NewsScan Daily, 12 July 2004 ("Above The Fold")

NewsScan Daily, 12 July 2004 ("Above The Fold")
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"ABOVE THE FOLD"  
       Tennessee GPS System Will Track Paroled Offenders
       "Whistleblower" Lawsuit Filed Against Diebold
       S. Korea: 3 of 5 Internet Users Illegally Download Films
       New Hampshire Plans to Tax Internet Chat Rooms, etc.
       Malaysia Brings High-Tech Benefits to Rural Areas
       Chinese Text-Messaging Novel

FEATURES           
       Flash Card
       Honorary Subscriber: Andrei Sakharov

TENNESSEE GPS SYSTEM WILL TRACK PAROLED OFFENDERS
     Tennessee has budgeted $2.5 million for a pilot project that will test
a global positioning system (GPS) for keeping track of paroled rapists. The
system would let law enforcement build maps with "zones of exclusion" for
the offenders (such as playgrounds, schools, day-care centers or the homes
of victims), and would allow probation officers to determine whether the
felons they are supervising are going to work during the day, going home at
night, and staying away from restricted areas. (The Tennessean 12 Jul 2004)
http://www.tennessean.com/government/archives/04/07/54224165.shtml?Element_I
D=54224165

"WHISTLEBLOWER" LAWSSUIT FILED AGAINST DIEBOLD
     Opponents of electronic voting are suing Diebold Inc. under a
California whistleblower law, accusing Diebold of defrauding the state by
providing shoddy balloting equipment that exposed California elections to
vandals and to software bugs. The individuals who filed the suit are Jim
March, a programmer, and Bev Harris, an activist. Under the whistleblower
statute, the two could collect up to 30% of any reimbursement. March says:
"This is about money now -- a case of the capitalist system at work. The
laws on voting products and processes are unfortunately unclear. But the law
on defrauding the government is really, really clear. Going after the money
trail is cleaner than going after proper procedures." But some critics of
Diebold are equally critical of March and Harris. One of them says, "I would
like to see people support a real solution rather than just try to cash in.
There are a lot of people who could be a tremendous asset, but they're
grandstanding and reveling in the expose." (San Jose Mercury News 12 Jul
2004)
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/9131675.htm

S.KOREA: 3 OF 5 INTERNET USERS ILLEGALLY DOWNLOAD FILMS
     About one-fourth of Internet users in an eight-country survey admit to
illegally downloading movies but the percentage is more that twice as high
in South Korea. According to a survey by the Motion Picture Association of
America (MPAA), an average of 24% of Web users in the eight countries have
downloaded at least one movie, and in South Korea (a country with the
highest percentage of Internet users on high-speed connections) the number
was 58%. Since downloading a movie over high-speed connections takes just a
few minutes, the MPAA fears that piracy will grow as more Internet users
boost their speed. (The Age 12 Jul 2004) Rec'd from John Lamp.
http://theage.com.au/articles/2004/07/12/1089484273974.html

NEW HAMPSHIRE PLANS TO TAX INTERNET CHAT ROOMS, ETC.
     New Hampshire's tax collecting agency is proposing a 7% tax on
telephone and Internet services, including chat rooms, voice mail, Web mail
and instant messaging. Carol Miller, president of the New Hampshire Internet
Service Providers Association, says the rule would be a huge burden to
providers and is "far beyond the scope of what the tax was meant for."
Verizon spokesman Erle Pierce agrees with Miller: "This is like changing the
way you collect a turnpike toll: Instead of taxing the vehicle, we're going
to put a tax on all the passengers... You pay not only for the vehicle, but
for what you are carrying in it. I don't think that's what the legislative
intent was." But New Hampshire's tax collectors insist the change is just an
upgrade to technology that "has forged ahead at a dramatic pace."
(AP/USA Today 12 Jul 2004)
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techpolicy/2004-07-12-nh-talk-tax_x.htm

MALAYSIA BRINGS HIGH-TECH BENEFITS TO RURAL AREAS
     Malaysia will create several new "cyber-cities" to expand its rapidly
growing Internet technology industry, as it begins the second phase of the
Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) project south of Kuala Lumpur. The MSC has
already attracted more than a thousand companies, close to 20,000 jobs, and
a software-driven industry worth 6.5 billion ringgit (more than 1.5 billion
U.S. dollars) since its inception in 1996. Located in Cyberjaya, the MSC was
designed as a hub for multimedia products and services and was the
brainchild of former premier Mahathir Mohamad as part of a plan to turn
Malaysia into a developed nation by 2020. (The Age 9 Jul 2004)
http://theage.com.au/articles/2004/07/08/1089000285647.html

CHINESE TEXT-MESSAGING NOVEL
     Chinese author Qian Fuchang's new 4,000-word novel is meant to be read
in 70-word chapters transmitted by cellphone text messages. Qian says "the
plot develops just like that of an ordinary novel," and his employer, the
Guangdong Literature Academy, is planning an auction to sell the novel to
short-message services. "The novel, which contains all literary elements,
will be a real literary work." (AP/Los Angeles Times 12 Jul 2004
http://www.latimes.com/technology/ats-ap_technology12jul12,1,215303.story?co
ll=sns-ap-toptechnology

*****

FLASH CARD
     "One has to belong to the intelligentsia to believe things like that:
no ordinary man could be such a fool." (George Orwell)

HONORARY SUBSCRIBER: ANDREI SAKHAROV
     Today's Honorary Subscriber is the brilliant physicist Andrei Sakharov
(1921-1989), who was the father of the Soviet hydrogen bomb, but later
became an outspoken critic of the USSR's communist regime and a courageous
defender of human rights and democratic freedom.
     Sakharov was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1975, the first Russian
to be so honored. He spent the first twenty years of his professional life
designing nuclear weapons, contributing thereby to the military might of the
USSR. Gradually he turned against the regime's abuses of human freedom and
dignity, becoming a symbol of the unrest that ultimately brought down the
Soviet dictatorship.
     Andrei Sakharov was born in Moscow to a family whose ancestry included
military nobility and Orthodox priests. He studied physics at Moscow State
University, graduating in 1942, and then took up routine laboratory work at
a munitions factory, where he met and later married Klavdia Vikhireva.
     In 1945 he returned to Moscow to take up graduate studies in
theoretical physics, earning his Ph.D. in 1947. He was invited to join the
Soviet group of scientists working on atomic weaponry. In 1953 Sakharov's
design for a thermonuclear device culminated in the successful test of the
first Soviet H-bomb. He was inducted into the Soviet Academy of Sciences,
and was awarded the first of his three Hero of Socialist Labor Medals, as
well as the Stalin Prize and a dacha in a privileged Moscow suburb.
     Simultaneously with his work on nuclear weapons, Sakharov worked on the
peaceful use of nuclear power. He also began to wrestle with the problems of
the controlled use of nuclear weaponry -- convinced as he was that the
harmful effects of testing nuclear weapons was an indisputable scientific
fact, with inescapable moral consequences. He pushed Soviet politicians to
stop atmospheric nuclear tests and strongly endorsed the 1963 Test-Ban
Treaty. 
     In 1960s he abandoned weaponry work to concentrate on cosmological
problems in theoretical physics and also began to use his political
connections on behalf of victims of political persecution, making numerous
declarations denouncing violations of human rights. He also spoke out for
rapprochement of the socialist and capitalist systems in order to eliminate
or contain the grave dangers threatening the human race -- thermonuclear
extinction, ecological catastrophe, famine, an uncontrolled population
explosion, and alienation.
     Soviet authorities did not sit idly by while Sakharov gained prominence
as a dissident. They waged campaigns in the press to discredit him as a
traitor, stripped him of his honorary awards and expelled him from the
Science Academy. He was not allowed to travel to Oslo to receive his Nobel
Prize. Finally in 1980, he was exiled to closed city of Gorki.
     Sakharov's banishment only ended with Gorbachev's policy of
Perestroika. Back in Moscow he resumed his public life, and was busy
participating in the drafting of the new Russian constitution when he died
from a sudden heart attack in 1989.

See 
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1584652071/newsscancom/ref=nos
im for Richard Lourie's biography of Sakharov -- or look for it in your
favorite library. Note: We donate all revenue from our book recommendations
to adult literacy programs.]

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