[CWN-Summit] Re: CWN-Summit Digest, Vol 21, Issue 1

[Dharma Dailey]

Question for Harold regarding CALEA:  With the increasing outsourcing  
of key government functions who exactly will be doing the tapping?  Is  
it possible, for example, one division of Haliburton will be listening  
in on conversations of say of an activist-heavy consulting group while  
perhaps another division seeks contracts that directly compete with  
said consulting group?  Are there any stipulations preventing  
outsourcing of this kind?  Is there any recourse if this kind of  
non-governmental but governmental espionage takes place?

-Dharma Dailey

On May 2, 2006, at 1:02 PM, cwn-summit-request at lists.cuwireless.net  
wrote:

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> Today's Topics:
>
>    1. Blogs Be Damned,	Newsletter Article on National Community
>       Wireless Summit (Dharma Dailey)
>    2. Stevens Bill on Community Broadband (Harold Feld)
>    3. Stevens Bill on Wireless (Harold Feld)
>    4. Upcoming CALEA Order from FCC tomorrow,	Court fight on Friday
>       (Harold Feld)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Mon, 1 May 2006 17:50:26 -0400
> From: Dharma Dailey <dharma at prometheusradio.org>
> Subject: [CWN-Summit] Blogs Be Damned,	Newsletter Article on National
> 	Community Wireless Summit
> To: basement at prometheusradio.org
> Cc: cwn-summit at lists.cuwireless.net, joshua at mediatank.org,	Aaron
> 	Huslage <huslage at GMail.com>
> Message-ID: <23ab2a8f69ad5282189f513dd9d2febd at prometheusradio.org>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252"
>
> Here is the unedited article on the Summit that's going in the
> Prometheus newsletter:
>
>
> Imagine and Implement Community Wireless Summit 2006
>   Shows Community Wireless at a "Critical Juncture"
> -by Dharma Dailey
>
>
> People from far flung Community Wireless projects - Seattle to New
> Orleans- San Diego to New York- joined  Developers, Policy Wonks, and
> Community organizers for a weekend in early April in St. Charles, MO to
> kvetch, cabal, and connoiter on the future of Community Wireless.
> Plugged as the National Wireless Summit, of the 200 participants there
> was a strong international representation with several participants
> hailing from Canada, Ghana, India and Europe.  Together under one roof
> strategizing for “Digital Inclusion,” the Summit was a confluence for
> people who swim in the Media Reform movement and those who work in
> Community Technology circles.
>
> Noting that the Whole U.S. is in Danger of Being on the Wrong Side of
> Digital Divide-our communications systems are increasingly surpassed by
> country after country- the summit was awash with still even more
> stories of communities taking their communication futures into their
> own hands.
>   Wireless internet is still a rapidly growing technology. Our techie
> friends are still working hard to make it more reliable, easier to use
> and maintain, and more flexible for all sorts of applications and
> terrains.  While some developers on the ground are working on goodies
> like developing better antennas, several participants are involved in
> projects that promote local, site-specific content geared toward
> community use such as interactive descriptions of murals and altars in
> San Diego’s historic and radical Chicano Park. “WIFI Dog” is one such
> tool that generated a lot of excitement in the crowd because it make it
> easy to develop and maintain local content.
> Sustainability -  Community Wireless Moves Closer to Municipal  
> Wireless.
> Gone are the days when Community Wireless meant exclusively a bunch of
> friends throwing up a network in their backyard.  Much of Summit
> discussion was devoted to Muni-Wireless.  Cities big and small, urban
> and rural areas, state-side and outside are finding that they can build
> their own state-of-the-art communications systems that are “revenue
> neutral”-  meaning the money spent on building and maintaining their
> network is made up for by what they save in better communication.  The
> bonus is that municipal systems can become the backbone for other
> communication projects in the community.  This makes muni-wireless “a
> no-brainer.”
> One speaker, Jonathan Baltin, gave an example of what it would cost for
> Atlanta, GA to put in a muni-wireless network.  It would cost
> $25,000,000 for the city to hook up every citizen in Atlanta with
> wireless.  Today, those with internet service in Atlanta pay
> $125,000,000 for it, but, Baltin says, every dollar spent locally can
> roll over 7 times.  So putting in muni-network is like investing
> $750,000,000 in the local economy of Atlanta.
>
>   The role of community in determining their communication destiny
> today, may mean building their own networks, or creating greater
> accountability for corporate endeavors, or getting involved in the
> development of a municipal project.
>
> Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane FEMA
> Several people who are working on  or worked on communication systems
> in the Gulf region post-Hurricane-were in the house.  Lots of
> discussion is taking place in the Wireless community on ways that a
> rapid response “neighbors helping neighbors” emergency service for
> community wireless could be developed that builds on the work that is
> taking place and has taken place in the Gulf.
>
> Political Action -- “a critical juncture within a critical juncture
> within a critical juncture.”
> In the opening plenary, Robert McChesney described his view that right
> now we are at a critical juncture when radical change of communications
> is possible because:
> 1.  We are in a deep political crisis in our democracy.
> 2.  Our media system is in a  “deep severe crisis”  Professional
> journalism has collapsed.
> 3.  The underlying technology of communication has changed.
>
>
> A critical juncture within a critical juncture the future of the
> internet.
> Much on everyone’s minds is “net neutrality” - that is will the
> Internet eventually be wheedled down to become something like
> Television before there was cable- when those who owned the network got
> to decide what the content was that went over the network.
>
> A critical juncture within a critical juncture within a critical
> juncture.
> Time Warner, Cox, and the Baby  Bells tried unsuccessfully to kill muni
> and community wireless by getting laws passed in several states that
> made it difficult or illegal for people to put the “comm” in their
> communities.  Now they’re changing their tune.  The same companies who
> tried to outlaw community wireless are bidding on municipal contracts.
> Community and municipal wireless could be co-opted and enveloped by the
> big guys. who will try hard to get their foot in the door and slam it
> shut behind them.  Long before the potential for high-quality low-cost
> communication becomes within everyone’s reach, the promise of wireless
> could fade away.  Thus many groups within the media reform and
> community technology worlds are coming together to fight aggressively
> on behalf of community and municipal wireless.  We activists need to
> articulate exactly what we want from our communications systems
> irrespective of who builds them.  We need to be prepared to create
> accountability to community under a variety of  ownership-control
> schemes. State by state campaigns are being planned right now, along
> with an active plan for DC.  As always, methinks the best plan of
> action is getting out their and building your own damn community
> network.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> 	 PAGE 1
>
>
>
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> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Tue, 02 May 2006 10:16:26 -0400
> From: Harold Feld <hfeld at mediaaccess.org>
> Subject: [CWN-Summit] Stevens Bill on Community Broadband
> To: National Summit on Community Wireless Networking Participant
> 	E-mail List	<cwn-summit at lists.cuwireless.net>
> Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.0.20060502100511.03af7480 at mail.his.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed
>
> One of the few bright spots in last week's fight over the
> Communications Opportunity Enhancement Act of 2006 (COPE) was the
> pro-munibroadband provision.  The provision would both prohibit
> states from preventing municipalities from deploying broadband
> systems and repeal such laws in states where they exist.  This
> provision survived an effort to eliminate it and an effort to
> grandfather existing prohibitions.
>
> The "Communications, Consumer's Choice, and Broadband Deployment Act
> of 2006," introduced yesterday by Commerce Committee Chair Senator
> Stevens, and co-sponsored by Inoue, the ranking Democrat,  also
> addresses munibroadband systems.  Unfortunately, it does serious
> damage to the ability of local governments to offer broadband
> services directly.  Title V, "Municipal Broadband," mirrors the House
> language, but only with regard to "public-private partnerships"
> (Philadelphia would fall into this catagory).  With respect to purely
> public provided services, such as those offered by St. Cloud, the
> bill would require local governments to publish a notice of intent
> and give private sector providers a right of first refusal (similar
> to the existing law in Pennsylvania).
>
> This presents a big problem for a large number of reasons, not least
> of which because a local government may chose to provide such
> services for the purpose of competing with a local monopoly provider
> or duopoly.
>
> Harold
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Tue, 02 May 2006 10:18:54 -0400
> From: Harold Feld <hfeld at mediaaccess.org>
> Subject: [CWN-Summit] Stevens Bill on Wireless
> To: National Summit on Community Wireless Networking Participant
> 	E-mail List	<cwn-summit at lists.cuwireless.net>
> Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.0.20060502101630.037187f8 at mail.his.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed
>
> The only bright spot in the Stevens bill is Title VI, wireless
> innovation networks.  This provision requires the FCC to open the
> television "white spaces" to unlicensed use that does not interfere
> with broadcast TV or public safety.
>
> I would not support the bill for this provision alone, given
> everything else bad in it.  But I do recognize the one good provision.
>
> Harold
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 4
> Date: Tue, 02 May 2006 10:04:59 -0400
> From: Harold Feld <hfeld at mediaaccess.org>
> Subject: [CWN-Summit] Upcoming CALEA Order from FCC tomorrow,	Court
> 	fight on Friday
> To: National Summit on Community Wireless Networking Participant
> 	E-mail List	<cwn-summit at lists.cuwireless.net>
> Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.0.20060502094906.03b07ea8 at mail.his.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed
>
> Tomorrow, the FCC will adopt its Second Report and Order on the
> Communications Assitance to Law Enforcement Act (CALEA).  CALEA
> requires all providers of communications services to construct their
> networks in a way that allows law enforcement agencies to monitor
> individual converssations/messages (they still need a warrant, but
> you have to build the network in such a way that it is possible to
> perform the wiretap).
>
> Last summer, the FCC issued an order applying CALEA to all providers
> of broadband access, on the grounds that broadband access constituted
> a "substantial replacement" of traditional phone services because it
> enabled communications in a way that allowed one to dispense with
> traditional phone services.
>
> The legality of the FCC's First Order is pending before the DC
> Cir.  Media Access Project (my employer) has been "of counsel" to the
> Center for Democracy and Technology which, with a coalition of
> others, has challenged the authority of the FCC to apply CALEA to
> information services (as it classes broadband).  That case has been
> briefed on accelerated schedule and will be argued before a panel of
> the D.C. Cir. on Friday morning, May 5.
>
> The legal challenge in court, however, does not stay the FCC's
> Order.  ISPs have 18 months from the release of the Order (last
> August) to become "CALEA compliant," which is a neat trick because no
> one knows what the heck that means until the FCC issues its Second  
> Order.
>
> The Second Order will address several issues left hanging in the
> First Order.  1) What does "CALEA compliant" mean? 2) Should certain
> classes of ISP be exempt from CALEA, or subject to a less burdensome
> "CALEA-lite" regime? and 3) Does CALEA apply to "private networks,"
> networks that are designed primarily for internal intranet
> communication.  Further, if users of private networks can reach the
> internet, should responsibility for CALEA compliance fall on the
> private network operator or on the ISP selling the bachaul?
>
> I have argued that community mesh networks constitute "private
> networks" within any rational meaning of the statute.  EDUCAUSE and
> other organizations representing institutions of higher education
> have made similar arguments with regard to campus-wide systems.  The
> Department of Justice has vigorously opposed exempting private
> networks or providing relief to any class of broadband access  
> providers.
>
> I will keep folks here apprised of what happens and what possible
> next steps the community (either collectively or as individuals) may
> wish to consider based on what happens this week.
>
> Harold
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
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> End of CWN-Summit Digest, Vol 21, Issue 1
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