Al Gore And Tim Berners-Lee Condemn NSA Surveillance: Appalling And Unconstitutional

from the and-one-of-them-actually-invented-the-web dept

There's the famous (incorrect) meme out there that Al Gore once took credit for inventing the internet (he didn't), but it does appear that he has one thing very much in common with the guy who actually invented the web (which, of course, is not the internet), Tim Berners-Lee: they're both absolutely disgusted by the NSA's surveillance activities. Al Gore slammed the NSA in a speech in Montreal, saying that the NSA's activities were "outrageous" and "completely unacceptable." He even went so far as to say that Snowden "revealed evidence of what appears to be crimes against the Constitution of the United States." Furthermore, he took on the oft-repeated claim from the NSA and its defenders that they need to collect all the haystacks by quoting a scholar on the CIA: "when you are looking for a needle in a haystack, it’s not always wise to pile more hay on the haystack."

Meanwhile, Berners-Lee gave an interview with The Guardian, in which he similarly ripped into the NSA and the GCHQ for their efforts to weaken security standards so they could crack stuff more easily themselves:

He said the agencies' decision to break the encryption software was "appalling" and "foolish", as it directly contradicted the efforts of both the US and UK governments to fight cybercrime and cyberwarfare, which they have identified as a top national security priority. Berners-Lee also decried the move as a betrayal of the technology industry.

He went on to argue that the oversight of the intelligence community appeared to be "dysfunctional and unaccountable," and praised whistleblowers like Snowden, saying that civilization has "depended on whistleblowers, and therefore you have to protect them."

Filed Under: al gore, nsa, surveillance, tim berners-lee

Al Gore Says NSA Surveillance Is Unconstitutional And 'Not The American Way'

from the indeed dept

Add Al Gore's voice to those who are speaking out against the NSA's dragnet surveillance practices. The former Vice President not only said the practice was un-American, but also unconstitutional in violation of the 4th Amendment.

"This in my view violates the constitution. The fourth amendment and the first amendment – and the fourth amendment language is crystal clear," he said. "It is not acceptable to have a secret interpretation of a law that goes far beyond any reasonable reading of either the law or the constitution and then classify as top secret what the actual law is."

Gore added: "This is not right."

I keep seeing people trying to defend the program due to a single Supreme Court ruling -- Smith v. Maryland -- a 1979 case that gave rise to the "third party doctrine," which argued that if you give data to a third party, you no longer have any expectation of privacy in that data. Of course, the situation specific to that case was exceptionally different and took place in a very different world. By any plain meaning of the phrase "expectation of privacy" people certainly do not think that they're giving up their expectation of privacy just because they use an online service.

What's amazing is that the 4th Amendment is not that complicated, and certainly does not put up some giant barrier for law enforcement. All they have to do is show probable cause and get a warrant. All of this freaking out is showing that they know that they can't show probable cause to get all this data. And that should ring lots and lots of alarm bells. Thankfully, some principled politicians are seeing this and understanding the massive problems with a surveillance state.

Filed Under: al gore, nsa, nsa surveillance, unconstitutional

Al Gore Comes Out Against SOPA/PIPA

from the and-he-invented-the-internet!-(joke) dept

Well, check this out. Al Gore has come out strongly against SOPA and PIPA, angrily denouncing the bill and its supporters. It's a quick 2-minute video taken at a CareerBuilder event, and it's in response to an audience question. The actual question isn't heard in the video, but he's clearly talking about SOPA/PIPA and appears to be well-informed on the issue: A quick transcript (the very beginning is cut off, so it comes in mid-sentence):

"... are now able to be shared digitally. There is a growing concern on the part of the companies and individuals who create that content, that they're not getting compensated in a fair way, and so they want to impose a new set of requirements on those companies who provide access to the internet, like the browsers, the search engines, etc. And some of these new requirements, according to the experts on the internet, would very probably have the effect of really shutting down the vibrancy of the internet. As in all things, some compromise must be possible. The content creators and owners have a point and a legitimate complaint... But, in our country, in our world today, there is hardly anything more important -- whether you want to solve global warming, as I do, whether you want to reinvigorate democracy as many of us do, whatever problem you want to fix -- there is hardly anything more important to getting the right things done than to save and protect the vibrancy and freedom of the internet. The internet is bringing life back to democracy. We saw it in Egypt. We're seeing it in Russia now. We've seen it in so many places.... If you look at the reform movements around the world, and in the US, more than likely they're based on internet forms of organization. And anything that would threaten the vibrancy and freedom of the internet, I'm against!"

There's very loud applause at the end. If you watch it, you see he gets more and more animated and worked up towards the end. He's also clearly familiar with the details, since he knows the real impact of the bill. Rather than just focusing on "foreign" sites, as supporters of these bills would like everyone to, he points out that the way in which this is done is to put new requirements on tons of domestic internet companies. He may not have invented the internet (and yes, I know that was taken out of context, but it's a meme at this point, so live with it), but he certainly understands its importance... and he's clearly not a fan of SOPA/PIPA.

Filed Under: al gore, copyright, internet, internet freedom, pipa, protect ip, sopa

DailyDirt: Renewable Energy Sources Might Need Some Resuscitation

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Burning fossil fuels may never be completely replaced by alternative energy technologies, but that doesn't mean people should stop trying to develop better fuels and energy sources. There are new developments in renewable energy all the time, though unfortunately, it takes a while for energy projects to really mature and scale up. Can't wait until flying cars and "Mr. Fusion"-powered DeLoreans are commonplace.... in the meantime, here are some interesting links:

A cerium-catalyzed reactor takes carbon dioxide, water and sunlight and produces fuels. The prototype seems to be roughly as efficient as photosynthesis -- but it has the potential to be much more efficient. So check back in a few years to see if this technology actually pans out. [url]

Small scale solar power systems might work in developing countries. Off-grid electricity sounds like a nice idea, but apparently funding it isn't easy because investors don't see the profit in it. [url]

Al Gore says corn ethanol was a mistake, and more folks are arguing against using ethanol in gasoline. But will the corn subsidies ever end? [url]

T. Boone Pickens is pulling out of his wind energy project. Apparently, Pickens was trying to make a "quick buck" from it, but that's not how wind projects usually work out. [url]

Filed Under: al gore, solar energy, t. boone pickens, wind energy

Sarah Palin Joins Al Gore In Not Realizing That Everyone's A Reporter These Days

from the something-in-the-veep-sauce? dept

Last year, we wrote how odd it was that former VP Al Gore banned reporters from a speech he gave, where all audio-video equipment was also banned. These days, such "no reporters allowed" speeches make no sense -- because anyone can be a reporter. Yet, it seems that there's something in the veep sauce (or veep wannabe sauce) that leads to these sorts of positions, as former VP candidate, Sarah Palin, is trying to do the same thing, barring "reporters" along with any kind of recording devices from a talk that she is giving. You can understand, perhaps, why politicians like to do this, but it seems both out of touch and completely pointless. Every single person in that room can be a reporter in one way or another -- and it doesn't take a recording device, but a pencil and some paper (or a decent memory). Trying to block out the "official" press is just a waste of time.

Filed Under: al gore, citizen journalism, reporters, sarah palin

Current Blames Economy For No IPO... But, Lack Of Profitability May Have Been A Bigger Issue

from the let's-get-real dept

Last year, when Al Gore's Current Media filed to go public, we couldn't figure out how it could possibly have a successful IPO, unless it came from the strength of Al Gore's name alone. The company wasn't profitable, wasn't receiving very much buzz, didn't seem to do anything all that unique, and its big plans to be a cable channel "for the internet age" hadn't been very successful (the internet stuff was a failure, almost all revenue came from the pure cable side). So, now that the IPO has been canceled, the company is conveniently blaming the economy, but you have to think that the company's actual prospects had even more to do with it than anything else. If the company had actually been doing well, I'd imagine it would actually be a good time to go out, as those with money actually are looking for decent buys.

Filed Under: al gore, ipo
Companies: current media

What's Al Gore Got To Hide From The Mobile Industry Trade Press?

from the inquiring-minds dept

The US mobile industry is gearing up for its big yearly trade show in Las Vegas in a few weeks, and Al Gore will be delivering one of the keynote addresses. Nothing too unusual there -- except that Gore wanted the press banned from attending his speech, as he's tried to do before. Call us crazy, but usually when you're speaking to advance a cause (as we thought Gore was doing with his environmental activism), press coverage is a good thing. Unless, of course, perhaps your attempts to ban press coverage are really just attempts to try and protect the big speaking fees you collect. Perhaps, though, all the attention in the mobile-industry trade press has caused an about-face. The page on the CTIA web site about keynote addresses used to contain the admonition that "VP Gore's keynote address is closed to the press", as the Google Cache version shows. But that line's been dropped from the currently live version. Maybe Gore and his people figuring out that an audience at a cell-phone trade show will probably be full of people with, you know, cell phones, who will send out Twitter messages and moblog posts and all kinds of other info from the speech? Even if the press is banned, the press will be there, and details of his speech will get out. Somehow it seems the more likely reason is the CTIA and Gore just don't want to look like censors.

Filed Under: al gore, ctia, press

Why Is Al Gore Supporting A .Eco Top-Level Domain

from the can-we-get-serious? dept

Considering he invented the thing, it's weird that Al Gore is supporting an initiative that would only add confusion and expense to the Internet. Gore and his Alliance for Climate Protection are publicly endorsing a new effort to create .eco, a new top-level domain for individuals and corporations to "signal their interest in joining a global ecological movement that promotes nonpartisan change." Profits from the initiative, for which Dot Eco LLC is currently lobbying ICANN, at their meeting in Mexico, would help fund environmental research.

While the goal is laudatory, the method is just silly. Instead of digital posturing, there are a host of other established, effective organizations and ways that companies and individuals can help protect the environment. A .eco TLD is not necessary to demonstrate support for the environment, it just adds another cost for companies and confuses users.

Filed Under: al gore, eco, tld

Shouldn't Al Gore Know That Everyone Is A Journalist These Days?

from the ban-everyone! dept

Al Gore, who, last we checked had founded a "citizen journalism"-based TV channel and internet site, has apparently told the RSA conference that one of the terms of his keynote speech at the event is that no press are allowed (and no photographs or audio or video recording either). That may have made sense years ago, but in this day and age, where everyone is a "reporter" and everyone has an outlet, it seems rather ridiculous to even think that you can ban "press," let alone make it a clause in a speaking agreement. Last year, the same event drew 17,000 people. You have to figure that a decent number of them have blogs, social networking pages, Twitter accounts and whatnot -- and a very high percentage probably have mobile phones with cameras on them as well (and, of course, it doesn't hurt that CNET appears to be offering to give people a free fleece for taping the event). Sorry, Mr. Vice President, even if you ban them, the press will be attending your talk.

Filed Under: al gore, bans, citizen journalism, press, speeches

Al Gore Throws Hat Into The IPO Ring...

from the not-quite-what-some-were-expecting dept

While there's still some speculation about an Al Gore run for the presidency, it appears he's got bigger fish to fry, such as an IPO for his cable TV station Current Media. Honestly, it looks like a tough sell as an IPO. It's not profitable. There are some serious questions about how viable a business it can be, and its "unique" angles, such as embracing the internet, haven't been all that successful (almost all of its revenue still comes from the TV side). If it succeeds as an IPO, it may be entirely on the strength of Gore's name, which seems like the opposite of what the company should want at this point.

Filed Under: al gore, cable tv, ipo, losses
Companies: current media