[governance] USPTO blocks web access to "Political/Activist Groups" including KEI, ACLU, EFF, Public Citizen, Redstate, DailyKos

Thu Sep 20 06:02:03 EDT 2012

If what is reported is legitimate, we are in for some troubling times ahead
of us. :( :(:(

Sala

On Thu, Sep 20, 2012 at 8:21 PM, Riaz K Tayob <riaz.tayob at gmail.com> wrote:

>  USPTO blocks web access to "Political/Activist Groups" including KEI,
> ACLU, EFF, Public Citizen, Redstate, DailyKos<http://keionline.org/node/1548>
>
>    - View <http://keionline.org/node/1548>
>    - What links here <http://keionline.org/node/1548/backlinks>
>
>  Submitted by James Love on 18. September 2012 - 12:32
>
> *Update:* At 5 pm the USPTO called and said that the public access wifi
> network was using a filter, provided by a contractor, to block "political
> activist" sites. This filter was not used by the network providing Internet
> access for the USPTO staff. After our meeting, the USPTO reviewed its
> policies, and has removed the filter. USPTO says the filter was implemented
> by a contractor, and no one we talked to at USPTO was aware of who was
> being blocked. In any event, the filter has been removed.
>
> Today I was visiting the USPTO, for a high level meeting on global
> negotiations on intellectual property and access to medicine. The meeting
> was held in the Stockholm Room, on the 2nd floor of the USPTO library, at
> the main USPTO building at 600 Dulany Street, Alexandria, VA. The USPTO
> also uses these meeting rooms for its Global Intellectual Property Academy
> (GIPA). The USPTO offers free Wifi for the visitors. But when I tried to
> login to http://keionline.org, I received this message:
>
> Access Denied (content_filter_denied)
>
> Your request was denied because this URL contains content that is
> categorized as: "Political/Activist Groups" which is blocked by USPTO
> policy. If you believe the categorization is inaccurate, please contact the
> USPTO Service Desk and request a manual review of the URL.
>
> For assistance, contact USPTO OCIO IT Service Desk. (io-proxy4)
>
> We checked and found that the USPTO blocks access to a number of groups
> that have followed SOPA and the TPP intellectual property negotiations,
> particularly those critical of the USPTO positions on intellectual property
> issues. Among the NGOs that were blocked were aclu.org, cdt.org,
> citizen.org, eff.org, healthgap.org, keionline.org and publicknowledge.org.
> Among the sites NOT BLOCKED were the industry lobby groups BSA, MPPA, RIIA,
> and PhRMA.
>
> The USPTO also selectively blocks certain blogs and new sites, including,
> for example, dailykos.coms, firedoglake.com, redstate.org,
> rushlimbaugh.com and talkingpointsmemo.com.,
>
> Here are examples of what the USPTO blocks, and does not block.
>   *Blocked NGOs* aclu.org
> cdt.org
> citizen.org
> eff.org
> healthgap.org
> keionline.org
> publicknowledge.org  *NGOs that are NOT blocked* bsa.org
> creativecommons.org
> iipa.com
> iipi.org
> ipi.org
> mpaa.org
> PhRMA.org
> pubpat.org
> RIIA.Org
> stockholm-network.org  *Blocked Blogs and news outlets* dailykos.coms
> firedoglake.com
> redstate.org
> rushlimbaugh.com
> talkingpointsmemo.com  *Blogs and new outlets that are NOT blocked *
> 71patent.blogspot.com
> aljazeera.com
> boingboing.net
> dailycaller.com
> democracynow.org
> drudgereport.com
> groklaw.net
> huffingtonpost.com
> ip-watch.org
> itcblog.com
> lessig.org
> michaelgeist.ca
> nationalreview.com
> spicyipindia.blogspot.com
> techdirt.com
> washingtonmonthly.com
>
>    - James Love's blog <http://keionline.org/blog/jamie>
>    - Add new comment<http://keionline.org/comment/reply/1548#comment-form>
>    - Printer-friendly version <http://keionline.org/print/1548>
>    - Send by email <http://keionline.org/printmail/1548>
>
>   Cause of foul up <http://keionline.org/node/1548#comment-7970>
> Submitted by Anonymous dude or dudess on 19. September 2012 - 12:02.
>
> 'Ex-Patent Examiner here. If this was anything other than a contractor
> foul-up, I'll eat my hat. There were a dozen instances where I'd need to
> call the help desk to access a website that would enable me to do my job.'
> If true, this means no one at USPTO tried to access those sites and asked
> for the filter to be removed since it was implemented.
>
>    - reply <http://keionline.org/comment/reply/1548/7970>
>
>
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-- 
Salanieta Tamanikaiwaimaro aka Sala
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