This afternoon an FBI Special Agent came to my door and showed me his badge.
I was sure that he was going to ask me about laser printer forensics, how much we know about the government's ability to track documents, why we're publishing it, who's helping us figure it out, etc.
But it turned out that the agent just wanted to interview me for a background check on one of my former neighbors who's applying for a job with a Top Secret security clearance. The agent didn't know me (or EFF) from Adam.
I have three observations about this experience.
First, I gave the agent a lot more information than I would have expected, both because he was an authority figure who took me by surprise, and because I didn't want to cause any trouble for my former neighbor's employment prospects. This despite the fact the FBI could theoretically have been investigating the neighbor himself (or one of his friends) under the guise of an employment-related background check. Law enforcement agents are often allowed to lie to people while gathering evidence.
Second, if the FBI actually wanted to interview me about something I was working on, they would probably have sent two agents, not just one -- or such is the experience of everyone I know who's been interviewed by Federal law enforcement.
Third, the interview was extremely anticlimactic. Here I am working on all of this privacy stuff and political stuff, and when a law enforcement agent actually comes to my house, he just wants to know if I think my former neighbor should get a government job.
I deliberately bought an older ATI card in order to get accelerated X support without using proprietary software. I still need to put together some notes on how to play DDR without proprietary software -- one of my favorite topics.
So Don, when you get that new Intel machine, could you do me a favor and run StepMania for a minute to see what frame rate you get? For frame rate display, just do Options / Graphic Options / Show Stats / On. You can play a song (there is no end to techno) using the keyboard arrows without even hooking up a dance pad.
I would absolutely love to hear about current graphics hardware that is supported by a free driver...
Before the end of the year I should mention that I attended the oral argument in Gilmore v. Gonzales. Eric Rescorla has found audio recording of that argument (in WMA format, argh!). I don't have much to say about the argument that hasn't already been said in the press. There was some merriment about the bizarreness of having secret laws (even the lawyer for the United States admitted that this sounds "Orwellian"); there was much procedural wrangling about where such a case belongs. (Normally you appeal agency rules directly to a court of appeals. But normally you get to read agency rules and normally the agencies admit that their rules exist, and publish them in the Federal Register. Here the government continues to claim that it can't even tell the public whether or not there is a rule.)
I think the judges were uncomfortable with the idea that there is something wrong with requiring ID from airplane passengers, even though there is no caselaw that specifically says that the government has authority to make airplane passengers say who they are. The ID requirement (even though it's not written down anywhere in public) is a familiar idea that most people have internalized. This suggests to me that there is extrajudicial precedent (perhaps we should say "inertia") in addition to the precedent of caselaw. When something is widespread and familiar in society, judges are influenced by the common intuition that it is probably appropriate. This is so even in the absence of written law or binding legal authority. Certainly this was the case at common law many years ago -- the antiquity or ubiquity of a tradition was a powerful consideration for judges. I think this is still true today. That suggests that there's a lot of value in bringing a challenge to something on the very first day that it's done (when it will still seem like an alien idea and a usurpation of the people's ancient liberties) instead of years later (when the notion of stopping it will seem like an alien idea, etc.). Perhaps the status quo in general -- not just possession -- is nine-tenths of the law.
The trouble is that people might not notice that something is wrong on the first day that it's done, or it might take many years for a movement to crystallize that can articulate concerns about a practice. We don't necessarily have lots of activist movements sitting around idle and ready to file challenges against every single innovation (although I'm sure it feels that way sometimes...).
The latests news about Gilmore v. Gonzales is that the 9th circuit panel has requested an in camera briefing about just exactly what this secret law, directive, regulation, rule, etc., is. So they, unlike John Gilmore, will find out just what it is that Gilmore is trying to challenge.
