Public Hearings on USAPA Now!

"Join the call for accountability and openness in government! In a recent letter to Attorney General John Ashcroft, Representatives James Sensenbrenner and John Conyers have asked the Department of Justice to provide a detailed report on the implications and effects of the USA Patriot Act (USAPA). The letter suggests open hearings on the practical application of new law enforcement tools and pointedly asks how the tools relate to recent claims that impending terrorist attacks have been averted. Send a letter in support of Reps. Sensenbrenner and Conyers!" [Electronic Frontier Foundation Action Center]

While I'm all for catching the bad guys, I'm against seizing a library's records without having to justify your request before a judge first and going on record with an actual reason. The worst part is that a library cornered into this position can't tell anyone about the action, including the media or even the American Library Association. This is a wide open door to abuse of the system, and we need to make sure that the government can't drive a truck through it.

The VIC development team will really enjoy this first one:

Z39.50 (to the tune of "Rock and Roll Music")

"Hook me up with that Z-3-9-fifty.
You can set it up so swiftly,
Make connections in a jiffy,
Though the search results are iffy.
It's gotta be Z-3-9-fifty,
If you want to search with me,
If you want to search with me."

Up At Endeavor (to the tune of "Over the Rainbow")

"Somewhere up at Endeavor, code runs fine.
Code runs fine at Endeavor,
Why then, oh why can't mine?
If Voyager performs just fine up at Endeavor,
Why, oh why can't mine?" [via Library Techlog]

Ben Hammersley on Setting Up a Open Wireless Node

"Ben Hammersley writes about setting up his public WiFi node in his Guardian column. Ben's experience is a little unusual -- within a day of setting up his access point, Doc Searls (who was 9000 miles from home), stumbled upon it (and Ben). Later, at a group dinner with a bunch of British geeks, Matt Jones suggested chalking 'WiFi hobo-runes' on the sidewalk marking discovered wireless service, so that other netstumblers and war-walkers may connect to it." [Boing Boing]

From the article itself:

"...As a writer, with no need to be anywhere but at the end of an internet connection, an email address and a mobile phone number, it's a revolutionary step.

But the wondrous convenience of writing in a place designed to bring me regular blasts of caffeine is really nothing compared to the serendipitous meetings it has created: for as the network I set up is free for all to use, and somewhat advertised on the web, this cafe has seen a steady stream of like-minded technology enthusiasts, bloggers, and geared-up layabouts united in the joyous realisation that they never need go to the office again. A correctly enabled laptop, and a coffee addiction later, your first delivery of email over a community wireless network seems to come with angelic music and a parting of the clouds....

Since then, he and many others have used the spare bandwidth on my internet connection, and I've drunk plenty of coffee. In fact, with the caffeine, the only thing wired around here is me."

Ryan Greene pushes back with the following idea:

"Tie this in with Autodesk's location suite (original report) and you can be alterted every time that you are in a location that you can get wireless access, which gives you the hobo runes mentioned above in a universal (and geeky) format."