May 17, 2005
Privacy Advocates Sue Homeland Security
Privacy Advocates Sue Homeland Security Office
EPIC takes the government to court for details of a secret national I.D. plan.
By Ann Harrison
SecurityFocus
Apr 2 2002 4:13PM
In a legal challenge to increased government secrecy post September 11, the non-profit Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday against the Office of Homeland Security and its director, Governor Tom Ridge, seeking release of documents detailing what it says is the government's secret development of a de facto national identification system.
The lawsuit follows EPIC's March 20th request under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) for expedited release of the office's records on technical and legislative proposals for such an identification system. The FOIA requires that requests for expedited processing be acted upon within ten days. The Office failed to act on the request, giving EPIC the right to file suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
The Office of Homeland Security had no comment on the lawsuit. http://www.securityfocus.com/news/362
Posted by ann at 11:40 PM | Comments (0)
National ID Cards
National ID Plans Face Hurdles
Distributing thousands of card readers, guarding against corrupt insiders, defending against fraudsters and hack attacks... Plans to create a national ID card are fraught with peril.
By Ann Harrison
SecurityFocus
Apr 17 2002 4:29PM
The attacks of September 11 prompted several proposals for national identification cards, but such systems have not been adequately evaluated to determine their overall goals and prevent potential abuses, according to panelists at the Computers Freedom and Privacy Conference, which opened today in San Francisco.
The most troubling such proposal for the privacy-conscious attendees at the conference, now in its 12th year, is an effort by the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators to link identification databases in a nationwide computer network.
Panelist Deirdre Mulligan, who serves on the National Academy of Science Committee on Authentication Technologies and their Privacy Implications, charged that the AAMVAnet project is hurrying the nation down the path of a de facto national ID card without discussion of the potential problems of such a system. http://www.securityfocus.com/news/371
Posted by ann at 11:38 PM | Comments (0)
Testing Biometrics
Researcher: Biometrics Unproven, Hard To Test
Just how accurate are the face identification systems being rolled out around the country? It turns out, testing them is harder than it looks.
By Ann Harrison,
SecurityFocus
Aug 7 2002 11:57PM
SAN FRANCISCO--James Bond technologies like face recognition, fingerprint sensors, hand geometry, and other biometric security systems may be impossible to accurately evaluate, unless researchers also measure the performance of the testers and the demographics of the subjects, a key researcher said Wednesday.
"Vulnerability tests have been around for a decade, the problem is developing test protocols to test for vulnerabilities," says Dr. Jim Wayman, director of the biometric test center at San Jose State University, speaking at the 11th annual USENIX Security Symposium. "Going from technical results to what happens in a real world system, you have to go through a mathematical modeling system.
Wayman is developing test protocols for evaluation of biometrics device performance, which are slated to post as an annex to the ISO 15408 Common Criteria. He notes that while testing protocols are still in their infancy, millions of dollars are already being poured into biometric systems. http://www.securityfocus.com/news/566
Posted by ann at 11:36 PM | Comments (0)
Encryption Breaker
'Creative Attacks' Beat Crypto -- Expert
Professional encryption breaker says Moore's Law increases security risks as fast as it boosts chip storage.
By Ann Harrison,
SecurityFocus Aug 9 2002 11:39AM
SAN FRANCISCO--In 1998 cryptographer Paul Kocher developed a method for deducing the secret key embedded in a cryptographic smart card by monitoring tiny fluctuations in power consumption. Three years earlier, at the tender age of 22, he made headlines with a technique to compromise implementations of the RSA algorithm -- not with a direct frontal assault, but by watching the amount of time a system took to perform certain functions.
Speaking at the Usenix security conference in San Francisco Thursday, Kocher, now president of Cryptography Research, Inc., said creative attacks like these are only becoming more successful as hardware and software solutions grow increasingly complex and difficult to debug.
"Nobody breaks the crypto, they all bypass the crypto," says Kocher. "They are putting bigger crypto keys in there and it doesn't give you bigger security."
Posted by ann at 11:34 PM | Comments (0)
Fingerprint Biometric Attack
Hackers Claim New Fingerprint Biometric Attack
By Ann Harrison, SecurityFocus Aug 13 2003 12:09PM
Two German hackers say they have developed a technique to defeat biometric fingerprint scanners used to authenticate electronic purchasing systems. Unlike an earlier fingerprint attack developed by the pair last year, this system creates latex fingertip patches designed to be used while under observation.
The hackers, known as Starbug and Lisa, presented their attack at the Chaos Computer Camp, an open-air event which took place last weekend in East Berlin. "We have developed methods to fake fingerprints on the run," said Lisa.
The past technique used graphite powder and adhesive tape to lift fingerprints off surfaces and fool scanners into accepting them as genuine. This new method involves taking a digital picture of the fingerprint image produced by the graphite powder and adhesive tape. This image is enhanced with graphical software, printed on to foil, and transfered to a photosensitive printed circuit board. The board is exposed and etched to create the three dimensional structure of the fingerprint. It is then transferred to liquid latex which is dried to create a thin material similar to the consistency of a latex glove. This small piece of latex is attached to a person's fingertip prior to using the scanner. http://www.securityfocus.com/news/6717
Posted by ann at 11:32 PM | Comments (0)
Naked Injustice
Naked Injustice
12/17/03
San Francisco Bay Guardian
Strippers say club owner greed and lax city oversight are forcing them into prostitution.
By Ann Harrison
AMONG THE MANY unseemly legacies left behind by the outgoing administration at City Hall is the lack of enforcement of labor laws and city codes in San Francisco's strip clubs.
For the past decade, dancers who work in these clubs have complained bitterly to an array of city agencies about alleged labor and safety violations in their workplaces. But under Mayor Willie Brown, the former personal attorney of strip club owner Sam Conti, little was done to enforce state and local laws designed to protect dancers from being exploited.
Mayor-elect Gavin Newsom and district attorney-elect Kamala Harris will need to take a firm stand on enforcing labor rights for exotic dancers – as well as staking out a position on the growing movement to decriminalize prostitution in San Francisco – if the situation is going to change.
"In 1996, when Willie Brown came into office, we were told by the manager of the Market Street Cinema that now that Brown is mayor, they could do whatever they want," said Daisy Anarchy, a dancer who worked at the Market Street Cinema strip club and founded an advocacy group called Sex Workers Organized for Labor, Human and Civil Rights. "At the beginning of 1996, the fees that dancers at the club were charged to work went from an illegal stage fee of $25 for an eight-hour shift to a so-called commission system where dancers had to pay $360 to work an eight-hour shift."
Dancers told the Bay Guardian these fees have led to increased competition and pressure to offer customers more than just a lap dance.http://www.sfbg.com/38/12/news_injustice.html
Posted by ann at 11:20 PM | Comments (0)
A Victory for Medical Pot Patients
By Ann Harrison, AlterNet. Posted December 18, 2003.
Prompted by a lawsuit filed by medical marijuana patients and growers, a Ninth Circuit ruling affirms the medical pot reform laws of seven states.
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Medical marijuana patients won a landmark legal victory Dec. 16 when the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the federal government has no constitutional authority to prosecute two California women for possessing and growing marijuana for their personal medical use.
Federal prosecutors have long argued that California's 1996 medical marijuana law, Prop. 215, was superseded by the federal Controlled Substances Act, which outlaws the use or cultivation of marijuana for any purpose. Law enforcement agents have used this reasoning to raid and arrest medical marijuana patients and their caregivers. But in a 2-1 decision, the court found that if the marijuana is not purchased, transported across state lines or used non-medically, the federal government has no jurisdiction. http://www.alternet.org/story/17419
Posted by ann at 11:19 PM | Comments (0)
Sex workers Demand Legal Protections
AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE
Sunday, December 21, 2003
Ann Harrison
English Wire
San Francisco sex workers demand legal protection
SAN FRANCISCO — San Francisco's prostitutes and strippers are calling on the city's newly elected young mayor to help decriminalize the world's oldest profession and crack down on abuses of exotic dancers.
Dancers charge that the city's outgoing mayor, Willie Brown, the former lawyer of a prominent strip club owner, ignored years of labor law and safety violations in San Francisco's strip clubs.
The California Labor Commissioner has held hearings for a decade in which dancers aired grievances and recovered back pay. But dancers say the abuses continued.
Fed up with non-enforcement of labor laws, dancers have filed two class action lawsuits against the city's strip clubs charging that managers seized their tips, failed to pay them wages, and charged them hundreds of dollars per shift for the privilege of working. http://www.walnet.org/csis/news/usa_2003/afp-031221.html
Posted by ann at 11:16 PM | Comments (0)
9th Circuit Backs Raich Case
Ninth Circuit Court rules that the feds can't outlaw personal medical marijuana crops
By Ann Harrison
Medical marijuana patients won a landmark legal victory Dec. 16 when the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled that the federal government has no constitutional authority to prosecute two California women for possessing and growing marijuana for their personal medical use.
Federal prosecutors have long argued that California's 1996 medical marijuana law, Proposition 215, was superseded by the federal Controlled Substances Act, which outlaws the use or cultivation of marijuana for any purpose.
Law enforcement agents have used this reasoning to raid the homes of and arrest medical marijuana patients and their caregivers. But in a 2-1 decision, the court found that if the marijuana is not purchased, transported across state lines, or used nonmedically, the federal government has no jurisdiction. The ruling covers the seven states in the Ninth Circuit that have passed medical marijuana laws: Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington. http://www.sfbg.com/38/13/news_pot.html
Posted by ann at 11:11 PM | Comments (0)
Busted In the Courtroom
Feds Bust Medical Cannabis Patients In Courtroom
AlterNet News Service
Posted January 17, 2004
Ann Harrison,
Two medical marijuana patients face life in prison after local prosecutors lured away their defense attorneys to permit federal agents to arrest the couple in court.
California medical marijuana activists are outraged over the arrest last week of two medical marijuana patients who face potential life sentences on federal drug charges after being turned over by local authorities. David Davidson, of Oakland, California and his partner Cynthia Blake, of Red Bluff, California were arrested in a state courtroom in Corning, California on January 13 as they were seeking to dismiss state charges of marijuana cultivation and distribution.
http://www.alternet.org/story/17591
Posted by ann at 11:01 PM | Comments (0)
Sex Workers On A Mission
Sex Workers On A Mission
San Francisco sex workers are on a mission
to decriminalize prostitution here and across the country.
By Ann Harrison
It seemed like an open and shut case. On Jan. 14, federal agents raided four suspected brothels in San Francisco's Sunset District. Investigators say they busted a sophisticated international prostitution ring in which Asian women were allegedly smuggled into the United States and forced to pay off a $40,000 debt to their traffickers by selling their bodies.
The Standing Against Global Exploitation Project (SAGE), which works closely with local police departments, immediately condemned an underground industry that promises foreigners better lives with good jobs but instead forces them into sex work.
"Human trafficking is a form of modern-day slavery," SAGE's Linnette Peralta Haynes told the Bay Guardian. http://www.sfbg.com/38/18/cover_hookers.html
Posted by ann at 10:57 PM | Comments (0)
Waiting to Inhale
Bay Guardian
6/09/04
Waiting To Inhale
S.F. cops keep busting medical marijuana growers. One prosecutor is trying to develop less-arbitrary guidelines. So where are the city's political leaders on an issue they claim to support?
By Ann Harrison
GROWING MEDICAL MARIJUANA in San Francisco these days means never knowing when or if you'll get busted. State law and city policies purport to allow and even encourage growers like Patrick White to cultivate marijuana for the city's estimated 6,000 authorized users and 18 dispensaries.
Yet the lack of clear guidelines defining when legal medicines become illegal narcotics has allowed the San Francisco Police Department – led by zealous narcotics officer Sgt. Marty Halloran – to decide when to destroy the garden and jail the gardener.
Halloran led the December raid on White's 62-plant garden, seizing his crops and his cash despite paperwork designating White as the caregiver for six registered patients. Because White told officers he has sold two and a half pounds of surplus marijuana to local dispensaries, he now faces nine years in prison. http://www.sfbg.com/38/37/cover_pot.html
Posted by ann at 10:52 PM | Comments (0)
May 16, 2005
Green Rush
San Francisco Bay Guardian
3/30/05
Green rush
S.F. cracks down on the proliferation of marijuana clubs
By Ann Harrison
A boom in San Francisco marijuana dispensaries has triggered a round of high-profile recriminations that has split city hall and roiled the medical cannabis community.
Sup. Ross Mirkarimi was already quietly working with dispensary owners to develop regulations when Mayor Gavin Newsom seized the media spotlight with reactionary concerns that sent all sides jockeying for position before the hammer comes down. http://www.sfbg.com/39/26/news_marijuana.html
Posted by ann at 02:19 PM | Comments (0)
Supremes On Pot
San Francisco Bay Guardian
12/01/05
Supremes on pot
High court hears medical marijuana case involving Oakland resident.
By Ann Harrison
CALIFORNIA MEDICAL MARIJUANA patients Diane Monson and Angel Raich asked the U.S. Supreme Court Nov. 29 to halt federal raids against medical cannabis patients and their caregivers. Saying she would die in agony if federal authorities seized her cannabis, Raich's attorneys pleaded with the justices to limit the power of the federal government to ignore state laws that allow doctors to recommend cannabis for their patients.
"I ask for the court not only to have mercy but to save my life," said Raich, an Oakland resident, who appeared pale and drawn on the steps of the courthouse. "Please do not take my mother away from me," said Raich's 16-year-old daughter, Erica, at a press conference after the hearing.
But the medical marijuana activists received a cool reception from the justices, most of whom appeared unmoved by descriptions of their suffering, which was scarcely mentioned during the hearing.
http://www.sfbg.com/39/09/news_pot.html
Posted by ann at 02:09 PM | Comments (0)
High Expectations
San Francisco Bay Guardian
12/29/2004
High expectations
Marijuana growers wait on Supreme Court ruling to determine if they must return to prison
By Ann Harrison
A pending U.S. Supreme Court decision on medical marijuana patients and their caregivers could have far-ranging consequences for cannabis activists slapped with federal drug charges – and those wishing to limit the power of the federal government.
At least 30 pending federal marijuana cases will be affected by the outcome of Ashcroft v. Raich, a case the Supreme Court heard Nov. 29 that debated whether the feds exceeded their constitutional powers by imposing national drug laws on the local, noncommercial use and cultivation of medical cannabis (see "Supremes on Pot," www.sfbg.com/39/09/news_pot.html). A decision is expected by summer.
The cases include growers, patients, and dispensary operators busted by federal agents for growing marijuana that they considered legal. At least two California medical cannabis growers, Bryan Epis and Keith Alden, have been released from prison pending the outcome of the Raich case after the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals limited federal oversight of medical pot growers.
http://www.sfbg.com/39/13/news_pot.html
Posted by ann at 01:55 PM | Comments (0)
Weeding Out Pot Clubs
San Francisco Bay Guardian
5/11/05
Weeding out pot clubs
In the face of a city crackdown, medical marijuana dispensary owners fight to remain open for business
By Ann Harrison
San Francisco planners have targeted five medical marijuana dispensaries they say may have opened after the 45-day moratorium on new clubs was approved.
Two dispensaries have challenged the allegation, citing a lack of clear guidelines about what regulatory steps these quasi-legal businesses should have taken before setting up shop. City officials say dispensaries perceived as bad neighbors will be singled out first for enforcement action, and one flagged dispensary has called for the city to help it mediate a neighborhood dispute.
This first move to weed out dispensaries comes as political leaders and representatives from the medical marijuana community are trying to hash out new guidelines for the dispensaries, a difficult task likely to require at least one extension of the moratorium, which is set to end May 12. The Board of Supervisors is scheduled to vote May 10 (after the Bay Guardian's press time) to extend it another 60 days, and the measure is expected to pass. read the entire story
Posted by ann at 01:37 PM | Comments (0)
May 13, 2005
Hello
First Entry.
Posted by ann at 11:48 AM | Comments (0)