THE NEXT PAGE • 2000.12.17 - FINAL EDITION

Technology & Internet Politics

Secret Plan to Spy on All British Phone Calls, Emails
The Observer (UK)

This is a Very Scary, Very Bad Thing.

Britain's intelligence services are seeking powers to seize all records of telephone calls, emails and internet connections made by every person living in this country.

A document circulated to Home Office officials and obtained by The Observer reveals that MI5, MI6 and the police are demanding new legislation to log every phone call made in this country and store the information for seven years at a vast government-run 'data warehouse', a super computer that will hold the information. Every telephone call made and received by a member of the public, all emails sent and received and every web page looked at would be recorded.

The secret moves, which will cost millions of pounds, were last night condemned by politicians and campaigners as a sinister expansion of 'Big Brother' state powers and a fundamental attack on the public's right to privacy.

The controversial NCIS paper as described in today's London Observer can be found at: http://cryptome.org/ncis-carnivore.htm

In The Running
ZDNet

While voters may never know the true count in Florida, the election fiasco demonstrated one thing vividly: It's time to make changes to the balkanized and largely antiquated system of voting in the U.S.

Want to Know How Your Representatives Voted on Tech Issues?
Wired

Wired News has compiled a list of the technology voting records of each member of the U.S. House of Representatives. They picked seven tech bills and graded all 435 legislators -- at least the ones who showed up those days -- on their floor votes.

You can check your representatives' score by name and by ranking. You'll also find a summary of the results and a description of the methodology.

Police Treaty a Global Invasion?
Wired

Civil liberties groups say a proposed treaty that will grant more surveillance powers to U.S. and European police agencies runs roughshod over Internet freedom.

Drafty Treaty
ZDNet

U.S. high-tech companies and privacy advocates around the world are becoming increasingly alarmed about a European cybercrime treaty aimed at harmonizing laws and increasing cooperation among law enforcement.

The Feds' Latest Crusade
ZDNet

The U.S. government is now embarking on a new war against teen hackers. It's likely to be no more successful than our "War on Drugs," but geeky keyboard desperados, handicapped by raging hormones and other afflictions of puberty, are much easier and safer marks than well-armed cartel terrorists.

Verizon Backs No-Call Drive Laws
Wired

Breaking with the industry, the cell phone giant says it plans to support laws that prohibit users from holding a telephone and talking on it while driving.

Bravo! We give Verizon a standing ovation for their wisdom. Of course, we'd like to see it go a little further - we've long advocated the decriminalization drive-by shootings of motorists who use their cell phones while driving...

The Internet Is Falling ... Not!
Wired

A computer emergency response team is issuing a warning that the Trojan horse has been unleashed and a huge denial of service attack that can take down the entire Internet may be looming. 'Ha!' cry informed skeptics.

"Worst case scenario: Maybe they'll tumble Yahoo again. Or fuss around with eBay. And does it matter a lot if a few of them go down for the day? It's mean and tacky but in the greater scheme of things, so what?"

Cobalt Calls Apple a Bunch of Copycats
CNet

Cobalt Networks, maker of a Linux server called the Qube, apparently is considering legal action against Apple Computer over Apple's new G4 Cube.

Umm...p'raps someone should tell the legal weasels at Cobalt about the NeXT Cube that Steve Jobs came out with way back in 1988.

Here's a side-by-side pictorial comparison so you can judge for yourself.

Environmental Politics

No Deal on Global Warming as Climate Talks Collapse
CNN

United Nations climate talks have collapsed in disarray with no deal reached to stop global warming. "There isn't a deal. That's unfortunate," British Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott told reporters, saying he was leaving the conference in The Hague hours before a deadline to reach for a pact. Delegates said talks had foundered on disagreements between the EU and the United States over ways to curb emissions of greenhouse gases believed to be causing climate change.

Colombia's Environment a Casualty in U.S. War on Drugs
Environment News Service

The aerial fumigation program that has grown out of the U.S. government's so-called "war on drugs" is endangering the fragile ecosystems and indigenous cultures of Colombia's Amazon Basin, a coalition of groups warned today at a news conference on Capitol Hill.

Living under the hole in the sky
Salon

This port city of 120,000 people, at 53 degrees south latitude, has always been known more for its proximity to other places -- five hours from Patagonia'sTorres del Paine, an hour from a penguin colony, a boat ride to Antarctica -- than as a destination in its own right. But as ground zero of a global ecological catastrophe, Punta Arenas is becoming famous, or infamous, as the city that has squatted directly under the gaping hole in the earth's ozone layer. What's happening down here on the edge of nowhere is an uncontrolled science experiment: exposing human beings in their natural habitat to long-term doses of potentially deadly ultraviolet radiation.

The Big Sheep Belch Squelch
Wired

Greenhouse gases are a big climate concern, and in New Zealand, nearly half consists of methane from its 40 million sheep. So, scientists figure, if they eliminate the sheep gas, what a wonderful, green world it'll be.

Earth at Risk
New Scientist

The Earth is not sufficiently protected against the risk from asteroid or comet impacts, says an expert report released on Monday. "The possibility of extinction by impact of an asteroid or comet is one of the most important subjects ever for the human race," says Harry Atkinson, who chaired the British government's Near Earth Object (NEO) task force. "I think people around the world are waiting for this report. They feel it could be a catalyst for action in Europe."

New Evidence Confirms Global Warming
Lycos

Both the last decade and the last 50 years were the warmest in 1,000 years, a new analysis of centuries old ice has found. Ice cores drilled through a glacier more than four miles up in the Himalayan Mountains have yielded a highly detailed record of the last 1,000 years of earth's climate on the high Tibetan Plateau.

For more on what's happening as the world warms, see our archived Closer Look: The Icecaps Are Melting.

Reasearchers have finally discovered the reason for the decline of the Alutian sea otter (you know, those cuddly little critters that crack clams on their tummies while floating on their backs looking cute as the dickens).

Seems that the Orca whales are eating them...

(We'll prolly burn in hell for finding this funny.)

Hey, if we're gonna save those whales, they gotta eat something...

World Affairs

Glaxo Stops Africans From Buying Cheap AIDS Drugs
The Guardian (UK)

The arguments over affordable life-saving medicines for the developing world intensified yesterday when it was revealed that the multinational pharmaceutical company, Glaxo-Wellcome, has blocked imports of cheap copies of one of its AIDS drugs into Ghana.

China's Hand in Africa's Wars
Stratfor

In a bid to develop a market for its arms industry, China has dispatched four military delegations to sub-Saharan Africa in the last few months. South Africa and the United Nations have worked to resolve the region's conflicts. But China's new policy - really intended to get the People's Liberation Army out of the Chinese economy - threatens to create a miniature but destabilizing arms race in southern Africa.

Nice guys, eh?