U.S. Rep. Bobby Scott, far right, speaks during a rally to protest proposed legislation to tighten Virginia’s election laws at the Capitol in Richmond on Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2012. (Steve Helber | The Associated Press)

RICHMOND

Measures aimed at tightening Virginia’s election laws cleared two key legislative hurdles Tuesday over the objections of opponents who called them thinly veiled attempts to suppress minority voting rights.

In both cases, the votes broke sharply along party lines, with the General Assembly’s Republican majority supporting tighter election laws and the Democratic minority opposed.

In the House of Delegates, where Republicans have a super-majority, Del. Mark Cole’s HB9 won preliminary approval on nearly a straight party-line vote, 66-28. The measure provides that voters who are unable to present an approved form of identification at the polls, such as a driver’s license, would have to vote with a provisional ballot, which would not be counted unless and until the voter’s identity is verified.

Under current law, a voter without identification is allowed to cast a regular ballot after affirming his or her identity in a sworn statement, subject to felony penalties for lying.

In the Senate, a bill similar to Cole’s, Sen. Steve Martin’s SB1, won committee approval on an 8-7 party-line vote and advanced to the floor, where the two parties are split 20-20 but Republican Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling is empowered to break ties.

Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell has not yet taken a position on the legislation.

A variety of bills to tighten voting and registration procedures await consideration by the Assembly. The measures are needed to prevent voter fraud and ensure fair election results, supporters say.

Cole, R-Spotsylvania County, told the House his bill “does not in any way deny anyone the right to vote. It is intended to protect the integrity of the election process.”

Democrats countered that the bill addresses a problem that doesn’t exist. There is no evidence of ineligible people voting, they said.

Several opponents said the measure is reminiscent of poll taxes, literacy tests and other vestiges of Virginia’s history of repressing African American voting.

Del. Algie Howell, D-Norfolk, who is African American, recalled his father being required to answer questions such as this as a condition of voting in the 1940s: “How many bubbles are there in a bar of soap?”

Earlier Tuesday, several hundred people attended a Capitol Square rally where speakers lambasted the election bills.

It is no coincidence that such measures have been put forward this year, several speakers said – a year in which the nation’s first African American president is running for re-election.

“We know that these voter-suppression activities are designed with a strategic purpose in mind,” Richmond Mayor Dwight Jones said. “The fact that there is a brother in the White House is just unsettling to so many people.”

U.S. Rep. Bobby Scott, D-3rd District, said Virginia voters are being targeted because the commonwealth will be a battleground state in the presidential election. “Whoever wins Virginia will be very well postured to carry the entire nation,” said Scott, who represents Portsmouth and parts of Norfolk and the Peninsula.

The Rev. Benjamin Chavis, former executive director of the NAACP, said the bills are aimed at Americans’ most fundamental right.

“Voting suppression is democracy suppression,” Chavis said. “These are arrogant bills introduced by arrogant politicians.”

At the conclusion of the rally, members of the Legislative Black Caucus led the crowd to the Capitol singing, “We Shall Overcome.”

Also Tuesday, another of the measures under fire by voting-rights advocates began advancing through the House. Del. Danny Marshall’s bill, HB569, would require proof of citizenship – such as a birth certificate or passport – as a condition of registering to vote.

The measure drew the support of a tea party group and opposition from several organizations including the League of Women Voters and the ACLU, which see it as unnecessary.

“I do not want this intrusion into my life,” said Rebecca Jaramillo of Protect Virginia’s Vote. “Who are these illegal immigrants who are trying to vote and destroy America? They aren’t doing it.”

Marshall’s bill was approved on a 4-2 party-line vote by a Republican-controlled House subcommittee.

(AP Photo)

(CNSNews.com) – Starbucks, the world’s largest coffee shop chain, added its name to the list of major corporations that have endorsed a gay marriage bill in Washington State, saying the legislation shares the company’s values at its core. The decision was criticized by many conservative, pro-family organizations.

Leading traditional marriage organizations, for instance, are accusing the Seattle-based company of “meddling” in the debate, after Starbucks joined Google, Microsoft, and Nike in support of the legalization of same-sex marriage that is currently gathering momentum in the state legislature.

Kalen Holmes, executive vice president for Partner Resources, released a statement on Jan. 24 entitled, “Starbucks Supports Marriage Equality,” to all of the company’s U.S. employees. Starbucks employs 149,000 people internationally.

“Starbucks is proud to join other leading Northwest employers in support of Washington State legislation recognizing marriage equality for same-sex couples,” Holmes said. “Starbucks strives to create a company culture that puts our partners first, and our company has a lengthy history of leading and supporting policies that promote equality and inclusion.”

“This important legislation is aligned with Starbucks business practices and upholds our belief in the equal treatment of partners,” she wrote. “It is core to who we are and what we value as a company.”

Starbucks coffee symbol(s). (AP Photo)

Holmes added, “We are deeply dedicated to embracing diversity and treating one another with respect and dignity, and remain committed to providing an inclusive, supportive and safe work environment for all of our partners.”

“We look forward to seeing this legislation enacted into law,” she concluded.

“This is just a sad development,” said Peter LaBarbera, president of Americans For Truth About Homosexuality (AFTAH), a group dedicated to countering the homosexual activist agenda. “We’re seeing the corporate world gravitate more and more towards the pro-gay position and, of course, it ends up with ultimately supporting same-sex marriage.”

“It’s just very sad because corporations, including Starbucks, they seem so much more solicitous of 1 to 3 percent of the population than the many, many millions of pro-family, mainly Christian consumers who oppose the redefinition of marriage,” he said.

Gay Marriage Watch, a news site that promotes same-sex marriage laws, is now calling for Amazon to support the bill.

The Family Research Council (FRC), a conservative organization that promotes faith, family and freedom, published a post on its Web site saying, “Starbucks Doesn’t Know Beans about Marriage.”

In this Oct. 22, 2011 photo provided by the family, Jeff Littlefield, left, and his husband Tommy Starling pose with their 5-year-old daughter, Carrigan Starling-Littlefield, at a friend’s wedding. (AP Photo/Gregory Pittman)

Calling attention to the endorsement, the FRC wrote, “Coffee isn’t the only thing brewing at Starbucks. So is controversy — as customers learn about the company’s bold blend of liberal politics.”

“While the state is still sharply divided over same-sex ‘marriage,’ Starbucks has decided to sweeten the pot for homosexual activists and join the attack on local families,” stated the organization.

“Despite the coffeehouse’s meddling, families in Washington State are doing their best to keep the legislation at bay,” the FRC wrote.

Nonetheless, the same-sex marriage bill passed on a 4-3 vote out of the Senate Government Operations, Tribal Relations and Elections Committee on Jan. 26, and is now awaiting a vote in the full Senate. It appears the Senate has enough votes to pass the measure, joining a solid majority in the House and support by Democratic Gov. Chris Gregoire, according to the Associated Press.

The National Organization for Marriage (NOM) released a statement on Monday vowing to mount a referendum campaign in response to the efforts by the Democrat-controlled legislature to make Washington the seventh state to allow gay marriage.

“NOM will not stand by and let activist politicians redefine marriage, the bedrock of civilization, without voters having a say,” said Brian Brown, the organization’s president.

(AP Photo)

The group has previously worked to overturn gay marriage laws by ballot referendum in Maine and most famously in California, with Proposition 8.

The NOM also conducted a statewide survey that found 57 percent of Washingtonians, after being made aware the state has a civil union law for homosexual couples in place, said it was not necessary to redefine marriage. The results also showed that 72 percent think state lawmakers should work on other issues instead of gay marriage; 71 percent believe the people should decide the marriage issue; and 9 percent think it should be decided by the legislature.

Peter Sprigg, senior fellow for policy studies at the FRC, in an e-mail to CNSNews.com, said: “Starbucks’ endorsement of controversial legislation to change the definition of marriage that was codified by the Washington state legislature only 14 years ago makes no sense. As their statement notes, they already give ‘domestic partner benefits’ to partners of their homosexual employees, as a way of ‘embracing diversity’ and treating them with ‘respect and dignity.’ For the state to redefine civil marriage will add nothing to these internal policies.”

“However, their concern for ‘diversity’ and ‘inclusion’ apparently does not extend to Christians and other citizens who have legitimate concerns about affirming homosexual conduct,” said Sprigg. “Starbucks could well have remained silent in this heated political debate. But by taking sides, they have only shown their contempt for their employees and customers who believe in traditional family values — in contradiction of their expressed corporate values.”

LaBarbera said a majority of Americans support traditional marriage since 30 states have passed defense of marriage amendments that prohibit civil unions, gay marriage or both. “Why isn’t that a factor in Starbucks’ corporate decisions?” he said.

In the past, the AFTAH has called for a boycott of the restaurant chain Chili’s for being a National Corporate Partner to the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, a homosexual activist group.

While his group is not yet calling for a boycott of Starbucks, LaBarbera says, “Consumers should not take their dollars to companies that basically repudiate their own values.”
LaBarbera said the company inserting itself into controversial issues could backfire. “If somebody wants to boycott Starbucks, it’s certainly an easy company to boycott.”

“It’s so easy you, just get your expensive cup of coffee somewhere else,” he said.

By Michael Carl

For 25 years, math teacher Bradley Johnson at Poway High School near San Diego took advantage of a 30-year school policy and hung patriotic posters with sayings such as “God bless America” in his classroom.

But then school officials ordered Johnson to take down the banners, even though other teachers were allowed to keep anti-religious slogans such as John Lennon’s “Imagine,” Buddhist prayer flags and images of Black Muslim leader Malcolm X.

So he went to court, and now the case is on its way to the highest court in the land.

The legal ordeal started in 2007 when school officials are alleged to have suddenly reversed the policy that allowed teachers to display banners, posters and signs that reflected their personal beliefs.

Poway officials told Johnson that his banners violated the establishment clause of the Constitution because they advocated a “Judeo-Christian worldview.”

Johnson pointed to what other teachers displayed, but the district dismissed his concerns.

Thomas More Law Center represented Johnson, and he won the first round in California federal district court, where Judge Robert Benitez said the teacher was within his First Amendment rights.

Benitez extolled the virtues of education while concluding Johnson doesn’t lose his liberties after walking through the school house doors.

“May a school district censor a high school teacher’s expression because it refers to Judeo-Christian views while allowing other teachers to express views on a number of controversial subjects, including religion and anti-religion? On undisputed evidence, this Court holds that it may not,” Benitez wrote.

Benitez also says that the federal courts should use restraint in dealing with local schools.

“Courts should not quickly intervene in the daily operation of schools and school systems, for that task is committed primarily to local school boards,” Benitez wrote.

But he said when a constitutional question is at the heart of the dispute, the courts have a valid role to play in the matter.

“The vigilant protection of constitutional freedoms is nowhere more vital than in the community of American schools,” Benitez wrote.

The school took the case to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the most overturned appellate court in the nation, and Benitez’s ruling was reversed. That means Johnson has nowhere left to go but to the Supreme Court.

The Thomas More Law Center said the issue arose because of criticism from one of Johnson’s colleagues.

“The banners became a problem as a result of a complaint by one of Johnson’s fellow teachers,” the organization’s report said.

Johnson defended his banners because he says other teachers were apparently free to display religious signs. Thomas More said the school ordered Johnson to remove his banners because they believe they can.

“Basically, the school said, ‘we can tell teachers what to do.’ And school officials claim the use of the phrase ‘God’ in each of those phrases violates the Establishment Clause of the Constitution,” a Thomas More spokesman said.

Buddha, on the other hand, is scientific, according to the district, the spokesman said.

“Additionally, they consider the image of Buddha to be more of a scientific interest than a religious symbol.”

The Poway district issued a statement saying school officials believe they were within their rights asking Johnson to remove the banner.

“The Poway Unified School District has believed from the beginning of this case that the removal of a teacher’s banners was consistent with the requirements of the United States Constitution,” the statement said.

“On September 13, 2011, a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously agreed that the district acted correctly, holding that public-school teachers do not have a First Amendment right to say anything they want when teaching to a captive student audience. A month later, the entire 9th Circuit denied the teacher’s request to rehear the appeal,” the statement said.

School system attorney Jack Sleeth Jr. said in the statement that he believes the 9th Circuit acted appropriately.

“We believe that the 9th Circuit properly followed the Constitution and Supreme Court case law in ensuring that all students have a proper environment for learning. The 9th Circuit correctly found that teachers have no First Amendment right to espouse their personal religious beliefs in the classroom,” Sleeth said in the statement.

Civil rights attorney and legal writer Rees Lloyd disagrees with both the school and the 9th Circuit opinion.

“This 9th Circuit decision represents a dangerous, discriminatory, secular-cleansing, anti-Christian precedent, as well as a travesty of justice,” Lloyd said.

“The decision is sure to be perceived for what it is – another monument to arrogant judicial tyranny, transforming the nation beyond all recognition from its founding,” Lloyd said.

“The 9th Circuit, the most liberal and most reversed circuit in the United States, has now held that government school bureaucrats may establish policies creating a right of teachers to express their personal points of view in the classroom,” Lloyd said.

“That includes political, atheist, agnostic, irreligious, non-religious, and religious points of view, except the expression of words and symbols associated with the Judeo-Christian values upon which the American nation was founded, which those school bureaucrats can censure and ban because they find that point of view unacceptable,” Lloyd said.

Lloyd added that the 9th Circuit’s opinion fails to address the issue of whether Buddhist displays may offend Christians.

“Nowhere in the 9th Circuit opinion is there any discussion of whether those displays (the Dalai Lama, etc.) might be offensive to Christians or Jewish students. It is only the American flag, and words associated with Judeo-Christian points of view, upon which the nation was founded, that the school bureaucrats, and the 9th Circuit judges find might give offense,” Lloyd said.

Published: Friday, January 27, 2012, 11:00 PM     Updated: Saturday, January 28, 2012, 7:55 AM

By Times-Picayune Staff

When the New Orleans City Council passed an ordinance in October prohibiting “aggressive solicitation” by people who allegedly harass or intimidate French Quarter residents and tourists while asking for money, it included a seemingly unrelated provision that attracted no attention at the time.

That sentence, almost at the end of the eight-page ordinance, said: “It shall be prohibited for any person or group of persons to loiter or congregate on Bourbon Street for the purpose of disseminating any social, political or religious message between the hours of sunset and sunrise.”

Although the law, sponsored by Councilwoman Kristin Gisleson Palmer, spelled out the justification for the crackdown on aggressive panhandlers, it offered no explanation for the blanket ban on letting people assemble on Bourbon Street at night to voice their views on politics or religion.

When someone complained about the law this week, however, it was not to challenge it as an infringement on First Amendment freedoms. Instead, former mayoral candidate Leo Watermeier complained to Palmer and Councilwoman Jackie Clarkson in public emails that religious demonstrators, sometimes with large signs and bullhorns, have been showing up on Bourbon Street on Friday and Saturday nights, yet police have taken no action against them.

Watermeier wages an annual battle with the small group of anti-gay campaigners who show up during the Southern Decadence festival, using bullhorns and picket signs to convey their message that homosexuality is evil and that its public celebration during Decadence is particularly abominable.

Brendan McCarthy can be reached at bmccarthy@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3301. Bruce Eggler can be reached at beggler@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3320.

Pentagon’s Preview of Defense Budget Indicates Future Military Will Lack Important Capabilities

On January 26, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta provided the public with a preview of the defense budget request the Obama Administration will submit February 13. The full details of the fiscal year (FY) 2013 defense budget request will be released next month, but Panetta’s presentation makes it clear that the budget will not provide the U.S. military with the resources it needs. With inadequate resources come inadequate capabilities, which the Secretary described in general terms.

Lessening the Overall Readiness of the Force

As was the case following the Vietnam War in the 1970s, defense budget reductions of the scope previewed by Panetta generally lead to reduced combat readiness and, ultimately, a hollow force. This is because a force that is too small has to endure higher operating tempos and rotation cycles. It also results in a reduction in the technological edge that permits the U.S. military to achieve victory on the battlefield quickly and with fewer casualties. Finally, it becomes more difficult to man the force with high-quality personnel and maintain high morale.

Meeting the security challenges of the U.S. and its allies requires a ready force that is capable of conducting operations on a global scale. For example, the lack of a persistent U.S. military presence in Asia could permit China to block the freedom of transit in the South China Sea. The resulting disruption of trade would be a disaster for U.S. friends and allies, including Taiwan, which imports 98 percent of its oil via this sea-lane. Likewise, an Iranian blockade of the Strait of Hormuz would disrupt global commerce, as 20 percent of the world’s petroleum products transit the strait.

Further, weaker conventional capabilities carry a significant risk of conflict escalation, including the use of weapons of mass destruction. The costs of the use of nuclear weapons, for example, are practically incalculable in humanitarian, economic, and political terms. Finally, it is critical for the American people to understand that these kinds of defense budget reductions will decrease the power-projection capacity of the U.S. military. It is this power-projection capacity that permits the U.S. to fight its enemies “over there” in places like Afghanistan, as opposed to here at home. If September 11 taught the American people anything, it is that they do not want wars fought on their territory.

The Loss of Important Military Capabilities

After providing his cursory explanation of the budget numbers, Panetta went on to describe the capabilities that will be lost as a result of this budget. Accordingly, it is important for Congress to keep in mind that this budget is not just about cutting waste at the Pentagon. Specifically, the Secretary revealed that the lower budget would result in the following:

• A smaller Army and Marine Corps. The budget will produce an active Army of just 490,000 people. This compares to a current force of some 562,000. On the force structure side, it will reduce the number of combat brigades, including by taking two such brigades out of Europe. The size of the active Marine Corps will be reduced from roughly 202,000 to 182,000. These personnel reductions will be spread over five years. In taking these steps, the Department of Defense raises questions about the level of protection provided to U.S. allies and interests in Europe and confirms that it will no longer be capable of sustaining long-term stability operations.
• A smaller tactical fighter fleet in the Air Force. The spending plan will disestablish six tactical fighter squadrons. An additional training fighter squadron will also be eliminated. Further, the procurement rate of the F-35 or Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) will be slowed. This will likely increase the unit cost of the aircraft and lead to a reduction in the size of the buy over time.
• Retiring older Navy ships while slowing the procurement of new ones. Under the budget, the Navy will move to retire seven cruisers and two amphibious ships at an early juncture while delaying or reducing the procurements of a large amphibious ship, a Virginia class submarine, the replacement strategic nuclear submarine, Littoral Combat Ships, and Joint High-Speed Vessels.
• Reducing air mobility. The budget will force the retirement of 27 C-5A and 65 C-130 aircraft. It will also divest the military of 38 C-27 aircraft.
• Scaling back the missile defense program. In this case, the preview is quite vague. All that Panetta states is that not all funding was protected in this area and that the program will accept some risk in terms of deployable regional missile defense.
• Increased risk to the defense industrial base. The preview acknowledges that the defense industrial base “will require careful monitoring in the future.” This is code, meaning that its viability in certain areas will be difficult to maintain. Further, the Secretary talks about the industrial base in terms of “reversibility,” which means its health is on a downward trajectory.
• Future limits on military compensation. Panetta stated that military pay increases will be limited starting in fiscal year 2015. Health care for military retirees will be subject to increased fees, co-pays, and deductibles. While no specific changes in the military retirement system were proposed, the Department of Defense will establish a commission to make recommendations for restructuring the system. It is certain that the commission’s mandate will include finding ways to reduce costs.

A Shrinking Defense Budget

The Secretary of Defense indicated that the total defense budget will amount to about $635 billion in budget authority in FY 2013, some of which falls outside the Department of Defense and Panetta’s preview. By way of comparison, the total defense budget in FY 2010 was more than $721 billion. Thus, the Secretary of Defense is proposing a defense budget for FY 2013 that is more than $80 billion less than it was in FY 2010—three years earlier. Further, this does not account for the effects of inflation. When inflation is taken into account, the defense budget in FY 2013 will be more than $90 billion less (in FY 2005 dollars).

The decline, however, will not stop in FY 2013. While Panetta did not provide the full array of numbers for the defense budget in the years 2014 through 2017, he did say the budget would cut some $259 billion cumulatively over that period against an unspecified baseline. He made it clear that the budget to be submitted February 13 does not account for the application of automatic spending cuts under the Budget Control Act. The Budget Control Act, enacted late last summer, triggers automatic spending cuts that could amount to as much as $600 billion from the defense budget in addition to those already contained in the pending budget for the period covering FY 2013 through FY 2021. At this point, the only way to avoid these automatic cuts is for the Budget Control Act to be amended or repealed. President Obama, however, indicated last November that he would veto legislation that does either.

The defense budget Secretary Panetta has previewed raises the level of risk for the U.S. and its friends and allies around the world. He acknowledged that reality. What Congress and the American people need to understand is that the stakes are exceedingly high. These stakes include the lives and well-being of many people around the globe, the preservation of the global trading system and future prosperity, and, ultimately, the cause of liberty worldwide. These are not risks worth taking.

Baker Spring is F. M. Kirby Research Fellow in National Security Policy in the Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies, a division of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies, at The Heritage Foundation.

Online Piracy and Internet Security: Congress Asks the Right Question but Offers the Wrong Answers

By Paul Rosenzweig
January 17, 2012

The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA) are well-intentioned House and Senate proposals aimed at stopping the theft of intellectual property through foreign-based websites. Intellectual property is a critical and important form of property. The Framers understood that well enough to authorize the establishment of intellectual property protections when they drafted the Constitution, and we have had copyright protection in America ever since.

Some malicious actors use the Internet as a means of violating the copyright interests of creative producers in a wholesale manner. It is common to find free copies online (often of pretty good quality) of many recent movie and recording releases that can be downloaded and enjoyed without the original creators receiving compensation. That is fundamentally wrong, and the intent of the pending bills—to end online piracy—is the right idea.

But the manner in which these bills attempt to achieve their ends likely would not work. In fact, they would make the Internet generally less secure for everyone.

Understanding Internet Protocols

At the heart of the problem is the requirement that, as PIPA puts it, operators of the Internet can be ordered to “take…technically feasible and reasonable measures” to prevent domain names from resolving to their own Internet protocol addresses. The Internet Protocol or IP address is the number string that is the actual address of a website; the domain name is its common text name. Typically, a domain name resolver function translates, for example, a domain name like “heritage.org” into “93.184.221.133.” What PIPA and SOPA say is that operators like Verizon could be ordered by a court to stop that translation function.

To understand why this is one of the significant problems raised by the bills requires a bit of a technical detour into the workings of the Internet. To begin with, the current protocols of the Internet do not have an “authentication” function. The Internet is designed to move information effectively and efficiently from one place to the next, but it does not have a general security system in place to warn people when their traffic is being hijacked.

Without that sort of security system, efforts to navigate the Web are susceptible to “man-in-the-middle” attacks where the malicious actor steps into the middle of a conversation and hijacks it by making independent connections with the victims. From the middle vantage point, he can relay messages between the victims, making them believe that they are talking directly to each other over a private connection, when in fact the entire conversation is controlled by the malicious actor.

The Internet is also susceptible to pure spoofing—for example, where your request to connect to your bank at “chase.com” is maliciously redirected to a phony “chase.com” website and your login information is collected. For many years, the engineers responsible for the specifications of Internet traffic (the Internet Engineering Task Force, or IETF) have been aware of this vulnerability—which costs millions of dollars every year in theft—and they have been working on a solution.

Internet Security Measures Already Proposed

That quest has resulted in a recent set of technical specifications adopted by the IETF that uses the acronym DNSSEC, which stands for Domain Name System Security Extension. Under DNSSEC, the IETF has proposed a suite of security add-on functionalities that would become part of the accepted Internet Protocol. The new security features would allow a user to confirm the authenticity of a domain name and assure the data integrity of the domain name system (DNS). In other words, the DNSSEC protocols would allow users to be sure that when they attempt to connect to a domain name, such as “whitehouse.gov,” they are reaching the whitehouse.gov website, and they have not been maliciously redirected to some phony facsimile.

Pursuant to DNSSEC, every website will have a certificate of authenticity that will verify that the site is, in fact, the site it purports to be. So, once DNSSEC is deployed, a “security resolver” function would be able to check the authenticity of the registration of the “chase.com” website that your browser is accessing and return to the user either a confirmation that the website is the real chase.com or a warning that its authenticity could not be verified.

Interfering with the Internet

So why is DNSSEC relevant to a discussion of SOPA and PIPA? Those bills are intended to stop online piracy, but instead of attacking the pirates directly—mostly because they are offshore and outside U.S. jurisdiction—SOPA and PIPA look at Internet Service Providers (ISPs) like Verizon and use them as the enforcement mechanism. Both SOPA and PIPA would allow the Attorney General to secure court orders that would require ISPs to prevent Internet traffic from going to pirating websites.

These bills would essentially allow the Attorney General to order ISPs to do something similar to what DNSSEC is trying to prevent: blocking an attempt to reach a website. From the browser code perspective, there is no practical difference between blocking access to the real chase.com and redirecting it to a phony one and blocking access to the real (but criminal) freeillegaldownloads.com—they are nearly identical operations.

To be sure, some differences remain. The latest versions of SOPA and PIPA (which used to have a “block and redirect” requirement but now have only a “block access” requirement) are slightly improved in that they no longer function exactly like criminals do. But they are still close enough to be troublesome. For one thing, the blocking function is likely to slow down domain-name resolution for the entire Internet. It will doubtless begin to erode the level of trust needed in the DNS system. And if American law establishes the principle of permitting DNS filtering, other countries will as well, and the concept of a universal addressing system will be degraded.

More fundamentally, if you disrupt the DNS resolution system, then…you disrupt it. We can really have no idea of the extent of the consequences of mandating the “block only” capability.  But adding that functionality—so that an ISP can, when ordered by a court, disregard the basic directions of the DNS system—would only add complexity to the Internet addressing function and make it more likely that malicious efforts to “block and redirect” traffic would succeed. Any “blocking” function would, at a minimum, interfere with the anticipated operation of DNSSEC, complicating its ability to enhance security.

Would SOPA Even Accomplish Its Goal?

Adding to their other problems, SOPA and PIPA simply would not work. Even if the Attorney General obtained a blocking order that stopped Verizon from letting one go directly to a pirate website, it is relatively easy to work around the block. We can reasonably predict that a host of redirector domains would soon spring up, many of them linked to ISPs outside the United States and outside the Attorney General’s jurisdiction. And after that, there would be downloadable program applications to get to those redirectors. Indeed, one such program, known as “DeSOPA,” has already been developed and deployed as a proof of concept effort and can be downloaded as a Mozilla Firefox extension.

One expert from Sandia labs has called the DNS filtering mandates of SOPA and PIPA a “whack-a-mole” approach.[1] The requirements are sufficiently easy to evade that one can almost predict that the next iteration of PIPA or SOPA will try to make writing, downloading, and using programs to avoid a SOPA/PIPA mandate illegal. That is an effort doomed to failure.

Perhaps most importantly, however, these bills put Congress in the business of managing an integral function of the Internet in ways that are likely to have unanticipated consequences. A working domain-name system is like a working mailing address—the rest of the system depends on it. If the addressing system is compromised, apps will not work, queries will not be answered, and emails will not be received. All those depend on domain names being resolved in the right way. Once you go down the road of allowing (or ordering) the functionality of domain-name filtering (even for a “good” purpose), you create the potential for restricting domain-name access for a host of other purposes.

The underlying principle is known as “domain name universality”—the idea that all of the addressing routers on the system, no matter where they are, will take you to the same domain address for a given website. Everything about Internet communication is based on this principle, and one consequence of PIPA and SOPA is that the principle would be called into question. As a group of leading technology experts (some of whom actually built the Internet) stated:

Mandated DNS filtering would be minimally effective and would present technical challenges that could frustrate important security initiatives. Additionally, it would promote development of techniques and software that circumvent use of the DNS. These actions would threaten the DNS’s ability to provide universal naming, a primary source of the Internet’s value as a single, unified, global communications network…. DNS filtering will be evaded through trivial and often automated changes through easily accessible and installed software plugins. Given this strong potential for evasion, the long-term benefits of using mandated DNS filtering to combat infringement seem modest at best.[2]

Or, as Dr. Leonard Napolitano of Sandia Labs put it in his letter to Congress, the bills: “1) are unlikely to be effective, 2) would negatively impact U.S. and global cybersecurity and Internet functionality, and 3) would delay the full adoption of DNSSEC and its security improvements over DNS.”

Good Intentions, but Dangerous Flaws

SOPA and PIPA would not work; to the extent that they did, they would make Internet security protocols like DNSSEC more difficult to implement; and, at their core, the bills violate the fundamental principle of universality that makes the Internet function as a global communications system.

Late last week, Senator Patrick Leahy (D–VT), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and one of the sponsors of PIPA, indicated that he would consider removing the DNS blocking provisions from the bill and “study” the matter further. Though the inefficacy of DNS blocking probably needs no further study, his statement is a welcome recognition of the problematic nature of these provisions which, unfortunately, remain a part of the House version, SOPA.

One final point is not a technical argument, but a powerful policy principle: If the Chinese or Russians were proposing to do this to prevent access to dissident websites, the U.S. would be screaming bloody murder, and rightly so. Yet if this functionality were deployed, the ease with which censorship could occur would increase, and the United States would lose some of its moral authority to oppose information censorship. America has been struggling internationally to prevent the discussion of “cybersecurity” from mutating into a discussion of restricting Internet content—and these bills go in the opposite direction.

Paul Rosenzweig is a Visiting Fellow in the Center for Legal and Judicial Studies and the Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies, a division of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies, at The Heritage Foundation.

What Is The Proper Role of the Courts?

January 20, 2012

In the Federalist Papers, Alexander Hamilton referred to the judiciary as the least dangerous branch of government, stating that judges under the Constitution would possess “neither force nor will, but merely judgment.” Yet recently, the courts have wielded great power, directing the President on questions as monumental as how to conduct war, and micromanaging the states concerning even the most minute details of local school and prison operations. What is the proper role of the courts?

“[T]he accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.” - James Madison, Federalist 47

The Founders studied political philosophy and the rise and fall of nations throughout history. When confronted with tyranny on their own shores, they rebelled against the dangerous consolidation of power in the British monarchy. Through reason and experience, they recognized that government can threaten liberty by abusing its powers, and they sought to avoid this by separating powers in the U.S. federal government. They believed that this separation of powers, coupled with a system of checks and balances, would make “ambition … counteract ambition.” Rather than depending on officeholders to restrain themselves (which given the power of ambition is unsafe), or on rules set down on paper (which are too easily ignored), the Founders gave each branch authority to exercise, and an interest in defending its own prerogatives, and thereby limited the ability of any one branch to usurp power.

Accordingly, the Founders vested the legislative power (the power to make the laws) in Congress, the executive power (the power to enforce the laws) in the President, and the judicial power (the power to interpret the laws and decide concrete factual cases) with the courts. But even these powers were not unfettered. Federal courts, for example, can hear only “cases or controversies”: they cannot issue advisory opinions. The courts cannot expound on a law of their choosing or at the request of even the President himself, but must wait for a genuine case between actual aggrieved parties to be properly presented to the court.

In explaining judicial power under the Constitution, Hamilton noted that the courts would have the authority to determine whether laws passed by the legislature were consistent with the fundamental and superior law of the Constitution. If a law was contrary to the Constitution, then it was void. Not surprisingly, the Supreme Court agreed, famously announcing its authority to rule on the validity of laws—known as judicial review—in the case of Marbury v. Madison. In weighing the validity of a provision of the Judiciary Act of 1789, Chief Justice John Marshall declared that “It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is.”

“Those who framed the Constitution chose their words carefully; they debated at great length the most minute points. The language they chose meant something. It is incumbent upon the Court to determine what that meaning was.” Attorney General Edwin Meese
July 9, 1985

But the Marbury Court did not claim that the courts possessed the exclusive or supreme authority to interpret the constitutionality of laws. The other branches of government are also legitimately responsible for interpreting the Constitution. The President, for example, takes an oath to support the Constitution, and carries out this oath by determining which laws to sign. While the President may sign or veto legislation for political or policy reasons, the President faithfully discharges his oath by vetoing legislation if he believes that it would violate the Constitution. If the law was signed by one of his predecessors, a President may engage in constitutional interpretation by choosing not to enforce it if he believes it to be unconstitutional.

Thus, President Thomas Jefferson ordered his Attorney General not to enforce the Alien and Sedition Acts because he believed that they violated the First Amendment. Jefferson did this even though some courts had held that the Acts were constitutional. Jefferson’s action is an early practical example of the President using his independent role and judgment to interpret the Constitution.

Members of Congress also take an oath to support the Constitution. Congress interprets the Constitution by deciding which laws to enact. Congress may (and does) choose to enact or reject legislation for political or policy reasons, but when its Members reject legislation that would violate the Constitution, they are acting in accordance with their oaths.

That is how our system is supposed to work. But over time, the Supreme Court has grabbed power by declaring that “the federal judiciary is supreme in the exposition of the law of the Constitution.” The Supreme Court has even gone so far as to declare that its decisions that interpret the Constitution are the supreme law of the land.

Unfortunately, the political branches have largely acceded to these bloated claims. For example, when Congress was considering the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act—popularly known as McCain-Feingold—which imposed numerous restrictions on election-related speech, its Members delivered speeches acknowledging that provisions of the Act were likely unconstitutional. That should have ended the debate.

But some Members surprisingly went on to state that questions of constitutionality were for the Supreme Court, not Congress, to decide, and that Congress should pass the legislation because it was too important not to enact. This was a flagrant abdication of Congress’s role in determining the constitutionality of legislation.

Similarly, when President George W. Bush signed the legislation, he issued a statement asserting that he expected the courts to resolve his “reservations about the constitutionality” of provisions of the Act. This once again left the courts to answer constitutional questions that the President could have and should have decided himself. Thus, by the acquiescence of Congress and the President, the weakest branch has largely succeeded in its self-anointed claim of supremacy.

The federal courts have not only grabbed power. They have also changed how judges carry out one of the core function of the judiciary: interpreting laws. The proper role of a judge in a constitutional republic is a modest one. Ours is a government of laws and not men. This basic truth requires that disputes be adjudicated based on what the law actually says, rather than the whims of judges.

In determining whether a contested law is consistent with the Constitution, judges act within their proper judicial power when they give effect to the original public meaning of the words of the law and the Constitution. This necessarily means that judges acting in accordance with their constitutional duties will at times uphold laws that may be bad policy, and strike down laws that may be good policy. This is because judicial review requires the judge to determine not whether the law leads to good or bad results, but whether the law violates the Constitution.

In recent decades, judges have engaged in judicial activism, deciding cases according to their own policy preferences rather than by applying the law impartially according to its original public meaning. They have become enamored of ideas like “living constitutionalism,” the theory that the Constitution evolves and changes not through the amendment process set out in the Constitution itself, but as a result of the decisions of judges who supposedly serve as the supreme social arbiters. They have drawn on external sources like foreign laws when the outcome they desired did not comport with the original public meaning of the law under review.

“The danger is not, that the judges will be too firm in resisting public opinion … but, that they will be ready to yield themselves to the passions, and politics, and prejudices of the day.” - Joseph Story
1833

 

Liberal activist Justice William Brennan famously said that “With five votes you can do anything around here”—five votes being a majority of the Supreme Court. Living up to Brennan’s boast, the federal courts have awarded the federal government power to regulate matters well beyond its constitutional authority. The courts themselves have taken over school systems and prisons for decades at a time, created new rights found nowhere in the Constitution, whittled away at constitutional rights (like property rights) that they apparently dislike, and asserted that they have the authority to decide questions concerning how to conduct the War on Terror that are constitutionally reserved to Congress and the President.

The courts have increasingly intervened on what are properly political questions. They have thereby undermined the ability of the American people to decide important issues through their elected representatives. Not surprisingly, the courts have become increasingly politicized institutions, and the nomination and confirmation of judges has also been politicized.

The Constitution is resilient, and it provides its own mechanism for renewal. The President nominates, and the Senate confirms, federal judges to serve during good behavior. If America is to be again a country of laws, and not of men, the people must demand that their President nominate and Senators confirm only judges who will conform to the proper role of a judge, and rule based upon the words and the original public meaning of the Constitution.

Robert Alt is the Deputy Director of and Senior Legal Fellow in the Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation.

 

Enduring Truths

• Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist Papers, No. 78, “The Judiciary Department,” and No. 81, “The Judiciary Continued, and the Distribution of the Judicial Authority.”
  Hamilton explains the importance of an independent judicial branch and discusses the meaning of judicial review. Thought by Hamilton to be “the least dangerous branch,” the judiciary has neither the ability nor the resources to create and enforce laws. It remains the “proper and peculiar province” of the courts to interpret statutes and determine whether they comport with the Constitution.
• Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, Book 3, Chapter IV, “Who Is the Final Judge or Interpreter in Constitutional Controversies.”
  One of the cornerstones of American jurisprudential interpretation, Commentaries provides a deep and methodical examination of the Constitution and reveals how the Constitution was viewed and interpreted after its adoption. In Chapter IV, Justice Story explains the nature of judicial review and sets forth a philosophy of judicial restraint.
• Edwin Meese, “Before the American Bar Association.” July 9, 1985, Washington D.C.
  In the first in a series of historic speeches, Attorney General Edwin Meese discussed the proper role of the Supreme Court and the singular importance of enforcing the Constitution’s original meaning. The proper way to interpret the Constitution is for judges to discern the original meaning of the constitutional text as it was written and publicly understood at the time of ratification. Because of this speech and the vigorous debate that followed, many judges have returned to a jurisprudence of originalism.
• Ronald Reagan, “The Investiture of Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Associate Justice Antonin Scalia at the White House,” September 26, 1986, Washington D.C.
  In a speech before the investiture of Chief Justice Rehnquist and Associate Justice Scalia to the Supreme Court, President Reagan outlines the importance of judicial restraint in order to ensure that our government remains one that is governed by the people. The role of the judicial branch is to interpret the law, while the ability to enact and enforce those laws is left to the legislative and executive branches. President Reagan understood that freedom is not preserved by one branch alone. Rather, our freedom is secure only when the entirety of our constitutional system works together and no branch is given the upper hand.

Current Issues

• EXPANSION OF POWER. Todd Gaziano, Randy Barnett, and Nathaniel Stewart, “Why the Personal Mandate to Buy Health Insurance Is Unprecedented and Unconstitutional,” December 9, 2009.
  The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, popularly known as “Obamacare,” includes a mandate that all private citizens enter into a contract with a private company to purchase a good or service, or be punished by a fine labeled a “tax,” which is unprecedented in American history. For this reason, there are no Supreme Court decisions authorizing this exercise of federal power. Although it is always difficult for the Supreme Court to thwart what is perceived to be the popular will, the majority of the justices who are inclined to preserve the system of enumerated powers and adhere to the original meaning of the text of the Constitution will have little inclination or incentive to stretch the Commerce Clause to uphold the unconstitutional scheme presented in Obamacare.
• JUDICIAL ACTIVISM. Robert Alt and Hans von Spakovsky, “The Liberal Mythology of an ‘Activist’ Court: Citizens United and Ledbetter,” June 15, 2010.
  Liberals are currently engaged in a concerted effort to redefine judicial activism. Rather than accepting the true definition of judicial activism—when a judge applies his or her own policy preferences to uphold a statute or other government action that is clearly forbidden by the Constitution—liberals now apply the term any time a statute is struck down or a court delivers an unfavorable decision. This new tactic is on display in the Left’s response to two major Supreme Court cases: Citizens United v. FEC and Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. These cynical and derisive attacks are unfair to the justices who participated in these decisions and injure the public’s faith and confidence in the judicial system.
• ELECTED JUDICIARY. Deborah O’Malley, “A Defense of the Elected Judiciary,” September 9, 2010.
  Activist judges and activist judicial rulings have led to the increasing politicization of judicial selection. A well-funded movement advocates “merit” selection in which unelected, unaccountable experts and special interests recommend the appointment—and in some cases actually select—judges as a way to combat politicization. This process simply moves the politics behind closed doors. Judicial elections are subject to potential flaws, but there are also due-process checks in that system. Judicial elections better meet the goals of promoting judicial independence and assuring public accountability than does so-called merit selection.

By Patrick Louis Knudsen and Emily Goff
November 1, 2011Revised and Updated on January 12, 2012

Download a PDF version with hyperlinks to House and Senate Appropriations Committee documents: Appropriations Tracker: FY 2012

Designed to inform American policymakers and citizens, the Appropriations Tracker: FY 2012 monitors the progress of appropriations bills as they move through the House and Senate. This tracker will be updated regularly to reflect the most recent status of these discretionary spending bills as they progress through each chamber.

Appropriators are aiming to meet the $1.043 trillion limit established under the Budget Control Act (BCA), the product of last summer’s debt ceiling negotiations. (The BCA does not specify amounts for individual appropriations bills.) Because this spending target is disturbingly high, the tracker measures the appropriators’ bills against three other important benchmarks.

The first comparison is with enacted FY 2011 levels, which total approximately $1.05 trillion. Second, the tracker compares bills with amounts in the House-passed budget resolution for FY 2012, which reduced total appropriations to $1.019 trillion (excluding war funding). This is the minimum degree of spending reduction appropriators should be striving for.

Third, the spending bills are compared to the FY 2008 spending levels to show how much work Congress has to do just to return to the levels in place prior to the stimulus and bailout spending binge of 2009–2010.

As of November 1, the House has passed six of the 12 FY 2012 appropriations bills. Three other House appropriations bills have been reported by the House Appropriations Committee and are awaiting a vote by the full House. One bill is still in the Appropriations Committee, while two bills are still in progress in the Appropriations Subcommittee.

The Senate, which never passed a budget resolution this year, has passed only one bill as of November 1. Ten other measures have been reported by the Appropriations Committee and are awaiting a vote by the full Senate, and one bill is currently being drafted by the Subcommittee. Senators this week plan to take up three bills—Agriculture, Commerce-Justice-Science, and Transportation-HUD—in a single package called a “minibus.” These bills are denoted with a pound sign (#) in the tracker.

As they stand at this point, spending in the House appropriations bills totals $1.040 trillion, $3 billion below the BCA cap but well above both the budget resolution and FY 2008 levels. The total for the Senate bills to date exceeds even the BCA cap by $800 million. Both the House and Senate have indicated they plan to provide the President’s request of $126.5 billion for war funding, which is not counted against the cap levels.

As these bills move through the Congress, check back here to monitor their progress.

RFID chips are being embedded in everything from jeans to paper money, and your privacy is at stake.

Bar codes are something most of us never think about. We go to the grocery store to buy dog food, the checkout person runs our selection over the scanner, there’s an audible beep or boop, and then we’re told how much money we owe. Bar codes in that sense are an invisible technology that we see all the time, but without thinking about what’s in front of our eyes.

Bar codes have been with us so long, and they’re so ubiquitous, that its hard to remember that they’re a relatively new technology that took a while to catch on. The patent for bar codes was issued in 1952. It took twenty years before a standard for bar codes was approved, but they still didn’t catch on. Ten years later, only 15,000 suppliers were using bar codes. That changed in 1984. By 1987 – only three years later! – 75,000 suppliers were using bar codes. That’s one heck of a growth curve.

So what changed in 1984? Who, or what, caused the change?

Wal-Mart.

When Wal-Mart talks, suppliers listen. So when Wal-Mart said that it wanted to use bar codes as a better way to manage inventory, bar codes became de rigeur. If you didn’t use bar codes, you lost Wal-Mart’s business. That’s a death knell for most of their suppliers.

The same thing is happening today. I’m here to tell you that the bar code’s days are numbered. There’s a new technology in town, one that at first blush might seem insignificant to security professionals, but it’s a technology that is going to be a big part of our future. And how do I know this? Pin it on Wal-Mart again; they’re the big push behind this new technology.

So what is it? RFID tags.

RFID 101

Invented in 1969 and patented in 1973, but only now becoming commercially and technologically viable, RFID tags are essentially microchips, the tinier the better. Some are only 1/3 of a millimeter across. These chips act as transponders (transmitters/responders), always listening for a radio signal sent by transceivers, or RFID readers. When a transponder receives a certain radio query, it responds by transmitting its unique ID code, perhaps a 128-bit number, back to the transceiver. Most RFID tags don’t have batteries (How could they? They’re 1/3 of a millimeter!). Instead, they are powered by the radio signal that wakes them up and requests an answer.

Most of these “broadcasts” are designed to be read between a few inches and several feet away, depending on the size of the antenna and the power driving the RFID tags (some are in fact powered by batteries, but due to the increased size and cost, they are not as common as the passive, non-battery-powered models). However, it is possible to increase that distance if you build a more sensitive RFID receiver.

RFID chips cost up to 50 cents, but prices are dropping. Once they get to 5 cents each, it will be cost-efficient to put RFID tags in almost anything that costs more than a dollar.

Who’s using RFID?

RFID is already in use all around us. Ever chipped your pet dog or cat with an ID tag? Or used an EZPass through a toll booth? Or paid for gas using ExxonMobils’ SpeedPass? Then you’ve used RFID.

Some uses, especially those related to security, seem like a great idea. For instance, Delta is testing RFID on some flights, tagging 40,000 customer bags in order to reduce baggage loss and make it easier to route bags if customers change their flight plans.

Three seaport operators – who account for 70% of the world’s port operations – agreed to deploy RFID tags to track the 17,000 containers that arrive each day at US ports. Currently, less than 2% are inspected. RFID tags will be used to track the containers and the employees handling them.

The United States Department of Defense is moving into RFID in order to trace military supply shipments. During the first Gulf War, the DOD made mistakes in its supply allocation. To streamline operations, the U.S. military has placed RFID tags on 270,000 cargo containers and tracks those shipments throughout 40 countries.

On a smaller level, but one that will instantly resonate with security pros, Star City Casino in Sydney, Australia placed RFID tags in 80,000 employee uniforms in order to put a stop to theft. The same idea would work well in corporate PCs, networking equipment, and handhelds.

In all of these cases, RFID use seems reasonable. It is non-intrusive, and it seems to balance security and privacy. Other uses for RFID, however, may be troublesome.

Visa is combining smart cards and RFID chips so people can conduct transactions without having to use cash or coins. These smart cards can also be incorporated into cell phones and other devices. Thus, you could pay for parking, buy a newspaper, or grab a soda from a vending machine without opening your wallet. This is wonderfully convenient, but the specter of targeted personal ads popping up as I walk through the mall, a la Minority Report, does not thrill me.

Michelin, which manufactures 800,000 tires a day, is going to insert RFID tags into its tires. The tag will store a unique number for each tire, a number that will be associated with the car’s VIN (Vehicle Identification Number). Good for Michelin, and car manufacturers, and fighting crime. Potentially bad for you. Who will assure your privacy? Do you really want your car’s tires broadcasting your every move?

The European Central Bank may embed RFID chips in the euro note. Ostensibly to combat counterfeiters and money-launderers, it would also enable banks to count large amounts of cash in seconds. Unfortunately, such a move would also makes it possible for governments to track the passage of cash from individual to individual. Cash is the last truly anonymous way to buy and sell. With RFID tags, that anonymity would be gone. In addition, banks would not be the only ones who could in an instant divine how much cash you were carrying; criminals can also obtain power transceivers.

Several major manufacturers and retailers expect RFID tags to aid in managing the supply chain, from manufacturing to shipping to stocking store shelves, including Gillette (which purchased 500 million RFID tags for its razors), Home Depot, The Gap, Proctor & Gamble, Prada, Target, Tesco (a United Kingdom chain), and Wal-Mart. Especially Wal-Mart.

The retail giant, the largest employer in America, is working with Gillette to create “smart shelves” that can alert managers and stockboys to replenish the supply of razors. More significantly, Wal-Mart intends for its top 100 suppliers to fully support RFID for inventory tracking by 2005. Wal-Mart would love to be able to point an RFID reader at any of the 1 billion sealed boxes of widgets it receives every year and instantly know exactly how many widgets it has. No unpacking, no unnecessary handling, no barcode scanners required.

RFID Issues

Right now, you can buy a hammer, a pair of jeans, or a razor blade with anonymity. With RFID tags, that may be a thing of the past. Some manufacturers are planning to tag just the packaging, but others will also tag their products. There is no law requiring a label indicating that an RFID chip is in a product. Once you buy your RFID-tagged jeans at The Gap with RFID-tagged money, walk out of the store wearing RFID-tagged shoes, and get into your car with its RFID-tagged tires, you could be tracked anywhere you travel. Bar codes are usually scanned at the store, but not after purchase. But RFID transponders are, in many cases, forever part of the product, and designed to respond when they receive a signal. Imagine everything you own is “numbered, identified, catalogued, and tracked.” Anonymity and privacy? Gone in a hailstorm of invisible communication, betrayed by your very property.

But let’s not stop there. Others are talking about placing RFID tags into all sensitive or important documents: “it will be practical to put them not only in paper money, but in drivers’ licenses, passports, stock certificates, manuscripts, university diplomas, medical degrees and licenses, birth certificates, and any other sort of document you can think of where authenticity is paramount.” In other words, those documents you’re required to have, that you can’t live without, will be forever tagged.

Consider the human body as well. Applied Digital Solutions has designed an RFID tag – called the VeriChip – for people. Only 11 mm long, it is designed to go under the skin, where it can be read from four feet away. They sell it as a great way to keep track of children, Alzheimer’s patients in danger of wandering, and anyone else with a medical disability, but it gives me the creeps. The possibilities are scary. In May, delegates to the Chinese Communist Party Congress were required to wear an RFID-equipped badge at all times so their movements could be tracked and recorded. Is there any doubt that, in a few years, those badges will be replaced by VeriChip-like devices?

Surveillance is getting easier, cheaper, smaller, and ubiquitous. Sure, it’s possible to destroy an RFID tag. You can crush it, puncture it, or microwave it (but be careful of fires!). You can’t drown it, however, and you can’t demagnetize it. And washing RFID-tagged clothes won’t remove the chips, since they’re specifically designed to withstand years of wearing, washing, and drying. You could remove the chip from your jeans, but you’d have to find it first.

That’s why Congress should require that consumers be notified about products with embedded RFID tags. We should know when we’re being tagged. We should also be able to disable the chips in our own property. If it’s the property of the company we work for, that’s a different matter. But if it’s ours, we should be able to control whether tracking is enabled.

Security professionals need to realize that RFID tags are dumb devices. They listen, and they respond. Currently, they don’t care who sends the signal. Anything your companies’ transceiver can detect, the bad guy’s transceiver can detect. So don’t be lulled into a false sense of security.

With RFID about to arrive in full force, don’t be lulled at all. Major changes are coming, and not all of them will be positive. The law of unintended consequences is about to encounter surveillance devices smaller than the period at the end of this sentence.

Scott Granneman teaches at Washington University in St. Louis, consults for WebSanity, and writes for SecurityFocus and Linux Magazine.

Posted: 4:56 p.m. Friday, Jan. 6, 2012

Parents outraged over math problems referring to slavery, beatings

By Kerry Kavanaugh

Several Gwinnett parents contacted Channel 2 Action News in outrage after their children brought home a math assignment that referenced slavery and beatings.

Christopher Braxton talked with Channel 2′s Kerry Kavanaugh and said he couldn’t believe it when he read his 8-year-old son’s math homework Wednesday.

“It kind of blew me away,” Braxton said. “Do you see what I see? Do you really see what I see? He’s not answering this question.”

The question was a word problem that said, “Each tree had 56 oranges. If eight slaves pick them equally, then how much would each slave pick?”

Another math problem said, “If Frederick got two beatings per day, how many beatings did he get in one week?”

“I was furious at that point in time,” Braxton said.

“Something like that shouldn’t be imbedded into a kid of the third, fourth, fifth, any grade,” parent Terrance Barnett said. “I’m having to explain to my 8-year-old why slavery or slaves or beatings are in a math problem. That hurts.”

Both fathers said they contacted the principal of Beaver Ridge Elementary school in Norcross. They wanted to know what the third-grade math teachers were thinking.

Kavanaugh brought that question to Gwinnett County School District officials.

“In this one, the teachers were trying to do a cross-curricular activity,” district spokeswoman Sloan Roach said.

Roach explained the teachers were trying to incorporate social studies lessons into the math problems, which is something the school district encourages. But the problem with the questions is there is no historical context.
“We understand that there are concerns about these questions and we agree that these questions were not appropriate,” Roach said.

“Whoever put together this paperwork and everything else, the schools and everything else, shouldn’t teach it this way,” said Braxton.

The parents were told the school vice principal had collected the assignment to shred them so that they didn’t resurface.

Roach said there is a process in place to review questions before they are handed out to students, which didn’t happen here.

Roach said the administration will work with teachers on how to develop better questions that are “meaningful and appropriate.”