{"id":12549,"date":"2008-03-26T08:50:59","date_gmt":"2008-03-26T15:50:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/2008\/03\/26\/patriot-act-frells-us-web-service-vendors.html"},"modified":"2008-03-26T08:50:59","modified_gmt":"2008-03-26T15:50:59","slug":"patriot_act_frells_us_web","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/03\/26\/patriot_act_frells_us_web.html","title":{"rendered":"PATRIOT Act frells US web service vendors"},"content":{"rendered":"

Keen.  A Canadian university is saving money and improving service by tossing its old legacy email and collaboration system in exchange for Google Aps<\/a> But there’s a problem …<\/p>\n

\n

Eighteen months ago, Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ont., had an outdated computer system that was crashing daily and in desperate need of an overhaul. A new installation would have cost more than $1-million and taken months to implement. Google’s service, however, took just 30 days to set up, didn’t cost the university a penny and gave nearly 8,000 students and faculty leading-edge software, said Michael Pawlowski, Lakehead’s vice-president of administration and finance.<\/p>\n

U.S.-based Google spotlighted the university as one of the first to adopt its software model of the future, and today Mr. Pawlowski boasts the move was the right thing for Lakehead, saving it hundreds of thousands of dollars in annual operating costs. But he notes one trade-off: The faculty was told not to transmit any private data over the system, including student marks.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

It’s not some sort of anti-Americanism at work, but a well-founded fear by the faculty that, under the PATRIOT Act and similar legislation, US law enforcement \/ anti-terror \/ homeland security types can willy-nilly sift through all their correspondence and research. Not to mention student academic records and grades.<\/p>\n

\n

At Lakehead, the deal with Google sparked a backlash. “The [university] did this on the cheap. By getting this free from Google, they gave away our rights,” said Tom Puk, past president of Lakehead’s faculty association, which filed a grievance against Lakehead administration that’s still in arbitration. Professors say the Google deal broke terms of their collective agreement that guarantees members the right to private communications. Mr. Puk says teachers want an in-house system that doesn’t let third parties see their e-mails.<\/p>\n

Some other organizations are banning Google’s innovative tools outright to avoid the prospect of U.S. spooks combing through their data. Security experts say many firms are only just starting to realize the risks they assume by embracing Web-based collaborative tools hosted by a U.S. company, a problem even more acute in Canada where federal privacy rules are at odds with U.S. security measures.<\/p>\n

Using their new powers under the Patriot Act, U.S. intelligence officials can scan documents, pick out certain words and create profiles of the authors – a frightening challenge to academic freedom, Mr. Puk said.<\/p>\n

For instance, a Lakehead researcher with a Middle Eastern name, researching anthrax or nuclear energy, might find himself denied entry to the United States without ever knowing why. “You would have no idea what they are up to with your information until, perhaps, it is too late,” Mr. Puk said. “We don’t want to be subject to laws of the Patriot Act.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Seems quite reasonable to me. And, once again, an example of how much US reputation — and business — has been damaged by self-inflicted wounds in the “War on Terror.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Keen.  A Canadian university is saving money and improving service by tossing its old legacy email and collaboration system in exchange for Google Aps But there’s a problem … Eighteen…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10,20,17,46,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitical-brouhaha","category-hi-tech","category-homeland-security","category-school-daze","category-zt-pc"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":133700,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/06\/17\/at-least-an-aircraft-carrier-cant-trip-and-fall-down-stairs.html","url_meta":{"origin":12549,"position":0},"title":"At least an aircraft carrier can't trip and fall down stairs","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 17-Jun-17 12:53pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Yeah, I made a cheap Gerald Ford joke. Sorry, Mr. President.So just a few observations here:1. Aircraft carriers are insanely complex. First ships of a class are always problematic. That the USS Gerald Ford is still having significant problems is not a surprise. Indeed, if we were told that everything\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":30895,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/10\/25\/writing-on-the-wall-archaeology-wise.html","url_meta":{"origin":12549,"position":1},"title":"Writing on the Wall (Archaeology-wise)","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 25-Oct-12 7:46pm","format":false,"excerpt":"See, I think this kind of thing is cool. Very, very cool. Embedded Link World's oldest undeciphered writing The world's oldest undeciphered writing system, which has so far defied attempts to uncover its 5,000-year-old secrets, could be about to be decoded by Oxford University academics. Google+: View post on Google+","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12911,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/09\/09\/crock_the_vote.html","url_meta":{"origin":12549,"position":2},"title":"Crock the vote!","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 9-Sep-08 7:44am","format":false,"excerpt":"No voting security system is perfect, but this video is more than a bit\u00a0disturbing. The Security Group at the University of California in Santa Barbara has released the video...","rel":"","context":"In "Elections 2008"","block_context":{"text":"Elections 2008","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law\/elections-2008"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/images\/voting-butterfly.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":38437,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/08\/09\/more-mascot-madness.html","url_meta":{"origin":12549,"position":3},"title":"More Mascot Madness","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 9-Aug-13 3:16pm","format":false,"excerpt":"The University of Denver's\u00a0mascot madness continues to get zanier, as none of the finalists get voted in, and the \"Mascot Committee\" recommends more makeovers.(I'm also trying to figure out how any of the below \"reflect the growing diversity of the DU community\" more than the previous \"Denver Boone\" character, but\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":130866,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/06\/13\/microsoft-is-buying-linkedin.html","url_meta":{"origin":12549,"position":4},"title":"Microsoft is buying LinkedIn","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 13-Jun-16 7:21am","format":false,"excerpt":"Welp, sounds like it's time to land a job.But seriously ... having been so freaking immersed in LinkedIn over the last 10 months, I'll be curious to see what changes this leads to. It feels like a very different kind of acquisition -- a service \/ site \/ destination, rather\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":32899,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/03\/25\/kelvingrove-art-museum-and-university-of-glasgow.html","url_meta":{"origin":12549,"position":5},"title":"Kelvingrove Art Museum and University of Glasgow","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 25-Mar-13 5:36am","format":false,"excerpt":"And the Kelvingrove Bowling Lawn in the foreground. View this post on Google+","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12549"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12549\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}