EVENT: Movie Night w/ Maryland Juice on Friday // PLUS SEE: "Terms & Conditions May Apply" Trailer & Filmmaker Interview

MOVIE NIGHT WITH MARYLAND JUICE: One of Maryland Juice blogger David Moon's ongoing work projects involves national advocacy for progressive issues and Internet freedom through a 1.5 million member group called Demand Progress. In that capacity, I am currently helping promote a startling new film about online privacy and government surveillance, titled "Terms and Conditions May Apply." The movie premieres in DC this Friday at the West End Cinema, and Maryland Juice thought some readers might want to join for the festivities, given the timeliness of the topic for Maryland politicos. The opening night screening (Friday at 7:00 pm) will be followed by a discussion with the filmmaker and privacy experts, along with a wine reception. Not a bad deal for the cost of a movie ticket. Below you can watch the official film trailer, read an exclusive interview with filmmaker Cullen Hoback, and find out more about Terms and Conditions May Apply.

WHAT: Premiere of Terms and Conditions May Apply

WHEN: Friday, August 16th at 7:00 p.m.

WHERE: West End Cinema, 2301 M Street NW, Washington, D.C.

WHAT: Following the screening, Craig Aaron of Free Press will moderate a conversation with Terms and Conditions director Cullen Hoback, Open Technology Institute Senior Research Fellow Seeta Gangadharan and privacy expert Ashkan Soltani. Wine and snacks will be served at a reception.

ADMISSION: Tickets may be purchased here.

ABOUT THE FILM "TERMS AND CONDITIONS MAY APPLY" - The YouTube page for this movie describes it as, "a documentary about what you're really agreeing to when you click 'I accept.'" But the film goes much deeper than what rights you sign away through your online account agreements. Terms and Conditions May Apply takes viewers through a tour of surveillance and privacy infringement from companies like Facebook and from the government itself. The film was selected as a "New York Times Critics' Pick," and their movie review called it a "quietly blistering documentary" that "should rile even the most passive viewer" (excerpt below):

NEW YORK TIMES: Investigating our casual surrender of privacy rights every time we click the “Agree” button on those dense (and typically unread) online user contracts, the director Cullen Hoback outlines the real-life dangers of digital heedlessness. As the film illustrates, a random tweet or innocent Google search could summon a SWAT team to your door or transform you into a suspected terrorist.

Actual horror stories aside, this concise and lively summary of the many ways corporations, law enforcement and government agencies gather, share and use our information — assisted by digital giants like AT&T and Google — is creepily unnerving....

Audience members and critics alike agree with the New York Times, and as the film review site Rotten Tomatoes notes, Terms and Conditions May Apply has a strong 88% approval rating from critics and 83% from audience members. Below you can watch the official film trailer and read an exclusive interview with filmmaker Cullen Hoback:

INTERVIEW WITH TERMS AND CONDITIONS MAY APPLY 
FILMMAKER CULLEN HOBACK

First of all, why'd you decide this subject matter -- this was before the issue became nearly as prominent as it's been over the last several months? 

CULLEN HOBACK: I began the project nearly three years ago, asking the question "How is technology changing us?" It took me over a year of work to realize that the greatest change wasn't the technology itself at all, but what's behind that technology.  All those seemingly benign terms and conditions and privacy policies revealed the real cost of using digital services--the complete erosion of privacy.  It almost felt like I was being sucked into a conspiracy theory.  The pure scope of what the government seemed capable of was beyond science fiction.

Were there any really surprising things that you learned about the ways in which the law around privacy rights operates?

CULLEN HOBACK: The concept of the 3rd party doctrine is still baffling to me.  The notion that it's okay for a government to access information about you if you've given that information to a 3rd party, like a bank, or an email provider is totally mind-blowing.  It's like what we did in Iraq when we wanted to conduct operations that the military couldn't legally do itself.  We hired a private contractor: Blackwater.  That's essentially what major tech-companies have become; a sort of de-facto Blackwater that provides surveillance the government couldn't legally achieve by itself.  The main difference is that these tech companies aren't being paid for this.

Without giving too much away, can you speak to some of the more interesting, personal anecdotes that you cover in the film?

CULLEN HOBACK: I show multiple cases of perfectly innocent people having their lives upended dues to these spy systems.  A comedian is visited within hours after he makes a bad joke on Facebook.  A 7th grade boy is visited by our FBI, after posting a concerned message to Obama on Facebook--a warning to watch out for bombers after Osama Bin Laden was killed.  His mother wasn't notified when the FBI showed up at his school to interrogate him.  These systems are bad at context.  And that's a dicey game when you're in the business of trying to prevent crimes from happening.

What do you see as the relative importance of government surveillance and corporate surveillance?  Or are they one in the same?

CULLEN HOBACK: If a corporation can see everything you do, and use that information to target you with ads or profit from its sale, then the government essentially has access to it as well.  So yes, they're one in the same.  In some instances, we've seen companies like Twitter stand up for the rights of their users.  However, this doesn't mean that the NSA isn't able to collect information against the will of a company through other means.  We need greater encryption built into innovative and new online tools.  The kind of encryption that disables both the company and the government from seeing what you do on any given service.

What would you advise viewers who are inspired to fight for their rights to do?

CULLEN HOBACK: I'd recommend visiting trackoff.us and petitioning Congressmen to see Terms and Conditions May Apply, because I think the first step in fixing these systems is to educate lawmakers.  From there we need greater control over our information, and we need to put pressure on companies like Facebook to stop tracking us, changing the rules overnight, and lying to us about what they do with our data.  A mixture of regulation, innovation, and pressure are vital to seeing change.  This and more will happen at trackoff.us.  Also, begin using tools like Ghostery, Wickr, duckduckgo, and Firefox and consider emerging social media services with privacy at the forefront like Sgrouples. 

The question everybody asks: Why should you worry about privacy rights if you're "not doing anything wrong"?

CULLEN HOBACK: If you feel that way, I'd recommend taking the blinds and curtains off of all of your windows.  And take your clothing off as well.  It's not about doing anything wrong, it's about it being no one else's business.  Beyond that, the use of these spy systems against free speech and a free press should be enough to make anyone shake in their totalitarian-fearing boots.

What do you hope will come of the Snowden situation?

CULLEN HOBACK: That I'll get to eat brunch with a free man, a man who's considered a hero, and that it will happen on US soil.  I'd also like to see Clapper investigated for lying under oath to the US Senate.

We hope you might join Maryland Juice for a movie night this Friday at 7:00 pm, but if you can't make it to the opening night screening and festivities, you can still catch the film during its run at the West End Cinema.

JuiceBlender: Daily Kos Prefers O'Malley to Cuomo, Cuomo Hesitates on Dream Act, Bartlett Slams Obama on Immigration

Here's a random blend of political tidbits from recent news, starting with commentary from journalists and pundits comparing MD Governor Martin O'Malley with NY Governor Andrew Cuomo:

JUICE #1: DIFFERING RESPONSES FROM O'MALLEY & CUOMO TO OBAMA DREAM ACT ANNOUNCEMENT - Maryland Juice recently reported on President Barack Obama's major announcement that his administration would halt the deportation of young undocumented residents (aka Dreamers). This week, Politico's Maggie Haberman covered the differing responses to the new policy development from Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo -- two rivals in the 2016 Democratic White House race.

Initially, Haberman wrote about O'Malley's support for Obama's actions, compared to Cuomo's silence. But days later, Cuomo is now praising Obama's immigration position. Notably, Gov. O'Malley had backed a Maryland version of the Dream Act which provides for in-state college tuition for all high school graduates, regardless of their immigration status. Gov. Cuomo apparently did not support the New York version of this legislation. See excerpts from the pair of articles below:

MD Attorney General Doug Gansler Elected President of National Association of Attorneys General // Focus on Online Privacy

Maryland Attorney General Doug Gansler has just released the following press statement announcing that he has been elected President of the National Association of Attorneys General (NAAG). Notably, Gansler has been serving as head of the Democratic Attorneys General Association (DAGA), and his website notes that his position there ended upon taking the NAAG role.

Gansler's statement also announces that his focus at NAAG will be on protecting Internet users' privacy. Indeed, this is a growing area of concern for consumers, given the roughshod treatment of our digital privacy by corporations and law enforcement officials. Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger, for example, recently sought to grant immunity to online companies if they share information about our Internet use with government officials.

A QUICK NOTE ON GANSLER'S ONLINE PRIVACY INITIATIVES - Gansler's press announcement states that he will use the NAAG role to highlight privacy violations by the "Internet's major players," and in his role as Maryland AG, he has worked to fight privacy policies at Google and Facebook. This is pretty smart politics for the 2014 gubernatorial candidate, given the enthusiasm from the Netroots for greater online privacy protections. But Maryland Juice would also reiterate that government officials are some of the worst violators of online privacy, and we hope to see Mr. Gansler also address the increasing disregard of digital privacy by law enforcement agencies. Moreover, Mr. Gansler also mentions NAAG's role in addressing "internet crime." We hope that he doesn't mean more overblown attempts at anti-piracy enforcement at the behest of pro-censorship companies like Rosetta Stone, as well as the film and music industries (ie: SOPA/PIPA). If Mr. Gansler is able to disregard the lies and propaganda from entertainment industry and cable lobbyists, he may be able to develop a real following among Internet users. We will be watching!

PRESS RELEASE 

Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler Elected 
President of National Association of Attorneys General

“Privacy in the Digital Age” will be presidential initiative

Anchorage, Alaska (June 22, 2012) – Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler has been unanimously elected the 105th President of the National Association of Attorneys General (NAAG) by his peers during NAAG’s Annual Summer Meeting. The nonpartisan association of chief legal officers from each state, territory and the District of Columbia has used its vast and varied expertise, experience and legal authority to address many of the nation’s most serious legal, social and economic issues, such as the home foreclosure crisis, tobacco litigation, financial fraud, human trafficking and internet crime.

“As the chief legal officers of our states, Attorneys General are engaged in every aspect of state governance. We are uniquely positioned to make a real difference in the lives of the citizens in our states, and we do so every day,” said Attorney General Gansler. “It is an honor to serve as NAAG President. I look forward to working with my colleagues on some of our states’ and our nation’s most pressing issues.”

Upon accepting office, Attorney General Gansler announced his intent to examine “Privacy in the Digital Age” as his yearlong Presidential Initiative.

“The Digital Age has transformed everything we do, from buying groceries to boarding an airplane, from treating an illness to socializing with friends and family. These changes have raised some unique and significant challenges to privacy,” said Attorney General Gansler. “With this initiative, we will bring the energy and legal weight of this organization to investigate, educate and take necessary steps to ensure that the Internet’s major players protect the privacy of online consumers while balancing their legitimate business interests.”

Currently serving his second term in office, Attorney General Gansler has also served as Chairman of the Democratic Attorneys General Association. He has also chaired NAAG committees on Youth Access to Alcohol and Environment and Energy. Gansler is the second Attorney General from Maryland elected to NAAG’s top office. The first was Attorney General Francis Burch, elected in 1970.

For Attorney General Gansler’s bio: http://www.oag.state.md.us/bio.htm

For more information about the Maryland Office of Attorney General: http://www.oag.state.md.us/

For more information about NAAG accomplishments and initiatives: http://www.naag.org/press_room.php

To visit the NAAG website: http://www.naag.org/

# # #

Sam Arora's Wedding Photographer Complains of Infringement at SamAroraWeddingCard.com // GAY WEDDING PHOTOS

UPDATE: Maryland Juice previously displayed a photo album of parody photos from Sam Arora's wedding. Unfortunately, they've "mysteriously" disappeared from my Picasaweb account. While I am researching what happened, I've replaced the slideshow with a "censored" replica. See below:

Maryland lawmaker Sam Arora's wedding photographer has accused Maryland Juice of copyright infringement for our new website SamAroraWeddingCard.com.  We posted photos from Mr. Arora's wedding with a message asking people to sign a "congratulatory" wedding card for the marriage equality backstabber. The site also included a "gift registry" and other mocking items. But Sam's photographer, Sarah at Ampersand Photography, didn't see the humor in our work and left the following message at the wedding card website:

SAM'S PHOTOGRAPHER: you do not have permission to use these images, and are infringing on copyright agreements by displaying them here.

Maryland Juice disagrees with Sarah, and we think that our use of the doctored photos was in a protected context. Nevertheless, we have decided to remove the photos and assist Sarah by using her work in a much more clear parody. So, we grabbed a few photos from the wedding and re-imagined Sam Arora in a Big Gay Wedding. See our results temporary replacement photo below:

Spoof Source: Sarah @ Ampersand Photography

This is the second time in a month that someone has contacted us to complain of supposed copyright infringement. Last week, AOL-Huffington Post sent big-time hack attorneys from DLA Piper after our blog for supposedly infringing on their "intellectual" property rights. Doh!

VIDEO: Maryland Juice Asks Huffington Post to Apologize for Hypocritical Legal Threats // PLUS: Read The Gazette's Take

Maryland Juice spent the last few days at the annual Netroots Nation conference. The gathering of progressive organizers, Netizens, and politicos drew a surprising number of Marylanders. But not surprisingly, in attendance were a number of staff and writers for Arianna Huffington's blogging platform, The Huffington Post.

I used the opportunity to find a Huffington Post writer and see if I could extract an apology on behalf of Arianna Huffington. After all, her company (AOL-Huffington Post) recently unleashed corporate attorneys from mega-law firm DLA Piper to threaten legal action against Maryland Juice. They claimed I was infringing on their "intellectual" property rights by excerpting an article and photo from Patch.com. The national blogs TechDirt and Above the Law cried foul, noting that The Huffington Post itself engaged in exactly the same type of blogging that they were complaining about.

The Gazette's Daniel Leaderman recently picked up on the controversy and noted (excerpt below):

GAZETTE: State politics blog Maryland Juice (marylandjuice.com) found itself under legal attack last week from no less of a media giant than AOL, owner of both Patch.com and the Huffington Post....

....blogger David Moon posted a rebuttal explaining that not only did AOL rely on free writing from bloggers, but his actions were well within the scope of fair use provisions in U.S. copyright law....

Your move, AOL.

Maryland Juice is still awaiting that apology from Arianna Huffington....

JuiceBlender: Maryland Voter Roll Purge, Rep. Andy Harris Staff Raises, MoCo Accessory Apartments, Maryland Netroots & More

Here's a random blend of political tidbits from recent news, starting with a quick hello from the Netroots Nation conference in Providence, Rhode Island:

JUICE #1: MD POLITICOS AT NETROOTS NATION // SEN. CARDIN HIGHLIGHTS GOP WAR ON VOTING RIGHTS - This week, Maryland Juice is attending the annual Netroots Nation conference for work, but I've taken a few moments to try and gather some juice while I'm here. Though I was invited to speak on a panel about lessons for online organizers (watch video),  I've bumped into a surprising number of Maryland politicos. Indeed, from State Senator Jamie Raskin and MoCo Young Dems President Dave Kunes to a former aide to Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown, the Free State is decently represented at this progressive gathering (see a couple photos below).

State Sen. Jamie Raskin (center) & Vermont Progressive Party legislator Chris Pearson (right)

National Tech Blog Calls AOL-Huffington Post Hypocrites for Threatening Maryland Juice // DLA Piper Idiocy EXPOSED

UPDATE: The national legal blog "Above the Law" picked up on the story of DLA Piper attorneys harassing Maryland Juice. Thanks for the lift!

Last week Maryland Juice reported on a disturbing threat we received from AOL-Huffington Post's law firm DLA Piper, on behalf of Patch.com. After excerpting portions of a Patch article in our commentary about accessory apartments in Montgomery County, we received a nastygram from AOL.  In spite of "fair use" principles, they claimed we were infringing on their intellectual property and demanded that we remove article excerpts and photos from MarylandJuice.com. Their threat letter stated, "we require that you immediately comply with our demands" and noted that they might "pursue any additional avenues."

Today, the technology bloggers at TechDirt picked up on DLA Piper's threats and called out AOL for complete and utter hypocrisy. Read this excerpt from TechDirt's article:

AOL Threatens Blogger With Copyright Infringement Charge... For Doing The Exact Same Thing AOL Has Done On A Large Scale

There have been plenty of accusations made against AOL's the Huffington Post concerning its habit of "over aggregating" content from other sites.... it would be pretty damn hypocritical for AOL to then threaten another blogger for doing exactly the same thing that HuffPo does, wouldn't it?....

Enter, Maryland Juice. A local Maryland blog, which recently had a post about some happenings in Montgomery County, which included relatively large excerpts of parts of an article from Patch, another property owned by AOL. It also included an image from the article. The Maryland Juice article included a significant amount of commentary about the article and, in particular, the photo, which was used to illustrate the point (that it was not a representative sample of county residents at the local meeting). And, yet... AOL lawyers sent a cease and desist letter....

... a few years ago, when HuffPo tried to do its own "hyper local site," it was accused of doing more or less the exact same thing (but with less commentary, and more copying)....

MoCo JuiceBlender: Ambulance Fee Returns, O'Malley Launches Bike Share, Roger Berliner Calls for Innovation Officer

PLUS: A WARNING TO DEMOCRATS ABOUT INTERNET POLICY

Now that Annapolis legislators are currently pausing from legislative activity, Maryland Juice is paying closer attention to policy proposals floating through Montgomery County. We've provided extensive commentary on County Executive Ike Leggett's corporate welfare plan for Lockheed Martin, but there is much more to discuss. Below we provide a few recent tidbits, starting with a news item on a proposed Montgomery County ambulance fee:

JUICE #1: IKE LEGGETT'S AMBULANCE FEE PROPOSAL BACK FROM THE DEAD - MoCo politicos are likely familiar with the long-running debate about whether to charge insurance companies for residents' use of County ambulances. The proposal passed the County Council in 2010, but was struck down by voters later that year. Now County Executive Ike Leggett seeks to overturn the will of voters and is attempting to pass the ambulance fee yet again. Should the Council pass the plan one more time, opponents would have to organize yet another petition drive to strike down the measure. That doesn't seem fair -- no matter where you stand on the ambulance fee. The Washington Post reported last week:

WASHINGTON POST: An ambulance fee is back on the agenda in Montgomery County.

On Thursday, Montgomery County Executive Isiah Leggett (D) proposed legislation to reinstitute the fee, which was struck down by referendum in 2010....

After dueling campaigns that involved hundreds of volunteer and career fire and rescue personnel, the law failed in a referendum. Leggett said the circumstances are different this time, because the state legislature is in the midst of adding significant costs to the county.

The General Assembly approved changes to the formula deciding how much counties must allocate each year for school funding, and Leggett said he expects that the legislature will soon enter a special session to approve a shift of teacher pension costs to the counties. Both measures will create substantial costs to the county in the long term, and Leggett said he wanted a stable source of revenue to help mitigate the effect.

“It would be irresponsible not to put this as an option given the financial conditions we’re in today,” he said.

Maryland Juice finds Ike Leggett's worries about MoCo's cash-flow to be very strange, given that the County Executive seems to think we have hundreds of thousands of dollars to give away to profitable multinational corporations right now.


JUICE #2: COUNCIL PRESIDENT ROGER BERLINER CALLS FOR MOCO INNOVATION OFFICER - MoCo's current Council President Roger Berliner has at least one idea for a better way to spend county money than on mindless corporate welfare. Yesterday, he sent some of his colleagues on the County Council a letter calling for MoCo to hire a Chief Innovation Officer (CIO). In a letter to members of the County's Government Operations (GO) Committee, Mr. Berliner stated some concrete goals for a CIO:

ROGER BERLINER: ...an early funder of Twitter and a representative from Google advised us that in their view our County needed to do more to embrace innovation. They specifically pointed to the wealth of data that our County possesses and how other communities are using that data to create economic opportunities.

The Chief Innovation Officer would assist in putting the data our County collects to work for our residents: turning information into services through cutting‐edge technology like mobile phone “apps”. He or she would engage a new generation of problem‐solvers, our County’s most tech‐savvy residents, to come up with new solutions to old problems.

CANARY IN THE COALMINE: AN EARLY WARNING ABOUT INTERNET POLICY: Over and over again, Maryland Juice has pleaded with politicians and policymakers to start taking Internet policy and citizen engagement more seriously than they may have in the past. We already witnessed citizen backlash to proposals to censor or invade privacy on the Internet (ie: SOPA & CISPA). I am pleading one more time for the Democrats to own Internet freedom as an issue, and to not cede one inch to the Republicans. In the short-term I believe this will aid Democrats in building a brand among younger voters; and in the long-term it will build us loyalty among a new majority voting population of Internet users who self-identify as such. More importantly, protecting the free-flow of information (and now commerce) on the Internet should be a bigger government priority than it currently is.

The New York Times today had a timely warning for U.S. policymakers. Germany notably has a multiparty democracy due to their country's proportional representation election system. But amazingly, the third most popular party in the nation right now is The Pirate Party. Given that the party is focused on Internet issues and is only six years old, Maryland Juice thinks this is pretty significant:

NEW YORK TIMES: The sudden roar erupting from the Jägerklause bar in east Berlin’s bohemian Friedrichshain district late on a recent Sunday sounded like the usual soccer-match pandemonium. But the crowd inside, with their jeans and sneakers and easygoing looks, didn’t seem like typical soccer fanatics.

Nor did they look like political operatives — but that’s what they were: members of the upstart Pirate Party, which had just scored a key electoral victory in the small western state of Saarland.

The German Pirates, founded in 2006 and long dismissed as a niche party obsessed with copyright reform and online privacy, picked up four seats in the Saarland regional Parliament, twice as many as the once strong Green Party — and far more than the pro-business Free Democrats, who were shut out.

This month they face their biggest challenge, with elections in two more states, including North Rhine-Westphalia, the country’s most populous. Should the results match recent poll numbers — as high as 13 percent, making the Pirates Germany’s third-most-popular party — they will serve notice that a new electoral force has arrived and offer a compelling political lesson for parties on both sides of the Atlantic.

On the surface, the Pirates are indeed niche: their platform stands for stronger protection for file sharing and against censorship, along with unorthodox ideas like voting rights for teenagers.

But their real goal, and the root of their success, is more meta: using the Internet to create a new structure of politics that can solve the problem of how to energize citizens — not only for the excitement of a campaign but also the often dreary realities of actual governance....

But the Pirates’ generation isn’t as radical as their parents’, and they understand the value of conventional politics. They just believe that it’s stuck in the past....

Still, the real lesson for American observers is not how to build a viable third party, but how Mr. Obama and other politicians must adapt to the political sensibilities of Internet-savvy voters. It’s easy to dismiss the Pirates as a quirky band of idealists. But as countless old-line German politicians can attest, American parties ignore them at their peril.

MOCO COUNCIL RAPS WITH GOOGLE & TWITTER REPS: Below, you can a video of the County Council discussion with representatives from the Internet companies and startups mentioned by Mr. Berliner. We also re-print Mr. Berliner's letter to the Council below:




Montgomery County Council President Roger Berliner Calls for MoCo Chief Innovation Officer (CIO)


JUICE #3: O'MALLEY ANNOUNCES FUNDING OF MOCO BIKESHARE PROGRAM - Montgomery County Planning Board member Casey Anderson alerted Maryland Juice to an exciting new development:

CASEY ANDERSON: I just found out that Montgomery County received a grant to fund their bike-share program. Assuming the County Council funds the required match, the program could be operating by the end of the year. The state grant, if matched by County funds, would pay for all of the bike-share stations proposed inside the Beltway. It looks like there will be 29 stations and 204 bikes for now.

Councilmembers Valerie Ervin and Roger Berliner deserve huge credit for this. Valerie was pushing for bike sharing before anyone else, and Roger has pushed the County's Department of Transportation repeatedly to get it funded. Even MCDOT has come around and seems to be genuinely enthusiastic.

UPDATE:  A Maryland Juice reader notes that several state legislators also played a large role in ensuring funding for MoCo's bikeshare program. Effort was sponsored in the House by Delegates Bill Frick, Al Carr, Ana Sol Gutierrez, Sheila Hixson, Tom Hucker, Ariana Kelly, Susan Lee, Eric Luedtke, Heather Mizeur, and Jeff Waldstreicher. In the Senate, the measure was sponsored by Senators Brian Frosh, Rich Madaleno, and Jamie Raskin

Maryland's Department of Transportation made the announcement via press release yesterday (excerpt below):

GOVERNOR O’MALLEY KICKS OFF BIKE MONTH
BY ANNOUNCING $2.5 MILLION IN GRANTS
TO BRING BIKESHARE STATIONS TO MARYLAND

Seven Winners throughout the Baltimore-Washington Region

HANOVER, MD – As part of the O’Malley Administration’s Cycle Maryland Initiative, Governor Martin O’Malley today kicked off bike month, by announcing the first seven winners of his new Maryland Bikeshare Program grants to help Maryland communities plan, establish or expand bikeshare programs.  He announced the new Maryland Bikeshare Program in November 2011 to create bikeshare systems in Maryland.  Bikeshare systems can help solve the “last mile” problem, connecting public transportation riders to their final destinations.  Governor O’Malley’s new program will provide $2.5 million this year to three counties and several municipalities for a variety of projects in different stages of development from feasibility assessment to implementation of bikesharing stations....

The winners of grants to implement bikesharing systems are:  Baltimore City, Montgomery County and joint partners with University of Maryland at College Park and the City of College Park.  The winners of grants for feasibility studies of potential bikeshare stations are:  Frederick City, Howard County and joint partners with Prince George’s County and the City of Greenbelt.


JUICE #4: MOCO TO FACE EMPLOYEE RECRUITMENT COMPETITION FROM VA? - Maryland Juice periodically gets irate when policymakers blindly believe unproven claims that our state and county tax rates are responsible for residents moving to Virginia. During the recession (and even today), Virginia was constantly being used a bogeyman to justify tax cuts, corporate welfare, pay freezes, and government layoffs. Now some policymakers are hinting that we need to reverse course. Amusingly, the argument is still competition with Virginia. See the recent debate about government employee pay in The Gaithersburg Patch:

GAITHERSBURG PATCH: Instead of pay raises, most Montgomery County employees could receive a one-time $2,000 payment next year, according to a compensation and benefits package reviewed by a council committee Tuesday.

Analysts briefed the Government Operations Committee on County Executive Isiah Leggett’s recommendations, needed because the economic outlook was “uncertain,” Council Staff Director Stephen B. Farber said Tuesday.

According to county records, the lump-sum payouts to county government employees would cost $16.5 million — $14.4 million coming from tax-supported funds — and would include “longevity adjustments” or raises for certain employees who’ve worked for 20 years, according to county records.

Roughly 500 employees would be eligible for such a raise, a cost of $1.3 million, county data show....

Councilman Hans Riemer, D-At Large, said he was concerned that surrounding counties were doing more to increase employee pay, making Montgomery County seem like an “outlier.” Councilwoman Valerie Ervin, D-Dist. 5, asked Farber for “apples-to-apples” figures from surrounding counties and jurisdictions in Northern Virginia.

Councilwoman Nancy Navarro, the committee’s chairwoman, said offering the lump sum instead of pay raises was not ideal, but it was “better than nothing” given the state of the economy and not knowing whether the county would wind up picking up teachers’ pension costs — part of the so-called doomsday budget that resulted from the General Assembly’s unfinished business.

MORE ON MOCO POLICY DEVELOPMENTS SOON!

Obama Threatens to Veto Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger's Internet Snooping Bill // Advocates Condemn CISPA During Floor Debate

UPDATE: The House Republican majority rammed through CISPA tonight on a mostly party-line vote. Here's how Maryland's House delegation voted - YES: Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, Rep. Andy Harris, Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger // NO: Rep. Elijah Cummings, Rep. Donna Edwards, Rep. Steny Hoyer, Rep. Chris Van Hollen, Rep. John Sarbanes. The technology bloggers at TechDirt wrote:

TECHDIRT: Up until this afternoon, the final vote on CISPA was supposed to be tomorrow. Then, abruptly, it was moved up today—and the House voted in favor of its passage with a vote of 248-168. But that's not even the worst part....

The CISPA that was just approved by the House is much worse than the CISPA being discussed as recently as this morning.... The government would be able to search information it collects under CISPA for the purposes of investigating American citizens with complete immunity from all privacy protections as long as they can claim someone committed a "cybersecurity crime". Basically it says the 4th Amendment does not apply online, at all.

Today, the U.S. House of Representatives is engaging in a heated floor debate on Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger's Internet snooping legislation CISPA (aka HR 3523). You can watch the proceedings online. A floor vote is expected TONIGHT.

STOP #CISPA // TWEET AT BILL SPONSORS: @CALL_ME_DUTCH and @ROSCOE_BARTLETT

OPPOSITION ON THE LEFT: CISPA has been criticized by key House Democrats, and a recent veto threat by President Obama was a gamechanger in the policy dialogue. Obama cited CISPA's weak efforts to protect our online privacy. The Hill today reported on Rep. Ruppersberger's response:

THE HILL: Democratic Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger (Md.) voiced frustration Thursday with the White House's threat to veto his cybersecurity bill.

"It was like a kick in the solar plexus," Ruppersberger said, referring to an area of the abdomen....

Maryland Attorney General Doug Gansler's New Fundraising Letter Previews Issues for 2014 Governor's Race

A Maryland Juice reader has forwarded us a scanned copy of the following fundraising letter from Attorney General Doug Gansler. Two things are worth noting:

1. Gansler's fundraising is not slowing down, and 
2. Gansler is previewing a set of issues and accomplishments as Attorney General that he will likely highlight in a 2014 gubernatorial bid. 

We noted in January that Gansler was developing a large cash lead in the race for the 2014 Democratic Primary, with over $4 million in his war chest already. In the letter below, he highlights a body work around four issue areas:

1. Environmental Enforcement & Alternative Energy
2. Alcohol-Related Public Safety Issues & Senior Abuse
3. Consumer Protections for Home Loans & Refinancing
4. Internet Privacy

Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger & Rep. Roscoe Bartlett would do well to take note of number 4, given their recent decision to sponsor legislation encouraging government snooping of Internet social networks.

Maryland Attorney General Doug Gansler Fundraising Letter - April 2012

TODAY: MoCo Council Hosts Startups & Tech Innovators // Funders and Reps from Google, Twitter & More in Rockville

Today, the Montgomery County Council is hosting a special session with leaders of the innovation economy. Brad Burnham, a venture capitalist who helped launch Twitter, Foursquare, Tumblr and more will share his thoughts on the new economy. Also on-hand will be key figures from Google, Sonatype and Green Strategies. See the event announcement below:

Shaping Our Future: Adapting to Change // Montgomery County and the New Economy

Maryland Juice Invades Republic of Texas // What Is An eBook Mixtape? We're Launching a Special New Book Project at SXSW

Maryland Juice has just arrived in Austin, Texas for the annual SXSW festival. I am here to launch a new project with my colleagues & allies from the fight to stop SOPA & PIPA (aka Internet censorship legislation that stalled in Congress a few weeks ago).

Along with David Segal from Demand Progress and Patrick Ruffini from Engage DC, I am writing, editing and curating content for a new eBook titled:

Hacking Politics: How we -- the Internet -- stood up to defend ourselves against #SOPA & #PIPA

I'll be trickling out details about the project -- and hopefully some teaser content very soon. The eBook will not only feature important commentary from key figures in the fight for Internet freedom; we are also going to try and highlight a new model for how eBooks are created (see a hint below). Stay tuned!

www.HackPolitics.com

P.S. Maryland Juice will be publishing on a bizarre and erratic schedule over the next couple days. Apologies in advance, but rest assured -- more MD political juice coming soon!

Montgomery County "Explains" Workplace Internet Censorship // UMD Professor: "A Pity That Tax Money Spent To Filter"

INTRODUCTION: Last week a Maryland Juice reader alerted us to more Internet censorship for employees of Montgomery County's government. As we've previously reported, Montgomery County censors its Internet connections in government buildings -- including for public employees, in libraries, and more. In the past, this censorship has been clearly content-based and selectively targeted LGBT content, along with hilariously innocuous content, like a seniors center event calendar. This awesome public amenity costs taxpayers over $64,000 a year. What is the public purpose of this again?

Chairman MoCo is now randomly blocking images on the Maryland Juice blog -- including our Sam Arora ad, screencaps of Fox News Baltimore's previous anti-LGBT website, and more. We can surmise that this problem is more widespread than our single website. After complaining to Montgomery County's public information officer, we received a very unsatisfactory response -- which basically amounts to "all Internet censorship filters make errors." Yes -- we understand that, and it is precisely why we abhor ALL INTERNET CENSORSHIP FILTERS.

Below we print the response from Chairman Moco's Minister of Propaganda Patrick Lacefield, along with a critique from University of Maryland Professor Jim Purtilo:

PATRICK LACEFIELD: DTS tells me that this is a simple vendor miscategorization issue with the blogspot domain, which has nothing to do with the LGBT juice site. The process for fixing this is simple. We submit the error to the vendor. If the vendor determines that the images have been mis-categorized they usually fix them within 2 business hours after our notification.

All of the URL filtering vendors have a small number of mistakes in their categorization. Requests for re-categorization is a standard operational process that has been done by every customer to every vendor. We encourage every employee to report potential mis-categorized sites to the County's IT HelpDesk so that those sites can be sent to the vendor for review (and possible categorization change). Any site that is re-categorized will be applied to all of the vendor's customers at the same time.

JIM PURTILO: Yeah, images involving LGBT symbols, guns and potentially rebroadcast of other copyright protected material (Fox) would all seem to be pretty standard fodder for filters. The county gets what it pays for. What a pity that tax money is spent to filter any such things.

From the IT side, there are a variety of conventions by which images are determined to be in a filter list, after which page loads are dynamically replaced with the sort of images you found. But I think you'll find that in none of the methods used is anyone thinking very hard and long before clicking a yes/no option, if it even goes before the eyes of a human to be checked. So my suggestion here is the same as the last time we had such an exchange. Sure would be nice to see what instructions were part of the contract let by the agency. *Someone* has to decide which policy is being enforced, so either there is a list identifying types of things the commercial firm should not allow to be carried (hence an official can be asked to explain wtf, which could be very entertaining) or there is a 'standard package of services' purchased, in which case, again, someone in government signed off on the purchase, and if they didn't know what they were buying then, well, as you posed, wtf?

Indeed, Montgomery County -- and many other Maryland counties -- blindly censor the Internet like a bunch of @#$#@*!. These IT fogies clearly have too much money to spend on this nonsense and too few real problems to worry about. Except that they do. Maybe they should spend less time censoring the Internet and more time thinking about why their website looks like it was built in 1990. More importantly, that $64,000 a year that they spend on censoring the Net could go a long way towards bringing Montgomery County's online outreach and constituent interaction tools into the 21st century.

P.S. Not that I'm endorsing this project -- but one example is that MoCo recently decided it could not afford a $250,000 news site for residents due to the budget climate. There is no world in which four years of Internet censorship is a better value for taxpayers than providing them with information about what is going on in local government.

WTF: Montgomery County's Internet Firewall Censors Maryland Juice // Chairman MoCo Blocks Sam Arora Ad and More!

The all-time most popular article on Maryland Juice is our coverage of Montgomery County, Maryland's censorship of computers in their office buildings, schools and libraries. Our investigation led us to discover that Amtrak was also censoring its WiFi network, and that both MoCo and Amtrak had been censoring LGBT newspapers, seniors event calendars, and other ordinary speech. The County defended its system and claimed nothing was wrong with their vendor. Then later the vendor tweaked their system to supposedly fix the issue.

Today two Maryland Juice readers within Montgomery County's government buildings report that Chairman MoCo's Censorship Firewall is BACK. This time Montgomery County is censoring images on the Maryland Juice website. The censored images include our web ad calling Sam Arora a liar who should resign, and our image of Fox News Baltimore's misleading anti-LGBT website banner. See screencaps below:

This is really beginning to piss me off.  Do you know that they spend over $64,000 a year on this?

The New Normal // 15% of Marriages Now Interracial, 50% of New Mothers Unmarried & Internet Access Surging for All

 Enter the United States of Benetton

Maryland Juice loves using demographic trendlines to project policy changes and predict political shifts. Here are a few new hints of the new normal -- most being driven by people from my generation or younger. These new studies point to an increasingly connected, global citizenry and large shifts in the format of family-life and politics in America:

• 15 % of New Marriages are from Interracial Couples
• A Majority of Mothers Under 30 are Unmarried
• 35-49-Year-Olds Are Biggest Blog & Social Networking Users

Maryland Juice Goes Public // I'm On a Panel This Thursday in DC for Social Media Week

www.socialmediaweek.org

• [ rsvp required ]

Who was Really Behind Internet Blackout Day? A SOPA & PIPA Case Study & Happy Hour

Hosted by: Public Knowledge

Category: Politics & Government

Location: Buffalo Billiards- Adirondack Room, Washington, DC

Thursday, February 16 at 5:30 PM - 8:30 PM

As Grant Gross reports in his 2/3/12 piece, “Who Really Was Behind the SOPA Protests?”

” Some critics have blamed Silicon Valley tech firms for the massive online protests last month against two controversial copyright bills.

Other groups have trumpeted the grassroots nature of the protests.

The first narrative, that giant tech companies drove the uprising, has little basis in fact, according to several people who helped organize the protest.

The second storyline, that the protests bubbled up from regular Internet users, comes closer to explaining the phenomenon, but reality is more complicated, participants said.

The protests were a combination of independent decisions by websites including Wikipedia and Reddit to go black on Jan. 18, behind-the-scenes organization by a number of groups, and grassroots response to the blackout and other online efforts, participants said.”

This panel discussion and networking event will introduce you to some of the people behind “American Censorship Day” and the “Internet Blackout Day” for a candid discussion discuss their the strategies and tactics that lead up to over 14 million people to contacting Congress in a single day.

We will discuss how Internet experts, non-profit organizations and entrepreneurs from across the political spectrum came together to successfully derail SOPA and PIPA and offer a glimpse into what this means for future advocacy campaigns.

Moderated by

• Ernesto Falcon, Director of Government Affairs for Public Knowledge

Featuring

• David Moon, Program Director - Demand Progress
• Markham Erickson, Executive Director - NetCoalition
• Mark Stanley, New Media Manager - Center for Democracy & Technology
  
• Rachna Choudhry, Co-founder - PopVox

[ rsvp required ]

MOVIE: Watch "Life in a Day" Online (Free) // Meet Your Neighbors

 #occupylife

Maryland Juice today decided to provide readers with the opportunity to watch a free 90-minute feature film today. The award-winning documentary "Life in a Day" is available to view online below. Note that I paid money to see this in the theaters, so ya'll are getting off easy!

Synopsis: On July 24th, 2010, thousands of people around the world uploaded videos of their day to YouTube to take part in Life in a Day, a historic cinematic experiment to create a documentary film about a single day on earth.

Oscar-winning director Kevin Macdonald whittled down over 4500 hours of footage into a 90-minute film that wowed audiences at the Sundance Berlin and SXSW Film Festivals earlier this year.

Now, after releasing in theaters around the globe, the film has returned to where it all began. Watch it for free, and be sure to explore the channel to learn more about this amazing piece of cinema history.

Preview the Movie Trailer (full film below)

Full Length Film (Watch FREE Below)

I'm Writing A Book With George W. Bush's Webmaster (Seriously) // Read Hacking Politics

www.HackPolitics.com

Maryland Juice's life is an ongoing experiment in advocacy and social change efforts. Last year, I took a job with a start-up Internet organization called Demand Progress. The organization was founded by a young tech prodigy (Aaron Swartz) and a former Rhode Island State Representative (David Segal) who grew up in MoCo. By promoting civil liberties and progressive causes, they quickly attracted a following of over 300,000 Internet users.

Photo with Senator Ron Wyden and Members of the Anti-SOPA/PIPA Coalition After Defeat of the Legislation

Over the course of the year, we virally grew the organization's membership from 300,000 to over 1 million users, and in the course of doing so, we helped organize Internet protests against dangerous innovation-stifling legislation called SOPA and PIPA. You may have seen some of the results of our coalition's work.

Though most of you know me as a bomb-throwing progressive, I've always stated that I'm an issues-guy at heart. That's why the fight to protect the Internet from undue government and private sector control put me in a coalition with conservatives (Tea Party/Liberty/CATO/Heritage) and liberals (MoveOn/Reddit/etc). Even Kim Kardashian got involved.

Now, I am writing a book with my Demand Progress colleague, David Segal --- along with Patrick Ruffini, the e-advocacy guru for the RNC and George W. Bush. We are going to tell the story about the largest Internet protest in history, and what it means for the future of organizing. Already, pundits are pointing to the SOPA protests as the precursor for Susan Komen and likely a wave of new activism.

Find out about the new era of organizing on the Internet: Sign up to receive a copy of our free e-Book. The project will feature insights and commentary from many noteworthy advocates, alongside newly emerging leaders of the movement for open information and a free Internet. Stay tuned!