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Election Day - Prologue

Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Tue, 11/04/2008 - 06:59

It all boils down to this. Over the next eighteen hours, or so, voters will stream to the polls across our country to select our forty-fourth president. All ready millions of votes have been cast in early voting. Nearly two million people have voted already in Georgia, a state where 3.3 million voters in total voted in 2004. The early voting lines in Florida where so long that the Governor ordered the polls be open an extra four hours each day. In all thirty-one states currently have early voting and many are reporting record turnout and long lines for the early voting.

Shortly, the polls will open in Connecticut, a state that does not currently have early voting. As soon as I finish this blog post, I will go and vote. I plan on Videoing my vote, and Twittering my vote to Vote Report. I will then stand at the polls to talk with incoming voters about the state legislative candidates as well as the ballot questions in Connecticut.

A lot of attention has been placed on the Presidential election, yet there are also congressional elections, and state legislative elections. Here in Connecticut, the state legislative races should be especially interesting to watch. Last year, our state legislature passed a bill enabling public funding of state elections. You can get details about the program at the State Election Enforcement Commission’s Citizen Election Program website. It has certainly livened up the races here in Connecticut.

My wife is working for Common Cause, which is partner in the 866-our-vote voter protection project. She will be tracking and dealing with voter suppression issues in this election.

When I finish my poll standing, I will hop on a train to Washington DC, where I will be joining a group of nprbloggers to report on election returns. While I expect to write a little on the nuts and bolts of the Connecticut results as well as any issues with voter suppression, I intend to write a bit about the larger issues, the issues of narrative and if and how this is changing our country.

Stay tuned. Leave me any thoughts you have. No matter what happens, it will be an historic day.

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Fiona Interviews State Rep Candidate Marc Garofalo

Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Mon, 11/03/2008 - 09:29

Every Sunday evening, Fiona and I do an Internet based talk radio show on BlogTalkRadio.

Last night, Marc Garofalo, who is running for State Representative called into the show and talked a little bit about the campaign.

You can listen to the whole show on BlogTalkRadio. I've also extracted that part of the show where Fiona interviews Marc, which you can listen to here.

We've been doing the show for a few months and have been developing a great archive of discussions. Hopefully, this will help Fiona take it to a new level as she works on interviewing skills and hopefully it can provide a little boost to Marc in his campaign.

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It’s the Narrative, Dummy!

Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sun, 11/02/2008 - 10:17

The extra hour that we gained last night gave me more time to work on my novel for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). Between that and reading Neil Postman’s Building a Bridge to the 18th Century, I’ve been thinking a lot about the importance of narrative, of sense making, of how all the information bombarding us daily helps us understand ourselves and those around us a little better.

I would like to suggest that this may be the most important part of Sen. Obama’s campaign. All of the social networking tools trying to raise money and get out the vote are just more of the never-ending stream of information bombarding us. However, they are a valuable tool if they help people establish their own understanding of who Sen. Obama is and how it relates to their lives.

It is because of this that I’m most interested in some of the user generated content that has been created around the campaign. Several months ago, this video appeared on YouTube casting the presidential campaign in terms of PokeMon

More recently, somehedgehog wrote Adventuring Party Politics: The Campaign is Getting Ugly. It provides a humorous insight into politics that makes sense to Dungeon and Dragon players.

This came into even better focus during a show on National Public Radio yesterday talking about Hunter S. Thompson’s coverage of the 1972 campaign. One person quoted a McGovern campaign official saying something to the effect that Thompson’s coverage was the most factually inaccurate coverage, but at the same time showed better understanding of what was really going on in the campaign.

So, as people argue whether or not the guilt by association attacks by the McCain campaign, or the discussions of economic policies of the Obama campaign make for better politics, the real question remains, how do we understand all of this in a narrative that helps us better understand who we are and how we can be the best we can be. Joe the Plumber was an interesting attempt, but I still think that a level 8 paladin with Grassroots Organizing and Oratory/Colgate Smile proficiencies has done a better job in helping people find how his campaign relates to all of our stories.

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Learning about Online Media Law

Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Thu, 10/23/2008 - 14:38

As part of renewing my membership with the Media bloggers Association (MBA) I needed to take a fascinating News University course, Online Media Law: The Basics for Bloggers and Other Online Publishers. I’ve paid a lot of attention to online media law over the last year or two, and friends said I should be able to zip right through the course. I probably could have, but I decided to take my time and pay extra close attention.

The course was developed as a joint project by the Media Bloggers Association, the Citizen Media Law Project, the Center for Citizen Media, City University of New York's Graduate School of Journalism, Baruch College, and Media/Professional Insurance. It focuses on three key areas that anyone posting material online should be aware of, defamation, privacy and copyright.

Not only is the course useful in helping people who post material online determine what they should and shouldn’t post, it is also helpful in understanding what other publishers, whether they be major blogs, newspapers, or whatever should be thinking about. It would be great to have a nice summary of the key points of the class. Such a summary would fit very nicely along side the Society of Professional Journalism’s Code of Ethics. If everyone publishing online kept the online media law course notes and the code of ethics in mind, we would see a vast improvement in what is written online.

The course started off talking about defamation; libel and slander. It talked about the differences between public figures and officials, people who are public figures in a limited capacity, such as being an expert in a specific field, and private individuals. It talked about what is required to prove defamation, including when ‘actual malice’ needs to be shown, and the fact that corporations as well as individuals can be defamed and claim damages.

It went on to talk about privacy issues and what sort of material may raise issues, and ended off with a good discussion of copyright, as well as fair use issues. All in all, I probably spent two hours going through the course, and I’m likely to go through it often just to review and brush up on the issues.

There were exercises, including the opportunity to look at actual cases and make your own determination as to whether you thought defamation, invasion of privacy or copyright infringement was taking place. This gets to one of my gripes about the course. If your opinion on the merits of a particular case different from the opinion rendered by a judge hearing that case, they would say that you are incorrect. In some examples, this was even the situation with cases that had been ruled one way but were currently under appeal. The problem is that laws are not black and white and one judge’s opinion is not necessarily the ‘correct’ opinion. Instead of saying correct or incorrect, it would be better to note that you agreed with or disagreed with the judge on the case. What I would love to see is a place where people could discuss the merits of different cases and learn from one another.

With all of this in mind, I received an email from an organization I’ve been following. With permission of the person sending the email, I’m printing excerpts from a public statement. An article, critical of the organization had recently been published. The organization claimed the article was “inaccurate and misleading in the extreme.”

The organization had retained outside counsel to “to conduct a full review of governance, [and] corporate structure” of the organization. A newspaper obtained a copy of that review and presented it in a very different manner.

The counsel for the organization wrote that the article

misrepresents the purpose and context of my June memo as well as my conclusions and recommendations. I was providing confidential advice to a group of organizations that I knew would come under just the sort of politically motivated attacks we have seen this fall. My advice was offered for the organizations to be prepared to defend themselves against any imaginable allegation that might be brought. Accordingly, I flagged areas where I had concerns about their ability to affirmatively and formally prove the absence of legal violations. This is a far cry from stating that any actual violation had occurred or even that it may have.

As I read this, my mind went over aspects of the Online Media Law class. Was there actual malice by the reporter? I hesitate to claim actual malice in most cases, and I’m not sure if there was actual malice in this case. I just don’t have enough information. Was there publication of private facts? Clearly, the legal advice provided by counsel was intended to be confidential. Yet for a case about publication of private facts to be actionable, according to the class, it must be highly offensive to a reasonable person and not of legitimate concern to the public. In this case, I’m not sure either of those criteria were met. It seems as if ‘False Light’ fits even more closely, because it sure sounds like the article placed the organization and perhaps the lawyer in a false light. Is any of this actionable? I’m not a lawyer, and I’m not representing the organization in question or the newspaper, so I’ll reserve judgment.

A little later, I stumbled across Howie Klein’s blog post Gee, I Hope John Shadegg Isn't Planning On Suing Me After He Loses His Congressional Seat In 2 Weeks!. Klein talks about a blog post he had up referring to a book which alleged sexual misconduct by a member of Congress. Like with the example above, people could argue all kinds of different aspects of the case and it would be fascinating to watch an informed discussion of the issues. As I thought about it, many different considerations from the class came to mind.

Anyway you cut it, there is a lot to Online Media Law and I strongly encourage people to take the course. If you’re publishing material online, it is very important. If you’re simply trying to make more sense of what goes on in the media, it is a fascinating and enjoyable course.

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Bloggers Notebook

Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 10/17/2008 - 12:48

As I read through my emails, the news, and other people’s blogs, I note various things that I want to blog about. If it is a website, I typically bookmark it with Mento.info, which feeds del.icio.us and ma.gnloia. ma.gnolia, in turn posts entries on this blog.

Sometimes, these notes turn into full blog entries. Other times, I just don’t get enough information, interest, or time to develop full stories, but I still look for opportunities to write about them. Sometimes they show up in blog posts with titles like “Random Stuff”. With that, let me go through my notebook to highlight some of the more recent random stuff.

McCain, DMCA and PRO IP

CNET News has an article about the McCain campaign protesting YouTube’s DMCA policy. They are claiming that their “advertisements or Web videos have been the subject of DMCA takedown notices regarding uses that are clearly privileged under the fair use doctrine”.

Unfortunately, for the McCain campaign, the DMCA process is pretty weak on due process, and even if it wasn’t, YouTube’s Terms of Service state, "YouTube reserves the right to discontinue any aspect of the YouTube Web site at any time."

About the same time as the McCain campaign sent their complaint to YouTube, President Bush signed The Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act of 2007 which creates a national IP czar to increase intellectual property protection for movie studios, recording companies and others.

Personally, I’m very concerned about the lack of due process in DMCA takedowns and a lack of proper consideration of Fair Use issues. I hope that this will get some better focus on IP issues.

IPv6

I want to thank people who commented on my blog post about IPv6. I always worry about writing really geeky posts and losing the interest of my readers. amoration commented about the benefits of IPv6 for people needing less laggy connections, such as musicians or gamers. Since my connection is via an IPv6 tunnel, it is pretty laggy. I look forward to the day of being able to get a direct IPv6 connection.

As to games, I note that there appears to be at least one MUD that has been modified to support IPv6 and people are talking about doing that for MOOs as well. Apparently, one of the early tests was a Quake3 server on IPv6. The question is, will OpenSim support IPv6? Hpw about Second Life, Entropia or others?

During the presidential debate, I connected to an IRC server over IPv6. Then, last night, I did a little more IPv6 hacking. It turns out that Microsoft Research built an IPv6 protocol driver for Windows NT a long time ago, and I’ve managed to add it to my old NT box. It takes a little tweaking, but I’ve gotten Firefox to access IPv6 based websites. I updated cygwin, which has IPv6 extensions. However, I didn’t have much luck getting that to work on IPv6 on my NT box yet. I did, however, have success getting ssh in cygwin on my Vista box connected to my Linux server over IPv6.

Meanwhile, I’m still looking for other interesting IPv6 sites and applications.

Talking about the Issues

Yesterday, I received an email about Minekey’s Presidential Election Site. It looks like an interesting place to explore issues from different viewpoints. Also, yesterday, I received an email about whereIstand, another site focused on discussing the issues. Both of these remind me a bit of essembly. A good todo is to compare and contrast the three different sites.

More about ACORN

Also showing up in my email yesterday was information about the FBI investigating ACORN for Voter Fraud. The section that jumped out at me was

Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because Justice Department regulations forbid discussing ongoing investigations particularly so close to an election.

So, the reporter chose to aid and abet senior law enforcement officials in violating Justice Department regulations. The Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics says, that journalists must “always question sources’ motives before promising anonymity.” Was the reporting by the Associated Press not only aiding and abetting senior law enforcement officials in violating Justice Department regulations but also violating the ethics of journalists?

House Judiciary Committee Chair John Conyers, Jr. of Michigan had this to say to the Attorney General and the Director of the FBI:

It is with shock and disappointment that I read today's
Associated Press report that the Federal Bureau of Investigation has
opened and leaked an investigation into whether ACORN, a longstanding
and well regarded organization that fights for the poor and working
class, is involved in nationwide voter fraud.

As an initial matter, it is simply unacceptable that
such information would be leaked during the very peak of the election
season. Such leaks of information about ongoing criminal
investigation matters are always inappropriate, and likely violate
the provisions of the U.S. Attorney manual governing release of
information about ongoing investigations ... More significant in this case,
however, they also run afoul of valuable Department traditions
regarding the need for cautious and sensitive

Chairman Conyers wasn’t the only one to note this. Talking Point Memo had these posts about it, Returning to the Scene of the Crime, Short Memories, Oldie But Goodie (And Still Going On?) and Iglesias: "I'm Astounded" By DOJ's ACORN Probe. It will be interesting to how this continues to develop.

Supreme Court and Ohio

In a related issue about trying to make sure that all appropriate voters get a chance to vote in Ohio, US Supreme Court sides w/Ohio Sec’y of State Brunner.

Abusing Journalists

Jill, whose story about the Supreme Court I linked to was among many twittering about a journalist being physically abused by a McCain supporter at a Palin rally. Unfortunately, this is not particularly surprising. However, there is an interesting addendum to the story.

In the comments, Maria Barton encourages people experiencing this sort of abuse to immediate alert campaign staff. “We will immediately & dutifully fetch a couple of police officers to throw out anyone (especially if that person threw the first punch - or kick) who physically attacks any other attendee.”

Maria Barton is listed as the campaign chair of the Greater Greensboro Republican Women’s Club. I don’t know much about Ms. Barton. I suspect we probably disagree on a lot of issues, but I have to say we need more Republicans, and Democrats to stand up the way she did.