Democratic Freedom for only $20: Congressional challenger Jeffrey Vance of Williams, Calif., says he won’t sell out to corporate and special interests. To prove it, he’s selling shares in his campaign on eBay.
For $20, you get a “Certificate of Democratic Freedom” granting “no undue rights or privileges or access or influence,” only the promise of a candidate free from special interests.
Vance, 42, a carpenter and political neophyte, faces two candidates in California’s Democratic primary March 2. The winner battles nine-term Republican Rep. Wally Herger.
Other candidates, notably Howard Dean, have tapped nontraditional donors through the Internet. But the use of eBay appears to be a first.
Vance’s biggest challenge appears to be getting Web surfers to find him.
An eBay search for the words “campaign,” “politics” or “Congress” is more likely to yield a 1940 campaign button for Wendell Willkie, a used textbook or a watch featuring the mug of Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss. Vance’s offering can be found by searching for “congressional campaign.”
Vance said he had sold about $1,000 worth of certificates on eBay and his own Web site.
The cellphone posse: FRANKFURT, Germany – Germany is enlisting citizens with cellphones in the search for criminals and missing people.
Starting this week, cell phone subscribers who have signed up to participate in Germany’s voluntary search program will receive a text message from police containing information about manhunts in the area and a number for tipsters to call.
Authorities gave the following example of the kind of message that could be sent: “Bank robbery, police searching for two men in their 30s. Jeans, black jackets, fleeing in a brown BMW 5 series, Dortmund plates. Tips to 110.”
Eleven German police districts have been using the system since September 2002. Interior minister Otto Schily approved it Sunday for nationwide use.
Police hope that bus, taxi and streetcar drivers will participate because they are in position to monitor activity in the streets.
Canada considering online music piracy issues: A federal court in Canada is considering whether the recording industry can sue people who share music collections online.
Court proceedings in the case, brought by the Canadian Recording Industry Association, began Monday and are due to continue March 12.
The music companies want to smoke out music pirates from the protection of Internet service providers (ISPs), mirroring action taken last year by the recording industry in the United States.
The Canadian branches of BMG, EMI, Warner, Virgin and Universal have sued 29 people, identified only as John and Jane Does, and accused them of being high-volume music traders.
Justice Konrad von Finckenstein asked the five largest Canadian ISPs to submit more details about the technical requirements and privacy-law implications of identifying the defendants.
Joel Watson, a lawyer for Telus Corp., one of the big ISPs, said identifying Internet users by their handles isn’t simple. Watson said one of the three names Telus has been asked to fork over didn’t even have an account with the company during the alleged infringement.
Rural Internet use increasing: Use of the Internet in rural communities has increased, but still lags that of city dwellers and suburbanites, according to a new survey.
Fifty-two percent of rural residents in 2003 said they use the Internet, compared with 67 percent of urbanites and 66 percent of people in suburbs, according to a report this week by the Pew Internet &American Life Project. The nonprofit group conducted its latest surveys between March and August.
When Pew first conducted surveys on the topic in 2000, only 41 percent of people living in rural areas said they used the Internet, compared with 51 percent of urban residents and 55 percent of suburbanites.
Some of the gap may be explained by the fact that older people make up bigger shares of rural populations, and incomes and education levels are generally lower than in cities and suburbs, according to Pew.
Associated Press
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