May 19, 2008

Dr. Eric Schmidt
Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer
Google, Inc.
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
Mountain View, CA 94043

Dear Dr. Schmidt:

YouTube is being used to share videos produced by al-Qaeda and other Islamist terrorist groups. The purpose of this letter is to request that Google implement its own policy against this offensive material, remove these videos from YouTube, and prevent them from reappearing.

Today, Islamist terrorist organizations rely extensively on the Internet to attract supporters and advance their cause. The framework for much of this Internet campaign is described in a bipartisan staff report released last week by the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs (“Committee”), which I am privileged to chair, titled Violent Islamist Extremism, the Internet, and the Homegrown Terrorist Threat. The report explains, in part, how al-Qaeda created and manages a multi-tiered online media operation that produces content intended to enlist followers in countries all over the world, including the United States. Central to this media campaign is the branding of content with an icon or logo to guarantee authenticity that the content was produced by al-Qaeda or allied organizations like al-Qaeda in Iraq, Ansar al-Islam (a.k.a Ansar al-Sunnah) or al-Qaeda in the Land of the Islamic Maghreb. All of these groups have been designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO) by the Department of State.

Searches on YouTube return dozens of videos branded with an icon or logo identifying the videos as the work of one of these Islamist terrorist organizations. A great majority of these videos document horrific attacks on American soldiers in Iraq or Afghanistan. Others provide weapons training, speeches by al-Qaeda leadership, and general material intended to radicalize potential recruits.

In other words, Islamist terrorist organizations use YouTube to disseminate their propaganda, enlist followers, and provide weapons training – activities that are all essential to terrorist activity. According to testimony received by our Committee, the online content produced by al-Qaeda and other Islamist terrorist organizations can play a significant role in the process of radicalization, the end point of which is the planning and execution of a terrorist attack. YouTube also, unwittingly, permits Islamist terrorist groups to maintain an active, pervasive, and amplified voice, despite military setbacks or successful operations by the law enforcement and intelligence communities.

YouTube posts “community guidelines” for users to follow, but it does not appear that the company is enforcing these guidelines to the extent they would apply to this content. For example, the community guidelines state that “[g]raphic or gratuitous violence is not allowed. If your video shows someone getting hurt, attacked, or humiliated, don’t post it.” Many of the videos produced by one of the production arms of al-Qaeda show attacks on U.S. forces in which American soldiers are injured and, in some cases, killed. Nevertheless, those videos remain available for viewing on YouTube. At the same time, the guidelines do not prohibit the posting of content that can be readily identified as produced by al-Qaeda or another FTO.

I ask you, therefore, to immediately remove content produced by Islamist terrorist organizations from YouTube. This should be a straightforward task since so many of the Islamist terrorist organizations brand their material with logos or icons identifying their provenance. In addition, please explain what changes Google plans to make to the YouTube community guidelines to address violent extremist material and how Google plans to enforce those guidelines to prevent the content from reappearing.

Protecting our citizens from terrorist attacks is a top priority for our government. The private sector can help us do that. By taking action to curtail the use of YouTube to disseminate the goals and methods of those who wish to kill innocent civilians, Google will make a singularly important contribution to this important national effort.

Thank you for your immediate attention to this critical matter and I look forward to your response.

Sincerely,

Joseph I. Lieberman (ID-CT)
Chairman, Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs

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Excerpt of the rest of the discussion:

MS. CLIFT: There are actually 51 Democrats, although Joe Lieberman generally votes with the Republicans –
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: What do you do with Lieberman?
MS. CLIFT: — and Tim Johnson is ill and hasn’t been voting.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Is he an Independent? Where do you put him?
MS. CLIFT: He calls himself a Democratic Independent, so he’s in kind of –
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Oh, he’s inverted the word; not an independent.
MS. CLIFT: Right, exactly. But in terms of Senator –
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Are we supposed to keep track of that as journalists? Are we supposed to?
MS. CLIFT: (Laughs.) Yes, John.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: All right, please continue.

The rest of the discussion is about Senator Vitter’s sexual misconduct (with the “D.C. Madam”)…

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Exit question — quick exit question: Is it your intuition that this is the last we will hear about Senator Vitter’s subterranean life, if that’s what it is? Or is there more to come, another shoe to drop?

This question (among plenty of others) could lead to the formation of what I call a “flash prediction market”, that is, something that could be settled quite rapidly as political events unfold. InTrade and NewsFutures are not structured to offer such “flash prediction markets”.

Both preceding and after the utterly uninformed pronouncements from the past week or so that Hillary was “the one to beat,” that she was “in a league with Tiger Woods and Roger Federer: no. 1,” the futures markets have voiced a somewhat different opinion.

Hillary, past 120 days:

Obama, July 6:

There was an unfortunate misperception that Hillary became an overwhelmingly dominant frontrunner on the betting markets, exemplified by the two articles to which I linked. The only time interval in which that was even arguably true was during Obama’s dip in early June.

Anyway, basically, Obama’s second-quarter fundraising prowess constitutes the second time in a row in which he’s demolished the Clintons at their own game. (The meaning of Q1 numbers is much less clear, because lots of politicians, such as John Edwards in 2003 and Mitt Romney in 2007, wrung their personal networks for as much as they possibly could in the first quarter. The second quarter calls for more breadth and depth in one’s donor base.)

Poll numbers do not mean too much at this point; Joe Lieberman was still winning the Democratic primary at this point in 2003, although nobody took him very seriously. Hillary Clinton has Lieberman-esque name recognition, but her campaign suffers from a yawning enthusiasm gap and a weaker, more reluctant donor network.

From this point on, Obama can expect to be taken at least a little more seriously by the decaying, but still all too relevant MSM. More positive coverage will translate into better poll numbers, which will further undermine Hillary’s campaign.

With Gore having issued something akin to a “Sherman statement” yesterday, and Edwards utterly unable to move the debate beyond the price tag of his last haircut and his own work for the Fortress hedge fund, the Democratic primary is coalescing into a Hillary-Obama slugfest.

The United States should launch military strikes against Iran if the government in Tehran does not stop supplying anti-American forces in Iraq, Sen. Joe Lieberman said Sunday on Face The Nation. “I think we’ve got to be prepared to take aggressive military action against the Iranians to stop them from killing Americans in Iraq,” Lieberman told Bob Schieffer. “And to me, that would include a strike into… over the border into Iran, where we have good evidence that they have a base at which they are training these people coming back into Iraq to kill our soldiers.” [...]

USA and/or Israel to execute an overt Air Strike against Iran by 31DEC07

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The US will conduct overt Military action against Iran soon.

© NewsFutures

Speaking personally, TS reinforced this perception–that independents who caucused with the Democrats counted as Democratic seats, and if they were replaced by an official Democrat, that wouldn’t increase the Democrats’ vote total–by specifically stating, in regards to SENATE.GOP.2006, that a “loss” of the Connecticut seat to Joe Lieberman (who had switched from Democrat to Independent) would still be counted as a Democratic seat, because Lieberman already caucused with the Democrats anyway.

The fine print of the Tradesports DEMS.HOUSE.OVERXX contracts was, for most of the time, fairly clear in stating that the Democrats started from 201 seats, and anything over that number would constitute a gain. Judging from the activity of DEMS.HOUSE.OVER14.5, however, I believe that most of the market inferred (as did I) that 201 was the initial starting number of of Democrat seats according to American convention as well as TS, and didn’t realize the difference between the two systems. A very technical mistake, but not one for which TS deserved blame.

However, TS threw a monkey wrench in the system by telling forummer “gekko6″ that Bernie Sanders’ Independent seat going Democratic would not count as a Democratic pickup, because Sanders had already caucused with the Democrats in the first place. In this decision, as in its Connecticut Senate decision, TS showed an impressive grasp of the vagaries of the American political system–namely, that the size of each caucus was the real issue; and Congressional majorities being determined on the basis of caucus, not party affiliation, it only made sense to calculate the shift in power in the House on the same basis.

Unfortunately, that also meant that TS had, at the same time, repudiated its own convention for what constituted a “gain.” “gekko6″ had already been very aware of this issue, because he had pointed out that the actual starting count according to the American system was 203, not 201–due to Sanders’ being an independent endorsed and unopposed by the Democrats, and the vacancy of Bob Menendez’s seat after Menendez was appointed to the Senate by NJ Gov. Corzine. (From a foreign, technical perspective, this was defensible–Menendez’s seat was vacant, so the winner on Nov. 7 would count it as a “gain.” However, the Republicans did not contest Menendez’s very Democratic seat, so in the American convention, it was never counted as a Democratic pickup.) Tradesports’ convention effectively said that the Democrats gained two more seats than the American convention did, and several days after the November elections, the American convention said that the Democrats had gained 28 House seats with 1 certain to go Democratic in a runoff (in Louisiana), so 29 seats total, while the Democrats had effectively gained 31 seats according to TS. Hence the problem with DEMS.HOUSE.OVER29.5. And while a legalistic interpretation would favor TS, I believe that the synchronization of DEMS.HOUSE.OVER14.5 and 100 – p(HOUSE.GOP.2006) indicated that most trading during the final few days showed that the market was unaware of TS’ own convention for the election outcome.

I sent Tradesports an e-mail about it (apparently they don’t accept new entrants to their forum anymore, because my application has been pending for about a month), and they replied that the new number of Democrats minus 201 would constitute the number of Democrat gains, thus contradicting what they had told “gekko6.” I then publicly denounced TS for waffling the issue. TS did nothing, and apparently hoped the controversy would blow over. A bunch of recounts in close races later, TS appears to have lucked out, because according to the American convention, the Democrats now have at least 233 House members, up from 202-plus-one-Socialist, so the American system now says the Democrats have gained 30 seats and DEMS.HOUSE.OVER29.5 has been fulfilled either way.

Honestly, I was impressed that TS understood the American system as well as they did. Unfortunately, TS’ subsequent “flip-flopping” showed that it did not, in fact, understand its own contract specifics. It also fit a larger pattern of cavalier disdain for its clients, often interpreting an ambiguous outcome significantly contrary to that of the market-majority (Harriet Miers confirmation, NK missile test contract) without appropriate compensation, setting up a joke “Arbitration Committee” that, if it even exists, has done nothing except infuriate customers, and most recently expiring sports contracts before the games were even concluded –and coincidentally raking in tons of expiry fees from people who weren’t given a chance to liquidate.

The latter, in fact, has happened with enough cavalier consistency that one can only wonder whether TS simply plans on milking its American consumers for as much as possible before closing the site to new American participants as a result of the recent US legislation. SportsBook has downgraded Tradesports to a C+ rating, which is at the very low end of what SportsBook can vouch for.

If TS plans on more effectively structuring its futures contracts, it should structure them along the lines of, “At 11:59:59 PM GMT on dd/mm/yyyy, Democrats will control ON or OVER XXX seats in the US House of Representatives.” If it wants to undertake a broader effort to restore its own credibility, it needs to stop the caprice that is fast becoming the norm for how it adjudicates contract outcomes–whether that adjudication occurs before or after the outcome has actually occurred. [added:] TS’ infrastructure and trader base are both excellent, and there’s no point in wasting those assets on sloppy legalese and interpretation.

–Alex Forshaw

http://the-ts-maven.blogspot.com

Tradesports forum homepage: http://forum.tradesports.com/

Addendum: As for 100 – p (HOUSE.GOP.2006) vs DEMS.HOUSE.OVER14.5, I remember them consistently mirroring one another, and thinking to myself, “Aha! Efficient markets at work.” However, what little historical data TS makes publicly available makes it hard to judge that, and there were snapshots when the two were de-coupled, so perhaps a minority of perceptive traders _did_ trade on the differences in the rules. But in the sample of snapshots that I looked at, the two were coupled (within 2 points) much more often than not during the final days, when liquidity was high enough to make arbitraging the two contracts a worthwhile use of capital.

—

I thought of the problem (which I described in my previous blog post), over a good night, and my sentiment is that:

#1. It’s probably legitimate to group the Independents with the Democrats, since most political analysts and journalists do it. (See my previous blog post.)

#2. The prediction exchange should have informed the political speculators about that grouping —FROM DAY ONE, IN THE “RULES” TAB, NEARBY THE ORDER-ENTRY FORM FOR THIS PREDICTION MARKET.

#3. My observation (to be confirmed or infirmed by other bloggers) is that BetFair DID NOT put their traders on notice —FROM DAY ONE, IN THE “RULES” TAB, NEARBY THE ORDER-ENTRY FORM FOR THIS PREDICTION MARKET.

Rules
Win Only Market
For further information please see Rules & Regs.

Which of these parties will have more seats in the US Senate following the 2006 US Senate Elections? At the stated time, this market will be turned in play with unmatched bets cancelled. Thereafter unmatched bets will not be cancelled by Betfair at any time. Dead Heat rules apply. Users should be aware they are NOT allowed to bet on this event if they are physically present in Austria or Germany.
UK wallet

#4. On its forum and on the “RULES” tab (located at the top-right corner of each individual prediction market view), BetFair HAS JUST INFORMED its customers (the traders) and consumers (the odds observers) that it DOES NOT intend to group the Independents with the Democrats.

Rules
Win Only Market
For further information please see Rules & Regs.

Which of these parties will have more seats in the US Senate following the 2006 US Senate Elections? At the stated time, this market will be turned in play with unmatched bets cancelled. Thereafter unmatched bets will not be cancelled by Betfair at any time. Dead Heat rules apply. Users should be aware they are NOT allowed to bet on this event if they are physically present in Austria or Germany.
UK wallet

For the purpose of this market, the following Senators will be treated as Independents and therefore will not be treated as either Democrats nor Republicans:

Joe Lieberman
Bernie Sanders

10:11:53 (UKT) 9th November 2006

#5. Excellent decision. BetFair confirms its status as an ethical, top-notch prediction exchange.

#6. See Mike Smithson for more.