<\/p>\n\n\n\n August 23, 2008 6:09 PM PDT By choosing Joe Biden as their vice presidential candidate, the Democrats have selected a politician with a mixed record on technology who has spent most of his Senate career allied with the FBI and copyright holders, who ranks toward the bottom of CNET\u2019s Technology Voters\u2019 Guide, and whose anti-privacy legislation was actually responsible for the creation of PGP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s probably okay with Barack Obama: Biden likely got the nod because of his foreign policy knowledge. The Delaware politician is the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations committee who voted for the war in Iraq, and is reasonably well-known nationally after his presidential campaigns in 1988 and 2008.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But back to the Delaware senator\u2019s tech record. After taking over the Foreign Relations committee, Biden became a staunch ally of Hollywood and the recording industry in their efforts to expand copyright law. He sponsored a bill in 2002 that would have make it a federal felony to trick certain types of devices into playing unauthorized music or executing unapproved computer programs. Biden\u2019s bill was backed by content companies including News Corp. but eventually died after Verizon, Microsoft, Apple, eBay, and Yahoo lobbied against it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sen. Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic vice presidential nominee, whose anti-encryption legislation was responsible for the creation of PGP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A few months later, Biden signed a letter that urged the Justice Department \u201cto prosecute individuals who intentionally allow mass copying from their computer over peer-to-peer networks.\u201d Critics of this approach said that the Motion Picture Association of America and the Recording Industry Association of America, and not taxpayers, should pay for their own lawsuits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Last year, Biden sponsored an RIAA-backed bill called the Perform Act aimed at restricting Americans\u2019 ability to record and play back individual songs from satellite and Internet radio services. (The RIAA sued XM Satellite Radio over precisely this point.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n All of which meant that nobody in Washington was surprised when Biden was one of only four U.S. senators invited to a champagne reception in celebration of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act hosted by the MPAA\u2019s Jack Valenti, the RIAA, and the Business Software Alliance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, it\u2019s true that few Americans will cast their votes in November based on what the vice presidential candidate thinks of copyright law. But these pro-copyright views don\u2019t exactly jibe with what Obama has promised; he\u2019s pledged to \u201cupdate and reform our copyright and patent systems to promote civic discourse, innovation and investment while ensuring that intellectual property owners are fairly treated.\u201d These are code words for taking a more pro-EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) than pro-MPAA approach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Unfortunately, Biden has steadfastly refused to answer questions on the topic. We asked him 10 tech-related questions, including whether he\u2019d support rewriting the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, as part of our 2008 Technology Voters\u2019 guide. Biden would not answer (we did hear back from Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, and Ron Paul). In our 2006 Technology Voters\u2019 Guide, which ranked Senate votes from July 1998 through May 2005, Biden received a mere 37.5 percent score because of his support for Internet filters in schools and libraries and occasional support for <\/p>\n\n\n\n Privacy, the FBI, and PGP <\/p>\n\n\n\n On privacy, Biden\u2019s record is hardly stellar. In the 1990s, Biden was chairman of the Judiciary Committee and introduced a bill called the Comprehensive Counter-Terrorism Act, which the EFF says he was \u201cpersuaded\u201d to do by the FBI. A second Biden bill was called the Violent Crime Control Act. Both were staunchly anti-encryption, with this identical language: It is the sense of Congress that providers of electronic communications services and manufacturers of electronic communications service equipment shall ensure that communications systems permit the government to obtain the plain text contents of voice, data, and other communications when appropriately authorized by law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Translated, that means turn over your encryption keys. The book Electronic Privacy Papers describes Biden\u2019s bill as representing the FBI\u2019s visible effort to restrict encryption technology, which was taking place in concert with the National Security Agency\u2019s parallel, but less visible efforts. (Biden was no foe of the NSA. He once described now-retired NSA director Bobby Ray Inman as the \u201csingle most competent man in the government.\u201d)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Biden\u2019s bill \u2014 and the threat of encryption being outlawed \u2014 is what spurred Phil Zimmermann to write PGP, thereby kicking off a historic debate about export controls, national security, and privacy. Zimmermann, who\u2019s now busy developing Zfone, says it was Biden\u2019s legislation \u201cthat led me to publish PGP electronically for free that year, shortly before the measure was defeated after vigorous protest by civil libertarians and industry groups.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n While neither of Biden\u2019s pair of bills became law, they did foreshadow the FBI\u2019s pro-wiretapping, anti-encryption legislative strategy that followed \u2014 and demonstrated that the Delaware senator was willing to be a reliable ally of law enforcement on the topic. (They also previewed the FBI\u2019s legislative proposal later that decade for banning encryption products such as SSH or PGP without government backdoors, which was approved by one House of Representatives committee but never came to a vote in the Senate.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cJoe Biden made his second attempt to introduce such legislation\u201d in the form of the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA), which was also known as the Digital Telephony law, according to an account in Wired magazine. Biden at the time was chairman of the relevant committee; he co-sponsored the Senate version and dutifully secured a successful floor vote on it less than two months after it was introduced. CALEA became law in October 1994, and is still bedeviling privacy advocates: the FBI recently managed to extend its requirements to Internet service providers. CALEA represented one step in the FBI and NSA\u2019s attempts to restrict encryption without backdoors. In a top-secret memo to members of President George H.W. Bush\u2019s administration including Defense Secretary Dick Cheney and CIA director Robert Gates, one White House official wrote: \u201cJustice should go ahead now to seek a legislative fix to the digital telephony problem, and all parties should prepare to follow through on the encryption problem in about a year. Success with digital telephony will lock in one major objective; we will have a beachhead we can exploit for the encryption fix; and the encryption access options can be developed more thoroughly in the meantime.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n There\u2019s another reason why Biden\u2019s legislative tactics in the CALEA scrum amount to more than a mere a footnote in Internet history. They\u2019re what led to the creation of the Center for Democracy and Technology \u2014 and the Electronic Frontier Foundation\u2019s simultaneous implosion and soul-searching.<\/p>\n\n\n\n EFF staffers Jerry Berman and Danny Weitzner chose to work with Biden on cutting a deal and altering the bill in hopes of obtaining privacy concessions. It may have helped, but it also left the EFF in the uncomfortable position of leaving its imprimatur on Biden\u2019s FBI-backed wiretapping law universally loathed by privacy advocates. The debacle ended with internal turmoil, Berman and Weitzner leaving the group and taking their corporate backers to form CDT, and a chastened EFF that quietly packed its bags and moved to its current home in San Francisco. (Weitzner, who was responsible for a censorship controversy last year, became a formal Obama campaign surrogate.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAnti-terror\u201d legislation <\/p>\n\n\n\n The next year, months before the Oklahoma City bombing took place, Biden introduced another bill called the Omnibus Counterterrorism Act of 1995. It previewed the 2001 Patriot Act by allowing secret evidence to be used in prosecutions, expanding the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and wiretap laws, creating a new federal crime of \u201cterrorism\u201d that could be invoked based on political beliefs, permitting the U.S. military to be used in civilian law enforcement, and allowing permanent detection of non-U.S. citizens without judicial review. The Center for National Security Studies said the bill would erode \u201cconstitutional and statutory due process protections\u201d and would \u201cauthorize the Justice Department to pick and choose crimes to investigate and prosecute based on political beliefs and associations.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Biden himself draws parallels between his 1995 bill and its 2001 cousin. \u201cI drafted a terrorism bill after the Oklahoma City bombing. And the bill John Ashcroft sent up was my bill,\u201d he said when the Patriot Act was being debated, according to the New Republic, which described him as \u201cthe Democratic Party\u2019s de facto spokesman on the war against terrorism.\u201d Biden\u2019s chronology is not accurate: the bombing took place in April 1995 and his bill had been introduced in February 1995. But it\u2019s true that Biden\u2019s proposal probably helped to lay the groundwork for the Bush administration\u2019s Patriot Act.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 1996, Biden voted to keep intact an ostensibly anti-illegal immigration bill that outlined what the Real ID Act would become almost a decade later. The bill would create a national worker identification registry; Biden voted to kill an Abraham-Feingold amendment that would have replaced the registry with stronger enforcement. According to an analysis by the Electronic Privacy Information Center, the underlying bill would have required \u201cstates to place Social Security numbers on drivers licenses and to obtain fingerprints or some other form of biometric identification for licenses.\u201d Along with most of his colleagues in the Congress \u2014 including Sen. John McCain but not Rep. Ron Paul \u2014 Biden voted for the Patriot Act and the Real ID Act (which was part of a larger spending bill). Obama voted for the bill containing the Real ID Act, but wasn\u2019t in the U.S. Senate in 2001 when the original Patriot Act vote took place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Patriot Act <\/p>\n\n\n\n In the Senate debate over the Patriot Act in October 2001, Biden once again allied himself closely with the FBI. The Justice Department favorably quotes Biden on its Web site as saying: \u201cThe FBI could get a wiretap to investigate the mafia, but they could not get one to investigate terrorists. To put it bluntly, that was crazy! What\u2019s good for the mob should be good for terrorists.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The problem is that Biden\u2019s claim was simply false \u2014 which he should have known after a decade of experience lending his name to wiretapping bills on behalf of the FBI. As CDT explains in a rebuttal to Biden: \u201cThe Justice Department had the ability to use wiretaps, including roving taps, in criminal investigations of terrorism, just as in other criminal investigations, long before the Patriot Act.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n But Biden\u2019s views had become markedly less FBI-friendly by April 2007, six years later. By then, the debate over wiretapping had become sharply partisan, pitting Democrats seeking to embarrass President Bush against Republicans aiming to defend the administration at nearly any cost. In addition, Biden had announced his presidential candidacy three months earlier and was courting liberal activists dismayed by the Bush administration\u2019s warrantless wiretapping.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That month, Biden slammed the \u201cpresident\u2019s illegal wiretapping program that allows intelligence agencies to eavesdrop on the conversations of Americans without a judge\u2019s approval or congressional authorization or oversight.\u201d He took aim at Attorney General Alberto Gonzales for allowing the FBI to \u201cflagrantly misuse National Security Letters\u201d \u2014 even though it was the Patriot Act that greatly expanded their use without also expanding internal safeguards and oversight as well. Biden did vote against a FISA bill with retroactive immunity for any telecommunications provider that illegally opened its network to the National Security Agency; Obama didn\u2019t. Both agreed to renew the Patriot Act in March 2006, a move that pro-privacy Democrats including Ron Wyden and Russ Feingold opposed. The ACLU said the renewal \u201cfails to correct the most flawed provisions\u201d of the original Patriot Act. (Biden does do well on the ACLU\u2019s congressional scorecard.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBaby-food bombs\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n The ACLU also had been at odds with Biden over his efforts to censor bomb-making information on the Internet. One day after a bomb in Saudi Arabia killed several U.S. servicemen and virtually flattened a military base, Biden pushed to make posting bomb-making information on the Internet a felony, punishable by up to 20 years in jail, the Wall Street Journal reported at the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI think most Americans would be absolutely shocked if they knew what kind of bone-chilling information is making its way over the Internet,\u201d he told the Senate. \u201cYou can access detailed, explicit instructions on how to make and detonate pipe bombs, light-bulb bombs, and even \u2014 if you can believe it \u2014 baby-food bombs.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Biden didn\u2019t get exactly what he wanted \u2014 at least not right away. His proposal was swapped in the final law for one requiring the attorney general to investigate \u201cthe extent to which the First Amendment protects such material and its private and commercial distribution.\u201d The report was duly produced, concluding that the proposal \u201ccan withstand constitutional muster in most, if not all, of its possible applications, if such legislation is slightly modified.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was. Biden and co-sponsor Dianne Feinstein introduced their bill again the following year. Biden pitched it as an anti-terror measure, saying in a floor debate that numerous terrorists \u201chave been found in possession of bomb-making manuals and Internet bomb-making information.\u201d He added: \u201cWhat is even worse is that some of these instructions are geared toward kids. They tell kids that all the ingredients they need are right in their parents\u2019 kitchen or laundry cabinets.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Biden\u2019s proposal became law in 1997. It didn\u2019t amount to much: four years after its enactment, there had been only one conviction. And instead of being used to snare a dangerous member of Al Qaeda, the law was used to lock up a 20-year old anarchist Webmaster who was sentenced to one year in prison for posting information about Molotov cocktails and \u201cDrano bombs\u201d on his Web site, Raisethefist.com.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Today there are over 10,000 hits on Google for the phrase, in quotes, \u201cDrano bomb.\u201d One is a video that lists the necessary ingredients and shows some self-described rednecks blowing up small plastic bottles in their yard. Then there\u2019s the U.S. Army\u2019s Improvised Munitions Handbook with instructions on making far more deadly compounds, including methyl nitrate dynamite, mortars, grenades, and C-4 plastic explosive \u2014 which free speech activists placed online as an in-your-face response to the Biden-Feinstein bill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Peer-to-peer networks <\/p>\n\n\n\n Since then, Biden has switched from complaining about Internet baby-food bombs to taking aim at peer-to-peer networks. He held one Foreign Relations committee hearing in February 2002 titled \u201cTheft of American Intellectual Property\u201d and invited executives from the Justice Department, RIAA, MPAA, and Microsoft to speak. Not one Internet company, P2P network, or consumer group was invited to testify.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Afterwards, Sharman Networks (which distributes Kazaa) wrote a letter to Biden complaining about \u201cone-sided and unsubstantiated attacks\u201d on P2P networks. It said: \u201cWe are deeply offended by the gratuitous accusations made against Kazaa by witnesses before the committee, including ludicrous attempts to associate an extremely beneficial, next-generation software program with organized criminal gangs and even terrorist organizations.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Biden returned to the business of targeting P2P networks this year. In April, he proposed spending $1 billion in U.S. tax dollars so police can monitor peer-to-peer networks for illegal activity. He made that suggestion after a Wyoming cop demonstrated a proof-of-concept program called \u201cOperation Fairplay\u201d at a hearing before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee. A month later, the Senate Judiciary committee approved a Biden-sponsored bill that would spend over $1 billion on policing illegal Internet activity, mostly child pornography. It has the dubious virtue of being at least partially redundant: One section would \u201cprohibit the broadcast of live images of child abuse,\u201d even though the Justice Department has experienced no problems in securing guilty pleas for underage Webcamming. (The bill has not been voted on by the full Senate.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Online sales of Robitussin <\/p>\n\n\n\n Around the same time, Biden introduced his self-described Biden Crime Bill of 2007. One section expands electronic surveillance law to permit police wiretaps in \u201ccrimes dangerous to the life, limb, and well-being of minor children.\u201d Another takes aim at Internet-based telemedicine and online pharmacies, saying that physicians must have conducted \u201cat least one in-person medical evaluation of the patient\u201d to prescribe medicine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Another prohibits selling a product containing dextromethorphan \u2014 including Robitussin, Sucrets, Dayquil, and Vicks \u2014 \u201cto an individual under the age of 18 years, including any such sale using the Internet.\u201d It gives the Justice Department six months to come up with regulations, which include when retailers should be fined for shipping cough suppressants to children. (Biden is a longtime drug warrior; he authored the Illicit Drug Anti-Proliferation Act that the Bush administration used to shut down benefit concerts.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Net neutrality <\/p>\n\n\n\n On Net neutrality, Biden has sounded skeptical. In 2006, he indicated that no preemptive laws were necessary because if violations do happen, such a public outcry will develop that \u201cthe chairman will be required to hold this meeting in this largest room in the Capitol, and there will be lines wandering all the way down to the White House.\u201d Obama, on the other hand, has been a strong supporter of handing pre-emptive regulatory authority to the Federal Communications Commission. <\/p>\nhttp:\/\/archive.is\/lHszT<\/a><\/cite><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Memory Holed by CNET: Joe Biden wrote the Patriot (Traitriot) Act in 1995. It would \u201cerode constitutional and statutory due process protections\u201d and would \u201cauthorize the Justice Department to pick and choose crimes to investigate and prosecute based on political beliefs and associations.\u201d https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20080907020258\/http:\/\/news.cnet.com\/8301-13578_3-10024163-38.html?tag=newsLeadStoriesArea.0 August 23, 2008 6:09 PM PDTJoe Biden\u2019s pro-RIAA, pro-FBI tech voting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/v4.fadingstar.mx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15311"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/v4.fadingstar.mx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/v4.fadingstar.mx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/v4.fadingstar.mx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/v4.fadingstar.mx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15311"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/v4.fadingstar.mx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15311\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15313,"href":"https:\/\/v4.fadingstar.mx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15311\/revisions\/15313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/v4.fadingstar.mx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/v4.fadingstar.mx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/v4.fadingstar.mx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/v4.fadingstar.mx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/IMG_0529-1024x730-1.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n\n
Joe Biden\u2019s pro-RIAA, pro-FBI tech voting record
Posted by Declan McCullagh<\/p>\n\n\n\n