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The Consumerist reports that one of their readers asked for a non-RFID credit card from American Express. Granted, they only disabled contactless transactions in their database and did not issue him a spychip-free card, but one of the commenters said that they were able to do so with Washington Mutual.

It never hurts to ask, but it can certainly hurt to not.

Of course, you could just physically disable the RFID with a hammer, drill, or knife.

RIAA

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From Ars Technica:

The over 20,000 file-sharing lawsuits that have been filed over the past few years share a single distinction: not one of them has made it to trial. The RIAA is trying to keep Virgin Records, et al v. Jammie Thomas from a jury trial, filing a motion for summary adjudication on some specific aspects of the case.

…

A loss at trial would be even more catastrophic for the RIAA. It would give other defense attorneys a winning template while exposing the weaknesses of the RIAA's arguments. It would also prove costly from a financial standpoint, as the RIAA would have to foot the legal expenses for both itself and the defendant. Most of all, it would set an unwelcomed precedent: over 20,000 lawsuits filed and the RIAA loses the first one to go to a jury.

That pretty much sums it up. It would be so cool to see them lose. I wonder if the people who settled previously could join a class action lawsuit against them. Probably not, but that would be nice.

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Stolen from Schneier (but always credited), three articles by Cory Doctorow on DRM. My favorite tag line:

Digital rights management is a lie concocted to bilk the entertainment industry out of a fortune - it's time to wake up.

That is the truth. I could almost feel sorry for the industry, if they weren't using copyright lawsuits.

Cory is a guy who gets it:

Not one of them has ever stopped the widespread, unauthorised copying of media. Not one of them ever will.

Sounds like something something I might have said once. You would think these companies have at least one IT person both smart enough to realize this and gutsy enough to tell management.

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From the Consumerist:

Early Termination Fees: FCC regulations would require companies to prorate ETFs, with the penalty for escaping a 2-year contract cut in half at the end of the first year.

Service Maps: Cellphone companies would be required to provide detailed maps showing call quality down to the street level. The maps would be augmented by data on dropped calls and coverage gaps collected and publicized by the FCC.

Fee Disclosure: Overage charges would be displayed separately from taxes, and companies would be prohibited from levying any fees, apart from the basic service charge, not expressly authorized by federal, state, or local regulation.

Contract Disclosure: Depriving us of a source of many posts, companies would be prohibited from extending contracts without "point-of-sale notification," and customers would have 30 days to cancel any contract, new or extended. Any contract changes would need to be sent to consumers in writing, and could not take affect for 30 days.

Unlocked Phones: The bill would give the FCC a homework assignment: a single-spaced report to Congress on the harmful and anti-competitive practice of locking handsets.

Military Exemptions: Companies would be required to release military members awaiting deployment from their contracts.

Wow. I can't remember the last time I saw a consumer friendly bill that didn't have some horrible drawback attached. No custom fees? Prorated early termination fees? Street level service maps! So very cool… Let's hope for the best.

DHL

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It's nice to hear that sometimes, companies can still get it right. I wish Comcast were more like this.

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From the Washington Post:

When the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved implanting microchips in humans, the manufacturer said it would save lives, letting doctors scan the tiny transponders to access patients' medical records almost instantly. The FDA found "reasonable assurance" the device was safe, and a sub-agency even called it one of 2005's top "innovative technologies."

But neither the company nor the regulators publicly mentioned this: A series of veterinary and toxicology studies, dating to the mid-1990s, stated that chip implants had "induced" malignant tumors in some lab mice and rats.

The FDA's not talking and anyone else involved says they hadn't read the study. Given that it's the FDA's job to find relevant studies and that the studies about the cancer link were widely available, it seems they're dropping the ball.

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Reading the wikipedia page, you can find that the No-fly list was implemented on 9/11 2001 and ballooned from 16 names to over 40,000. There have been many false positives including children and some famous people (fortunately some of whom are congress members).

According to this story, all the millions of dollars, the time wasted, and the frustration cast doubt whether the program was worth it. The man described in this article is actually Gerry Adams, a spokesman for the Irish Republican Movement.

It's because of suspected past ties to the IRA that he has been flagged eternally for extra security checks and constant harrassment. Read the story for a well written example of such which includes this awesome quote:

I hand the FBI young gun a copy of my travel schedule – a document that has been in the possession of the US state department for the past month or so.

"Huh," he says. "Why are you going to the White House, sir?"

"To see the president."

"Huh. Why?"

"He asked me," I say evenly.

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In case you didn't know already, if you don't set up your filesharing software right or if there's a coding error that allows the program to be exploited, random people on the Internet might be able to browse around on your computer. What would they want? Perhaps banking information, personal data, access to your tax records.

If you're going to fileshare, learn a little about the program you plan to use first.

George W. Bush

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Part of the Patriot act allowed the feds to issue "National Security Letters" which could demand information without subpoena, without probable cause, and included a gag order requiring that the recipient could not share that they'd received such a letter with anyone.

Despite this being a gross over-stepping of power, Congress did pass AND RENEW the Patriot act. All that aside, a federal judge finally struck the provision as unconstitutional.

Although Marrero recognizes the importance of preserving national security, he asserts in his decision that "The Constitution was designed so that the dangers of any given moment would never suffice as justification for discarding fundamental individual liberties or circumscribing the judiciary's unique role under our governmental system in protecting those liberties and upholding the rule of law."

DHL

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In what has become the norm and not the exception, an expensive Department of Defense project has been shown to be a complete failure wasting millions of dollars and all of our time. What makes this story interesting is it was due in no small part to the efforts of the Government Accountability office that this project was scrapped. They discovered that the program was using live data on American citizens instead of dummy data and that none of the required privacy protections had been put in place. Go figure.

Most frightening is this line:

The privacy office concluded that although required privacy analyses were ignored, the Privacy Act was not technically violated because the live data were covered by privacy notices issued earlier for other programs that originally gathered the information.

Which demonstrates the danger of taking data for one reason, but using for a completely different reason altogether.