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

Thu Sep 20 06:28:41 EDT 2012

Simply, unbelievable!

Sincerely,

Walid

-----------------

Walid Al-Saqaf
Founder & Administrator
alkasir for mapping and circumventing cyber censorship
https://alkasir.com <walid.al-saqaf at oru.se>

On Thu, Sep 20, 2012 at 12:02 PM, Salanieta T. Tamanikaiwaimaro <
salanieta.tamanikaiwaimaro at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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
> P.O. Box 17862
> Suva
> Fiji
>
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>
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