Pete Ashdown

Publius, Junius, American Farmer, Common Sense, Silence Dogood, Caesar, Senex, Phocion, Historicus, The Sons of Liberty

If these names had been connected to individuals, the American Revolution may have never happened. If these names had not written letters, handbills, columns and essays under pseudonyms, the public may not have come together against the tyranny of the British crown.

John Adams estimated that his cousin Samuel Adams used between 50 and 100 pseudonyms from the beginning of the American Revolution to its end. Samuel Adams himself said there were too many to count. If the pen is mightier than the sword, anonymity is its shield. Transparency is the key to accountability in government and law-enforcement. If that accountability can only come through the anonymity of a whistle-blowing citizen, then so be it. How many dissidents in Iran wish to have their names connected to their Twitter accounts right now? There is no difference between an anonymous blogger and someone handing out paper 245 years ago. The Fourth Amendment was written for this reason.

If I was a gun maker in revolutionary America, a list of my customers would be valuable information for the British. Would that list be included in my “papers and effects”? What makes the same information recorded by computer on a hard drive any different? The founding fathers demanded warrants be issued with very specific instructions because they had been subjected to the tyranny of inspections and seizures without cause or notice. New technologies do not require the reduction of old protections.

The Attorney General’s office has been twisting arms on the senate floor in a full court press to get HB150 through. The way this bill has been rammed through the House and committee meetings is evidence in itself that something is askew. Representatives of the AG’s office have not only discounted that I am the only Internet Service Provider protesting this bill, they have insinuated that I knowingly harbor child pornographers.

The last line of defense from the AG is that HB150 is actually good for Internet Service Providers. That ISPs can easily refuse an administrative subpoena and fight it in court. I’m not sure how going to court to defend my customers’ Fourth Amendment rights is actually easier than law-enforcement following the letter of the Constitution. I can tell you the latter costs me a lot less time and money.

Enlarging law-enforcement powers by writing a bill with “child predators” at the top is an easy task. What legislator in their right mind is going to stand against that? They aren’t going to be praised for upholding our constitutionally protected liberties, they’re going to be eviscerated for being soft on the lowest form of criminal. This is how these administrative subpoenas snuck out of government as an internal tool between departments and into our daily lives as a bypass of U.S. and Utah Constitutions. The justification is made that this type of information request has been upheld in the courts as constitutional. The Fourth Amendment is a single sentence made up of 54 words. In spite of these judicial opinions, I read warrantless requests for any amount of information as otherwise. With the constant cry that activist judges are shredding our constitution, it is up to our legislature to affirm our rights. They have repeatedly done so on the 2nd and 10th Amendments this session. They cannot turn around and punch a hole right through the 4th just because the Attorney General claims it’s easy.

Thank you to The Eagle Forum, The Sutherland Institute, The Salt Lake Tribune Editorial Board and The Utah Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers for publicly opposing this bill.

If you do one thing today, call or write the Utah Senate.

Representative Brian King, the sole committee vote against HB150, asked me to bullet point the problems with HB150 so he could distribute it in the legislature. This is what I wrote for him. Feel free to refer to this when calling and writing your representatives.

VOTE NO ON HB150

1. It is unconstitutional. The 6th Circuit Court has ruled that lack of a proper warrant and probable cause for the disclosure of email from an Internet Service Provider is unconstitutional. To whit from Warshak v. United States, “facially violates the Fourth Amendment by simple virtue of the fact that it authorizes the seizure of personal e-mails from commercial ISPs without a warrant and on less than a showing of probable cause. “ HB150’s disclosure of IP address and email address of customers without warrant could be considered the same as email disclosure, since an email carries this information regardless of content and is the only place that information can usually be retrieved from.

2. It is ripe for abuse. The Fourth Amendment was written to protect the innocent. Its purpose has been repeatedly demonstrated in the face of overreaching government and those who abuse power. HB150 expands the reach of government.

3. There is no accountability. Under HB150 an Internet Service Provider is required to turn over customer information to law enforcement agencies without judicial oversight. The argument that “new technologies” requires “new techniques” is not an excuse to violate the privacy of law-abiding Americans. HB150 does not require a law enforcement agency to keep copies of their individual subpoenas, only the “number” of supoenas are reported to a third party, the Utah Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice.

4. It is anti-business. Burdensome regulation against Internet Service Providers, making them a wholesale detective arm of law-enforcement is punitive against small ISPs and favors large ISPs with more resources. There are no nationwide ISPs headquartered in Utah and this law will help drive the already struggling small Utah-based ISPs under. Yahoo has already published their price list for violating your personal privacy. Smaller ISPs are more likely to protect your privacy as long as the law stands with them, they don’t have the money to fight a court battle in your favor.

5. The current system works. Internet Service Providers are currently required to respond to proper search warrants, as is any other business or individual. HB150 is a bill in search of a problem, which instead creates a much larger anti-Constitutional violation. Even more concerning, criminal evidence gathered under HB150’s guidelines are subject to “suppression” (exclusion in a court case) due to the lack of proper warrant and may give opportunity for real criminals to walk free.

VOTE NO ON HB150
Thank you! – Pete Ashdown – XMission
pashdown@xmission.com

The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution seems to be so narrowly interpreted by some, I have to wonder what they think it is supposed to protect. “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

Some believe that because your email may not be actually stored in your house, that it is freely available to any government or law-enforcement agency to inspect. I however, continue to understand that your email, although not something considered a “paper” of the original framers of the U.S. Constitution, is equivalent. I have held this belief in running my business, and have sent many non-warranted requests for customer information packing.

Representative Brad “Ban All Free Wireless Internet” Daw and our Constitution-thumping Attorney General, Mark Shurtleff believe otherwise. They believe that your Internet Service Provider should “turn over the names, addresses, phone numbers, and bank information of customers using an Internet address or cell phone number at a given time” without probable cause or need for a pesky time-consuming warrant. Daw, Shurtleff, and the 10 committee members who sent this atrocity to the house believe that “new crimes” require “new techniques”. However, I still believe that the 4th Amendment overrides their desire to invade your privacy. We’ll see in the coming days exactly how much of the Constitution our Republican dominated legislature really believes in. I suggest you let them know what you think.

Bill text here.

Alan Turing is widely considered to be the father of computer science. He cracked the German Enigma Codes in World War II, which saved countless lives and is estimated to have ended the war in Europe two years early. His genius with computer processing showed when he wrote software to play chess before there were computers powerful enough to run his software. His “Turing Test” for determining true artificial intelligence is well known by any student of computer science.

Alan Turing was gay. Due to this, he was convicted by a British court in 1952 and given the choice of either going to prison, or taking forced estrogen injections. He chose the latter and committed suicide two years later at the age of 41. Although it was widely known Turing was gay during World War II, he was too valuable to the war effort for them to act upon their anti-homosexual laws until after the war was over.

I have to wonder what contributions were lost due to the unjust treatment of Alan Turing.

The English have long had the tradition of leaving petitions on the step of their Prime Minister’s office at 10 Downing Street. This is a tradition that has been updated to take advantage of the Internet. It would be appropriate if our government institutions followed suit. I’ve never been a fan of online petititions, because I think they are widely ignored. The English model of not only respecting them, but hosting them, gives the idea much more weight.

A 10 Downing Street petition was started demanding an official apology for the treatment of Alan Turing. On Thursday, Prime Minister Gordon Brown issued an official apology. It is worth reading.

Some years ago, XMission held a computer parts “recycling” event in cooperation with Salt Lake City. We were permitted use of a parking lot on the corner of State Street and 400 South, near our offices, for people to bring their household electronics for proper disposal. This disposal consisted of cosponsoring the hauling, destruction, and recycling of raw materials through a local company, GRX.

Although GRX recycles the raw materials in an environmentally friendly way, I was dismayed to see the quantity of usable gear head straight for the chipper. There was literally a football field of electronics at the end of the day, and I would guess that 80% of it was still in functional condition. Because I have long used Linux for the majority of my business at XMission, I knew that older PC’s can serve many people’s Internet and computing needs just fine.

An organization in California, the Alameda County Computer Resource Center is a model for what I envision for Utah. Although they have subsisted by taking state sponsorship for recycling, my experience with non-profits makes me believe an organization could be viable with donations. Thusly, I am proud to announce the formation of The Electroregeneration Society. I recently moved into a larger warehouse to support one of my other passions, and in addition to sharing it with the embryonic Computer Graphics Museum, there is space for this project.

Here is the draft mission statement: “The Electroregeneration Society is a non-profit dedicated to the reuse and repurpose of household and industrial electronics, primarily computers. Low-income, educational organizations, non-profits, and disabled individuals may receive fully functional computers for free. Hobbyists and enthusiasts may purchase hardware or volunteer their time in exchange. Hardware is received in donation as a write-off from businesses, government, organizations, and individuals.”

Tonight at 6pm there will be an initial meeting. The address is at 555 S 400 W in Salt Lake City. Please consider contributing however you can!