It offers a good discussion of the key problems with TPP -- things like the lack of transparency, the absence of meaningful public participation, and the deepening loss of national sovereignty -- before concluding with this excellent analysis of what's really going on with TPP, which also applies to TAFTA/TTIP:

In a global economy, trade policy has sweeping ramifications for every sector of the economy. Decisions on trade policy are really decisions on the relative power of corporations and governments. Trade policy affects employment rates, wage levels, the availability of capital, environmental conditions, public health, and much more. We cannot allow negotiations over these vital things to be conducted by secret bodies, without public oversight, comment, and ultimately the right of the public to affirm or reject these agreements.

The nature of trade pacts has changed significantly. Once upon a time, trade negotiations were largely about countries seeking advantage over other countries, or seeking to dismantle tariffs that prevented fair and open competition. Now the negotiations are about dominant industries seeking to prevent competition rather than encourage it. The negotiations are about dominant global-scale industries seeking to undercut government efforts to regulate them in the public interest. There is no such thing as a simple "trade pact" anymore.

The 2013 National Trade Estimate Report on Foreign Trade Barriers (NTE) is the 28th in an annual series that surveys significant foreign barriers to U.S. exports. This document is a companion piece to the President's Trade Policy Agenda published in March. The issuance of the NTE Report continues the elaboration of an enforcement strategy, utilizing this report, among other tools, in that strategy.

Reading through the rest of the 400-page report, it's truly extraordinary to see transparency mentioned dozens of times as one of the US's key concerns with other countries around the world. Of course, that's deeply ironic, since the US was not only the lone holdout against ACTA transparency, and responsible for reducing what little transparency was present in the TPP negotiations, but it even refused to be transparent about its own positions on transparency. Hypocritical much?

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The lopsided votes showed lawmakers desperate to regain public trust in an election year, when the public approval rating of Congress has sunk below 15 percent.

Ms. Napolitano said she cut the email cord while governor of Arizona “because I was just getting — you know, you get hundreds and hundreds of things all the time.”

In her current job, “which has a hundred thousand different things that happen on any given day, [not using email] allows me to focus on where I need to focus,” she added.

“I also don’t like the process where people could send you an email, then say, see, you were told, or you know this. And then it comes back two years later to say, hey, you got this email — among the thousands you get every day.

“I want to be a little more selective on how that goes,” she concluded.

Since most politicians' campaigns are largely funded by wealthy companies and individuals, it would give voters a better sense of who the candidate they are voting for is actually representing if the company's logo, or individual's name, was prominently displayed upon the candidate's clothing at all public appearances and campaign events. Once elected, the candidate would be required to continue to wear those "sponsor's" names during all official duties and visits to constituents. The size of a logo or name would vary with the size of a donation. For example, a $1 million dollar contribution would warrant a patch of about 4" by 8" on the chest, while a free meal from a lobbyist would be represented by a quarter-sized button. Individual donations under $1000 are exempt.

Rogers (R-Mich.)'s official Twitter account has, since Wednesday, been using the hashtag #CISPAalert to address criticism of his Cyber Intelligence Security Protection Act (CISPA). Activists are wrong, he says. CISPA wouldn't allow government "monitoring anyone’s email or personal information."

But the congressman—or whoever runs his Twitter account—doesn't seem to have gotten the memo. A domain name registrar called Namecheap is running a promotion: offering a dollar to Internet activists at the Electronic Frontier Foundation for each tweet with that hashtag. The EFF is actively campaigning against CISPA, calling it a “privacy-invading cybersecurity spying bill.”

The decision to lift the protective order rests with the judge who put it in place. Documents provided by MIT in the Swartz case included individual names and information regarding MIT employees. It is MIT policy and practice to protect employee privacy. MIT provided the documents under the express understanding that they would be protected from disclosure, which is the purpose of the protective order. Given this, we are concerned about any public release of information about individual MIT employees: we will seek to protect their privacy. At the same time, MIT is eager to share important facts about its actions in the Aaron Swartz matter with the public: Professor Hal Abelson has been charged by President Rafael Reif with conducting an analysis that will be made public in the coming weeks.

"This statement is an insult to my intelligence. The documents were provided to the government before any protective order was entered, and directly contrary to this statement, with the express understanding that they would be used in a criminal prosecution', which would lead to a PUBLIC TRIAL, at which time the documents would be offered into evidence and the witnesses would testify, in public. MIT never could have expected these materials not to become public, and I find this statement to be shockingly misleading and insincere."

Criminal proceedings in our nation's courts are presumptively public....

As described above, the circumstances in this case have changed dramatically. Perhaps most obviously, with Mr. Swartz's death, there is no longer a case to prosecute and thus no danger that disclosure will impede a fair trial. Mr. Swartz's tragic death has also led to an increase in public interest in both the details of the investigation and prosecution and the reasonableness of prosecutions under the CFAA generally. In its discussions with Mr. Swartz's counsel about modifying the Protective Order, the Government has not, to date, asserted any reliance interest based on the Protective Order. Even if it were to assert such an interest, any Government reliance on the Protective Order's terms is tempered by the fact that it is a blanket order and therefore inherently overinclusive. As this District explained in Bulger, modification of such a blanket order is not unusual. Id. at 54. As a result, the only interest left to be balanced against the significant public interest in access to unredacted documents is the alleged privacy interest of the government employees and third party individuals named in the discovery materials. For the reasons discussed below, those interests are minimal and are overcome by the public interest in the disclosure of these documents.

“I welcome President Reif's commitment to transparency. However, this announcement is misleading. MIT does not get to decide in what form the evidence is released publicly. The judge does. MIT has already given this evidence to the courts, at which point it gave up proprietary control over the evidence. President Reif's decision simply foreshadows the inevitability that the judge will release at least this much of the evidence. It sets a low bar, but it does not decide the matter. The redacted documents MIT is releasing only tell one part of the story. Huge amounts of information would still be hidden beneath the protective order -- information that MIT's investigators themselves will not have access to unless the protective order is lifted. If MIT is really committed to transparency and having a full, complete investigation, they need to join the call with Aaron’s lawyers to lift the protective order."

"This is not a change in MIT's position. MIT could have no expectation of privacy or security since this evidence was given to the government with the understanding that it was evidence in a public trial,” said Robert Swartz, Aaron’s father. “They understood when they gave these documents to the government that they had no rights to privacy or security. MIT should release all internal communications related to this case whether or not they were provided to the government including all internal communications they had related to how they handled it and decided not to ask the government to drop the case."

Nasdaq is aware of this dimming of its value proposition and has come up with a new one. What if it told you you could be listed on Nasdaq but without the public documents and the David Einhorn? Would that be of interest to you?

The NASDAQ OMX Group, Inc. and SharesPost, Inc. announced today a joint venture that will establish the preeminent marketplace for private growth companies. … The NASDAQ Private Market (NPM) will provide improved access to liquidity for early investors, founders and employees while enabling the efficient buying and selling of private company shares. While NASDAQ will retain a majority stake in the venture, specific terms of the joint venture were not disclosed.

“The support of entrepreneurs is a fundamental element of our DNA at NASDAQ OMX,” said Bruce Aust, EVP of NASDAQ OMX. “The NASDAQ Private Market will provide private companies additional flexibility as they plan for their future and, at the same time, bring the investment community unique opportunities. By combining our resources, expertise and reach with SharesPost’s established technology, we will bring scale, efficiency and transparency to this marketplace.”

An increasing number of companies are choosing to remain private longer, which requires an efficient means to access liquidity for employees and investors. NPM will offer a complete, end-to-end solution that will enable a private company to control the marketplace for its shares. Transactions on NPM will meet NASDAQ OMX’s industry-leading standards for security, compliance and client support.

Details are sketchy but Nasdaq Private Market will be run by SharesPost’s founder, and one shorthand way to think about it is that “it’s SharesPost, only it’s called Nasdaq.” Right? Also more money and computers and stuff, but basically the point of this JV seems to be to capitalize on the fact that telling your crazed day-trader uncle “oh we trade on the Nasdaq [any sequence of words] Market¹” is much more palatable than “we trade on SharesPost. No, with a capital P. I think.”

And what is SharesPost? Well it’s a private stock marketplace, plus various bells and whistles, though NPM will focus on the marketplace. Here are some of the advantages it advertises to issuers:

Set parameters and maintain control over who can buy, who can sell, how much, and when. SharesPost allows you to create a customized Private Investor Portal to manage your secondary transactions. … Manage shareholder transactions to minimize distraction to management.

Distractions like David Einhorn! A key advantage of trading on SharesPost instead of Nasdaq is you get to decide who can buy your stock, so you can keep out activists and raiders and HFT robots. (And, though they’re not quite in the “bad people who might buy your stock” category: you can keep out short sellers.) Another advantage has to do with public disclosure; you can’t literally get away with telling your investors nothing, but you can at least only tell it to your investors, with “permission-based access to information on prospective companies.”

So: I have no problem with this. People use phrases like “shareholder democracy” and “shareholder rights” in ways that imply that corporations are democracies or that shareholders have rights. Those are silly ideas! Shareholders have money and they give that money to companies in exchange for what they give the money to the companies in exchange for. If you gave your money to Dell, you had a set of expectations about how Dell would treat you – as a fiduciary and so forth – based on the securities laws, Delaware corporate law, Dell’s charter and bylaws, and market custom and precedent; maybe now you’re disappointed, I don’t know.

But those expectations are only binding if you actually expect them, and these days they’re loosening up. If you gave your money to Carlyle Group, you weren’t expecting fiduciary duties, because they told you not to. If you gave your money to Facebook, you weren’t expecting to have a meaningful vote on anything. If you gave your money to CommonWealth REIT, honestly, what were you thinking? There are some constants, or near-constants – you pretty much always expect to be able to sell your stock to any willing buyer – but even that isn’t in the Ten Commandments. REITS at least in theory restrict sales to foreign buyers.

The rules by which shareholders have certain rights come from mostly state corporate law – which is for the most part a flexible set of default rules that can be changed by corporate charter; from federal securities laws – which for the most part apply to public companies, not SharesPost-y companies; and from the rules of NYSE and Nasdaq. A lot of the more persnickety corporate governance rules – you need lots of independent directors, you need to let shareholders vote on whether to issue tons of stock, that sort of thing – are NYSE and Nasdaq rules, not actual laws. If you stay private, you have a ton of flexibility to structure around all of those expectations. It’s just hard to raise any money.

But Nasdaq Private Market should help with that: investors will be more likely to invest in private companies if there’s an established, Nasdaq-branded platform for them to get liquidity. And, y’know, if they’ll be allowed to sell. But that’s a matter of negotiation; you can imagine companies raising money with agreements that let the investors sell, but place limits on to whom and how much. That will presumably depress the price the company can get for its shares, versus a pure public capital raise, but maybe it’s worth it to avoid, um, management distraction. Also short-sellers.

There’s some reason to think that the set of liquidity, voting, fiduciary, etc. rights that public-company shareholders (usually) have is the “right” set, the set that maximizes the value of public companies. Remember, some of those rights come not from laws but from voluntary NYSE/Nasdaq listing rules: they’re rules that profit-seeking enterprises, somewhere in the hazy past, thought were necessary to attract capital to their marketplace. But that hypothesis isn’t tested a whole lot. It’s not easy for NYSE and Nasdaq to change their rules. When companies like Facebook come to market with horrible governance, their IPOs still do pretty well. (I mean, until they price, whatever.)

Who knows, maybe Nasdaq Private Market will end up with its own rigid set of listing rules, but my guess is not. My guess is that it will offer companies a lot of flexibility in striking their own balance between shareholder-friendly policies that attract investment² and shareholder-restrictive policies that make management happy and undistracted. That’s good for managements, and not all bad for investors: instead of one-size-fits-all rights, they can in effect get paid to trade off liquidity and governance rights that they don’t care much about. Some investors may get value out of that. Probably not David Einhorn though.

Nasdaq to Launch Private-Share Exchange in JV With SharesPost [WSJ]
NASDAQ OMX and SharesPost to Form Private Market [Nasdaq OMX]

1. Did you know that there are both a Nasdaq Global Market and a Nasdaq Global Select market and that they’re different things?

2. And employees. A main point for private-company marketplaces is to allow early employees to get liquidity in their equity compensation. You could imagine a theory in which those employees care a lot about the details of their liquidity opportunity, though that might be a stretch.

Other posts from Dealbreaker:

• Even So, Mark Cuban Is Probably Glad He Got Rid Of His Mamma.com Stock
• Billionaire No Longer Using Dial-Up
• Fed Kicks Off Awkward Week For Banks

It's illuminating to compare the minimum number of users affected by NSLs each year to the numbers we find in the government's official annual reports. In 2011—the last year for which we have a tally—the Justice Department acknowledged issuing 16,511 NSLs seeking information about U.S. persons, with a total of 7,201 Americans' information thus obtained. That's actually down from a staggering 14,212 Americans whose information DOJ reported obtaining via NSL the previous year. Remember, this total includes National Security Letters issued not just to all telecommunications providers—including online services like Google, broadband Internet companies, and cell phone carriers—but also "financial institutions," which are defined broadly to include a vast array of businesses beyond such obvious candidates as banks and credit card companies.

What ought to leap out at you here is the magnitude of Google's tally relative to that total: They got requests affecting at least 1,000 users in a year when DOJ reports just over 7,000 Americans affected by all NSLs—and it seems impossible that Google could account for anywhere remotely near a seventh of all NSL requests. Google, of course, is not limiting their tally to requests for information about Americans, which may explain part of the gap—but we know that, at least of a few years ago, the substantial majority of NSLs targeted Americans, and the proportion of the total targeting Americans was increasing year after year. As of 2006, for instance, 57 percent of NSL requests were for information about U.S. persons. So even if we reduce Google's minimum proportionately, that seems awfully high.

There's a simple enough explanation for this apparent discrepancy: The numbers DOJ reports each year explicitly exclude NSL requests for “basic subscriber information,” meaning the “name, address, and length of service” associated with an account, and only count more expansive requests that also demand more detailed “electronic communications transactional records” that are “parallel to” the “toll billing records” maintained by traditional phone companies.

We find it troubling that, even as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Free Trade Agreement enters its 16th major round of negotiations this March in Singapore, U.S. negotiators still refuse to inform the American public what they have been proposing in our names. Shielding not only proposals, but agreed-upon texts from public view until after negotiations have concluded and the pact is finalized is not consistent with democratic principles. In this regard, the TPP appears to be even less transparent than some past trade negotiations. For example, in 2001, the United States joined with 33 other countries in releasing draft text of the Free Trade Area of the Americans, and draft texts within the World Trade Organization are frequently made available.

When government agencies ask for our users’ personal information—like what you provide when you sign up for a Google Account, or the contents of an email—our team does several things:

• We scrutinize the request carefully to make sure it satisfies the law and our policies. For us to consider complying, it generally must be made in writing, signed by an authorized official of the requesting agency and issued under an appropriate law.
• We evaluate the scope of the request. If it’s overly broad, we may refuse to provide the information or seek to narrow the request. We do this frequently.
• We notify users about legal demands when appropriate so that they can contact the entity requesting it or consult a lawyer. Sometimes we can’t, either because we’re legally prohibited (in which case we sometimes seek to lift gag orders or unseal search warrants) or we don’t have their verified contact information.
• We require that government agencies conducting criminal investigations use a search warrant to compel us to provide a user’s search query information and private content stored in a Google Account—such as Gmail messages, documents, photos and YouTube videos. We believe a warrant is required by the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits unreasonable search and seizure and overrides conflicting provisions in ECPA.

68 percent of the requests Google received from government entities in the U.S. were through subpoenas. These are requests for user-identifying information, issued under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (“ECPA”), and are the easiest to get because they typically don't involve judges.

Last week, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo laid out an ambitious open government agenda in his state of the state address, declaring his commitment to provide "easy, single-stop access to statewide and agency-level data, reports, statistics, compilations and information." This week he carved out his first exemption: gun owners.

The anonymity exemption, which requires gun owners to provide a reason they wish to remain out of the public record, is a response to the controversy that followed the Journal News' publication last month of the names and addresses of over 33 thousand hand gun permit holders in Rockland and Westchester counties, north of New York City.

"It sets a dangerous precedent," says Noel Hidalgo, Code for America's New York Program Manager, "where special interest groups can exempt their communities." If firearm owners can create an exemption from public disclosure, than why couldn't licensed livery car drivers, healthcare workers, sellers of pesticide or lawyers?

"Some of the concern with the Journal News dataset is the fact that they put an individual's name and address with a gun," says Hidalgo. According to him, listing gun permit holders by name and zip code or census tract could better satisfy the competing demands the personal privacy and public disclosure, than simply exempting data from public record.

"We're all involved in 'unwarranted harassment' every day of our lives," he continues, referring to his full e-mail box in the morning, and unsolicited calls from journalists as potential examples.

When initially established the Freedom of Information Law couldn't possibly be written to factor in modern technology including social media tools (Twitter, Facebook, etc) or advanced mapping technologies like Google Maps. These social media advancements emerged as commonplace tools to access personal information after many public information laws were passed. The advent of the Internet must be considered when working to ensure every citizen of New York has both their privacy and safety protected, guaranteed by law.

With the passage this week of the NYSAFE gun law, which allows permit holders to request their names and addresses be removed from the public record, we decided to remove the gun permit data from lohud.com at 5 pm today.

While the new law does not require us to remove the data, we believe that doing so complies with its spirit. For the past four weeks, there has been vigorous debate over our publication of the permit data, which has been viewed nearly 1.2 million times by readers. One of our core missions as a newspaper is to empower our readers with as much information as possible on the critical issues they face, and guns have certainly become a top issue since the massacre in nearby Newtown, Conn. Sharing as much public information as possible provides our readers with the ability to contribute to the discussion, in any way they wish, on how to make their communities safer.

We remain committed to our mission of providing the critical public service of championing free speech and open records.

A New York lawmaker says that the state’s recently passed gun control law stunningly fails to include any exemptions for law enforcement officers, and technically prohibits police from ever bringing guns on school grounds or possessing extended ammo magazines.

With regard to the second category, we identified sixteen (16) pages of responsive records. We have determined that all 16 pages of responsive records are exempt from disclosure under the deliberative process prong of section of the FOIA. The deliberative process privilege protects the decision making processes of government agencies by encouraging open and frank discussions on policy matters among subordinates and superiors. These records contain predecisional discussions regarding negotiating positions and their implications on future negotiations. Moreover, these documents contain policy recommendations and opinions shared between subordinates and superiors.

The Journal News of West Nyack, N.Y., has hired armed security guards to defend its offices after receiving a torrent of phone calls and emails responding to the paper's publication of the names and addresses of area residents with pistol permits.

RGA Investigations, a private security company, "is doing private security at on location at the Journal News as a result of the negative response to the article," according to a police report first obtained by the Rockland County Times (Nanuet, N.Y.) and shared with POLITICO. The guards "are armed and will be on site during business hours through at least January 2, 2013."

"I'm proud to stand with Putnam County and proud that Putnam won't be releasing its pistol permit records," [Ball] said in a statement. "The asinine editors at the Journal News have gone out of their way to place a virtual scarlet letter on law abiding firearm owners throughout the region and I thank God that Putnam County has a clerk with the guts to stand up and draw the line here."

[Putnam County Clerk Dennis] Sant said he was happy to protect law-abiding gun owners in his county.

"There is the rule of law, and there is right and wrong, and The Journal News is clearly wrong," he said in a statement. "I could not live with myself if one Putnam pistol permit holder was put in harm's way, for the sole purpose of selling newspapers."

Putnam County officials, who say they will refuse a newspaper's request to release the names and addresses of residents with pistol permits, would break state law by withholding the data, a state official said.

The opinion, of state Committee on Open Government Executive Director Robert Freeman, came after an announcement Tuesday by state Sen. Greg Ball and two Putnam officials that they would refuse to release the data requested by The Journal News of White Plains, which sought the records under the state Freedom of Information Law

Freeman said, the law is clear. "The name and address of any gun licensee are public," he said.

The two-page, bare-bones Summons With Notice accuses the newspaper of "falsely, maliciously, recklessly, slanderously, libelously and irresponsibly publicly stating in the interactive website www.lohud.com that plaintiff First Impression LLC is a licensed handgun owner."

On the eve of the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT), we believe that it is the right time to reaffirm the U.S. Government's commitment to the multistakeholder model as the appropriate process for addressing Internet policy and governance issues. The multistakeholder model has enabled the Internet to flourish. It has promoted freedom of expression, both online and off. It has ensured the Internet is a robust, open platform for innovation, investment, economic growth and the creation of wealth throughout the world, including in developing countries.

[....] The Internet's decentralized, multistakeholder processes enable us all to benefit from the engagement of all interested parties. By encouraging the participation of industry, civil society, technical and academic experts, and governments from around the globe, multistakeholder processes result in broader and more creative problem solving. This is essential when dealing with the Internet, which thrives through the cooperation of many different parties.

The global community has many serious topics to discuss with respect to the Internet. Collectively, we need to ensure that these matters are taken up in suitable multistakeholder venues so that these discussions are well informed by the voices of all interested parties.

Our commitment to the multistakeholder model is based on the fact that transparency, inclusion and participation are the 21st century standards governing discussions related to modern communications.

We have and will continue to advocate for an Internet that is not dominated by any one player or group of players, and one that is free from bureaucratic layers that cannot keep up with the pace of change. We will work with everyone to ensure that we have a global Internet that allows all voices to be heard.

1. Calls on the Council and the Commission to ensure that any changes to the International Telecommunication Regulations are compatible with the EU acquis and further the Union’s objective of, and interest in, advancing the internet as a truly public place, where human rights and fundamental freedoms, particularly freedom of expression and assembly, are respected and the observance of free market principles, net neutrality and entrepreneurship are ensured;

2. Regrets the lack of transparency and inclusiveness surrounding the negotiations for WCIT-12, given that the outcomes of this meeting could substantially affect the public interest;

3. Believes that the ITU, or any other single, centralised international institution, is not the appropriate body to assert regulatory authority over either internet governance or internet traffic flows;

4. Stresses that some of the ITR reform proposals would negatively impact the internet, its architecture, operations, content and security, business relations and governance, as well as the free flow of information online;

5. Believes that, as a consequence of some of the proposals presented, the ITU itself could become the ruling power over aspects of the internet, which could end the present bottom-up, multi-stakeholder model; expresses concern that, if adopted, these proposals may seriously affect the development of, and access to, online services for end users, as well as the digital economy as a whole; believes that internet governance and related regulatory issues should continue to be defined at a comprehensive and multi-stakeholder level;

6. Is concerned that the ITU reform proposals include the establishment of new profit mechanisms that could seriously threaten the open and competitive nature of the internet, driving up prices, hampering innovation and limiting access; recalls that the internet should remain free and open;

However, it is important to point out that WCIT is inclusive of 193 national delegations which are participating in WCIT-12. Private sector companies and civil society organizations have also registered to attend WCIT-12 in large numbers.

Everyone attending WCIT-12 is free to lobby for their specific positions.

Added to this, in the run-up to the conference, the ITU Secretariat created a platform to allow any individual, civil society player or company to make its views known.

The very thorough and inclusive preparatory process leading up to the WCIT-12 has been completely transparent. Every European parliamentarian could have obtained all the documents from their own government, or from the European Commission.

At ITU, transparency is achieved at the national level, through national consultations in national languages. Surely this process is far more inclusive than just posting an English language text on a web page?

We received a request from the office of a local mayor to remove five blogs for criticizing the mayor. We did not remove content in response to this request.

We received a request from legal representatives of a member of the executive branch to remove 10 YouTube videos for alleged defamation. We did not remove content in response to this request.

We received five requests and one court order to remove seven YouTube videos for criticizing local and state government agencies, law enforcement or public officials. We did not remove content in response to these requests.

Haunts sought $25,000 (£15,590) from Kickstarter but the project proved popular and meant the game's developers got $28,739 (£17,895) to fund completion of the game. Prior to the funding appeal, Haunts creator Mob Rules Games had spent about $42,500 getting the basics of the title completed.

The end result was supposed to be a haunted house horror game in which players could take on the role of the house's inhabitants or intruders investigating what lived within it.

Now Mob Rules Games boss Rick Dakan has revealed that the game's development has prematurely halted.

"The principal cause for our dire condition is that there are no longer any programmers working on the game," said Mr Dakan in a blogpost updating backers.

I've had a lot of interested emails from programmers offering their help. Thank you all very much! There's a lot to sift through and I'm not sure what the best way to proceed will be, but I am very encouraged by these offers and want to try and figure out the best way to take advantage of this opportunity. I've reached out to a good friend of mine who's an expert in collaborative open source development, and he and I will talk soon. I also want to discuss this exciting development with Blue Mammoth and get their take on it.

We're going to finish developing Haunts: The Manse Macabre as an Open Source project. The source code has been open from the beginning, but now we're going to fully embrace open development model and making the game entirely open source. We've had about thirty programmers from a variety of backgrounds, including many proficient in Go, who have stepped forward and offered to help finish the game. We're still in the process of setting up the infrastructure for issue tracking, source control, documentation wikis, and other tools necessary before we can begin in earnest, but we hope to have that all up and running within the next week or two.

We've gotten a lot of press coverage, most of it in the general vein of, "Look, see, Kickstarter projects can go bad, so be careful!" I think that's a fair and useful point to make. But we're committed to being the follow-up story. You know, the underdog who comes back from the brink of collapse and proves a resounding success!

Center for Constitutional Rights attorney Shayana Kadidal had barely started his opening arguments about the public's hunger for more information on the case when one of the judges interrupted him. "Counsel, how do we have the jurisdiction over this matter?" Judge Margaret Ryan asked.

Kadidal appeared unprepared to answer, noting that the matter had not been disputed. "It certainly wasn't challenged by the government," he replied.

Other judges had the question in mind as well.

Judge Scott Stucky asked whether the journalists fighting the policy had standing to challenge a restriction that affects the press and public alike. Kadilal replied that the "fact that the injury is widely shared" did not harm his clients' case.

Baker ordered the parties to submit written arguments about whether the court has jurisdiction to grant this type of relief. If the journalists vault procedural hurdles, the judges seem inclined to open court-martial access.

"Instead of making a constitutional case about this, why not just make it available?" Judge Ryan asked, adding that the government chose litigation over "simple and reasonable" solutions.

In an amicus brief, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press pointed out that military commissions at Guantanamo Bay put court records online. Judge Erdman picked up this point in asking, "If they can do it, why can't you?"

The captain insisted that courts-martial are a "creature of the executive" branch, rather than the judiciary.

While courts must provide prompt access to records, the public can seek executive-branch files only through Freedom of Information Act. Such requests, however, are subject to delays and exemptions. Many news outlets, including Courthouse News, have had their FOIA requests for documents in the Manning case denied.

Though the trial briefs and transcripts are not under seal, Fisher said that the government has no obligation to make them available.

Judge Erdmann ridiculed that position. "You don't see anything wrong with giving the public the documents, but you don't have to so you're not going to," he said.

Baker highlighted the discrepancy by noting that Fisher, like his courtroom adversary, would get to speak after his allotted time.

"You're entitled to more time as a matter of fairness, but the Constitution does not require it," Baker said.