The Series of Tubes: Spying for Everyone!

Most weeks there’s more Internet-related news than people can handle.

Given the constant flux, we at Free Press are taking a stab at listing, every week, the top five things you need to know about developments impacting Internet freedom.

Here’s our first shot. Be nice.

1. CISPA Is Dead (for Now). CISPA — the terrible, no good, privacy-killingsurveillance-machine-producing bill — passed the House last week. But we’re safe from CISPA for now — it looks like the Senate is starting from scratch on its own cybersecurity legislation. Here’s hoping that any Senate bills actually protect our civil liberties.
2. Speaking of cybersecurity, the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) obtained documents revealing a deal struck by the Defense Department, the Department of Homeland Security and private ISPs — including AT&T and CenturyLink — that allow government monitoring of private networks. The deal is possibly illegal under the Wiretap Act — so it was secretly authorized by the Justice Department. Nasty stuff.
3. And speaking of AT&T, the telecom claims that the Justice Department is “trying to get the [Federal Communications Commission] to ‘rig the upcoming 600 MHz auctions for the benefit of two specific competitors, Sprint and T- Mobile.’” Free Press’ Matt Wood isn’t pleased: “AT&T has done some pretty arrogant things in its century-plus of bullying government and demanding handouts, but accusing the Department of Justice of rigging an auction takes the (cup)cake… We’re tired of AT&T playing by its own set of rules. It shouldn’t lash out at agencies when it doesn’t get government’s help in making end runs around the law.”
4. Still not convinced of money’s disproportionate role in politics? Check out this amazing infographic from grad student Tony Chu. It includes some eye-opening data, including the fact that CISPA supporters spent a whopping $605,000,000 lobbying Congress to pass the bill.
5. Our friends at Canada’s OpenMedia launched a campaign to stop a telecom plan to increase fees on text messages crossing international lines. Nice to seethat telecoms everywhere suffer from the same greed complex.

And here’s a video: Click here or Google “cat shark duck.”