NewsScan Daily, 5 January 2004 ("Above The Fold")

NewsScan Daily, 5 January 2004 ("Above The Fold")
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"ABOVE THE FOLD"
       Digital Tracking System for Visitors
       New Plan to Protect Against Illegal File Sharing
       Online Piracy Began to Dissipate After RIAA Threatened Law Suits
       Wireless and Internet Phones Not Yet Reliable for 911 Service
       Go Stand in the Corner and Watch the Webcam

FEATURES
       Flash Card
       Honorary Subscriber: Frederick Douglass

DIGITAL TRACKING SYSTEM FOR VISITORS
U.S. immigration authorities are now using a digital inventory control
system called US-VISIT, designed to keep track of the movements of foreign
visitors who enter the country with visas. US-VISIT (an acronym standing for
United States Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology) requires
that digital fingerprints and photos be taken of visitors as they arrive in
the United States. Homeland Security undersecretary Asa Hutchinson says, "We
are looking at two purposes: to increase security and to improve the
integrity of immigration control. A key thing is that we will be able to
know who is overstaying their visa and violating the terms of their
admission to this country." (Los Angeles Times 5 Jan 2004)
http://www.latimes.com/technology/la-na-usvisit5jan05,1,5635074.story?coll=l
a-headlines-technology

NEW PLAN TO PROTECT AGAINST ILLEGAL FILE SHARING
A consortium of five major information technology companies is planning a
new system to protect digital music, video and software from illegal file
sharing., The members of the new consortium (dalled Project Hudson0 are
Intel, Nokia, Samsung, Toshiba and Matshushita, and the consortium's
approach will compete against various other copy protection systems being
advanced by Microsoft, Sony and Royal Philips Electronics, Apple,
RealNetworks, and others. Leonardo Chiariglione, who founded the group that
developed the original MP3 digital audio compression standard, says:
"Content should be as transparent as it is today with MP3. It should be
movable anywhere and still be protected. If we stay with digital islands
people have a legitimate excuse to piracy." (New York Times 5 Jan 2004)
http://partners.nytimes.com/2004/01/05/business/05share.html

ONLINE PIRACY BEGAN TO DISSIPATE AFTER RIAA THREATENED LAW SUITS
A new study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project shows that the
number of music downloaders fell in the past six months from 29% to 14% --
and suggests that the drop-off was a consequence of the Recording Industry
Association of America's plans to sue Internet users suspected of trading
pirated music over file-sharing networks. RIAA Chairman Mitch Bainwol says:
"This is another data point that tells us in fact that the lawsuits have had
an enormous impact on public awareness about the legality of downloading.
For some the prospect of getting sued is a pretty effective deterrent. For
most folks, just understanding that it was illegal is enough." (Washington
Post 4 Jan 2004)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A54367-2004Jan4.html

WIRELESS AND INTERNET PHONES NOT YET RELIABLE FOR 911 SERVICE
Consumer advocates are concerned that people don't realize that when they
replace their traditional wired phones with cellular or Internet services
they may be losing reliable 911 access. For example, most Internet phone
companies offer no 911 service at all. Surveys suggest that 18% of the
country's wireless phone owners use them as their primary phone, and that
perhaps 5% of cellphone users have given up their wired phones. Regina Costa
of The Utility Reform Network says: "I think people are crazy to rely on a
wireless phone to contact authorities in an emergency. Sure, it can be very
handy. But I wouldn't want to bet my life on it." On the other hand, Ravi
Sakaria, president of a New Jersey Internet phone service provider, is
confident the problem will be solved in due course: "It will happen because
as the number of customers grow, it will become a bigger obstacle to the
industry." (San Jose Mercury News 2 Jan 2004)
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/7619455.htm

GO STAND IN THE CORNER AND WATCH THE WEBCAM
A public school in Mississippi is apparently the first to use webcam
technology to make sure that students being punished for bad behavior don't
miss out on what's happening in class. Cameras document everything that
takes place in the classroom, good and bad alike. But Barry Steinhardt of
the American Civil Liberties Union worries that the cameras could have a
"chilling effect" on students and teachers by making them "feel under
constant observation" and affecting "the willingness of teachers to be
creative or to introduce unpopular topics." (USA Today 5 Jan 2004)
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/webguide/internetlife/2004-01-05-class-webcams_
x.htm

*****

FLASH CARD 
     "Never go after a snake unless you're sure you can kill it." (Lyndon
Johnson)

HONORARY SUBSCRIBER: FREDERICK DOUGLASS
     Today's Honorary Subscriber is 19th century abolitionist and orator
Frederick Douglass (1817-1895), who was the first black citizen to hold high
rank in the U.S. government.
     Born of a white father and a black slave mother in Maryland, Douglass
escaped the south to find his freedom in a coastal town in Massachusetts,
where he spoke with emotion about his ordeals as a slave and as a runaway.
The abolitionists were so impressed with his oratorical gifts that they
engaged him to speak at their meetings in the US, and in Canada and England.
In time he became famous as one of the loudest and most eloquent voices
advocating the immediate emancipation of all slaves. In his later years he
served the nation as diplomatic minister to Haiti and as a government
official in a succession of administrations.
      Douglass was separated as an infant from his slave mother (he never
knew his white father), and lived with his grandmother on a Maryland
plantation until, at the age of eight, his owner sent him to Baltimore to
live as a house servant with the family of Hugh Auld, whose wife defied
state law by teaching the boy to read. Following the death of his master, he
was hired out in Baltimore as a ship caulker. Five years later, he fled to
New Bedford, Massachusetts. At an antislavery convention in 1841, Douglass
was invited to describe his feelings and experiences under slavery. He was
so eloquent that he was invited to work as an agent for the Massachusetts
Anti-Slavery Society.
     In 1845, to answer skeptics who doubted that a former slave could speak
so well, he wrote his famous autobiography (revised and completed in 1882 as
"Life and Times of Frederick Douglass"). To avoid recapture by his former
owner, whose name and location he had given in the autobiography, Douglass
left on a two-year speaking tour of Great Britain and Ireland. In 1847
British friends purchased his legal freedom for 150 pounds, and Douglass
returned to live in Rochester, New York, where he started his antislavery
newspaper, the North Star (later Frederick Douglass's Paper).
     Although a vociferous abolitionist, Douglas did not countenance
violence, and he specifically counseled against the October 1859 raid on
Harpers Ferry, Virginia. During the Civil War he became a consultant to
Abraham Lincoln, advocating that former slaves be armed for the North and
that the war be made a direct confrontation against slavery. Throughout
Reconstruction (1865-77), he fought for full civil rights for freedmen and
vigorously supported the women's rights movement. Douglass remained an
active reformer literally until the day he died, Febru8ary 20, 1895, when he
collapsed after attending a women's suffrage meeting.

See 
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0300087012/newsscancom/ref=nos
im for Douglass's autobiography -- or look for it in your favorite library.
(We donate all revenue from our book or other recommendations to literacy
action programs.)

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Copyright 2003. NewsScan Daily (R) is a publication of NewsScan Inc.
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