FBI Director Robert Mueller has refused to commit to an independent review of the agency’s Carnivore surveillance system.
During an appearance before the Senate Judiciary committee on Tuesday, Mueller said he couldn’t promise another look at the controversial technology, which the FBI has renamed DCS1000. The Senate later confirmed Mueller in a 98-0 vote.
“Would you have a formal review of it?” asked Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Washington).
Replied Mueller: “I would look at the formal reviews that have already been done to determine whether there is a necessity for doing another formal review.”
What Mueller failed to mention is the only review to date was performed by a group with close ties to military and law enforcement. Independent researchers, like those at MIT or Princeton University, refused to participate when they realized how slanted the review process was.
Mueller also said he couldn’t “commit” to releasing information about the keystroke-recording technology the FBI used in a case against an accused New Jersey mob figure.
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Jail Dmitry: Geektivists may be marching in the streets chanting, “Free Dmitry,” but top politicians are applauding the arrest of Russian programmer Dmitry Sklyarov on copyright infringement charges.
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), the ranking member on the Senate Judiciary committee, said this week that he commends the Justice Department for, “what I hope is a commitment to cyber-crime enforcement.” Hatch went on to state that he hoped the FBI would consider it a priority as well.
“The committee’s work is starting to bear fruit in the form of criminal prosecutions of Internet piracy…. We have just recently seen the first criminal prosecutions brought under the DMCA,” Hatch said, referring to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
Sklyarov is charged with trafficking in a program to bypass Adobe’s copy protection for e-books, a federal felony under the DMCA.
The chairmen of the House and Senate subcommittees dealing with intellectual property told Wired News last week they believe the DMCA is working as planned and have no intention of changing the law.
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Double duty: A DoubleClick executive has taken a top post at the Department of Commerce.
Nuala O’Connor, DoubleClick’s vice president for data protection and chief privacy officer, will start Aug. 13 as Commerce’s deputy director of the Office of Policy and Strategic Planning.
Long the target of lawsuits and public outcry — even earning an infamous “Big Brother” award from Privacy International — DoubleClick’s demographic profiling database targets advertisments to Web users based on their Internet habits.
“I will be assisting Don Trigg, the office’s director, in advising commerce secretary Donald Evans on an array of policy issues,” O’Connor wrote in an e-mail to friends this week. “As a result, my last day at DoubleClick will be [Friday].”
Left-leaning privacy groups will certainly howl about this latest example of the Bush administration selling out to corporations. However, those with long-term memory cells will remember that President Clinton also filled his administration with former liberal nonprofit group execs.
Microsoft appeal: We said two weeks ago that Microsoft may appeal its partial antitrust defeat to the Supreme Court. Now that outcome seems even more likely.
On Thursday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit denied both Microsoft’s petition for rehearing and the Justice Department’s attempts to speed up the legal process.
In a terse, one-paragraph order, the court wrote: “It is ORDERED that the motion for immediate issuance of the mandate be denied. It is FURTHER ORDERED that the petition for rehearing be denied. Nothing in the Court’s opinion is intended to preclude the District Court’s consideration of remedy issues.”
Translation: A new federal district judge — who will replace the biased and disgraced Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson — decide whether a breakup is the right solution to Microsoft’s alleged wrongdoing.
Unless, of course, Microsoft appeals to the Supreme Court.
If last month’s filing is any indication, Microsoft is hoping the nation’s highest court will see things more favorably. Microsoft says: “With the benefit of this court’s narrowing and focusing of the issues, the Supreme Court may well undertake a review of one or more questions presented by the case now.”
Microsoft has seven days to decide if it will pursue the matter further.
