Gawker: valleywag, brewster kahle

Internet Archive refuses to secretly hand over user info to FBI

Jackson West — Thu, 08 May 2008 16:00:00 EDT

With the help of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the American Civil Liberties Union, Internet Archive founder Brewster Kahle successfully challenged an FBI request to secretly hand over information about the site's users. The FBI had sent Kahle a "national security letter" which requested personal information about a particular user and put Kahle under a gag order. Approximately 200,000 of the secret requests, which need no judicial approval, were issued between 2003 and 2006 after the NSL program was expanded by the Patriot Act. Kahle's case is one of only three the ACLU is aware of where NSL requests were successfully overturned in court. (Photo by David Silver)

Brewster Kahle's Internet Archive brings broadband to SF housing projects

Jackson West — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 18:00:00 EDT

Mayor Gavin Newsom's office tried to garner good press by selling his efforts to bring free Wi-Fi to San Francisco as an effort to bring broadband to the poor, under the auspices of Project Tech Connect. Commercial partners Google and EarthLink just wanted to sell location-targeted ads with a franchise agreement to shut out competitors. Now Brewster Kahle's nonprofit Internet Archive has done what Newsom, Google and EarthLink couldn't. No, not hold yet another press conference. Kahle actually brought 100-megabit-per-second broadband to low-income households.

The secret? Piggybacking on the existing, municipally owned fiber-optic infrastructure and connecting to the Internet backbone through the Internet Archive's switches. Yes, the same municipal infrastructure that Google openly mocked last April. Three cheers for actual altruism, and not profit-seeking self-interest marketed as altruism! (Photo by AP/Ben Margot)

Librarians use Google, and Google uses them

Tim Faulkner — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 17:28:14 EDT

Some large libraries are rejecting Google and Microsoft's programs to scan their book repositories for Web searching. The stated reason libraries are wary is largely because both companies restrict access to the data to individual search results — a notion that most librarians say they're opposed to on principle, preferring universal access to their stored knowledge. Come on. Their true motives are an open book.

Some libraries remain attracted to the programs because the technology giants subsidize the costs of book scanning. Many more libraries opt to partner with the Open Content Alliance, which shares the cost with its partners and allows open access to their results for all search engines. But the Open Content Alliance, created by Brewster Kahle who also started the Internet Archive project, is focused exclusively on out-of-copyright titles, forcing several libraries to hedge their principles with the search providers because they can't afford book scanning on their own limited budgets.

And one library, the University of Michigan's, clearly has money on its mind.

Jack Bernard, a lawyer for the University of Michigan, defends Google's program:

We have not felt particularly restricted by our agreement with Google.

Of course, the university was one of the first academic libraries to sign onto Google's book scanning program in 2004 and is the benefactor of several donations by Michigan alumnus Larry Page. Likewise, Google's employing graduates in the college town of Ann Arbor. No one would be shocked if the Michigan university one day inherited a substantial multibillion-dollar endowment from the loyal alumnus's estate. It isn't going to risk that future over mere intellectual ideals.

When the university and town of Ann Arbor stand to benefit a great deal more than just subsidizing costs of book scanning, the academic principle of universal access to knowledge quickly flies out the window. Now that's school pride.