most personal data, or they have been amended in the post-9/11 world to reduce those limits. And the Fourth Amendment, the primary constitutional guarantee of individual privacy, has been interpreted by the Supreme Court to not apply to routine data collection, accessing data from third parties, or sharing data, even if illegally gathered.

Professor Cate spends a good deal of time on the Supreme Court’s pernicious “third party doctrine,” which exempts information shared with a third party (think of ISPs, banks, etc.) from Fourth Amendment protection. This rule was bad when it was written and it grows worse and worse as we move our lives further and further online.

Oh, there are details from the paper I would have treated differently. He mistakenly says the 9/11 terrorists used false ID. (Fraudulently gotten, yes. False identities, no.) And he omits the Federal Agency Data Mining Reporting Act of 2007, passed as §804 of the Implementing Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act of 2007 (Public Law 110-53). But these are trivial issues with a paper that is excellent overall.

Poking around among the Internets to confirm this and that detail, I found this post saying that Professor Cate authored much of a recent report called “Protecting Individual Privacy in the Struggle Against Terrorists.” It’s also very good stuff.

Fred Cate, people!

One of the bright lights.

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Against Intellectual Monopoly Book Forum at Cato Nov. 10

by Jim Harper on October 30, 2008 · 5 comments

It is commonly believed that intellectual property law in the form of copyright and patent is necessary for innovation and the creation of ideas and inventions such as machines, drugs, computer software, books, music, literature and movies.

But Michele Boldrin and his coauthor David K. Levine argue that intellectual property laws are costly and dangerous government grants of private monopoly over ideas. Their book “Against Intellectual Monopoly” seeks to show through theory and example that these legal regimes are not necessary for innovation and are damaging to growth, prosperity, and liberty.

The argument that intellectual property laws actually retard progress is a fascinating challenge to conventional beliefs about their foundations and utility. At the onset of the Information Age, the role of copyright, patent, and other legal regimes in the progress of science and arts is centrally important.

The Cato Institute will be hosting a forum on Monday, November 10th that will surely be an interesting discussion of the book with coauthor Michele Boldrin, featuring commentary from Robert Atkinson, founder and president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation.

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“Secure” Government Databases?

by Jim Harper on October 27, 2008 · 9 comments

From the Columbus Dispatch:

Information on [Joe “the Plumber”] Wurzelbacher was accessed by accounts assigned to the office of Ohio Attorney General Nancy H. Rogers, the Cuyahoga County Child Support Enforcement Agency and the Toledo Police Department.

The security of information about you in government databases is contingent on you keeping your head down.

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Twitter Terror

by Jim Harper on October 27, 2008 · 14 comments

I was amused to read that a draft Army intelligence report identified micro-blogging service Twitter as a potential tool for terrorists. On the other hand, it’s regrettable that this terrorism mania persists to foster this kind of report and media attention. There’s no distinct terror threat from Twitter. (Do check out the send-up of an Osama Bin Laden Twitter feed by clicking on the image.)

Sure, it’s possible that terrorists could use Twitter, just like it’s possible with any communications medium. Twitter is right up there with telephones, pen and paper, email, SMS, and smoke signals as a potential tool for terrorism. Each of these media have different properties which make them more or less susceptible to use for wrongdoing — and more or less protective of legitimate privacy for the law-abiding.

Like most common digital communications, Twitter is a pretty weak medium for planning bad things. Copies of every post are distributed far and wide — and all “Tweets” are housed pretty much permanently by a single organization.

If you want to get caught doing something wrong, use Twitter to plan it.

Continue reading →

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soma fm is cool

by Jim Harper on October 23, 2008 · 10 comments

You should check it out and figure out which channel you like best.

Then you should donate.

Or buy the music you like.

Or buy a t-shirt.

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The Bailout: Secret Payments?

by Jim Harper on October 23, 2008 · 7 comments

From the WashingtonWatch.com blog:

Just two weeks after the passage of the bailout bill, and one day after a Treasury Department official declared, “we are committed to transparency and oversight in all aspects of the program,” the Treasury Department began covering up the amount it would pay to New York Mellon Bank to act as a financial agent in the bailout.

Spending $700,000,000,000.00 in taxpayer money is not business as usual. And hiding the terms of government contracts shouldn’t be business as usual anyway.

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McCullagh Officially Part of the MSM

by Jim Harper on October 15, 2008 · 5 comments

Friend of TLF and chief political correspondent for CNET Declan McCullagh has a new column on CBSNews.com called “Other People’s Money.”

Nice name, but we’ll have to see whether his status as a fully decorated part of the mainstream media draws him from principled writing to constant applause for self-appointed experts who want to spend our taxed-away dollars for us.

His freshman effort looks pretty good. “Will U.S. Taxpayers Need a Bailout?” points out the perils of politically directed investments in the banking sector.

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Does This Really Surprise Anyone?

by Jim Harper on October 10, 2008 · 15 comments

According to ABC News:

Despite pledges by President George W. Bush and American intelligence officials to the contrary, hundreds of US citizens overseas have been eavesdropped on as they called friends and family back home, according to two former military intercept operators who worked at the giant National Security Agency (NSA) center in Fort Gordon, Georgia.

It’s a simple formula: Lack of oversight produces abuses. Members of Congress may scurry around and declare outrage, but the responsibility is their own as much as anyone else’s.

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