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

Thu Sep 20 10:09:01 EDT 2012

Sala,

any knowledge of corporate IT will tell you that this is a pretty standard filter used in private as well as public offices. Usually installed by third parties who set up the networks or even run them, or accessed by IT at third-party sites. As Jamie Love writes as well, the filter was removed upon request. It is the same type of filter that would have caused some hotel reservation sites to be blocked "for sexual content."

Clues... they used to be more widely available.

Alejandro Pisanty

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________________________________
Desde: governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org [governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org] en nombre de Salanieta T. Tamanikaiwaimaro [salanieta.tamanikaiwaimaro at gmail.com]
Enviado el: jueves, 20 de septiembre de 2012 05:02
Hasta: governance at lists.igcaucus.org; Riaz K Tayob
Asunto: Re: [governance] USPTO blocks web access to "Political/Activist Groups" including KEI, ACLU, EFF, Public Citizen, Redstate, DailyKos

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<mailto: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<http://aclu.org>, cdt.org<http://cdt.org>, citizen.org<http://citizen.org>, eff.org<http://eff.org>, healthgap.org<http://healthgap.org>, keionline.org<http://keionline.org> and publicknowledge.org<http://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<http://firedoglake.com>, redstate.org<http://redstate.org>, rushlimbaugh.com<http://rushlimbaugh.com> and talkingpointsmemo.com<http://talkingpointsmemo.com>.,

Here are examples of what the USPTO blocks, and does not block.

Blocked NGOs    aclu.org<http://aclu.org>
cdt.org<http://cdt.org>
citizen.org<http://citizen.org>
eff.org<http://eff.org>
healthgap.org<http://healthgap.org>
keionline.org<http://keionline.org>
publicknowledge.org<http://publicknowledge.org>
NGOs that are NOT blocked       bsa.org<http://bsa.org>
creativecommons.org<http://creativecommons.org>
iipa.com<http://iipa.com>
iipi.org<http://iipi.org>
ipi.org<http://ipi.org>
mpaa.org<http://mpaa.org>
PhRMA.org
pubpat.org<http://pubpat.org>
RIIA.Org
stockholm-network.org<http://stockholm-network.org>
Blocked Blogs and news outlets  dailykos.coms
firedoglake.com<http://firedoglake.com>
redstate.org<http://redstate.org>
rushlimbaugh.com<http://rushlimbaugh.com>
talkingpointsmemo.com<http://talkingpointsmemo.com>
Blogs and new outlets that are NOT blocked      71patent.blogspot.com<http://71patent.blogspot.com>
aljazeera.com<http://aljazeera.com>
boingboing.net<http://boingboing.net>
dailycaller.com<http://dailycaller.com>
democracynow.org<http://democracynow.org>
drudgereport.com<http://drudgereport.com>
groklaw.net<http://groklaw.net>
huffingtonpost.com<http://huffingtonpost.com>
ip-watch.org<http://ip-watch.org>
itcblog.com<http://itcblog.com>
lessig.org<http://lessig.org>
michaelgeist.ca<http://michaelgeist.ca>
nationalreview.com<http://nationalreview.com>
spicyipindia.blogspot.com<http://spicyipindia.blogspot.com>
techdirt.com<http://techdirt.com>
washingtonmonthly.com<http://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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