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

Dr. Alejandro Pisanty Baruch apisan at unam.mx
Thu Sep 20 13:00:24 EDT 2012


Jim,

thanks - I still see IT SOP gone wild but am in no position to test or contest.

Guess I'll see pics of you and Jamie picketing (this IS a local, not global, issue, right?)

Yours,

Alejandro Pisanty


! !! !!! !!!!
NEW PHONE NUMBER - NUEVO NÚMERO DE TELÉFONO



+52-1-5541444475 FROM ABROAD

+525541444475 DESDE MÉXICO

SMS +525541444475
     Dr. Alejandro Pisanty
UNAM, Av. Universidad 3000, 04510 Mexico DF Mexico

Blog: http://pisanty.blogspot.com
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/pisanty
Unete al grupo UNAM en LinkedIn, http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/22285/4A106C0C8614
Twitter: http://twitter.com/apisanty
---->> Unete a ISOC Mexico, http://www.isoc.org
.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .

________________________________
Desde: James S. Tyre [jstyre at jstyre.com]
Enviado el: jueves, 20 de septiembre de 2012 11:34
Hasta: governance at lists.igcaucus.org; Dr. Alejandro Pisanty Baruch; 'Salanieta T. Tamanikaiwaimaro'; 'Riaz K Tayob'
Asunto: RE: [governance] USPTO blocks web access to "Political/Activist Groups" including KEI, ACLU, EFF, Public Citizen, Redstate, DailyKos

Alejandro,

It isn’t really that simple at all.  Before I begin, however, let me state two things.  First, I do not question that PTO turned the thing off shortly after becoming aware of it.  Second, I assume that you’re not aware of some of the relevant facts and law, rather than that you’re ignoring them.

PTO is a US government agency.  A government agency as employer is not held to the same First Amendment restrictions as a government agency as government, but, unlike private sector employers, the government as employer is subject to some First Amendment restrictions.

This particular filter was not in any way supposed to be similar to what is seen in corporate IT.  It’s specific purpose, it’s only purpose,  was to block access to terrorist sites and similar.  (Some of that is required by US law, whether that’s a good or bad law is not something I plan on discussing here.)  How any of the blacklisted sites could be found to be terrorist sites is incomprehensible.  This was never supposed to be a pretty standard filter.

Incidentally, the filter is the handiwork of Blue Coat, which did such a marvelous job of promoting free expression on the Internet in Syria, among other places, see, e.g., https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/10/blue-coat-acknowledges-syrian-government-use-its-products

--
James S. Tyre
Law Offices of James S. Tyre
10736 Jefferson Blvd., #512
Culver City, CA 90230-4969
310-839-4114/310-839-4602(fax)
jstyre at jstyre.com
Policy Fellow, Electronic Frontier Foundation
https://www.eff.org

From: governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org [mailto:governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org] On Behalf Of Dr. Alejandro Pisanty Baruch
Sent: Thursday, September 20, 2012 7:09 AM
To: governance at lists.igcaucus.org; Salanieta T. Tamanikaiwaimaro; Riaz K Tayob
Subject: RE: [governance] USPTO blocks web access to "Political/Activist Groups" including KEI, ACLU, EFF, Public Citizen, Redstate, DailyKos

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


! !! !!! !!!!
NEW PHONE NUMBER - NUEVO NÚMERO DE TELÉFONO



+52-1-5541444475 FROM ABROAD

+525541444475 DESDE MÉXICO

SMS +525541444475
     Dr. Alejandro Pisanty
UNAM, Av. Universidad 3000, 04510 Mexico DF Mexico

Blog: http://pisanty.blogspot.com
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/pisanty
Unete al grupo UNAM en LinkedIn, http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/22285/4A106C0C8614
Twitter: http://twitter.com/apisanty
---->> Unete a ISOC Mexico, http://www.isoc.org
.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .

________________________________
Desde: governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org<mailto: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<mailto: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>

____________________________________________________________
You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
     governance at lists.igcaucus.org<mailto:governance at lists.igcaucus.org>
To be removed from the list, visit:
     http://www.igcaucus.org/unsubscribing

For all other list information and functions, see:
     http://lists.igcaucus.org/info/governance
To edit your profile and to find the IGC's charter, see:
     http://www.igcaucus.org/

Translate this email: http://translate.google.com/translate_t



--
Salanieta Tamanikaiwaimaro aka Sala
P.O. Box 17862
Suva
Fiji

Twitter: @SalanietaT
Skype:Salanieta.Tamanikaiwaimaro
Fiji Cell: +679 998 2851




-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.igcaucus.org/pipermail/governance/attachments/20120920/7e2d5538/attachment.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
____________________________________________________________
You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
     governance at lists.igcaucus.org
To be removed from the list, visit:
     http://www.igcaucus.org/unsubscribing

For all other list information and functions, see:
     http://lists.igcaucus.org/info/governance
To edit your profile and to find the IGC's charter, see:
     http://www.igcaucus.org/

Translate this email: http://translate.google.com/translate_t


More information about the Governance mailing list