Leonie Haimson: The Woman Who Stopped Bill Gates, Rupert Murdoch, and the Ed Profiteers

Diane Ravitch’s blog

Leonie Haimson: The Woman Who Stopped Bill Gates, Rupert Murdoch, and the Ed Profiteers

Below is a letter from Leonie Haimson, who was previously added to the honor roll of this blog for fighting for students, parents, and public education.
Leonie almost singlehandedly stopped the effort to mine student data, whose sponsors wanted confidential and identifiable information about every child “for the children’s sake.” Leonie saw through that ruse and raised a national ruckus to fight for student privacy. privacy of student records is supposedly protected by federal law (FERPA), but Arne Duncan weakened the regulations so that parents could not opt out of the data mining.
It is not over. The Gates Foundation and Carnegie Corporation put up $100 million to start inBloom, and Rupert Murdoch’s Wireless Generation got the contract to develop the software, and amazon.com pans to put it on a “cloud.” They will be back. We count on Haimson and the many parents she has inspired to remain vigilant on behalf of our children. As a grandparent of a child in second grade in a Brooklyn public school, I have a personal interest in keeping his information private.
Here is Leonie’s letter, written 12/20/13:
Dear folks,
I have good news to report! Yesterday, Sheldon Silver, Speaker of the NYS Assembly, along with Education Chair Cathy Nolan and fifty Democratic Assemblymembers sent a letter to Commissioner King, urging him to put a halt to inBloom.
“It is our job to protect New York’s children. In this case, that means protecting their personally identifiable information from falling into the wrong hands,” said Silver. “Until we are confident that this information can remain protected, the plan to share student data with InBloom must be put on hold.”
Why is this important? Because Speaker Silver and the Democrats in the Assembly appoint the Board of Regents, as the Daily News noted. The Regents control education policy in New York, and appoint the commissioner.
We have begun to make real headway in the past year against inBloom, but we need your support so we can continue the fight for student privacy and smaller classes in the public schools.
We count on donations from individuals like you as our main source of funding. If you appreciate our work and want it to continue and grow stronger, please give a tax-deductible contribution right now by clicking here: http://www.nycharities.org/donate/c_donate.asp?CharityCode=1757 or sending a check to the address below.
I am proud to have been called “the nation’s foremost parent expert on inBloom and the current threat to student data privacy.” We were the first advocacy group in the nation to sound the alarm about inBloom’s plan to create a multi-state database to be stored on a vulnerable data cloud run by Amazon.com with an operating system built by Rupert Murdoch’s Amplify. The explicit goal of inBloom was to package this information in an easily digestible form and offer it up to data-mining vendors without parental consent.
In February, inBloom formally launched as a separate corporation, and nine states were listed as “partners.” We worked hard to get the word out through blogging, personal outreach to parent activists and the mainstream media. After protests erupted in states throughout the country, inBloom’s “partners” pulled out. Now, eight out of these states have severed all ties with inBloom or put their data sharing plans on indefinite hold.
Sadly, as of yesterday, New York education officials were still intent on sharing with inBloom a complete statewide set of personal data for all public school students– including names, addresses, phone numbers, test scores and grades, disabilities, health conditions, disciplinary records and more. To stop this, we helped to organize a lawsuit on behalf of NYC parents which will be heard in state court on January 10 in Albany (note the new date), asking for an immediate injunction to block the state’s plan. (The state has delayed the hearing in order to gain more time to respond to our legal briefs.)
In addition, we will continue our work on the critical issue of class size. As a result of our reports, testimonies and public outreach, we have been able to shine a bright light on what many consider to be the most shameful aspect of Mayor Bloomberg’s education legacy: the fact that class sizes in NYC have increased sharply over the last six years and are now the largest in the early grades since 1998. More on this issue is in my Indypendent article just published, called Grading the Education Mayor
Class sizes have increased every year, despite the fact that the Campaign for Fiscal Equity case was supposedly “settled” by a state law in 2007 that required NYC to reduce class sizes in all grades. As a result, 86% of NYC principals say they are unable to provide a quality education because classes are too large. Parents say that smaller classes are their top priority according to the Department of Education’s own surveys. There is no more critical need than smaller classes if the city’s children are to have an equitable chance to learn.
But class size is not just a critical issue in NYC public schools. Because of budget cuts, class sizes have risen sharply throughout the state and the nation as a whole. In more than half of all states, per-pupil funding is lower than in 2008 and school districts have cut 324,000 jobs.
At the same time, more and more money is being spent by billionaires and venture philanthropists on bogus “studies” to try to convince states and districts that class size doesn’t matter and public funds should be spent instead on outsourcing education into private hands – despite much rigorous research showing the opposite to be true.
With vendors trying to grab your child’s data in the name of providing “personalized” instruction – a euphemism that really means instruction delivered via computers and data-mining software in place of real-life teachers giving meaningful feedback in a class small enough to make this possible — our efforts are more crucial than ever before.
Please make a donation so that our work can continue and be even more effective in 2014.
Thanks for your support and Happy New Year,
Leonie Haimson
Executive Director
Class Size Matters
124 Waverly Pl.
New York, NY 10011
212-674-7320
Big Data, Internet Surveillance, and 4th Amendment.
parents and eligible students annually of their rights underFERPA
www.edu-cyberpg.com/Technology/Big-Data.html

Privacy Concerns over selling K-12 Student Data information is a common practice.
Department’s experience administering FERPA and the current
www.edu-cyberpg.com/Technology/PRIVACY_INFORMATION.html

Untitled Document
Institutions are beginning to explore the connection between FERPA
www.edu-cyberpg.com/Internet/Distance-Learning-Higher-Ed-Faculty-Obligati…

Educational CyberPlayGround: Children’s Rights and K-12 Students rights to…
Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) http://www.epic.org/privacy/
www.edu-cyberpg.com/Teachers/children-rights.html

New Teacher Resources and Training: Back to School
Act of 1974 (FERPA).. more] Bill Gates arrested in 1977 for
www.edu-cyberpg.com/Teachers/newteacher.html

K-12 Eductaion School Administrators fail to understand the proper use of…
FERPA does not give permission to teachers to give children’s
www.edu-cyberpg.com/Teachers/admin.html

Computer Wonder Woman Stand Strong

Computer Wonder Woman

Great ad on women vs. men in power positions.
70% of men think that women need to downplay their personality to be accepted. Double standards hold women back. Because when you stand strong, you shine.

Obama’s Secret Attempt to Ban Cellphone Unlocking, While Claiming to Support It

By Derek Khanna
http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/11/18/tpp_wikileaks_white_house_claims_to_support_cellphone_unlocking_but_treaty.html
Last week, WikiLeaks made public a portion of a treaty that the White House has been secretly negotiating with other nations and 600 special interest lobbyists. The draft of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Treaty, which is on intellectual property, shows that HealthCare.gov isn’t the only tech topic on which the Obama administration has some serious explaining to do.
The White House claims that it supports copyright reform. It should be in favor of remaking the framework, because today’s copyright system is a mess: It grants protection that is too long (70 years or more), fair use is notoriously unclear and vague, and statutory damage laws create a massive deterrent to lawful creation. Economists and scholars argue that modern copyright, as opposed to constitutional copyright, greatly impedes innovation and content creation. But the TPP, which is being negotiated by 11 countries, would be a step in the completely wrong direction.
In its present state, treaty would expand copyright and effectively make real reform impossible. Worse, it would essentially disregard constitutional limitations on copyright and reject pillars like fair use, the first-sale doctrine, and having copyright be for “limited times.” The worst part: While the White House was publicly proclaiming its support of cellphone unlocking, it was secretly negotiating a treaty that would ban it.
Cellphone unlocking is the ability to take a phone and alter its settings so that it can be used on other carriers. Essentially this technology allows a consumer to bring her phone from one carrier to another when her contract expires (if technologies are compatible). In January, following appeals by AT&T/Verizon’s main trade association, the Librarian of Congress issued a ruling making unlocking a felony punishable by five years in prison and a $500,000 fine. This was a terrible idea: Economists and market participants have explained that this ruling would result in reduced competition in the industry, a decimated resale market, and restricted consumer rights. And indeed the impact has been devastating.
At the time, I spearheaded an unpaid national campaign to legalize unlocking, which included a White House “We the People” petition (I wrote a bit about our campaign here). Our petition reached 114,000 signatures, and the White House responded in favor of cellphone unlocking:
“The White House agrees with the 114,000+ of you who believe that consumers should be able to unlock their cell phones. … It’s common sense, crucial for protecting consumer choice, and important for ensuring we continue to have the vibrant, competitive wireless market that delivers innovative products and solid service to meet consumers’ needs.”
The FCC came out in favor of our petition, as did numerous outside groups such as Freedomworks, Public Knowledge, R Street and the editorial boards of the New York Times and the Washington Examiner. We were unable to find a single group, or Member of Congress, that was in favor of unlocking being a felony. But somehow, while a number of bills were introduced, none passed, and the one that had widespread support, H.R. 1892, never received a hearing or was brought up for a vote.
The leaked treaty draft shows that while the White House was championing restoring free market principles to phones, the U.S. proposed that the TPP lock in the process that allowed the Librarian of Congress to rule this technology as illegal through international law. This would make potential reforms like H.R. 1892 impossible.* It should be noted that Canada did submit an amendment proposal that could allow unlocking, but neither the United States nor any other country supported it.
But the TPP draft doesn’t stop there. It would ban numerous other technologies that have beneficial uses. In particular, the legislation would ensure that jailbreaking—which is installing a different operating system on your phone, tablet, or e-reader—is illegal. It’s already on precarious ground in the United States, but under TPP it would be illegal in all circumstances. What type of nation would arrest 23 million people for installing a different operating system on their own device?
This treaty is still being negotiated, so all of these issues could be addressed in the final text, but so far what has been made public demonstrates a massive and nearly unprecedented power grab by special interests rather than sound public policy considerations.
This treaty has long been shrouded in unprecedented secrecy. Congressional staff, press and general public weren’t allowed to read it; in many cases, even members of Congress were kept in the dark. Meanwhile, special interests were given full access. Now we know why: The White House didn’t want the public to know what was being negotiated in their name.
Correction, Nov 18, 2013: This blog post originally misstated effect of the U.S. proposal to TPP.
< — >
http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/11/18/tpp_wikileaks_white_house_claims_to_support_cellphone_unlocking_but_treaty.html

Another FISC judge: “NSA exceeded the scope of authorized acquisition continuously”

Judge: “NSA exceeded the scope of authorized acquisition continuously”

New declassifed documents show legal arguments over bulk metadata collection.

by Cyrus Farivar – Nov 19 2013, 1:36am EST
Yet another Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) judge has blasted United States government and intelligence officials for disregarding the court’s guidelines for domestic surveillance of American e-mail metadata traffic, a program that ran for around a decade before ending in 2011.
“As noted above, [National Security Agency’s] record of compliance with these rules has been poor,” wrote Judge John D. Bates, in a 117-page opinion (PDF) whose date was redacted. The opinion is one of was just one of a series of documents released and declassified late Monday evening by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI).
“Most notably, NSA generally disregarded the special rules for disseminating United States person information outside of NSA until it was ordered to report such disseminations and certify to the FISC that the required approval had been approved. The government has provided no meaningful explanation why these violations occurred, but it seems likely that widespread ignorance of the rules was a contributing factor.”
The documents, which include annual reports from the Attorney General to Congress, memos, presentations, and training documents, were released in relation to an Electronic Frontier Foundation lawsuit. The second batch was released in September 2013, and the first in August 2013. In total, ODNI says it has now released nearly 2,000 new documents in recent months.
“Release of these documents reflects the Executive Branch’s continued commitment to making information about this intelligence collection program publicly available when appropriate and consistent with the national security of the United States,” James Clapper, the head of the ODNI, wrote on Monday.
“Additionally, they demonstrate the extent to which the Intelligence Community kept both Congress and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court apprised of the status of the collection program under Section 215 [of the Patriot Act]. Some information has been redacted because these documents include discussion of matters that continue to be properly classified for national security reasons and the harm to national security would be great if disclosed.”
The Bates opinion is the second of the two most revealing documents in this new tranche. The first, written by FISC Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, responds to a government request that allows the NSA to use pen register and trap and trace devices (“pen/trap devices”) as a way to access metadata on electronic communication. She granted approval for the bulk surveillance, but laid out specific guidelines.
The subsequent second FISC opinion, authored by Judge Bates, is in response to a government request that aimed to expand the metadata collection program by “11-24 times.” Bates slams the government for not adhering to its guidelines, but “reluctantly” allows them to continue, citing deference to the Executive Branch (and intelligence agencies, like the NSA, whose powers are granted through the Reagan-era Executive Order 12333). In the opinion, Judge Bates appears unwilling or unable to meaningfully punish any government officials despite clear violations of the court’s prior orders.
“I see a lot of similarities between the Bates opinion and the Walton opinion,” Mark Rumold, a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told Ars. Rumold was referring to a 2009 opinion by FISC Judge Reggie Walton, who equally lambasted the government.
“It’s essentially the same thing, FISC taking NSA and [the Department of Justice] to task for violating their orders, for accessing more information than they were allowed to access under the orders and laying out under the ways that they had violated the court’s orders, [but then] letting them continue,” Rumold added. “The executive branch has pushed the judiciary so far and hopefully now we’re at that tipping point that the judiciary is comfortable with and they’ll start pushing back on executive misrepresentations.”
Not your father’s pen/trap application
The Kollar-Kotelly opinion (PDF) describes her response to a government application that “seeks authority for a much broader type of collection than other pen register/trap and trace applications,” compared to what had previously been done before.
As we’ve reported in the past, pen/trap devices are a type of legal order that has recently skyrocketed in use in the US. Originally designed to apply to telephone companies, they are now being increasingly applied to tech companies as a way to capture user metadata, too. Of the total number of American law enforcement orders that it received in six months, Google said recently that 2 percent of those were pen/trap orders.
Applied to a Google user, for example, a pen register would likely record who that user was sending e-mail to. A corresponding “trap and trace order” would likely include metadata from e-mails received, likely including date, time, IP address, and other routing information. It could also include attachments, and perhaps even—if broadly interpreted enough—anything but the actual content of an e-mail. Secure e-mail service Lavabit recently received such an order prior to its shutdown.
In the Monday night Tumblr post, the ODNI defined this program this way:
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/11/judge-nsa-exceeded-the-scope-of-authorized-acquisition-continuously/