Month: April 2003

Two weeks ago a man named Mike Hawash was arrested by the FBI as he arrived at work; at the same time a team of agents raided his house (while his wife and kids slept) and seized computer equipment and personal files. For these two weeks he’s been locked in solitary confinement in a federal facility, with only limited access to his family and lawyers.

Oh, and he hasn’t been charged with a crime.

Friends and associates say the only reason they can fathom for this is that three years ago Mike donated $10,000 to a charitable organization called the Global Relief Foundation. It’s a Muslim group that funds the construction of mosques and schools in the U.S. and medical facilities in the West Bank (Hawash was born in the West Bank but is a U.S. citizen).

While it’s hard to know whether Hawash was doing something more sinister, I find it alarming that he’s been held for two weeks as a “material witness” to terrorist activities but no charges have been made. (Note, for the record, that last year the GRF charity was accused of “links to terrorist organizations”– a charge it has denied– but even so that was years after the donation in question was made.)

What the heck is happening around here? How far will the government go in this mythical war on terrorism, and how much will the public watch in silence?

It’s been a busy few weeks, which probably explains my scarce journalling. Today, though, I have to climb back on my soapbox and shout about the idiotic legislators in Colorado and eight other states who are proposing new laws that will actually make it illegal to operate a network firewall or, in fact, most technologies used to connect to the internet.

The law is intended to combat cell phone “cloning” and network “hacking”, but the language is so broad that it would include network address translation (NAT) technology that’s the basis of all firewalls, cable modems, and even home networks. Anything that “conceals the source” of a network transmission would be a crime.

I can’t seriously believe that firewalls will become illegal. They’re a generally-accepted security measure used by hundreds, of not thousands, of corporations in the state.

Under the legislation, cable modems would also be illegal because they perform NAT by giving you a (usually) 10.x.x.x address on the LAN and a routable IP on the external interface.

Finally, even using Windows’ Internet Connection Sharing would be illegal, since it too uses NAT. That would affect dial-up users as well as the DSL, cable-modem, and T1 crowds.

So basically, it could affect nearly everyone in the state who gets on the internet. How could you possibly enforce such a law? There would be an amazing outrage if the cops started shutting down ISPs, companies, and (heaven forbid) home users for these violations.

I suspect one of two things will happen: (1) the legislators will come to their senses and either rewrite the bill, or kill it; (2) if it passes, it will be unenforceable for the reasons I’ve mentioned. Either way, I don’t see much reason to worry that my livelihood is in danger.

All the same, it’s staggering to think about how these new laws continue to erode our freedoms and– in this case– do so in a way that’s not well-considered and will have implications far beyond their intent. Give me a break.