Damien Mulley

With DRI suing the state I presume there’ll be some kind of legal fund where the public can put money into? Bernard has suggested we all tell 5 people and spread it that way but I’m sure we would also like to contribute financially as well.

I’d also suggest they make it more viral than “tell 5 people.” How about a form on the DRI site allowing people to email a note to 5 people they know explaining what DRI are doing? Or even if they’re worried about spam, create a simple non-jargony paragraph or two about what they are doing so that people can copy and paste it into an email. People are lazy and might not want to summarise the far too long post on the DRI site.

Maybe I’m late on this but Loic Le Meur points to a Business 2.0 article on Web2.0 European startups and Nooked is profiled along with other European companies. Well done everyone in Nooked.

I’m looking to get a script made that’ll scan for certain words in a document pasted into a form on a webpage. There’ll be a few dictionaries to choose from that’ll be used to scan for certain words and if found they’ll be logged and then passed through another script which I’ll discuss in private with you.

The results of this second script will then be outputed to another webpage for the submitter to see. I’d also like to have an option of emailing the results to whoever submitted the information.

I don’t care what it’s written in but it must be fast and able to handle largish texts. Eventually I’d like the option of including URLs to scan as well and possibly even document uploads. They can be in future versions.

Your name and website url will be displayed on the bottom of the results page so you’ll get credit. The understanding though is that you will not replicate the same idea or create the same script for someone else to replicate the website idea. Give me an email if interested.

Examiner Front Page: Digital Rights Ireland to sue over Data Retention Laws. EDIT: Digital Rights Ireland on front page of Irish Times too and DRI also in the Irish Indpendent.

In a landmark case, lobby group Digital Rights Ireland (DRI) says it is preparing to challenge the constitutionality of a law that obliges telecommunication companies to retain the details of all electronic traffic.

Well done guys.

Full DRI press release:

DIGITAL RIGHTS IRELAND CHALLENGES MASS SURVEILLANCE

For Immediate Release.

Digital Rights Ireland ltd (DRI) has written to the Minister for
Justice, the Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources
and to the Garda Commissioner calling on them to cease the collection,
storing and accessing of personal private data on every citizen using
a mobile or fixed line phone.

Such data collection is a breach of the Irish citizens’ statutory,
constitutional and human rights to privacy, as set out in the European
Convention on Human Rights and endorsed in Irish courts, in the
European Court of Justice and in the European Court of Human Rights.

This data includes a record of the physical location of everyone with
a mobile phone in Ireland, as well as every number called, the time of
the call and its duration.
Undertakings Sought

An undertaking has been sought from the Minister for Communications,
Marine and Natural Resources to withdraw a direction to
telecommunications providers to store this data. An undertaking has
been sought from the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform
that he will not, and he will ensure that Ireland will not, withdraw
or otherwise not prosecute the challenge under Article 230 to EU
directive 2006/24/EC, which purports to mandate such interference with
citizens’ privacy on a Europe-wide basis.

The Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform is also called upon
to give an undertaking that Ireland will not in any circumstances
transpose or commence the process of transposition of Directive
2006/24/EC into national law.

The Garda Commissioner is called upon for an undertaking to withdraw
any and all requests made to telecommunications providers to store
this data, whether made under the Criminal Justice (Terrorist
Offences) Act 2005 or the Ministerial Direction of 25th April 2002.
Legal Proceedings Authorised

TJ McIntyre, DRI chairman and lecturer in law in University College
Dublin says “This mass surveillance by the state is a breach of our
right to privacy, as set out in our constitution and in the European
Convention on Human Rights which has been incorporated into Irish law.

The undertakings we have sought from the Ministers for Justice and
Communications and the Garda Commissioner are urgently required if the
ongoing breach of citizens’ rights is to stop. If they are not
forthcoming we have informed all the parties that our legal team have
instructions to commence legal proceedings.”

Paintballing a block of flats?

I put a Web version of the Barr Tribunal Report online. I split the PDF that arrived on CD today and converted each chapter and appendix into a web page so it can be read in most browsers. Antoin also has the PDF of it online. Hope people find this useful.

Barr Tribunal Report Index
Barr Tribunal Report Chapter 1 – Introduction
Barr Tribunal Report Chapter 2 – Terms of Reference and Interpretation
Barr Tribunal Report Chapter 3 – John Carthy – Background
Barr Tribunal Report Chapter 4 – The Events of 19th and 20th April 2000
Barr Tribunal Report Chapter 5 – The Final Minutes — John Carthy’s Exit from the House and Subsequent Fatal Shooting
Barr Tribunal Report Chapter 6 – The Management of the Incident at Abbeylara — Siege Management Principles
Barr Tribunal Report Chapter 7 – The Aftermath — Post-Mortem, Forensic and Ballistic Examination
Barr Tribunal Report Chapter 8 – Conclusions
Barr Tribunal Report Chapter 9 – The Media
Barr Tribunal Report Chapter 10 – Rank and Structure in the Garda Siochana and the Role of the Emergency Response Unit
Barr Tribunal Report Chapter 11 – Less Lethal Weapons
Barr Tribunal Report Chapter 12 – Police Practice in Other Jurisdictions
Barr Tribunal Report Chapter 13 – Gun licensing Law and related matters
Barr Tribunal Report Chapter 14 – Victim Provoked Police Shooting — ‘‘Suicide by Cop’’
Barr Tribunal Report Chapter 15 – Recommendations
Barr Tribunal Report Chapter 16 – Costs
Barr Tribunal Report Appendix 1
Barr Tribunal Report Appendix 2
Barr Tribunal Report Appendix 3
Barr Tribunal Report Appendix 4
Barr Tribunal Report Appendix 7

All the webpages are also in a 800kb zip file here.

Easy Star have done a reggae version of Radiohead’s Ok Computer. You can listen to some of the tracks on their MySpace. Lucky is really good. You can pre-order Readiodread from Amazon.com for $15.98 ex shipping (not UK) or from Musictoday for $12.99 ex shipping. Ships August 22nd.

Track listing:
1. Airbag featuring Horace Andy
2. Paranoid Android featuring Kirsty Rock
3. Subterranean Homesick Alien featuring Junior Jazz
4. Exit Music (For A Film) featuring Sugar Minnot
5. Let Down featuring Toots & The Maytals
6. Karma Police featuring Citizen Cope
7. Fitter Happier featuring Menny More
8. Electioneering featuring Morgan Heritage
9. Climbing Up The Walls featuring Tamar-kali
10. No Surprises featuring The Meditations
11. Lucky featuring Frankie Paul
12. The Tourist featuring Israel Vibration – Skelly Vibe
13. Exit Music (For A Dub)
14. An Airbag Saved My Dub

MyHome.ie sold to Irish Times for €50m. More expansion into new markets by the Irish Times. Maybe in 5 years time they’ll buy IrishBlogs.ie.

EDIT: Thanks Conor!

Hello readers of the paper. Feel free to look about.