NewsScan Daily, 20 April 2004 ("Above The Fold")

NewsScan Daily, 20 April 2004 ("Above The Fold")
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"ABOVE THE FOLD"  
       A Go-Slow Approach to Spyware Legislation
       Recording Industry Disbands Amnesty Program
       TV News When You Want It (In the Morning)
       On the Internet, Some Choose the Slow Lane
       Blogging in Baghdad: The Freedom of the Internet

FEATURES        
       Flash Card
       Worth Thinking About: Venus and Mars

A GO-SLOW APPROACH TO SPYWARE LEGISLATION
     Spyware (the generic term for software that is surreptitiously
downloaded onto PCs when users are engaged in some activity such as instant
messaging or surfing for music or games) comes in two major varieties: the
relatively innocuous "adware" that places advertisements on people's
computers, and the more insidious kind that capture user keystrokes in order
to steal passwords or other private information. The Internet security firm
McAfee says the number of "potentially unwanted programs" on its customers'
computers grew from 643,000 in September 2003 to more than 2.5 million in
March. Still, Commissioner Mozelle Thompson, a member of the Federal Trade
Commission, warns against trying to solve the problem with hurried and
ill-conceived legislation: "There are some kinds of practices that we may
consider unfair or deceptive that we already have existing power to pursue."
His alternate solution is for technology companies to develop standards for
downloads that would distinguish them from spyware. Marc Rotenberg of the
Electronic Privacy Information Center scoffs: "To expect that market-based
solutions are going to protect the consumers, I think, is to misunderstand
the problem." (Washington Post 19 Apr 2004)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A25231-2004Apr19.html

RECORDING INDUSTRY DISBANDS AMNESTY PROGRAM
     The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has terminated a
program that offered to shield individuals from being sued by recording
companies if they admitted to illegally sharing music online. Only 1,108
people signed up for amnesty program since it was launched last September,
and the RIAA has now filed court papers indicating that the program is no
longer necessary or appropriate, and is withdrawing it. Fred von Lohmann of
the Electronic Frontier Foundation says the program "was sort of a sham from
the beginning," because the RIAA has no way of keeping an individual
copyright holder from suing any of the individuals who signed up for it.
"The headlines for the amnesty program have dissipated and now it's pretty
clear that their main goal is to use the stick of litigation." (AP/San Jose
Mercury News 19 Apr 2004)
(http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/8469523.htm

TV NEWS WHEN YOU WANT IT: IN THE MORNING
     Researchers at Ball State University's Center for Media Design have
found that more TV viewers are tuning into early morning newscasts (6 to 10
a.m.) -- a major shift in America¹s viewing habits. Ball State
telecommunications professor Robert Papper says: ³Because of the
introduction of new technologies and cable television, consumers are taking
control. They are telling us that Œwe¹ll consume the news when we want and
the shows or networks we want to watch.¹ If they want to watch the weather,
they can tune into the Weather Channel at any time of the day. Why should
they wait for the local news if a cable channel has it when they want to
watch?² 
www.bsu.edu/news <http://www.bsu.edu/news>

ON THE INTERNET, SOME CHOOSE THE SLOW LANE
     Is a higher Internet transmission speed worth what it costs? Many say
no, and concur with the feelings of an Internet user who says: "I resent it.
I don't do gaming. I don't download a lot of graphics. For the money I would
spend, I don't need it." Alex Pope, a retired attorney, explains that to
pass the time while he's downloading data over his slow connection: "I bring
a newspaper and sit and read," and Internet user Danielle Kolko admits: "I
have friends who are high-tech computer engineers who are horrified by the
fact I have dial-up. I just tell them I'm more patient than they are." The
Yankee Group, a research and consulting company, says that the highest
penetration of broadband access is among upper-middle-class households -- a
finding suggesting that price remains a large factor in decisions to get
high-speed connections. (New York Times 19 Apr 2004)
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/19/technology/19DIAL.html

BLOGGING IN BAGHDAD: THE FREEDOM OF THE INTERNET
     Internet cafes now seem to dot every block in Baghdad, and Baghdad
resident Omar Fadhil, a dentist, explains: "We suffered for years under
Saddam Hussein, not being able to speak out. Now, you can make your voice
heard around the world." Fadhil's blog, iraqthemodel.blogspot.com, tells of
his life and the lives of his two brothers. "We wanted to help bridge the
gap, not just between the U.S. and Iraq, but with the entire Islamic world.
The media is always taking a look at the bad stuff. We want to show the good
progress in Iraq." His brother and fellow blogger Ali Dadhil says: "My ideas
are very shocking to people. I tell people I am a friend of America, a
friend of Israel. Some of my colleagues at the hospital think I am an
infidel. It's impossible to change a man's mind, but you can only make him
consider other alternatives... I am not afraid... I was afraid all my life.
I will not go back to living in fear." (USA Today 20 Apr 2004)
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2004-04-20-bloggers_x.htm

*****  

FLASH CARD 
     "Grief upon griefs! Disappointments upon disappointments. What then?
This is a gay, merry world notwithstanding." (John Adams)

WORTH THINKING ABOUT: VENUS AND MARS
     Robert Kagan, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace, has stirred the international waters with his
divergency thesis describing what now separates the United States and
Europe.
     "It is time to stop pretending that Europeans and Americans share a
common view of the world, or even that they occupy the same world. On the
all-important question of power -- the efficacy of power, the morality of
power, the desirability of power -- American and European perspectives are
diverging. Europe is turning away from power, or to put it a little
differently, it is moving beyond power into a self-contained world of laws
and rules and transnational negotiation and cooperation. It is entering a
post-historical paradise of peace and relative prosperity, the realization
of Immanuel Kant's 'perpetual peace.' Meanwhile, the United States remains
mired in history, exercising power in an anarchic Hobbesian world where
international laws and rules are unreliable, and where true security and the
defense and promotion of a liberal order still depend on the possession and
use of military might. That is why on major strategic and international
questions today, Americans are from Mars and Europeans are from Venus: They
agree on little and understand one another less and less. And this state of
affairs is not transitory -- the product of one American election or one
catastrophic event. The reasons for the transatlantic divide are deep, long
in development, and likely to endure. When it comes to setting national
priorities, determining threats, defining challenges, and fashioning and
implementing foreign and defense policies, the United States and Europe have
parted ways. 
     "Europe's rejection of power politics, its devaluing of military force
as a tool of International relations, have depended on the presence of
American military forces on European soil. Europe's new Kantian order could
flourish only under the umbrella of American power exercised according to
the rules of the old Hobbesian order. American power made it possible for
Europeans to believe that power was no longer important. And now, in the
final irony, the fact that United States military power has solved the
'German question,' allows Europeans today to believe that American military
power, and the 'strategic culture' that has created and sustained it, are
outmoded and dangerous."
                              ***
See 
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1400040930/newsscancom/ref=nos
im for Robert Kagan's "Of Paradise And Power: America and Europe in the New
World Order" -- or look for it in your favorite library. (We donate all
revenue from our book recommendations to adult literacy programs.)

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