The Amazing Race 9, Episode 1

Denver, CO (USA) - São Paulo (Brazil)

The Amazing Race is back!

Back in São Paulo for the second time. (Don't be surprised if you've forgotten their first visit four years ago -- they didn't actually do much in São Paulo.) Back to teams of two adults, instead of teams of four that include children. (Too bad: As I've said repeatedly, the television producers missed a huge chance to show the world as children experience it, and to teach adult viewers how much more quickly and easily children adapt to unfamiliar settings.) But most importantly, back to travelling around the world (or at least to many continents), rather than just around North and Central America as in the most recent flop of a season of the reality-television race.

The lack of audience interest in the previous season of the race, as host Phil Keoghan has admitted in recent inteviews, suggests that the excitement and education we get from travel is as much about diversity of people as of places. Yes, the USA has both tropical jungle and arctic mountaintops. Yes, the USA is a melting pot of peoples. But the world is still a lot more culturally diverse than the USA or any one country, and changing scenery outside the window of your SUV is no substitute for cultural encounter and immersion.

But let's put all that behind us. What are the prospects for the new season as the racers head off to Brazil to the helicopters that will whisk them to the rooftops of their destinations -- when they aren't stuck in traffic in taxicabs on their way to (where else?) the Estádio Municipal (Estádio do Pacaembu)?

This season features some of the more experienced international travellers -- at least according to the highly selective profiles released by CBS -- since the first year of "The Amazing Race". B.J. and Tyler, in particular, appear to be the first contestants on "The Amazing Race" who took a trip around the world together before being selected for the cast of the show.

That doesn't make it certain, or even particularly likely, that they will be more adept at travel skills. Some people are "born travellers" more than others by temperament, regardless of experience. But a trip around the world together typically either makes or breaks a relationship: it's rare for two people to come back from a trip like that feeling only indifferent towards each other.

Unlike some of the other cast members who've never travelled together before, Tyler and B.J. each knew what they were getting into and what their partner was like as a traveller , which can be very different form how the same person behaves at home. If, after that, they both chose to apply for "The Amazing Race", I'm pretty confident that they've worked out a modus vivendi as companions on the road that will survive the race.

It also looks like they are doing some of the things I've been recommending, like using the time in airports and on planes to get fellow travellers to teach them key race-related phrases in the language of their next destination. For the racers, it's how to tell a taxi driver, "Will you please pass that car?" For real-world travellers, it might be, "Where is the toilet?", or "I can't eat meat." (Because it seems less judgmental, "can't" is more likely than "won't" to be understood and accepted without giving offense in a cross-cultural context.)

At the same time, this season's racers seem to be bringing along too much baggage -- physically if not (or not yet visibly) emotionally. The first time one of them has to run, they are crying out, "Holy big bag!" at the weight of their luggage.

Presumably, they knew that this was a race, and that they would sometimes have to run (for plane, for a train, for a bus, for a boat, for a taxi, ...) with their pack on their back. So if they were surprised at how difficult that was, it could only mean that they had never tested what it was like to run with their pack fully loaded.

We've seen this before, just as we've seen travellers -- on "The Amazing Race" and in real life -- throwing things out to lighten their loads. Let this be a lesson:

1. Before a long trip, pack your bags completely and go out for a day of sightseeing and travel around town by public mass transit. Then reconsider which things are really worth their weight to carry.
   
   
2. Plan on wanting to cut down the size and weight of your luggage, and bring as little as possible that's so valuable (in money or sentiment) that you'd be reluctant to abandon it, or pained if it gets lost, stolen, or broken.

"The Amazing Race 9" starts Tuesday; "Amazing Race Asia" applications open

Broadcasts of a new season of the reality television travel show The Amazing Race start this Tuesday, 28 February 2006 on CBS-TV in the USA. The Amazing Race 9 is back to the original format of a race around the world by teams of two people. This week's two-hour premiere will be from 9-11 p.m. ET/PT, 8-10 p.m. CT/MT. Subsequent weeks 1-hour episodes are scheduled for 10-11 p.m. ET/PT, 9-10 p.m. CT/MT (one hour later than broadcasts of previous seasons). Set your VCR's and Tivo's for Tuesday!

CBS has already posted profiles of the racers on their Web site for the new season. Of course, I'll once again be providing "morning after" commentary here and in my e-mail newsletter .

You'll also be able to find my columns on "The Amazing Race" through BuddyTV.com , a new service that will be offering blogs, articles, audio and video commentary, and forums for fans to chat about "The Amazing Race" and other shows.

I've gotten permisison to give you a sneak preview of their beta Web site here . Sign in with the user name "BetaPreview" and password "TVj*2006" (case sensitive, without the quotation marks). Once you've signed in, check out the main page and the forum for "The Amazing Race".

According to the beta site, BuddyTV will be featuring commentary on "The Amazing Race" by former cast members: "Team Guido" (Bill and Joe), Kevin (of Kevin and Drew), and Paul and Amie from The Amazing Race 1 ; Tian (of Tian and Jaree) from The Amazing Race 4 ; and Susan (of Susan and Patrick) and Kelley (of Kelly and Ron) from The Amazing Race 7 .

Meanwhile, The Amazing Race 7 has been released on DVD , following the earlier DVD release of The Amazing Race 1 . There's no word on whether, or when, seasons 2 through 6 or 8 will be available on DVD.

Finally, there's exiting news for those of you in Asia who've been bombarding me with comments about why CBS only allows citizens of the USA to compete in "The Amazing Race". I don't produce the show, and I don't make the rules, but apparently someone is beginning to get the message: the rights to produce an Asian regional edition of "The Amazing Race" -- the first version open to citizens of countries other than the USA -- have been licensed to Singapore-based AXN, the cable and satellite channel that has been carrying same-day broadcasts in Asia of the USA edition of "The Amazing Race".

The Amazing Race Asia is now accepting applications through 15 March 2006 from citizens of any country who are "living or working" in "all of Asia excluding Australia, New Zealand, Japan and the Middle East." I don't know what they define as "The Middle East", but I presume that their definition of Asia includes the Philippines, where "The Amazing Race" appears to have been most popular. Everything you need to apply is on the AXN Web site. How do I tell you, "Good luck!", in Tagalog/Pilipino?

".travel" sponsor on the defensive

The sponsor of the new .travel top-level Internet domain -- the struggling Tralliance Corporation division of the equally struggling TheGobe.com/Voiceglo.com -- appears to be running scared in response to questions about how much ".travel" will actually be used, and a report this month by one of the leading independent analysts of the Internet travel industry concluding that ".travel" is of little value even to the industry for whose benefit it was created.

The 16 February 2006 report by Henry Harteveldt, the lead travel analyst for Forrester Research and the former marketing director of pioneering Internet business travel agency ITN (Internet Travel Network, renamed "GetThere.com after it was acquired by Sabre), is available only to paying Forrester clients. But its message is apparent from the title and public summary: .travel: Nice, But Not Necessary: New Sponsored Domain Name Will Benefit Its Sponsors But Few Others :

Executive Summary: The .travel sponsored domain name is now live. Like a mosquito buzzing around your picnic, .travel is an annoying inconvenience. Only three groups are expected to benefit: the sponsor, Tralliance; destination marketing organizations; and small niche travel firms.

Clearly threatened, Tralliance has responded with an article and an interview with CircleID, which are worth reading if only for the lengthy point-by-point excerpts from the Forrester report they are trying to rebut.

There have been some earlier indications that interest in ".travel" is lagging behind Tralliance's rosy projections in its business plan and application to ICANN. Tralliance has been boasting about the number of names registered in ".travel", but it appears that mosdt of the names "registered" are geographic place-names that have been automatically reserved for potential use by government entities (e.g. ministries of tourism and government tourism promotion offices), not domain names that anyone is actually using yet, or even considering using.

In another propaganda piece also published on CircleID earlier this month, Tralliance argues that consumers will benefit from the .travel directory because it will "ensur[e] the accuracy of the information" they get in response to travel-related searches by limiting it to informnation provided by accredited suppliers of travel products and services. And in his latest interview with CircleID, Tralliance CEO Ron Andruff says that http://www.directory.travel "will revolutionize the way travel and tourism is researched" because "the directory narrows down a list of 100% matches to every multifaceted query."

If that's your goal, Mr. Andruff -- and I think it is -- I don't want to be part of your revolution.

When travellers search the Internet, we don't want tthe responses to our searrch queries to be limited to advertisements: we want to see the negative reviews and independent advice (Andruff calls them "noise") as well. In fact, most travellers would probably prefer search results from which ads were excluded to search results limited to supplier-provided marketing information.

Tralliance's vision for ".travel" is the vision of people like Mr. Andruff who think of "Internet users" solely as "customers", see advertising as the most legitimate and credible category of information, and think the only way we could or should use the Internet is to click on "buy it now". But having written the book on how travellers use the Internet, I can assure Mr. Andruff that it doesn't work like that. The Internet is more widely used, more valuable, and more significant to travellers as a communication and research tool than as a travel shopping channel. ICANN's own evaluators understood the difference between "travel" and "the travel industry", and recommended against delegating .travel to Tralliance for that reason. Mr. Andruff and Tralliance still don't get it.

The Tralliance Web site includes an October 2001 report on the potential for .travel by Bill Carroll of PhoCusWright, Forrester's leading competitor in Internet e-commerce consulting and analysis. Oddly, the PhoCusWright report is on the ICANN Reprts and remarks page of the Tralliance Web site, which I guess indicates that Tralliance used it as part of their effort to persuade ICANN that they had a viable business plan.

At PhoCusWright's annual Travel Executive Conference last November (Tralliance wasn't there, which is a sign of how out of touch they are with the the real movers and shakers of the Internet travel industry), Bill Carroll told me he was surprised that Tralliance had his report on their Web site, and even more suprised that Tralliance thought it supported their argument for ".travel".

Carroll said he was" skeptical" about how Tralliance's accreditation scheme for travel businesses would be received by buyers of travel services: "The question is whether the consumer will have confidence in whomever is doing [the accreditation] that this is a legitimate travel company." Whether Tralliance can establish that consumer confidence -- or displace those who already have it -- remains an open question.

Later in the 2005 PhoCusWright conference, Carroll gave me the microphone to put the key question directly to Jane Butler, head of of travel for Google. In her closing keynote, Butler -- the world's largest-volume travel advertising salesperson -- pointed out that consumers are now using "search" instead of traditional (advertising) media to find travel Web sites.

So what did she think, I asked, of the likelihood that people will switch from using Google to using Tralliance's .travel directory to search for travel services. "Are you at all concerned about them as a potential competitor? Or is Tralliance just smoking crack?"

"There's a lot more interest [in ".travel"] from Tralliance than from consumers", Butler said after a brief pause and a sound somewhere between a laugh and a snort of derision. "I absolutely don't consider [Tralliance] a competitor".

BellaOnline review of "The Practical Nomad"

Most book reviewers focus on new first editions. It's hard to get them to notice a new edition or an established "backlist" title that wasn't just published. So my thanks to Kimberly Button, Budget Travel Editor for BellaOnline ("The Voice of Women"), for her new review of the 3rd edition of "The Practical Nomad: How to Travel Around the World":

If you’ve ever had a dream about spending months traveling around the world, then The Practical Nomad - How to Travel Around the World is the book for you....

The Practical Nomad: How to Travel Around the World is essentially the only book that world travelers need before starting their journey. The 620 page book covers every aspect of extended travel that you could possibly think of. From finding ways to get time off of work to the conditions of international toilets, if it’s a concern for travelers, then author Edward Hasbrouck writes about it.... Hasbrouck knows from experience what is important to world travelers.

Whether you’re a college student planning on traveling after graduation or a retiree who is finally realizing their dream of seeing the world, if you are planning a round-the-world trip or just an extended vacation, then The Practical Nomad: How to Travel Around the World is mandatory reading for you.

Full review here .

No refund on Northwest Airlines if you won't produce ID

I mentioned in a recent article that airlines' rules explicitly require them to give you a full and unconditional refund -- even if your ticket was otherwise compeletely nonrefundable -- if they refuse to transport you because (among other reasons) you refuse to permit your person or belongings to be searched for weapons or explosives, or you refuse to provide evidence of your identity that the airline deems sufficient.

That's still true for almost every airline whose rules I re-checked, but it has begun to change. The most reason version of Northwest Airlines' Contract of Carriage effective 10 February 2006 . See Rule 35 (G) on page 37 of this PDF :

IN SITUATIONS ARISING UNDER PARAGRAPHS B), C), D), OR E) ABOVE EXCEPT E)1 AND E)4-5 AND E)7-8, A PASSENGER SHALL NOT BE ENTITLED TO A REFUND IF THE PASSENGER'S TICKET IS NONREFUNDABLE.

I don't know when the change was first made. If anyone has any archived copies of Northwest's terms and conditions, please let me know the date of your copy and whether it includes this rule.

As of today, there is no such clause in the contracts of carriage or general tariff rules of American Airlines , Delta Air Lines , United Airlines , Continental Airlines , or US Airways . But check before you buy a ticket -- I won't be surprised if they follow Northwest's lead.

Typically with each of these airlines there's a section in the rules ("Rule 35", for those airlines that still use the same numbering as was used in the rules applied by the government to all airlines in the USA before deregulation in 1978) on "Acceptance of Passengers" or "Refusal to Transport" that says the airline may refuse to transport you if you refuse to "permit" a search of your person and luggage for weapons or explosives, or refuse on request to " produce positive identification". There's a separate section ("Rule 260" for those airlines that still use the pre-1978 numbering) on "Involuntary Refunds" providing that if you are refused transportation, and your ticket is unused, the refund will be " the full amount paid (with no service charge or refund penalty)".

Note that this doesn't require you to "consent" to search, only that you "permit" it. It doesn't require you to permit a search for evidence of identity, or a search for any purpose other than weapons or explosives. And it doesn't say who is entitled to demand that you produce identification, whether that production can be oral or must be through tangible evidence (a distinction the U.S. Supreme Court found to be decisive in its decison last year in the Hiibel case), or what consitutes "positive" identification, as determined by whom or according to what process of verification.

As long as an airline has to give a full refund to anyone they refuse to transport, the airline has an incentive to accept whatever identification would-be pasengers provide, and not to subject them to such intrusive search as to induce them to ask for their money back instead of going through with it. In practice, on purely domestic flights within the USA, most airlines actually accept even the flimsiest evidence of identity, if the airline thinks the would-be passenger is sincere and not trying to evade or refuse to comply with the requirement for "positive" identification.

Under Northwest's new rule, anyone whose identification is deemed not to be "positive", or not to have been "produced" in an acceptable form, will forfeit the fare they have already paid, without the airline having to provide any services.

Is that a permissable condition of carriage? We won't know until it is challenged -- as I hope it will be.

Under the terms of the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978, airlines are licensed in the USA as "common carriers". And under the terms of the First Amendment to the Constitution of the USA, "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the right of the people peaceably to assemble". Often, we assemble ("move into a group") by common carrier. Most airline trips are acts of assembling with friends, relatives, participants in business meetings, etc.

It was only a matter of time until airlines began to add clauses like Northwest's to their conditions of carriage, and courts were forced to confront -- as they haven't yet done -- the question of whether such terms of service are consistent with the obligations of the airlines as "common carriers", and the obligations under the assembly clause of the of the First Amendment of the government agencies that license the airlines. Those questions are now ripe for decision, and will be difficult for the Federal courts to evade once they are presented with a suitable test case challenging Northwest's new rules.

For what it's worth, you can still get a full refund on Northwest, as on other airlines, even if your ticket was otherwise nonrefundable, if you refuse to accept a change in the scheduled flight time -- no matter how slight -- after you have bought your ticket. This applies only if the schedule is changed. If the schedule remains the same, but the flight actually departs or arrives late (or early), your nonrefundable ticket remains nonrefundable. But if you present yourself to check in, and are told, "By the way, your flight is now scheuled to depart 3 minutes later than the time on your ticket", you are entileld to say, "That's not acceptable to me. I demand all the money I paid for this ticket back, without penalty."

Taylor Branch on tour for Black History Month

Last October when The Amazing Race passed through Anniston, Alabama, I "talked in my"column":/blog/archives/000862.html about what had happened when one of the first of the "Freedom Rides" passed through Anniston in 1961, and Anniston's significance in the movement for civil rights for African-Americans.

I quoted at length from the historian Taylor Branch's "Parting the Waters", the first volume of his trilogy on "America in the King Years". And I got more positive feedback about that column than about any almost any of my others in 8 seasons of the reality television show about travel around the world.

Taylor Branch's trilogy -- not purely a biography, but a larger social history of the context of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s life -- has just been completed with the publication of "At Canaan's Edge". I look forward to reading it.

It's Black History Month, and Taylor Branch is on tour to talk about his new book, the series as a whole, and, most importantly, the significance of the story it tells. This isn't "just" Black history, folks. This is American history of importance to us all, just as the history of the struggle against apartheid is South African history of importance to people of all races.

In the San Francisco Bay Area, you can pay to hear Taylor Branch speak at the Commonwealth Club at noon on Friday, 24 February, or hear him for free that evening at the reincarnated Kepler’s Books in Menlo Park or Saturday, 25 February at Book Passage in Marin. The complete schedule for the national tour is one his Web site.

ICANN's "Manager of Public Participation" hired away by al-Jazeera

Really. I've posted the details at ICANNWatch.org.

(I was in Doha, Qatar, last year, but unfortunately al-Jazeera wasn't giving tours of their control room .)

[Addendum, 26 February 2006: Danny Younger has posted the reply he received from ICANN's Ombudsman to his complaint regarding the vacancy of this Bylaws-mandated staff position. In Ombudsman Frank Fowlie's opinion, "much of the work of the Manager, Public Participation has been ably and competently carried out by various members of the ICANN staff in the interim", despite the pervasive public complaints about high-handed actions by ICANN staff and the lack of openness, transparency, and opportunity for public participation in ICANN's decision-making.]

Are incomplete "prices" in airline advertisements misleading?

Inquiring minds at the USA Department of Transportation (DOT) want to know your opinion today: Should the DOT continue to allow airlines to advertise "prices" that are actually less than the total amount that you have to pay for a ticket?

The Department [of Transportation] is considering amending its rule on price advertising, and it is seeking comment on several options. Under the existing rule, the Department considers any advertisement that states a price for air transportation that is not the total price the consumer will pay to be unfair or deceptive in violation of the statute under which this provision was adopted in 1984.

Although it has not amended the codified rule, in practice the Department has long allowed an exception to it for certain taxes, fees, and other charges that are imposed by a government entity. As a matter of prosecutorial discretion, the Department does not take enforcement action against any advertisement that omits these charges from the quoted fare, provided that the charges are collected on a per passenger basis and are not ad valorem in nature, and provided further that the advertisement clearly indicates the existence and amount of these charges so that consumers can easily [sic] calculate the total fare....

[T]he Department has ... decided that the time is ripe after 21 years of marketing innovations for a reexamination of the fare-advertising rule and its long-time enforcement policy. Therefore, the Department is asking interested persons to comment on four alternative options:

1. Maintain the current practice either with or without codifying all of its elements in the rule;
2. end the exception for government-imposed charges and enforce the rule as written;
3. revise the rule to eliminate most or all requirements for airfare advertisements but to require that consumers be apprised of the total purchase price before the purchase is made;
4. or eliminate the full-fare advertising rule in its entirety.

Comments must be received by February 13, 2006.... All submissions must include the agency name and docket number [OST-2005-23194] for this rulemaking. Note that all comments received will be posted without change to http://dms.dot.gov , including any personal information provided.

Today's the deadline. To submit your comments, go here , enter "23194" in the "Docket ID" box, and select "OST" from the "Operating Administration" pull-down menu. Everything else is optional. The DOT notice doesn't mention it, but you can submit comments anonymously, and many people have done so.

The DOT has already received hundreds of comments , virtually unanimous in calling for stricter, not laxer, enforcement of the rules that already prohibit advertising of "prices" at which you can't actually buy a ticket.

Have a look at my comments if you want to know what I think about this, or want some ideas for what to say.

It's especially important for the DOT to do the right thing, because any attempt by state and local consumer protection officials to police airline fraud or enforce truth-in-advertising laws is preempted by Federal law, as I've talked about previously and as state attorneys general have complained about to Congress .

[Addendum, 14 February 2006: In my comments to the DOT, I said, "Option II in the NPRM -- enforcement of the current rules, and an end to the Department’s policy of allowing price advertising which the Department knows to be in violation of the current Federal regulations -- would also be the option most responsive to the desire of state and local officials responsible for consumer protection that airlines be subjected to a degree of policing against unfair or deceptive business practices more comparable to that applied to other industries. I urge the Department to consider, in deciding how to act on this NRPM, the bi-partisan letter on this subject from 45 state and territorial Attorneys General to the Congressional leadership of 8 September 2000 .

The same day, unbeknownst to me, the National Association of Attorneys General (NAAG) was filing comments (not obvious in the docket, since they are listed by the name of the individual filer rather than the organization, but signed by the Attorneys General of 42 states, the District of Columbia, and Guam) reiterating their opposition to Federal preemption of their ability to protect their states' consumers against airline fraud, urging the DOT to adopt Option II in the NPRM (stricter enforcement of the current unenforced Federal truth-in-advertisng rule), and supporting exactly the analysis I had given with respect to advertising of less-than-inclusive prices and of "half roundtrip" prices.

The NAAG says categorically that, "Advertisement of a one-way fare that is not available for one-way travel is deceptive and is an unnecessarily cumbersome method of advertising the price of a round-trip ticket, which gives no benefit to the round-trip traveler." One can only wonder whether a Federal administration that claims to believe in deference to states' rights will listen to state officials, or to the comments from airlines supporting a lifting of even the current lax and unenforced rules.]

[Further addendum, 5 March 2006: Christopher Elliott picked up on this with a story in the New York Times on 25 February 2006, A Move to Add Still More Fine Print to Advertised Airfares , which led to a belated editorial in the Times today, 5 March 2006:

The rationales for any change are ludicrously flimsy -- a presumption that consumers in the Internet age are more sophisticated and do not need as much protection, a belief that a deregulated industry no longer needs this vestige of regulation, and a desire by some airlines to have greater "flexibility" in designing their ads.

One does not have to be a cynic to expect bad behavior if the rules for airlines are weakened. Several low-fare airlines have warned that their higher-cost competitors might create a host of "fictional surcharges," like fees to compensate for congestion or delays, which could be split out to make the fares look lower than they really are.

Some analysts suspect that this antiregulation administration may indeed weaken the rules. But one option under consideration would actually tighten the rules by making the airlines include even government fees and taxes in their advertised ticket prices. How fitting it would be, albeit hard to imagine, if the final result of this effort to gull the public were a regulation that insisted on full, prominent disclosure of the total price, with no exceptions.

The Department of Transportation still appears to be accepting comments after the deadline, both from airlines and the public. This is getting interesting. Keep up the comments and the pressure on the DOT and Congress!]

[Further addendum, 5 October 2006: The DOT has decided to keep the current rules -- neither enforcing them, nor weakening them.]

Sex.com

Congratulations to freelance investigative journalist Kieren McCarthy on signing a contract for the publication of his forthcoming book, "Sex.com".

I met Kieren as the only other person to set foot in the press room -- scrupulously avoided by any ICANN staff, although it did provide me with a more comfortable and undisturbed place to write than the hostel where I was staying -- at ICANN's most recent meeting in Vancouver.

Kieren is uniquely qualified to tell this continuing saga to a larger public than has followed it through his articles in "The Register" (UK).

Those who wonder what I mean by "reading law for fun" should sample the first half of the decision in one of the Sex.com lawsuits by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. I expect Kieren's book to be even more entertaining than Judge Kozinski's recitation of the legally relevant portion of the factual history.

Mind you, there is no sex in this story (at least none in any of Kieren's published articles to date) -- although there is swindling, shootouts with Mexican bounty-hunters, colorful characters , battles for control of everything from secret overseas bank accounts to a Southern California mansion, and a whole lot of money.

And, lest I forget, this is a story about Internet governance: how the operators of the central registry of domain names (under contract to the government of the USA) transferred the Internet's most valuable domain name away from its rightful owner, and then refused to accept any responsibility for their actions. This is also a story of the lengths and personal expense to which that rightful owner had to go to obtain even a figment of "justice", and how he's still out tens of millions of dollars he is owed.

Perhaps that's why (aside from the missing sex) the story appeals to people like Kieren and me who are, at our own expense as freelancers, trying to expose the reality of Internet "governance" by cronyism and back-room deals, and how it affects even ordinary Internet users and those with less valuable domain names than Sex.com.

Let's hope some of those who buy the book for the promise of sex find in it a lesson: The procedures have changed slightly, but none of the fundamental causes of the Sex.com fiasco have been fixed. That would require, at minimum, a fundamentally different, and better, system of accountability and oversight .

USA Senate hearing on "Registered Traveler" and "Secure Flight"

The full USA Senate Commitee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation is finally holding a hearing this morning -- originally scheduled for last month -- on the Transportation Security Administration and Department of Homeland Security proposals for traveller registration ("Registered Travaler", previously "Trusted Traveler") and for surveillance and tracking of airline passengers (Secure Flight , previously CAPPS-II ).

The hearing begins at 10 a.m. EST/7 a.m. PST, and is supposed to be Webcast live. (Note that Congressional hearing Webcasts are not archived, but can only be viewed live.)

Lots of interesting testimony has been posted in advance of the hearing, including the latest report from the Governmental Accountability Office and a categorical statement on behalf of the trade association of USA-based airlines that the traveller registration program should be eleiminated entirely. (Click on the names on the witness list for links to their prepared statements.)

[Addendum, 9 February 2006: Edmund "Kip" Hawley, Assistant Secretary of Transportation for the TSA, tesitifed that further "testing" of the "secure Flight" scheme is being delayed indefinitely pending an internal TSA audit, accoridng to Associated Press and Reuters reports on the hearing, brought to my attnetion by Linda Ackerman of Privacy Activsim . There was no mention of this audit in Hawley's prepared testimony , and I wasn't able to watch that part of the hearing. Perhaps the TSA hopes that a narrower in-house audit will satisfy the demands from Congress for a broader independent audit by the likes of the GAO? I don't think so.]

[Further addendum, 9 February 2006: TSA head honcho Hawley's oral testimony has now been posted on the TSA Web site. It's very different from his written testimony as posted before the hearing on the Senate Web site, and says this about the status of "Secure Flight":

We are in the process of making changes to how TSA operates that align with Secretary Chertoff’s risk-based strategy for the Department.... As part of this continuing review, I asked TSA’s Information Technology Office to conduct IT system security audits of all TSA credentialing and vetting programs. This review, which includes Secure Flight, is on-going but I believe that it is safe to say that many of the same issues identified by GAO are also highlighted by this more detailed review. Rather than address each identified weakness on its own, I have directed that the Secure Flight IT systems go through the comprehensive recertification process, pursuant to Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) requirements.... We will move forward with the Secure Flight program as expeditiously as possible, but in view of our need to establish trust with all of our stakeholders on the security and privacy of our systems and data, my priority is to ensure that we do it right…not just that we do it quickly.

There's been no comment from the TSA as to the reasons for their last-minute change of message.]

Reasons for travel writing and publishing

Interesting comments on the motives of travel writers and publishers, from two articles which were brought to my attention by messages on the same day last week to the Travel Guidebook Writers e-mail list administered by author, Webmaster, teacher, and consultant Tom Brosnahan as one of his many resources for guidebook writers:

The most dangerous thing a writer can do sometimes is to describe what he sees in front of his face, for the very ideals and assumptions that many of us live by are dependent upon maintaining a comfortable distance from the evidence.... The Internet now makes facts [sic] so effortless to obtain that there is the illusion of knowledge where none actually exists.... [T]he public is increasingly removed from the intangible essences and minutiae of distant places that explain the present, and thus forewarn of the future.... Journalism desperately needs a return to terrain, to the kind of firsthand, solitary discovery of local knowledge best associated with old-fashioned travel writing. (Robert D. Kaplan, Cultivating Loneliness , Columbia Journalism Review, January 2006)

"Bill Dalton was a writer who became a publisher, Tony Wheeler was an MBA who briefly became a writer," says Bill Newlin, publisher of Avalon Travel, Moon's current owner and himself a onetime travel writer. (Suzanne Mantell, Travel's Long, Strange Odyssey , Publishers Weekly, 30 January 2006)

Kaplan's exegesis on the importance of travel writing as journalism, and as a tool to understand both the present and the future, is well worth reading in its entirety.

Exchanging notes, as I do, with other travel writers, I consider myself lucky to have Bill Newlin as my publisher (and lucky to have a day job at Airtreks.com so that my livelihood doesn't depend on the royalties from my books). Above all, I'm grateful to Bill for his respect and active encouragement for the individual voices and perspectives of the diverse family of Moonies and other Avalon Travel Publishing authors.

It's difficult to be simultaneously a writer (especially a peripatetic travel writer) and a publisher. But even though writing and publishing require very different skills, most major travel publishers and guidebook series (Moon, Lonely Planet, Frommers, Bradt, Insight, etc.) originated with single titles self-published by their authors. That's testimony, I think, to the independent-mindedness of travel writers, at the grassroots, and our deep-seated desire to bring our readers as close as possible to a direct, unmediated experience, of the places we write about -- first through our writing, perhaps, but hopefully also through their own travels to places we've never been.

As always, "Bon voyage!"

Request for ICANN Board action on independent review

From: "Edward Hasbrouck" edward@hasbrouck.org
To: Vint Cerf vint@google.com , john.jeffrey@icann.org
Subject: RE: Request for ICANN Board action on independent review
Date sent: Mon, 07 Feb 2006 07:52 -0800
Copies to: [ICANN Board of Directors members], twomey@icann.org , committee@alac.icann.org

On 5 Feb 2006 at 22:22, Vint Cerf vint@google.com wrote :

"I think counsel has just suggested that you proceed with your case to the ICDR which has been designated the body to conduct Independent Reviews. Can I assume that you will now do so?"

I have no "case to the ICDR", and you should make no such assumption.

ICANN first mentioned the ICDR to me eight months after you received my request for independent review, and ICANN has never provided me with any basis for your claim that "the ICDR ... has been designated the body to conduct Independent Reviews".

I have previously requested both yourself and Mr. Jeffrey to provide me with (1) any procedures which ICANN has in place for independent review; (2) any ICANN decision appointing an IRP provider; (3) any agreement(s) between ICANN and any IRP provider(s); (4) any information that might cause you to believe that ICANN has complied with the procedural requirements of ICANN's Bylaws in developing any such procedures, making any such appointment, or approving any such agreement; (5) notice of any meetings to be held by ICANN or any subsidiary body, and for copies of any documents to be considered by them, related to ".travel", to my requests, or to policies for independent review of ICANN actions; and most recently (6) copies of any records of ICANN discussion of any of these issues in ICANN's possession or control, including any minutes, transcripts, audio recordings, or e-mail messages of discussions by the Board of Directors.

I have received no response whatsoever to any of these requests, which I reiterate to you, Dr. Cerf, by this message.

If you believed in good faith that ICANN had such procedures in place and published on ICANN's Web site, and had appointed an IRP provider, in accordance with ICANN's Bylaws, at the time of my request for independent review, you could have told me that 10 months ago. You did not.

So far as I have been able to determine after diligent research, and in the absence of any attempt by you or anyone with ICANN to respond to any of my requests as listed above, or to provide me with any evidence to the contrary, ICANN has not appointed an IRP provider or adopted any policies or procedures for independent review, in accordance with the procedures required by ICANN's Bylaws for making such policy decisions.

If you believe that "the ICDR ... has been designated the body to conduct Independent Reviews", I again invite you to provide me with any information that would provide a basis for such a belief. Specifically, I ask that you provide me with any information that causes you to believe that ICANN has made such an appointment in accordance with the seven specific requirements of ICANN's Bylaws, applicable to policy decisions, enumerated in my message to you and Mr. Jeffrey of 5 February 2006:

http://hasbrouck.org/blog/archives/001007.html

I think it's actually quite obvious that none of these procedural conditions has been fulfilled.

You may "assume" that by now I'm so tired of your delaying tactics, and will be so grateful that you are finally willing to allow some sort of arbitration (I can't call whatever Mr. Jeffrey is proposing with the ICDR "independent" arbitration, since it appears that ICANN may have a pre-existing secret side agreement with ICDR, and [ICANN] may have been or be engaged in secret side communications with [ICDR] to which I have not been privy), that I will be willing to allow ICANN to disregard the procedural requirements of ICANN's Bylaws, make up the rules for the arbitration as you go along, in secret, and impose both rules of your choice and an arbitration provider of your choice, unilaterally and retroactively.

If that is your assumption, you are mistaken.

Mr. Jeffrey has asked in his most recent message of 5 February 2006 if I object to him forwarding to the ICDR all of my correspondence with ICANN.

ICANN may forward any or all of my correspondence to whomever you wish.

I have been aware, in corresponding with ICANN, that ICANN is required to operate to the maximum extent feasible in an open and transparent manner , and that my correspondence is thus liable to be made public. And I submitted my request for independent review to ICANN with knowledge of Article IV, Section 3.13 of ICANN's Bylaws, which requires ICANN to post it on ICANN's Web site (although ICANN still has not done so).

But forwarding my correspondence to the ICDR or anyone else will not fulfill the requirement of ICANN's Bylaws that, Requests for such independent review shall be referred to an Independent Review Panel , unless the ICDR or other entity has been duly appointed by ICANN as the IRP, and unless the referral is conducted in accordance with duly-adopted procedures which ICANN "has in place" and published.

So far as I know, neither of those conditions has been met.

The choice of an independent review provider and the development of procedures for independent review -- the highest level of oversight provided for within ICANN's structure -- are policy questions of the highest significance to ICANN, and are subject to ICANN's decision-making rules including those in Article III, Section 6 of ICANN's Bylaws.

Just before the start of the public session of the ICANN Board of Directors on the morning of 4 December 2005 in Vancouver, you approached me in the lobby and asked if I had "gotten what I wanted" in Mr. Jeffrey's message.

"I haven't received any message from Mr. Jeffrey," I answered you. (His message was sent by e-mail, and read by you without any opportunity for discussion or response, during the meeting later that morning. When Mr. Jeffrey was pointed out to me by someone else at the end of the meeting, and I walked toward him to try to talk to him, he ran away, zigzagging back and forth across the ballroom between the chairs to avoid me.)

"But I haven't been asking for letters from Mr. Jeffrey. I've been asking for action by the Board of Directors," I told you. "I am going into the meeting today still hoping to hear you and the Board consider and act on my request for stay pending independent review, and begin a policy development process to put in place procedures for independent review and appoint an IRP provider."

If you believed that ICANN already had in place such procedures, and already had made such an appointment, you could, and should have said so. You did not. You said only, "There is no such matter on the agenda."

When I replied, "Then I again ask that you place it on the agenda", you turned your back on me without saying anything more, and walked off to start the meeting (at which, as you know, my requests were not considered, and no action was taken on them by the Board).

The next action is up to you, Dr. Cerf, as Chairman of ICANN's Board of Directors, as it has been since you received my request for independent review during the Board of Directors meeting which you were chairing, and which was still in session, in Mar del Plata on 8 April 2005.

I continue to demand that you schedule and give proper notice of a maximally open and transparent (including, depending on the manner in which the meeting is held, provisions for public in-person attendance, telephone auditing, and/or Webcasting and remote participation) meeting of the Board of Directors at the earliest feasible date, and place on the agenda consideration and action by the Board on (1) my request for a stay of the Board's decision on ".travel" pending independent review and (2) initiation of a policy development process, in accordance with the procedural requirements of the Bylaws, to put in place procedures for independent review and appoint an IRP provider.

Those are the necessary first steps toward being able to refer my request for independent review to a duly-appointed IRP, according to duly-adopted procedures which ICANN has in place. That is what I asked you to do, and what you should have done, 10 months ago.

The subject line of my previous message to you and to Mr. Jeffrey -- which I specifically requested be forwarded to each member of the Board of Directors, as I request that this message be forwarded to the Board -- was, "Request for ICANN Board action on independent review". That is exactly, what that message was, and what this message is: a request for action by ICANN's Board of Directors. Neither Mr. Jeffrey nor any member of ICANN's staff has the authority to set policy, to appoint an IRP provider, or to determine procedures for independent review.

If you are somehow confused about what I am requesting, please get in touch and I will try to explain it yet again. But really I think you understand quite well what I have asked for, as I think you understood me on that one occasion when we actually met. The question isn't whether you understand what I have been asking for, and what ICANN's Bylaws require of ICANN and of you as Chairman of the Board. The question is whether you are willing to do what is required of you, and what you have promised to do.

If you are sincere in a good-faith offer to have my request referred to a duly appointed IRP according to duly-adopted procedures, then take the first step in that process by scheduling a Board meeting for that purpose.

If not, please provide me with an explicit statement, in your official capacity as Chairman of ICANN's Board of Directors, that you refuse to place my request for a stay pending independent review on the agenda of the Board of Directors for its consideration, and that you refuse to have the Board consider initiating an ICANN policy development process to put in place procedures for independent review and to appoint an IRP provider.

I look forward to your reply.

Sincerely,

Edward Hasbrouck

Request for action by ICANN's "At-Large Advisory Cmmittee"

ICANN's officers and staff continue to ignore the requests I have made for them to act on my request for independent review of the lack of opnnness and transparency in ICANN's decision-making on the ".travel" top-level domain.

By now, ICANN's (in)action on my requests raises much larger questions about Internet governance and ICANN (un)accountability, not just issues of my rights as a travel and Internet journalist.

There's not much, if anything, I can do to force ICANN to follow its own rules. ICANN no longer has any members of its Board of Directors elected by the public. The only body that exists to "represent" ordinary Internet users in ICANN decision-making is ICANN's appointed At-Large Advisory Committee" (ALAC). But since they are my only voice within ICANN, today I asked the ALAC to exercise their advisory authority, for whatever it is worth, to get ICANN's Board of Directors to act on my request for independent review in accordance with ICANN's Bylaws.

[Addendum, 7 February 2006: Clarifications of my request to the ALAC here and here .]

More evasions from ICANN

My e-mail message earlier today to ICANN got an uncharacteristically prompt, but characteristically unresponsive, reply just two hours later from ICANN's General Counsel and Corporate Secretary John O. Jeffrey, giving me a two-day deadline (after 10 months of delay) and continuing to mis-state my requests while completely ignoring all of the specific requests I have actually made (including for copies of ICANN records, for copies of ICANN independent review procedures if there are any, for copies of any agreements between ICANN and independent review providers, for ICANN's Board of Directors to consider my request for a stay pending independent review, and for ICANN to begin the process required by its Bylaws to properly designate an independent review provider and develop procedures for independent review). [Addendum: I also got a message a few hours later, as copied below, from ICANN Board of Directors Chairman Vint Cerf.]

The good news is that ICANN now seems, perhaps, to actually be willing to submit to some sort of arbitration. (I can't call it "independent" arbitration: Mr. Jeffrey has ignored my requests for copies of any pre-existing agreements between ICANN and potential arbitration providers. And his message below suggests that ICANN is having secret side discussions with a potential arbitration provider concerning the procedures to be followed.)

The bad news is that Mr. Jeffrey appears willing to refer the issue of ICANN's lack of openness and transparency to an arbitrator only if he and ICANN are allowed to make up the rules as they go along, in secret, and to impose both rules of their choice and an arbitration provider of their choice, unilaterally and retroactively, rather than following the procedures required by ICANN's Bylaws for the independent review policy development process.

From: John Jeffrey john.jeffrey@icann.org
Subject: Fwd: Request for ICANN Board action on independent review
Date: Sun, 5 Feb 2006 13:44:58 -0800
To: edward@hasbrouck.org

Dear Mr. Hasbrouck,

I believe that your note (and to some extent other feedback that I have received) indicates that your concern was that I was unilaterally denying you access to the process and I assure you that this was not my intent. As you are aware we have provided you links to the ICDR policies and have outlined what you must submit to them.

You have not done so and now are questioning this process rather than agreeing to submit to it, once again if I am reading your note correctly. That said, however, I am now choosing to ignore your failure to comply with this basic requirement and will forward your IRP request on to ICDR, the designated entity to receive it.

Based upon the confusion relating to this, we are going to work with ICDR to allow for direct filing of ICDR complaints in the future that would provide a web form to fill out a formal statment of claim which would include those things required under the ICDR process. Please let us know if you believed that would have clarified this issue with you in this instance.

I do not know exactly what to send to ICDR that has complied with the rules, so I will send them all historical correspondence that ICANN has received from you to date. If you object to this please contact my offices before Tuesday, 7 February 2006 at 5PM PST.

If you do not object I will assume that you are requesting us to submit this to our IRP process and also assume that you are accepting the responsibility for all associated costs which will affix to your complaint. Therefore, I will no longer concern myself with your perceived lack of following the process and will simply forward on to ICDR, all writings that you have provided to ICANN.

It was not and has never been my intention to refuse to refer your complaint to the ICDR. Indeed, the end of my letter stated clearly that:

"If you feel that I have misstated your concerns, and you believe that grounds still properly exist under the Bylaws for independent review, ICANN's standing agreement to have your concerns reviewed by an arbitrator remains and will proceed upon receipt of your formal IRP request."

I do not intend to, nor have I asserted a role of being a gatekeeper between you and the ICDR. All I have asked time and time again is for you to acknowledge that you are willing to accept the expenses of moving forward, and that you understand our arguments about why your claims are deficient. Although tempted, I will not again set out ICANN's defenses in this matter, but please do not in any way see this as a failure on ICANN's part of pursuing our defenses including among those our likely defense that you have failed to set out an understandable claim or to follow the basic process for commencing an IRP.

best regards,

John Jeffrey
General Counsel & Secretary
Internet Corporation for Assigned
Names and Numbers
4676 Admiralty Way
Marina del Rey, CA 91206

John.Jeffrey@icann.org
+1.310.301.5834 direct

Addendum, 5 February 2006: I got the following additional message later today:

From: "Vint Cerf" vint@google.com
To: "Edward Hasbrouck" edward@hasbrouck.org , john.jeffrey@icann.org
Subject: RE: Request for ICANN Board action on independent review
Date sent: Sun, 5 Feb 2006 22:22:53 -0500
Copies to: "twomey@icann.org": mailto:twomey@icann.org , committee@alac.icann.org

Mr. Hasbrouck,

I think counsel has just suggested that you proceed with your case to the ICDR which has been designated the body to conduct Independent Reviews.

Can I assume that you will now do so?

Vint

Vinton G Cerf
Chief Internet Evangelist
Google/Regus
Suite 384
13800 Coppermine Road
Herndon, VA 20171

+1 703 234-1823
+1 703-234-5822 (f)

vint@google.com
www.google.com

Tilting at ICANN's windmills

This week I've filed comments with ICANN on the reasons why ICANN's agreement with SITA for the .aero top-level domain should not be renewed because SITA has broken its contract with ICANN, and the need for better oversight and enforcement provisions in future TLD agreements, to prevent similar breaches of contract by other TLD sponsors.

I've also responded to ICANN's most recent letter to me in which ICANN's Corporate Secreatary and General Counsel John O. Jeffrey reneged on his promise to act on my request for independent review of ICANN's failure to comply with its own rules on openness and transparency:

From: "Edward Hasbrouck" edward@hasbrouck.org
To: john.jeffrey@icann.org , vint@google.com
Subject: Request for ICANN Board action on independent review
Date sent: Sun, 05 Feb 2006 11:31:12 -0800
Copies to: [ICANN Board of Directors members], twomey@icann.org , committee@alac.icann.org

Mr. Jeffrey's message to me of 17 January 2006 appears contradictory:

http://hasbrouck.org/icann/E-mail_to_Edward_Hasbrouck_17_January_2006.pdf

You refer to "ICANN's standing agreement to have your concerns reviewed by an arbitrator". But you also say that my request for independent review -- received by you [8] April 2006, 10 months ago today -- "does not meet the guidelines required by the ICDR procedures and consequently cannot be considered a formal IRP sufficient to forward to the ICDR."

There are at least three problems with your argument:

First, the "sufficiency" of a request for independent review should be determined solely by the independent review panel, not by ICANN. ICANN's obligation under its Bylaws to refer such a request to an IRP is not discretionary or conditional on ICANN's opinion of its "sufficiency".

Second, I said in my original request for independent review that, "I reserve the right to make additional written submissions to the IRP once the policies and procedures for independent review have been determined." I remain willing to comply with any applicable and duly-adopted policies for independent review.

In order to be able to satisfy any such procedural requirements, I have repeatedly requested copies of any ICANN policies and procedures for independent review, including any agreement(s) between ICANN and any provider(s) of independent review services.

You have ignored these requests, which I reiterate.

Third, you refer to "the policies of the International Centre for Dispute resolution, which ICANN has designated to provide independent review services in accordance with its Bylaws."

But you ignore the portion of my message to you of 11 December 2005 in which I explain in detail that, despite my diligent search of the ICANN Web site, and my repeated unanswered requests to you for copies of any IRP agreement(s), I have been unable to find any record that ICANN has, in fact, "designated" the ICDR -- or anyone else -- as the IRP, or adopted any policies or procedures for independent review, "in accordance with its Bylaws".

ICANN's Web page on independent review policies states, correctly, "New bylaws went into effect on 15 December 2002 that call for a different independent review procedure." But that Web page contains no indication that ICANN has designated an IRP or adopted any policies or procedures for independent review:

http://www.icann.org/committees/indreview/

To the best of my knowledge and belief, after diligent research and repeated, unanswered, requests to ICANN for any agreements(s) between ICANN and independent review provider(s), ICANN has not designated an IRP or adopted any policies or procedures for independent review, in accordance with the procedures required by ICANN's Bylaws for making such policy decisions.

If ICANN's Board of Directors believes that they have designated the ICDR (and/or anyone else) as the IRP, or adopted the ICDR's policies (and/or any other policies) as ICANN's policies and procedures for independent review, please identify to me:

1. The URL at which notice of the proposed decision to designate an IRP and/or adopt policies for independent review, and notice of the reasons why these decisions were being proposed, was posted on the ICANN Web site, as required by Article III, Section 6.1.a of the Bylaws.
   
   
2. The 21-day or longer period during which that notice was available to the public prior to action by the Board on the proposals, as required by Article III, Section 6.1.a of the Bylaws.
   
   
3. The manner in which "a reasonable opportunity for parties to comment on the adoption of the proposed policies, to see the comments of others, and to reply to those comments, prior to any action by the Board" was provided, as required by Article III, Section 6.1.b of the Bylaws.
   
   
4. The manner in which ICANN "request[ed] the opinion of the Governmental Advisory Committee and [took] duly into account any advice timely presented by the Governmental Advisory Committee" concerning these proposals, as required by Article III, Section 6.1.c of the Bylaws.
   
   
5. Whether "an in-person public forum" was held prior to any final Board action, or why it was not "practically feasible and consistent with the relevant policy development process" to do so, as required by Article III, Section 6.2 of the Bylaws.
   
   
6. The URL of the minutes including "the reasons for any action taken, the vote of each Director voting on the action, and the separate statement of any Director desiring publication of such a statement", as required by Article III, Section 6.3 of the Bylaws.
   
   
7. The URL at which that designation and/or those policies are, and were at the time of my request on [8] April 2005, posted on the ICANN Web site as required by Article IV, Section 3.13 of the Bylaws.

Most of the rest of your message of 17 January 2006 is devoted to your claims that my request for independent review does not pertain to an action of ICANN's Board of Directors, and that actions by ICANN other than decisions made directly by the Board are not subject to independent review.

These claims are both incorrect and irrelevant.

Incorrect, because the Board of Directors is legally responsible for the actions of the corporation, including those of its officers, employees, subsidiary bodies, and other agents.

Irrelevant, because my request unambiguously and directly concerns an action by ICANN's Board: "I again request, for the reasons stated in my comments to yesterday's public forum, that today's resolution of the ICANN Board of Directors to approve a ".travel" agreement be referred to an independent review panel (IRP) in accordance with Article 4, section 3 of the Bylaws."

I appreciate your efforts to advise me, in advance, of what arguments you intend to make to the IRP, if you ever refer my request to an IRP. But I would prefer that you, and ICANN, first satisfy your obligation to refer my request to an IRP.

The next necessary and required step toward fulfilling ICANN's obligations under its Bylaws -- and toward fulfilling your asserted "standing agreement to have your concerns reviewed by an arbitrator", if you are sincere in such an offer -- is to schedule a maximally open and transparent meeting of the Board of Director to consider my request for a stay pending independent review, and to initiate the process of designating an IRP and developing policies and procedures for independent review.

I also note that, according to a message to the ALAC mailing list , "a discussion is going on in the Board at this time" concerning my request and/or independent review policy:

http://forum.icann.org/lists/alac/msg01531.html

I have received no notice of any such discussion by ICANN's Board, and can find no record of it on the ICANN Web site.

I remind you of my request of [8] April 2005, which you have ignored, for "notice, as far in advance and in as much detail as is known, of the time, place, and manner of any meetings to be held by ICANN or any of its constituent bodies, and for copies of any documents to be considered by them, related to '.travel', to my requests, or to policies for independent review of ICANN actions."

And I reiterate that, as I said in my message to you of 17 May 2005 , "ICANN may be obliged (as a result of its own prior inaction and failure to have in place the policies and procedures for independent review required by its bylaws and promised in its contract with the USA Department of Commerce) to develop policies and procedures for independent review while my request and others are pending. For this reason, it is especially important for that policy development process to be conducted with the maximum extent feasible of openness and transparency. Otherwise, it will be impossible to tell whether the independent review policies and procedures may have been crafted to influence the outcome of the specific pending requests for independent review."

If there has been any discussion by the Board of my request for independent or of policies for independent review -- whether in person, by telephone, by e-mail, or otherwise -- I request copies of any records of that discussion in ICANN's possession or control, including any minutes, transcripts, audio recordings, or e-mail messages, in accordance with ICANN's obligation under Article III, section 1 of its Bylaws to "operate to the maximum extent feasible in an open and transparent manner".

I also request that this message be forwarded to each member of the Board of Directors, so that they will know that you, Messrs. Jeffrey and Cerf, have broken the promises you made to me so publicly at the Vancouver ICANN meeting, and that you have not, in fact, been willing to take the necessary actions to be able to refer my request to an independent review panel in accordance with the procedural requirements of ICANN's Bylaws.

This matter remains in the hands of ICANN's Board of Directors, as it has been since you and they received my request [8] April 2005. I request that the Board exercise its authority, and its legal and fiduciary responsibility, to act on this matter and to bring ICANN's actions -- including those of its officers and staff -- into compliance with ICANN Bylaws.

I look forward to a maximally open and transparent meeting of the Board to consider my request for a stay pending independent review, and to initiate the process of designating an independent review provider and developing policies and procedures for independent review.

Sincerely,

Edward Hasbrouck

A footnote: According to ICANN's Web site , comments on SITA's proposal to renew the .aero sponsorship agreement "must be submitted ... by 4 February 2006". No time of day or time zone for the deadline was specified, which presumably implies that the deadline would be midnight local time at the place of sending, place of receipt, or ICANN's headquarters. In my case all 3 were in the same time zone, since my comments were sent from San Francisco, received by ICANN in Marina del Rey, and posted on ICANN's Web site before the close of the business day on 4 February 2005, local time. But ICANN has docketed them as received 5 February 2006, UTC/GMT. I don't yet know if ICANN will try to use this -- despite their failure to have specified a time of day or time zone for the deadline -- as an exuse not to consider my comments.

[Addendum, 6 February 2005: In the copy of my message above, I've corrected the date of my original request for independent review, which was 8 April 2005, not 5 April 2005. I've also corrected the reference in item 5 in the list, which should be to Article III, Section 6.2 of ICANN's Bylaws.]

Thank you for reading!

In January 2006, there were 105,238 visits to this Web site. That's the first time that number has passed 100,000 in a month.

On principle, I don't use cookies to track you from one visit to the next. So I don't know how many of those visitors were "unique". And the number of visits is certainly inflated by RSS readers.

But still, there are a lot of you "out there" reading what I post. And almost 2,000 of you last month found something interesting enough to e-mail a link to a friend. (No, I never see the e-mail addresses of either the sender or receiver.)

Thank you!

I hope you are finding at least some of what you were looking for when you came here, and maybe some unexpected food for thought as well. If not, or if you have suggestions for how I could do better (or how I could make money from this Web site without lending my implicit endorsement to advertisers I don't necessarily support, so I could afford to spend more time on writing and give you more and/or better reading), please let me know.

Downtown parking and land use priorities

Every day on my way from the BART train station to my office at Airtreks.com in a highrise building South of Market in downtown San Francisco (the most densely populated neighborhoood in the USA west of the Mississippi), I pass a 50-story residential condominium tower -- and included parking garage -- under construction next to the Transbay Terminal.

In the November 1999 election, San Francisco voters enacted a "Transit First Policy" as an amendment to the City and County Charter (Section 16.102). [Addendum, 3 February 2006: I've since learned that the 1999 initiative was only the most recent amendment to a policy first added to the city "Master Plan" in 1973.] All City and County department are required to implement polices prioritizing public transit, bicycle, and foot transportation over private motor vehicles.

In spite of this policy, San Francisco zoning regulations still require that certain minimum numbers of parking spaces for private motor vehicles be provided in all new residential construction -- even downtown -- in preference to any other possible use of that scarce space (such as, for example, more housing units without parking).

The Transportation for a Livable City organization has begun a campaign to change this. Today I testified before the Board of Supervisors' (city council) Land Use Committee on proposed zoning legislation to replace minimum required numbers of parking spaces with maximum allowable numbers of parking spaces in the densest parts of downtown. Here's what I said in my 2 minutes:

My name is Edward Hasbrouck, and I've stretched my lunch hour to make 3 points in support of this proposed legislation:

First, the present rules requiring a minimum amount of parking, in preference to other uses of space, are clearly contrary to the "Transit First" clause of the City Charter, which requires that other means of transport be given preference over private cars.

As such, I see this as a much belated, partial step towards implementation of the "Transit First" policy in zoning.

Second, I hope that the next step for this committee will be to look at the priorities for public space on our streets.

Why is it that you can rent rent space on the street to park a car, but you can't rent that space for the same price for any other use -- so that pushcart vendors, for example, have to compete with pedestrians for space on narrow sidewalks, rather than competing with car parking for street space?

Third, and perhaps most important, opponents of this measure have proposed, in the guise of an "enivironmental impact assessment", what would really be an "economic impact assessment". But they have ignored one of the most important economic impacts of this measure.

I write travel books for an international readership, and I spend a lot of time thinking about why this city is America's, and one of the world's, favorite places to visit. A key factor is the experience of being on our streets and sidewalks.

Tourism is our largest industry, and having it be enjoyable to walk down the sidewalk has huge, if hard to measure, economic value to our city.

I moved to San Francisco 20 years ago, and I've lived here [when I'm not travelling] ever since, for many of the same reasons people from around the world save up to spend a few days here.

I urge you to protect our city's value and attractiveness, for residents and visitors alike, by approving this bill and moving forward to incorporate "Transit First" policy in zoning and land use rules throughout the city.

RFID passport logo (or "mark of the beast"?)

How can you tell if your passport contains an RFID chip?

Look for this logo on the label:

If there's an RFID chip in your passport , identity thieves, terrorists, direct marketers, data aggregators, malicious governments, or anyone else with a radio receiver within 10 meters (30+ feet) or more whenever your passport is read at a border crossing, airport, etc. can secretly and remotely track you, log your movements through the unique "collision avoidance" ID number sent by the chip, and intercept and decrypt all the data (including your digital photo and, in some countries, your digitized fingerprints) needed to "'clone" a perfect copy of your passport, forge other identity credentials, or impersonate you.

All passports that contain ICAO standard (ICAO document 9303) RFID chips (ISO standard 14443) are supposed to have this logo on the front cover, printed or embossed in such a manner that it can't readily be effaced or removed without leaving conspicuous traces. Border guards and immigration inspectors need to be able to distinguish quickly and reliably between a (valid, for the time being) passport that never contained an RFID chip, and an invalid (under current USA regulations and, I expect, similar regulations in other countries that are putting RFID chips in passports) passport that contains a defective or disabled RFID chip.

A visible logo is needed because the RFID chip might not otherwise be readily or reliably detectable. When I felt the sample RFID passports passed around at CFP 2005 by Frank Moss , director of the Passport Office of the USA Department of State, I could (just barely) detect the RFID chip embedded in the cover by its stiffness when I bent the cover sharply and rolled the bend back and forth across the width of the cover page. But if I were a government agency, I wouldn't want to rely on that. The chip or antenna might fail if the cover was bent sharply every time the passport was checked. And the Passport Office reportedly has been shopping for smaller chips less prone to breakage in the laminating and binding machinery, which would also be harder to detect by feel.

The RFID passport logo was prominently printed or embossed on the cover of all of Moss' sample RFID passports, immediately below the words, "United States of America" -- but without any indication, anywhere in the passport, even in the finest print, that would tip off those not already in the know as to what the logo means.

The ICAO technical documents include an entire paper on the RFID passport logo, the need for standard RFID indicia on passports, and the discussion of which of several proposed logos to adopt. But none of those proposed logos, much less which one was ultimately adopted as the standard, are reproduced in the file on the public ICAO Web site.

The USA State Department mentions the logo in its "FAQ on RFID Passports", and even includes a hyperlink to an image file -- that doesn't exist at the specified location. But I found an image file with the same name, which I recognized and remembered from Moss's sample RFID passports at CFP, in another public directory elsewhere on the State Department Web server. Here's how the Passport Office describes the logo and its use:

What is the Electronic Passport logo and what does it mean?

The Electronic Passport logo (shown at the right above) is the international symbol for an electronic passport. It signifies that the passport contains an integrated circuit or chip on which data about the passport and passport bearer is stored. The logo will be displayed at border inspection lanes at all airports and transit ports equipped with special data readers for Electronic Passports.

RFID has acquired deservedly negative connotations with the public. In response, the USA State Department, ICAO, and European proponents of RFID chips in identity cards all use the Newspeak "electronic passport" or "e-passport" for passports containing embedded RFID chips, and "contactless integrated circuit" for the ISO 14443 standard RFID chips themselves.

The State Department will probably say that the broken link to the logo in it's FAQ is an innocent error. They haven't returned my phone calls seeking comment on this as well as on what, if anything, they plan to do in response to the news of Dutch experiments in which similarly-encrypted RFID passport data was remotely intercepted, the encryption scheme cracked, and the data recovered. But it appears that they want to be discreet with the public about the meaning of this logo.

Why?

Some people think RFID chips are the mark of the beast mentioned in the Christian bible. I suspect that the State Department, and perhaps others, are afraid that some of these people might interpret the RFID logo as its own sort of "mark" of the Beast, and object to having to carry it on their passports. Whatever you think of their beliefs, they might pose a problem for a government that claims to be faith-based and Christian and that has been steadily enlarging the exceptions from government regulations for the "free exercise of religion", especially if that religion is Christian.

There's even some interesting case law to support religious objections to displaying government "marks", most notably Wooley vs. Maynard (430 U.S. 705), the 1977 case in which the Supreme Court upheld the right of a religious pacifist to cover over the "Live Free or Die!" slogan on their New Hampshire motor vehicle license plates. Coincidentally, both the National Passport Center in Portsmouth -- probably the site of the USA's first production line for standard RFID passports -- and one of the most active chapters of CASPIAN -- the leading opponents of non-consensual RFID use in the USA -- are located just a few miles apart in southeastern New Hampshire. [Addendum, 17 May 2006: Some more recent information suggests that the first standard RFID passport production line in the USA may be at the second, but expanding, National Passport Center in Charleston, SC. But we won't really know until we start seeing them. Passports issued either in Portsmouth or Charleston say only "national Passport Center" as the place of issuance, so take note of the postmark on the envelope in which you receive your new passport.]

In a recent report on this, Boing Boing said that, "The US State Department has said that RFID-chipped passports will not be issued to travelers 'until privacy-related concerns have been addressed.'" That's what the State Department said when it first published its proposed regulations. But don't get the mistaken idea that RFID deployment in USA passports is on hold -- except to the extent that it has been delayed by the unreliability of the chips and readers -- or that privacy concerns have actually been addressed. The State Department put the final regulations into effect later last year with only minor and ineffectual changes -- such as the addition of the "Basic Access Control" encryption scheme for some of the data (but not the unencrypted unique ID number) that has already been cracked .

So what can you do if you get a new passport with an RFID chip? (Did I mention that you have no choice about whether you'll get chipped passport, and no way to tell when you apply if you'll be one of the guinea pigs?)

You can't disable the RFID chip without voiding your passport: "Any passport which has been materially changed in physical appearance or composition, or contains a damaged, defective or otherwise nonfunctioning electronic chip, or which includes unauthorized changes, obliterations, entries or photographs, ... may be invalidated."

You can carry your RFID passport in a tin-foil hat: At least one company is already selling RF-opaque wallet inserts to hold credit cards or similarly sized items with RFID chips, and they've told me their next product will be a similar but larger optically transparent RFID shielding passport cover. As one of its "concessions" to critics, the State Department is adding RF shielding to the outer cover of the passport. But that won't protect it from RF interrogation and reading whenever the cover is opened for visual inspection of the data page. With an add-on sleeve like a book cover that the passport cover slips into, the passport could be opened for visual inspection of the inside data page without exposing the chip in the cover to RF reading. Even that, however, won't protect against the attack used in the recent Dutch cracking demonstrations: eavesdropping on the radio exchange between the chip and a legitimate reader at a border crossing or airport, where you are forced by government order to allow the RFID chip in your passport to be read.

There's no apparent "technical fix" to the security risks of RFID chips in passports; the problem requires a legislative fix to prohibit use of RFID chips in identity credentials or their nonconsensual or undisclosed commercial use, and to enact a comprehensive data privacy law in the USA to prohibit the use, sale, rental, or sharing of personal data about us acquired (through use of RFID chips, in the course of commercial transactions, or otherwise) by "private" entities, without our permission, without our knowledge, or for purposes other than those for which we originally provided it. That's what the law requires in Canada and the European Union, and what it should require in the USA. And none of those countries, or any others, should be endangering their citizens by putting RFID chips in passports.

In the meantime, if you do find this "mark" on your passport, please let me know about it. It would help others to know when and by which Passport Offices these start being issued. And I know several technical experts who would be very interested in testing RFID passports "in the wild", to see if the attacks demonstrated against Dutch passports with RFID chips will also work against similar USA passports, and what other vulnerabilities they may have.

[Addendum, 2 February 2006: The link on the State Department Web site for holders of USA passports is still broken. But once I knew more about what to look for, I found smaller images of the logo on a Department of Homeland Security Web site on passport requirements for visitors to the USA, and in a later version of one of the ICAO technical reports. I also found high-resolution photos of Australian passports with RFID chips (note that the Australian passports have the chip embedded in an inside page, rather than in the cover as in the prototype chipped USA passports), and several smaller images of the RFID logo and its use on chipped Thai passports . But still no pictures of the cover of an RFID-chipped USA passport.]

[Further addendum, 3 February 2006: Blank RFID-chipped passports that could be used to forge passports with "cloned" RFID chips are already in criminal circulation: AllAfrica.com and This Day newspaper report today that more than 2,000 RFID-chipped Nigerian passport blanks were stolen from the headquarters of the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS)in the capital city, Abuja, even before the NIS had its own equipment in place to issue the first "e-passports" using these blanks. Some of the stolen blanks were reportedly seized and recovered while being shipped to Europe, but it's not clear if all of the stolen blanks were recovered. And there's no reason to think there won't be, if there haven't been already, more thefts elsewhere.]

[Further addendum, 6 February 2006: I guess the USA State Department reads this blog: Now that I've let the cat out of the bag by posting the logo, they've fixed the link to the image of the logo on their Web page about RFID passports.]

[Further addendum, 1 August 2006: See pages 29-31 (31-33 of the PDF file) of the 2006 inaugural issue of the Machine-Readable Travel Documents Report for ICAO's specifications and explanation of what it calls "the ChipInside symbol".]

[Furher addendum, 1 August 2008: Here's a photo of the RFID logo on the cover of a new chipped USA passport.]