Humboldt Sentinel

CISPA decried by civil libertarians and White House for lacking limits on info sharing

By Charles Douglas
Humboldt Sentinel

After beating back threats to online privacy late last year such as SOPA and PIPA, Internet activists were appalled by a sudden vote in the House of Representatives to adopt the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act.

Passed on a 248-168 vote, CISPA — which amends the National Security Act to subject the private communications of every American to sharing with the military and the National Security Agency — sailed through the House with the support of 42 Democrats, including Congressman Mike Thompson (Dem. – St. Helena), who also co-sponsored HR 3523. Their vote ignored the signatures of over 1 million Americans rapidly collected by the American Civil Liberties Union, Avaaz.org, Demand Progress, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Free Press.

“CISPA is a dangerous piece of legislation and it’s worrisome that the House has passed such an overreaching bill,” Free Press Action Fund policy director Matt Wood stated. “The bill still lacks effective oversight and accountability for companies and government agencies collecting massive amounts of our personal data.”

President Barack Obama has already threatened to veto the bill due to its treatment of domestic cybersecurity as an intelligence matter and its lack of safeguards on personally identifying information. CISPA now heads to the United States Senate, where its companion legislation, S.2105, is spearheaded by Senator Joseph Lieberman (Ind. – Connecticut) and Susan Collins (Rep. – Maine).

“It would curtail Internet openness and freedom by stripping away crucial privacy protections, and without providing any guarantee of protection for critical infrastructure,” Woods went on to state. “If the Senate chooses to move forward with cybersecurity legislation, we urge senators to make the changes necessary to protect civil liberties and Internet freedom.”

The Washington-based Constitution Project was more blunt with its criticisms, characterizing CISPA as enabling the use of information completely unrelated to security concerns. A constellation of business interests are backing the bill, including AT&T, Facebook, IBM, Intel, Oracle, Verizon and corporate lobby groups like the United States Chamber of Commerce and the National Defense Industrial Association — leading Republican Presidential candidate Ron Paul to call CISPA “an alarming form of corporatism, as it further intertwines government with companies…”

“It permits them to hand over your private communications to government officials without a warrant, circumventing well-established federal laws like the Wiretap Act and the Electronic Communications Privacy Act,” Rep. Paul went on to say. “It also grants them broad immunity from lawsuits for doing so, leaving you without recourse for invasions of privacy.  Simply put, CISPA encourages some of our most successful internet companies to act as government spies, sowing distrust of social media and chilling communication in one segment of the world economy where America still leads.”

The Electronic Frontier Foundation of San Francisco claimed CISPA would lead to the censorship of any speech presumed to degrade a network, not to mention provide private corporations and the feds with a powerful weapon to target whistleblowers.

“It is a long-held American value that the military doesn’t operate on U.S. soil against Americans, and allowing the NSA and [Department of Defense] to collect information on average Americans turns that value on its head,” ACLU legislative counsel Michelle Richardson stated. “All domestic programs must be run by civilian agencies. And finally, CISPA offers few limitations on what can be done with the information that the government ultimately collects.”

Thompson, the North Coast’s representative in the House for nearly 14 years, is running for Congress in the new 5th District, which stretches from southern Lake County to Vallejo and the northern tip of Contra Costa County. He has raised over $38,000 from proponents of CISPA in this election cycle, including $6,000 from Comcast. His office declined to comment on his support for CISPA, which he co-sponsored on Nov. 30 of last year.

The Senate version of CISPA is also co-sponsored by Senator Dianne Feinstein of California.

Redwood ACLU also to hear about state of the free press

Staff Report
Humboldt Sentinel

Local civil rights leaders gather in Bayside tonight to celebrate the work of a longtime champion of the local homeless community.

John Shelter, formerly the Executive Director of the North Coast Resource Center and current director of New Directions, is the latest recipient of the Patriot Award, a recognition of local work done to defend and preserve the Constitutional rights and liberties of us all. The Redwood Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union gives out the Patriot Award every year during its annual meeting.

“It is said that a person’s home is her or his castle,” Redwood ACLU Vice Chair Jack Munsee stated in a release. “When you do not have a castle of your own, no matter how small it might be, you are at a significant disadvantage. John Shelter’s work is inspiring because he has assembled a diverse community of local organizations to help many homeless people overcome that disadvantage and better their own lives.”

Previous recipients of the Patriot Award include the librarians of Humboldt County for refusing to cooperate with the Feds in disclosing the reading habits of local residents, as well as political activist Jack Nounnan, Registrar of Voters Carolyn Crnich and the Critical Incident Response Team.

Shelter’s current work at New Directions, where homeless people are provided with employment opportunities and helped to clean up their campsites, grew out of his years-long work with the North Coast Resource Center, formerly known as the Arcata Endeavor, which provided basic services for poor and homeless people in Downtown Arcata before shutting down late last year.

“I believe it’s about making people whole, feeding their mind, their heart and their soul,” Shelter stated. “As people, we generally want to help homeless individuals. Sometimes we feel we have all the answers.However, people cannot be fixed from a case of homelessness, they need to be given the opportunity to honestly help themselves on their own terms.”

“Political climates change and community leaders move on. Community views on poverty and homelessness change whenever election time rolls around.  We will forever be required to continue community education on homelessness, and on possible solutions to address negative impacts associated with it.  It will also require positive communication and pressure on our community leaders to look at alternative emergency transitional housing options.  We cannot allow the continued criminalization of people that seem to be surviving in third world conditions without many options, without knowing who they are.”

His work with homeless issues is a personal one, as Shelter himself was homeless in Arcata and Eureka in the 1980s. Whether as a public speaker in front of the Arcata City Council or as a member of the Humboldt County Human Rights Commission, Shelter has sought to build bridges between the faith community, businesses and local governments to create pathways out of homelessness that respect individual rights.

“People who are homeless, whether for a day or for weeks or months, are at greater risk of having their rights and civil liberties violated,” Redwood ACLU Chair Greg Allen said. “Their personal safety, personal property, their ability to find work, to find places to sleep, to eat a nutritious diet, to maintain personal hygiene, to vote, their ability to navigate the criminal justice system should they run afoul of the law, all of these are impacted by their lack of a fixed, secure residence.”

The award will follow a keynote speech by Sean McLaughlin, the Executive Director of Access Humboldt, who will address local free speech and free press issues. Access Humboldt maintains four local cable television channels dedicated to local education, government and public access uses. McLaughlin has most recently called attention to California Senate Bill 1161, which would wipe out local and state government oversight over Internet Protocol-enabled communications services.

The Redwood Chapter ACLU represents over 600 dues-paying local residents in Del Norte, Humboldt, Western Trinity and Northern Mendocino Counties. Their annual meeting will also see an election of about half of their Board of Directors for new two-year terms and reflect on local civil liberties victories over the past year. Their meeting starts at 6:30 p.m. on Apr. 23 at the Unitarian Universalist Hall off of Jacoby Creek Road, preceded by a potluck at 6 p.m. For more information, visit redwoodaclu.blogspot.com.

Public access TV hosts panel on future of news

Staff Report
Humboldt Sentinel

The future of news in Humboldt County has itself become news.

In the last several years,  venerable institutions from the Willow Creek Kourier and Humboldt Beacon newspapers to the KVIQ-TV and KAEF-TV nightly television newscasts have all collapsed, and institutions like KHSU-FM have wiped out their news departments. Even start-ups like the Eureka Reporter and Humboldt Advocate have come and gone in the space of a few years.

Amid all the destruction, there’s been little creation — aside from the rise of Access Humboldt on cable television in the Humboldt Bay area, which includes education and government access as well as independent news and entertainment programming on Channels 11 and 12 (including several re-occurring series and other special programs produced by the Sentinel).

With these events in mind, this year’s Sunshine Week, which celebrates the American tradition of freedom of information, will highlight the question of how news gathering will continue on the North Coast. On Wednesday, Mar. 14 at Access Humboldt’s headquarters on the campus of Eureka High School, six panelists will grapple with this issue.

“Humboldt is fortunate to have local broadcasters who care about the future and find creative ways to serve diverse local needs and interests,” panel moderator Sean McLaughlin, the executive director of Access Humboldt, stated in a release. “We’ll hear about the hopes and fears of the folks who bring us local TV and radio news – and gather input from the community to help blaze the path forward,” McLaughlin said.

The panel will include Roy Frostenson, the General Manager of KIEM-TV News Channel 3; Terri Klemetson, the News Coordinator of KMUD-FM Redwood Community Radio; Brian Papstein, President of Eureka Broadcasting Company (which runs KINS-FM); Tom Sebourn, Operations Manager and Program Director for the Eureka stations of Bicoastal Media (including talk radio KGOE-AM); and Ed Subkis, General Manager of KHSU-FM.

Humboldt State University journalism professor Marcy Burstiner, who writes the ‘Media Maven’ column in the North Coast Journal, has been invited, but hasn’t confirmed her attendance as of press time. Burstiner referred to Access Humboldt as being viewed by “a smattering of people in our community” in her most recent article; she also incorrectly claimed that anyone in the community could walk in and use Access Humboldt’s equipment for free.

The discussion will start at 5:30 p.m., and take place in the television studio of the Community Media Center. While the studio is set up to go live to local television, no plans have been announced to actually use this television production facility to make a live television show out of this event.

Frostenson and Burstiner participated in a series of interviews produced by Access Humboldt last year to celebrate Sunshine Week, as did Sentinel publisher Charles Douglas:

 Ownership limits should be maintained by the FCC, claims McLaughlin

Staff Report
Humboldt Sentinel

Access Humboldt has joined more than 50 public interest groups that filed comments today with the Federal Communications Commission regarding the FCC’s broadcast ownership review.

“Access Humboldt supports the national public policy goal of media diversity,” said Sean McLaughlin, executive director of Access Humboldt. “We join with colleagues across the nation in citing the facts of historic failure to achieve diversity of media ownership, and asking for the FCC to address the harms caused by ongoing consolidation.

In their letter to FCC chair Genachowski, Access Humboldt and the public interest groups request that the FCC:

• Evaluate the impact of its media ownership rules on ownership opportunities for women and people of color.
• Take proactive measures to promote ownership of broadcast stations by underrepresented groups.
• Guard against further erosion of media ownership among these groups by maintaining existing media ownership limits.

“For a healthy democracy, we need an open marketplace of ideas that supports freedom of information and expression, including local voices and the unique perspectives of all kinds of people,” added McLaughlin, who is also a Knight Media Policy Fellow with New America Foundation.

“Concentrated absentee ownership of broadband media networks is harmful to the public interest. The best way to ensure information diversity is to support development of community based networks and local media access for public, education and government purposes.”

For more information, call McLaughlin at (707) 616-2381.

Attempt to overturn FCC rules defeated in US Senate

Staff Report
Humboldt Sentinel

Local public access media advocates are thrilled with a vote yesterday which halted an attempt by telecom giants to wipe out guarantees of net neutrality.

The United States Senate defeated a “Resolution of Disapproval” that would have overturned Federal Communications Commission rules to protect the Open Internet by preventing Internet service providers from discriminating between different media outlets.

“Access Humboldt applauds our US Senators Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, especially Barbara Boxer who has been a steady champion on the Commerce Committee, for their action yesterday to defeat a misguided effort to close the Internet,” Access Humboldt executive director Sean McLaughlin stated in a release. “While public interests won the day, it is noteworthy that forty-six United States Senators actually voted in favor of unfettered corporate control over the Internet!”

The FCC continues to haggle over whether net neutrality rules also apply to wireless Internet services the same way they do to traditional phone and cable ISPs.

“The amount of misinformation presented by the opponents of an open internet was truly frightening and demands accountability,” McLaughlin stated. “Clearly, protecting freedom of information and expression will continue to require our eternal vigilance.”

Local media access non-profit claims Open Internet ethos undermined

Staff Report
Humboldt Sentinel

The Federal Communications Commission under the Obama Administration continues the Bush legacy of undermining net neutrality, according to local and national media policy experts, and they’re taking their case to federal court.

This week Access Humboldt, the local media access non-profit which runs public, education and government access channels in the Humboldt Bay area, petitioned the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals for review of an FCC decision entitled “Preserving the Open Internet.” They claim the policy wrongly discriminates between Internet access via mobile devices like smart phones and Internet access via fixed platforms like cable and telephone, and that the rules are legally unsound.

“The FCC’s decision is just too weak,” Access Humboldt executive director Sean McLaughlin stated in a release. “The rules do not provide the strong foundation needed for truly open, innovative networks. So we have a duty to challenge them in Federal Court.”

Access Humboldt is represented by Media Access Project as part of a national effort to protect nondiscriminatory consumer access to all of the Internet’s legal content — one which includes the media reform non-profit Free Press.

“The rules passed last December are riddled with loopholes,” Free Press policy director Matt Wood stated. “They don’t do enough to stop the phone and cable companies from dividing the Internet into fast and slow lanes, and they fail to protect wireless users from discrimination that is already occurring in the marketplace and that will only get worse.”

Current rules do not allow Internet service providers (whether phone or cable) to let some websites load faster than others or block access to websites that do not pay off the ISP, a practice derided by critics as a “Pay-to-Play” system. The FCC does not require wireless ISPs to adhere to the same rules, which has triggered lawsuits from cable and phone company giants fearing their new competitors will benefit from not having to follow the same rules.

“Any commercial arrangements that lead to a small, closed ‘faux-Internet’ rather than the complete, all-encompassing internet goes against the basic human right of freedom of information and expression,” McLaughlin stated. “The Internet belongs to everyone and we need rules to protect it that support open access for everybody, regardless of income, technology or location.”

After petitions are filed by industry and public interest groups, the Federal Appeals Court will determine by lottery in which Circuit the case will be heard.

Deadline is Sept. 19 to join either as a candidate or a voter

Staff Report
Humboldt Sentinel

Have an itch to dictate policy and implement change at your local Public Access television station?

Now’s your chance to snag a seat on the Access Humboldt Board of Directors. Incumbents Harold Horne and Barbara Groom, having both completed their three-year terms, are now up for re-election and must combat any incoming challengers for their seats.

The news was disclosed at yesterday’s regular monthly board meeting, where the AH Board Development Committee announced their handpicked nominees who will appear automatically on the ballot. Other contenders will now have to petition to score a place on the ballot as well. According to Access Humboldt policy, any member of good standing is encouraged to collect ten signatures from other Access Humboldt members and submit a petition to be placed on the ballot.

The deadline is Sept. 19 to submit the petition and be considered a potential applicant for an open seat. Voters must also have renewed their Access Humboldt membership (or obtained a new membership) by that date in order to vote in the election. Membership costs $25 a year for individuals, and $100 for organizations.

“Anyone who submits a petition to nominate with the requisite signatures will be included on the ballot,” stated Tracy Jordan French, administration and development director of Access Humboldt, in a release earlier today.

Ballots will be mailed to members on Sept. 30, and the top-two vote-getters will be announced at the Annual Membership Meeting in late October. Two further seats will then be appointed by the new 2011-2012 Board, which includes six elected members, along with seven designees from local government, educational and non-profit institutions.

For more information, contact French at (707) 476-2872 or tracy@accesshumboldt.net. Membership applications are available at the Community Media Center, located on the campus of Eureka High School at 1915 J Street, or on their website, accesshumboldt.net.