White House 'Responds' To Petition For Strong Encryption... By Asking For More Info From A Misspelled Ed Felten

from the say-what? dept

Earlier this year, the EFF's Rainey Reitman set up the SaveCrypto.org petition, which tied directly into the White House's We the People... petition site. The petition got the necessary 100,000 signatures to demand a response (though the White House isn't always good about doing that). And, now the White House has responded (sorta). The petition itself is pretty clear:

Reject any law, policy, or mandate that would undermine our security.

The government should not erode the security of our devices or applications, pressure companies to keep and allow government access to our data, mandate implementation of vulnerabilities or backdoors into products, or have disproportionate access to the keys to private data.

We demand privacy, security, and integrity for our communications and systems. As a public, we should be confident that the services we use haven’t been weakened or compromised by government mandate or pressure. No legislation, executive order, or private agreement with the government should undermine our rights.

Weakening encryption weakens the entire Internet. Please endorse strong encryption, and encourage other world leaders to do the same.

The response, on the other hand, is not clear at all. It just asks people to provide more info and says it's meeting with the people who put together the petition this week.

We want to hear from you on encryption:

Thank you for signing the petition on strong encryption and speaking out on this important national debate. As the President has said, "There's no scenario in which we don't want really strong encryption." It is critical that the government, the private sector, and other experts regularly engage to understand the impacts of encryption on national security, public health and safety, economic competitiveness, privacy, cybersecurity, and human rights around the world.

This conversation about encryption is also part of a broader conversation about what we, as a nation, can do to fight terrorism as it evolves online. That is why, in his address to the nation on Sunday, the President reiterated the Administration’s call for America’s technology community and law enforcement and counter-terrorism officials to work together to fight terrorism. American technologists have a unique perspective that makes them essential in finding new ways to combat it. They are the best and most creative in the world, and we need them to bring their expertise, innovation, and creativity to bear against the threat of terrorism.

This week, administration officials will sit down with the creators of this petition to hear directly from them about their priorities and concerns.

We also want to hear from you. Share your comments and questions here, and we'll report back after the meeting.

This is a critical conversation, and we want to hear from as many voices as we can.

Thanks again for your participation in We the People.

Now, there are all sorts of problems with this. First off, Reitman says that contrary to the claims made in the response, no one from the White House has contacted her or anyone else at EFF. So, that claim that the White House is sitting down with the creators of the petition is bogus.

Second, while you should all go to that website and tell the White House what you think about strong encryption, it's absolutely ridiculous that anyone actually thinks that's necessary. The petition itself told the White House what they thought about encryption and that's that it's important in protecting our privacy and security and undermining it is dangerous with almost no real benefit. And, indeed, almost every technology expert who has opined on this subject has said the same thing -- including Ed Felten, the White House's Deputy CTO who supposedly co-wrote this response.

Except he didn't. Because not only does it not sound like him, the letter was actually signed by "Ed Felton" not Ed Felten: Someone in the White House (Ed?) noticed this eventually and it's since been changed, but it certainly suggests Felten himself had little to nothing to do with this response. The other signature on the letter is from Michael Daniel, the President's cybersecurity czar, whose name you might recognize from that time he bragged about his lack of technology knowledge and skills, claiming it could "be a little bit of a distraction" and later argued that of course backdooring encryption was totally possible, though when asked to name a single technology expert who agreed with him, noted that "I don't have any off the top of my head." We're still waiting.

Of course, I think we know which one of those two names actually wrote this non-response. But if that's the way the government is going to play the game, we might as well make use of the tools they've provided and let them know (yet again) about the importance of strong encryption without backdoors.

Filed Under: ed felten, encryption, going dark, petition, rainey reitman, we the people, white house
Companies: eff

White House Vaguely Agrees Outdated ECPA Should Be Reformed But Only With An Eye On The Government's 'Interests'

from the SOMEONE-SHOULD-REALLY-FIX-THAT-SOMETIME dept

The Obama administration must be doing a little housecleaning in preparation for the 2016 winner. After months of highly-sporadic and belated responses to We The People petitions, it's answered two big ones (that have been sitting around forever) in a single day. It's also issued a handful of other responses to open petitions, some of which are little more than "we decline to respond," accompanied by a link to the site's Terms of Participation.

It took on two big petitions today. The first was a response to a request to pardon Snowden, which it denied under its "No Good Whistleblowing Goes Unpunished" policy. The second asked for a long-delayed rewrite of an outdated law.

The Electronic Communications Privacy Act has been in need of reform for years. If nothing else, the law's misleading name needs to be changed. One of the more notorious aspects of the law is that it gives email less privacy protection than snail mail, which is already an exceedingly low bar.

The administration agrees that reform of this law -- which treats email older than six months as "abandoned" and thus easily-accessible by law enforcement -- is needed. However, it does so both belatedly, vaguely and disingenuously.

The We The People petition calling for ECPA reform was posted November, 12, 2013. It passed the 100,000-signature threshold roughly 30 days later. At that point, a response was "required." 593 days later, that response has finally arrived.

It's obvious that many -- and arguably, most -- Americans today use email as one of their primary means of communication. Particularly in an era where we keep so much of our lives online, the content housed there deserves strong privacy protections -- which is at the core of what ECPA was designed to do. But over time, technology has evolved.

Which is why our policy teams agree with you: ECPA is outdated, and it should be reformed.

This is good news. Or it would be if there were any particular plan to get something done. While the response agrees that the outdated law's take on email privacy protection is pretty much terrible, the administration doesn't seem too willing to push for any specific reform effort.

We know there are still important details being worked out across government and in the halls of Congress. We aren't going to endorse a single ECPA-reform bill at this time. As any given bill goes through committee and makes its way to the House and Senate floors, the draft is negotiated and modified to address concerns and strengthen the bill.

In other words, we like the idea of reform so much we're going to do nothing about it. While efforts have been made over the past few years, they've been stalled/gutted to appease law enforcement and (yes, really) regulatory agencies' interests. Very little forward motion has been made and without something stronger than "we'll probably support whatever actually makes its way to the President's desk" propelling this reform, it could still be several more years before the already-outdated law is rewritten to properly address a communication method that originated nearly 45 years ago.

Finally, the response sends a mixed message about reform in the very last sentence.

That said, we're encouraged by the strong bipartisan support for updating this legislation in both chambers of Congress, and are looking forward to seeing this law address today's technological realities while preserving the interests we must protect.

This seems to indicate it will be more supportive of a bill that has the backing law enforcement and other government agencies. A warrant requirement for emails older than six months isn't that much of an imposition, but so far, it's been a tough idea to sell. This last sentence shows the administration finds the government's "interests" worth protection. The privacy interests of millions of Americans? Not so much.

Filed Under: 4th amendment, ecpa, ecpa reform, email, obama administration, privacy, warrant, we the people

White House Finally Answers Snowden Pardon Petition: The Only Good Whistleblowing Is Punished Whistleblowing

from the because-of-course-this-would-be-the-answer dept

The White House has finally responded -- more than two years later -- to a petition asking for a pardon of Edward Snowden. The petition surfaced soon after Snowden went public with his identity. Less than three weeks later -- June 25, 2013 -- it had passed the 100,000-signature threshold.

Understandably, the administration was in no hurry to respond to this petition. In the immediate aftermath of the first leaks, no entity was more unpopular than the NSA. Snowden, on the other hand, probably could have won a number of local elections as a write-in candidate at that point. So, the administration sat on it, as it has sat on a great many petitions not particularly aligned with its desires.

Unfortunately, the public's opinion hasn't shifted much. As other agencies have become more plaintive in their requests to undermine privacy and safety to keep criminals from "going dark," the public has become less and less enthusiastic about being forced to make more sacrifices in the interest of security. The NSA also hasn't become more popular in the interim. So buying time by cherry-picking We The People petitions to respond to hasn't made answering this petition any easier for the administration.

More than two years later -- 763 days past the point it became a viable petition -- the administration has answered. And the answer could have been written two years ago, as it refuses to acknowledge Snowden's contribution to recent surveillance reforms. The response was written by Lisa Monaco, the president's advisor on Homeland Security and Counterterrorism. Considering the source, the response is unsurprising. But it starts off with a lie:

Since taking office, President Obama has worked with Congress to secure appropriate reforms that balance the protection of civil liberties with the ability of national security professionals to secure information vital to keep Americans safe.

Wrong. The "appropriate reforms" have been forced into existence by leaked documents Snowden provided. This "conversation" the President keeps claiming he always wanted to have only took place because he could no longer ignore it. This opening sentence is worse than merely disingenuous. It's a complete rewrite of Obama's civil liberties legacy. Before the Snowden leaks, Obama's stance on surveillance was "whatever Bush did, only more."

Next, Monaco goes on to say that no matter how instrumental Snowden was in the recent surveillance reforms (without ever actually saying that), he's still a just a criminal and should be treated as one.

Instead of constructively addressing these issues, Mr. Snowden's dangerous decision to steal and disclose classified information had severe consequences for the security of our country and the people who work day in and day out to protect it.

Except that this administration is no friend to whistleblowers. Snowden knew this. Snowden also knew the "proper channels" were mostly there to ensure whistleblowers were silenced and punished. So he ran. This administration has prosecuted more whistleblowers than all other administrations combined. When Snowden took off, it was five years into Obama's presidency, plenty of time to gauge what sort of odds the "proper channels" offered.

From that point, Monaco goes on to claim that the only legitimate act of civil disobedience is a punished act of civil disobedience.

If he felt his actions were consistent with civil disobedience, then he should do what those who have taken issue with their own government do: Challenge it, speak out, engage in a constructive act of protest, and -- importantly -- accept the consequences of his actions. He should come home to the United States, and be judged by a jury of his peers -- not hide behind the cover of an authoritarian regime. Right now, he's running away from the consequences of his actions.

First off, this is wrong. As has been explained countless times, under the Espionage Act, which is what Snowden would be charged under, he is not allowed to present the evidence in his defense that he was blowing the whistle on an illegal program (and yes, it has been ruled illegal). Nor is he allowed to argue that the leak was in the public interest. In other words, the law is stacked such that he cannot present his argument fairly. The deck is stacked and Monaco knows the deck is stacked and ignores that -- which is exceptionally dishonest.

I would imagine Monaco -- and by extension, the administration -- would also feel that those who hacked Hacking Team are the real criminals here, not the company that sold surveillance software and zero-day exploits to governments known for widespread abuse of their citizens. "Look, we appreciate them highlighting these dubious and likely illegal contracts. But to move forward, we really need to put the hackers who obtained the documents on trial."

But, honestly, no one expected this response to go any other way. No one who holds the top office in the nation is going to sell out the rest of the government for a whistleblower. So, it could have saved everyone the trouble and posted this answer June 26, 2013.

Filed Under: ed snowden, espionage act, lisa monaco, nsa, obama administration, petition, surveillance, we the people

White House Responds To Petition About Aaron Swartz By Saying Absolutely Nothing

from the that's-a-response? dept

Soon after the unfortunate suicide of Aaron Swartz, a lot of anger was directed at Carmen Ortiz, the US Attorney who was the key figure behind the ridiculous prosecution of Swartz for daring to download too many documents (that he had legal access to, as did anyone connecting to MIT's network). Ortiz showed no concern at all that either she or her office had done anything improper in threatening Swartz with over 30 years in jail for downloading (legally) some academic papers. As a result some people set up one of those "We the People" White House petitions, asking the Obama administration to remove Ortiz from her job.

This petition had no chance. Petitions are supposed to be used to get the White House to discuss or commit to policy positions. Specific personnel decisions seem way outside the scope. Besides, as bad a job as we may think Ortiz did in handling the Swartz situation, frankly, it's not the kind of thing the White House will ever come out and say directly. That's just not how it works.

Similarly, while at times the "We the People" petitions have been useful in forcing the White House's hand on things, for the most part, the administration seems to ignore most of them, even if they got the required 100,000 signatures demanding a response.

So I'm at a total loss as to why the White House suddenly decided -- two years later -- to respond to the petition to remove Ortiz from her job, and to basically say... absolutely nothing in response:

Aaron Swartz's death was a tragic, unthinkable loss for his family and friends. Our sympathy continues to go out to those who were closest to him, and to the many others whose lives he touched.

We also reaffirm our belief that a spirit of openness is what makes the Internet such a powerful engine for economic growth, technological innovation, and new ideas. That's why members of the Administration continue to engage with advocates to ensure the Internet remains a free and open platform as technology continues to disrupt industries and connect our communities in ways we can't yet imagine. We will continue this engagement as we tackle new questions on key issues such as citizen participation in democracy, open access to information, privacy, intellectual property, free speech, and security.

As to the specific personnel-related requests raised in your petitions, our response must be limited. Consistent with the terms we laid out when we began We the People, we will not address agency personnel matters in a petition response, because we do not believe this is the appropriate forum in which to do so.

If that's the answer, why bother responding at all? Even the opening statement expressing concern for Swartz's family and friends rings hollow. While I know, for a fact, that some in the White House absolutely do understand what Swartz meant to the internet, this response is incredibly weak. Of course, even though they couldn't do anything or say anything about Ortiz, an announcement like this (two years later) could have been tied to some sort of program on internet openness, or increasing access to public domain works, or any of a number of projects and campaigns that Swartz was close to. There was no real reason to pick up this thread now, but having decided to answer the petition now, the White House certainly could have done something a lot more productive with it.

Filed Under: aaron swartz, carmen ortiz, obama administration, petition, we the people, white house

White House Admits That It Still Supports Parts Of SOPA: Wants To Make Streaming A Felony

from the because-of-course dept

Last week, we wrote that Senator (and still for the next few weeks, Majority Leader) Harry Reid was looking for ways to push for a piece of SOPA, making streaming a felony, into law. The story we'd heard from multiple sources was that he was looking to attach it to the USA Freedom Act. His office came out and denied that claim vehemently. Still, multiple sources insisted not only that it was true, but that Reid was still looking for other vehicles to push that through. And... just days later, the White House responded to some (somewhat pointless) White House "We The People" petitions by... announcing that it, too, wanted to turn unauthorized streaming into a felony. This was in response to two separate petitions, Stop SOPA 2013 and Stop SOPA 2014. Neither petition made much sense, as SOPA has been long dead since early 2012. There was never any specific bill in either 2013 or 2014. And yet, Alex Niejelow, the chief of staff to the IP Czar (a position that is in limbo, as the new czar has been nominated, but not yet approved), used those petitions as an opportunity to reiterate that the White House, like Reid, supports making unauthorized streaming a felony.

Niejelow carefully tries to frame the plan as not going after individuals for uploading videos, but the language choices are deliberate here:

To be clear: We are not advocating for, and do not support, Congress enacting criminal sanctions against people who upload their own, non-commercial performances of other artists' works on Tumblr, against the content creators making your favorite mashup on YouTube, or against the users of these services -- like many of you who signed this petition -- who watch and listen to this digital content.

Rather, we think the law should deter the large-scale willful reproduction, distribution, and streaming of illegal, infringing content for profit. We think it is important to combat this type of activity because of the negative impact it has in diminishing the drive and economic incentive to produce the great movies, sporting events, and music that we love and that account for millions of American jobs and billions of dollars contributed to our economy annually.

Almost everything in those two paragraphs is misleading -- sometimes extremely so. As Harvard law professor Jonathan Zittrain helpfully explained back in 2011, the move to make unauthorized streaming a felony, changed the law in subtle, but dangerous ways. It's true, of course, that merely uploading a file would not be considered an offense under that part of the law (it may violate other aspects of the law), but it could still be problematic. Here was Zittrain's discussion, specifically in response to the question of whether or not Justin Bieber could have gotten in trouble for uploading videos of himself covering songs:

No one is saying that the public performance is occasioned by the mere act of uploading or downloading a file -- so a huge part of that analysis is going after straw men. The question is whether placing a file onto YouTube and configuring the placement so that it can be streamed -- indeed, intending that as the only reason for the file being there -- results in a performance as it's streamed to lots of people. Sadly that answer could be yes. Here's the definition of a public performance under 17 USC 101:

To perform or display a work "publicly" means (1) to perform or display it at a place open to the public or at any place where a substantial number of persons outside of a normal circle of a family and its social acquaintances is gathered; or (2) to transmit or otherwise communicate a performance or display of the work to a place specified by clause (1) or to the public, by means of any device or process, whether the members of the public capable of receiving the performance or display receive it in the same place or in separate places and at the same time or at different times.

So, the argument would go that Bieber falls under clause (2) -- he's transmitting a performance to a place open to the public ("YouTube") or perhaps simply to the public directly, "by means of any device or process."

The fact that YouTube might also be liable for performing the work (or may or may not have a license if the license is just for it) is irrelevant; you can have more than one party deemed responsible for an infringement. Indeed, think about embedding the video on your own page -- would it matter if the page were served from your own server in your home (the easiest case for liability) or from a third party hosting service with whom you'd contracted, or who let you put it there? Surely putting the stuff on a rental server wouldn't be enough to "launder" liability for the person who put it there. (Again, ignoring whether the third party server could itself be liable, too; this starts to implicate the DMCA safe harbors.) YouTube contributors have their own little home pages on the service, in which their videos are embedded. So, yes, those videos are likely public performances.

Of course, they try to get around this by claiming they don't want this to impact "non-commercial performances." But, the definition of "non-commercial" is pretty fluid. Did you put ads on your upload? Uh oh. Did the video go viral and allow you to do something that made money? Uh oh.

Or how about the "large-scale" aspect. Well, we embed plenty of YouTube videos on this site. Would that make us "large-scale"?

And then there's the "negative impact" argument. Really? What is the actual negative impact from people streaming these works? As we've shown, the actual output of basically all of these industries is rapidly increasing. There doesn't seem to be any evidence of a negative impact at all. It's especially bullshit to slip in "sporting events" in there (but, again shows how sporting organizations, including UFC and MLB, have been key to lobbying for this change), when the sporting events industry is thriving at unprecedented levels, and many of the major sports leagues (especially MLB) have shown that when you make a really good premium product, people will pay.

In fact, literally the day after the White House appeared to be arguing that streaming has created a "negative impact [that is] diminishing the drive and economic incentive to produce great... sporting events," PwC came out with its latest analysis of the sports market in North America, showing that it's nothing but up, up and up for sporting events in the US. If people streaming these events online has diminished the economic incentives, someone forgot to tell, well, everyone. If your job is to be in charge of understanding "intellectual property" in the US, shouldn't facts like this have a role? Here's PwC's data (2014 is estimated, as of October), and it shows a pretty steady upward trend, especially on "media rights," the only part really likely impacted by any streaming: Furthermore, if you look at the full report [pdf] PwC predicts continued massive growth, especially in media rights, but we won't show that because it's speculation.

But, basically, the argument that sports events are somehow facing negative incentives to put on great events because some people are streaming unauthorized versions just doesn't make any sense at all. It makes the claim that such a law is needed incredibly suspect, and hints strongly at the simple fact that this is nothing more than an attempted government favor to certain lobbyists.

Even where sports streaming does occur, it tends to be in situations where the leagues themselves have made it nearly impossible to legitimately pay for access in the first place, with idiotic concepts like blackout rules. Want to massively decrease unauthorized streaming of sporting events? Make better services and drop blackout rules. No need to turn hosting a webpage with some embeds into a felony.

Either way, it seems clear that the White House (and some in the Senate) still don't realize that all of SOPA was a bad idea, including the ridiculous plan to make unauthorized streaming a felony.

Filed Under: alex niejelow, copyright, felony, harry reid, ip czar, justin bieber, petitions, sopa, sporting events, sports, streaming, we the people

Administration Proudly Announces That If Your 'We The People' Petition Aligns With Its Priorities, Something Might Actually Happen

from the go-team-Government! dept

Let's get this right out in the open. I don't have any particular animosity towards this administration. I just don't find it to be an improvement over the last one (which I found to be pretty much terrible from all angles). This wouldn't be notable except for the fact that this administration definitely considers itself to be a vast improvement over the last one and has made several proclamations advancing that theory. ("Most transparent administration," anyone?)

We fully expect politicians to be self-serving and those sitting atop the heap to be the most self-serving of all. The White House blog has taken the passage of the cell phone-unlocking bill as an opportunity to toot lean on its own horn.

On Friday, August 1, President Obama signed a bill into law that again made it legal for consumers to unlock their cell phones in order to take them to a carrier that best suits their needs. It marked the very first time a We the People petition led to a legislative fix.

This last fact -- the first time a petition resulted in a legislative fix -- should be an admission of failure. Instead, it's used to depict the administration as a champion of the people.

The petition, which arose in the aftermath of the Library of Congress' horrible decision to not renew this DMCA exemption, attained the number of signatures needed to obtain a White House response. While many others with the minimum number of signatures have been steadily ignored, the White House responded to this one. Beyond the response posted at the We the People site, more was apparently going on behind the scenes.

Folks here at the White House leapt into action. The White House policy team convened more than a half-dozen agencies and offices' senior officials to ask a simple question: How can we move this issue forward? After careful deliberation, it was clear to us: The Administration couldn’t agree more with petitioners, and we came out in strong support of again making it legal for consumers to unlock their devices.

According to the narrative at the White House blog, the administration did all the heavy lifting and motivated Congress to pass a bill -- though it still took a year and a half for a very narrowly tailored solution that only temporarily addresses the immediate problem, but totally ignores the underlying problem (the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA). But whatever the details behind the scenes, what's out front is more of the same.

The message here is that if your petition happens to align with the administration's priorities/viewpoints, you'll receive a swift response and maybe even some legislative activity. If your petition happens to run contrary to the administration, the best you can expect is some long-delayed talking points in response… if you receive anything at all.

The We the People site is a good idea -- an easy way for citizens to exercise their First Amendment right to petition their government. But that idea has been largely destroyed by the administration's refusal to treat it as anything more than a place to cherry pick requests for PR purposes. If this site's ever going to serve the higher purpose it's supposed to, it needs to be given more than rote recitals of position papers. The administration needs to start responding seriously to petitions that challenge its positions or run contrary to its aims. And it needs to stop ignoring anything that's passed the signature threshold. The way it handles this has little if anything to do with respecting the public's First Amendment rights.

Filed Under: anti-circumvention, copyright, petitions, phone unlocking, unlocking, we the people, white house

New We The People Petition Asks White House To Respond To Eligible Petitions Within 30 Days

from the yo-dawg-i-herd-you-like-petition-responses... dept

This is what happens when you ignore the public. Are you happy, We the People?

WE PETITION THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION TO:

Respond to all Whitehouse.gov petitions that get over 100k signatures within one month.

Whitehouse.gov petitions were intended to give the public a voice. The idea is that if more than 100,000 people all feel strongly enough about something to hand over their home address and personal email to the government and complete a nearly impossible CAPTCHA, then the President of the United States should have to respond to them. Because... democracy.

Here's the problem: there are dozens of Whitehouse.gov petitions that have received more than 100k signatures, but have gone months and even years without a response (1). That's not improving transparency, it's the same gov't spin we've always had. So what will it, Obama, hypocrisy or democracy? Sign!

It's a nice idea. There are petitions that appear to be permanently stuck to the administration's backburner while others that haven't even met the 100k signature threshold have been answered simply because the White House has a canned response on hand.

Others require more thoughtful answers or (would) force the administration to take a stance on controversial issues, something it clearly would rather not do. The average wait for a response has slipped to nearly 300 days. Among the petitions still being actively ignored by the White House are ones dealing with pardoning Edward Snowden and firing the attorney who handled Aaron Swartz's prosecution.

This new petition, created on April 1st, is clearly tongue-in-cheek. While there are some petitioners who mistake petitions for binding contracts, this probably isn't one of them. However, it does go meta on the issue, potentially putting the administration in the position of agreeing to address petitions in a timely fashion. This could prove uncomfortable for the White House since it appears it would rather ignore certain petitions until the White House changes hands in 2016.

Filed Under: democracy, petition, public participation, responses, we the people, white house

Administration Finally Responds To A Petition... About Something A Child Said On The Jimmy Kimmel Show

from the wow-such-power-to-the-people dept

As we just noted, the administration has put a wide variety of We the People petitions on the back burner with the average wait for a response currently sitting at 298 days. This includes one of the petitions to first hit the signature threshold back in 2011. While we're still waiting for the government to address the labeling of GMO foods, the dismissal of charges against Ed Snowden and allowing Tesla to sell vehicles in all 50 states, the administration has stepped up to declare it won't be removing Jimmy Kimmel from the airwaves.

Confused? Here's the petition in all of its clumsily-worded glory.

Investigate Jimmy Kimmel Kid's Table Government Shutdown Show on ABC Network

I was very disturbed by Jimmy Kimmel’s ‘Kids Table’ show. It was aired on ABC recently and talked about killing all the Chinese so that the states do not need to pay back their debts to China. The kids might not know anything better. However, Jimmy Kimmel and ABC’s management are adults. They had a choice not to air this racist program, which promotes racial hatred. The program is totally unacceptable and it must be cut. A sincere apology must be issued. It is extremely distasteful and this is the same rhetoric used in Nazi Germany against Jewish people. Please immediately cut the show and issue a formal apology.

A single quote from a single child was construed by this petitioner as being indicative of Jimmy Kimmel and ABC's inherent racist attitudes and the petition itself achieved full Godwin in less than seven sentences. It also instructed to government to trample the First Amendment by removing Kimmel's show from the air and apologize on its behalf. Lost in the shuffle is the title's request for an investigation, but apparently just killing the show without checking anything out would also be acceptable.

The administration has responded, pointing out that both parties have already apologized and that instructing ABC to remove the show would be a gross misuse of government power. It then invites the 100,000+ troubled petitioners to contact the FCC, presumably because their use of the We the People site shows they don't mind being ignored by government agencies.

This particular petition isn't even that old. It was created on October 19 and its deadline for a response would have been a month later. Less than 90 days from creation to response. That's some sort of land speed record for the Administration of the People, whose approach to open government is long on talk and short on action. And of the limited actions, it's most famous creation is the We the People site, which serves to remind users just how ineffective it is to petition the government directly. If nothing else, lobbyists can point to the ~300-day wait time (and the often-ineffectual, long-delayed responses) as an indication of the worth of their services. Not exactly the sort of message the administration should be sending.

Filed Under: jimmy kimmel, petitions, responsive, transparency, we the people

Average Wait Time For A Response At Administration's 'We The People' Petition Site At 298 Days

from the government-crushes-idealists,-film-at-11 dept

The We the People site set up by the Obama administration gave American citizens a more direct way to petition their government. The ideal propelling it was noble, but it has failed spectacularly in execution. As we've noted before, various petitions have gone unanswered for months after hitting the signature threshold.

The threshold itself has been raised a handful of times as well (from 5,000 to 25,000 to 100,000 as the site increased in popularity), ostensibly to weed out petitions that weren't truly representative of the population. This should have made the administration's job easier. A higher threshold means fewer petitions requiring an answer, and those that surpass the threshold should (although it's not always the case) be of higher quality.

Counterintuitively, as the threshold has increased, so has the response time. (h/t to Techdirt reader Neppe)

Of the 30 unanswered petitions currently posted to We the People, 11 were posted after the threshold was raised to 100,000 signatures and 19 were posted before the threshold was raised to that level.

Unanswered petitions posted after the threshold hike have been waiting 103 days for a response on average.

Unanswered petitions posted before and after the threshold hike have been waiting 298 days, on average, for a response.

What the site was supposed to be (responsive) and what it's turned out to be (a mostly empty gesture) tracks with the administration's continual failure to uphold its own stated ideals. The "most transparent administration in history" has advanced and expanded Bush-era policies that added layers of opacity to the government's inner workings in order to further subvert the notion that a government should be accountable to its constituents. The administration has also prosecuted more whistleblowers than all other administrations combined, further widening the gap between those who govern and those that are governed.

It appears that any petition not deemed a "softball" or that can't be handled by a canned policy statement is backburnered. One of the first petitions to gather enough signatures (requiring labeling of genetically modified foods) has been waiting since September 2011 for an answer. More recent petitions appear to headed down that same road.

The unanswered petitions include one asking the president to fire the U.S. Attorney who led the prosecution of Internet activist Aaron Swartz and one to pardon the National Security Agency documents leaker Edward Snowden.

The Swartz petition will hit a year of being ignored within a month. The Snowden petition is headed into its seventh month without an answer.

It's not as though it's impossible for the administration to answer these in a timely fashion. While the answers given to each of these petitions would probably be unpopular, the point of the site is not for the administration to "look good" but rather to increase its direct communication with the public. The administration also needs to keep in mind that canned policy statements that ignore or only very indirectly address the petitions' subject matter is not "communication."

When petitioners are waiting nearly a year to have their issues addressed, the "offer" of a direct line to the government is effectively empty.

Filed Under: delays, obama administration, petitions, politics, responses, we the people

Tell The Government That It Needs To Get A Warrant If It Wants To Read Your Email

from the they're-not-getting-the-message dept

While there's been so much attention lately on the NSA's surveillance tactics and its legality, for years there's been a separate issue that we've been covering: the outdated ECPA (Electronic Communications Privacy Act) rules (written in the '80s) that cover law enforcement's ability to get access to your data, such as emails. The laws make almost no sense today, as they were written in a time when the internet was much more limited. The idea of everyone storing pretty much all of their information and communications online wasn't even a concept at the time -- and that creates bizarre and nonsensical rules, like arguing that emails that have been on a server for more than 180 days are considered "abandoned" and no warrant is needed to view them.

There's a simple way to fix all this: reform ECPA to protect private data and say that law enforcement needs to get a warrant to view that information. This is not a difficult requirement, and yet law enforcement has been fighting hard against it for quite some time. Back in September, we noted that if Congress really wants to protect online privacy, beyond just the NSA stuff a good first start would be comprehensive ECPA reform.

To that end, someone recently created a "We The People" petition on the White House website asking for ECPA reform, with a key message: the government should get a warrant.

Americans are deeply concerned about NSA surveillance.

But the NSA’s not the only problem. An outdated law says the IRS and hundreds of other agencies can read our communications without a warrant.

That law, known as the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), was written over 25 years ago, before the services we use today even existed.

Right now, several bills in Congress would fix this by updating ECPA to require a warrant, but regulatory bodies are blocking reform in order to gain new powers of warrantless access.

We call on the Obama Administration to support ECPA reform and to reject any special rules that would force online service providers to disclose our email without a warrant.

While many are (perhaps reasonably) skeptical about the "We the People" petitions, they have been shown to be effective tools in getting the White House to take a position on important issues. And, while the DOJ is against this kind of ECPA reform, that's not to say that others in the White House couldn't be convinced to go the other way if they really believe there are enough people in support of such a program. So, check out the petition and let the White House know that it should fix the law so that if law enforcement wants your data, it needs to get a warrant.

Filed Under: ecpa, ecpa reform, email, petitions, warrants, we the people, white house