LOS ANGELES — Christopher Meloni isn’t coming back to NBC’s “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” when it returns this fall. The actor and Universal Media Studios were unable to come to terms on a new contract, according to a person familiar with the situation, who spoke Tuesday on condition of anonymity because NBC and the studio had not authorized public comment. Meloni’s co-star, Mariska Hargitay, will be back for the upcoming season, the show’s 13th, the person said. Read full article > >

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Christopher Meloni not returning to ‘Law & Order: Special Victims Unit’ over contract dispute

News outlets in Pakistan have made public the name of an American they identified as the CIA station chief, but a senior Pakistani intelligence official said Monday the person named is not the station chief.

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Pakistan official denies CIA leak

The police arrested a man after he came up to reporters and said he was the person authorities were seeking in the deadly shooting.

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Man Arrested in Alabama College Shooting

In a closely-watched oral argument Monday at a federal courthouse in Washington, the core questions of the case read like scripts from a college philosophy exam: are isolated human genes and the subsequent comparisons of their sequences patentable? Can one company own a monopoly on such genes without violating the rights of others?  They are multi-billion dollar questions, the judicially-sanctioned answers to which will have enormous ramifications for the worlds of medicine, science, law, business, politics and religion. Even the name of the case at the U.S. Circuit Court for the Federal Circuit — Association of Molecular Pathology, et al. v United States Patent and Trademark Office, et al — oozes significance. The appeals court judges have been asked to determine whether seven existing patents covering two genes — BRCA1 and BRCA2 (a/k/a “Breast Cancer Susceptibility Genes 1 and 2″) — are valid under federal law or, instead, fall under statutory exceptions that preclude from patentability what the law identifies as ”products of nature.” In other words, no one can patent a human being. Not yet anyway. But there are plenty of other fascinating items or products, which you might otherwise consider “natural,” that may be lawfully patented. Like Harvard’s famously patented mouse, for example. The Patent and Trademark Office thought that BRCA1 and BRCA2 fit into this category. And the company which sought and now possesses the patents, Myriad Genetics, heavily markets the results today as one of their “molecular diagnostic products.” From the company’s website, here is the pitch: BRAC Analysis ® assesses a woman’s risk of developing breast or ovarian cancer based on detection of mutations in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes. This test has become the standard of care in identification of individuals with hereditary breast and ovarian cancer and is reimbursed by insurance. But a trial judge last March may have changed the plan. In a ruling with ramifications as large as the publicity it generated, U.S. District Judge Robert W. Sweet, a judge sitting with senior status in the Southern District of New York, declared that the two genes were unpatentable and that the USPTO had violated the constitutional rights of others in accepting Myriad’s patents on them. Without valid patents, Myriad no longer would have “exclusive” rights to research the genes it had researched and developed. The field of BRCA1/2 research suddenly would be quite crowded, indeed. Which brings us to Monday morning, when the Federal Circuit once again has to figure out what the nature of nature is as it relates to  federal patent law . It’s dense, technical stuff that belies the fundamental nature of the inquiry — and the fact that there are  millions of people here, there and everywhere who are following this story because it may have a direct impact upon their lives. That story, the legal aspect of it anyway, began in May 2009 when a group of doctors, patients, gene researchers, the American Civil Liberties Union and others challenged  the Myriad patents. In their complaint , the group plainly stated their cause: Ease of access to genomic discoveries is crucial if basic research is to be expeditiously translated into clinical tests that benefit patients in the emerging era of personalized and predictive medicine. The patents make ease of access more restricted. Because of the patents, defendant Myriad has the right to prevent clinicians from independently looking at or interpreting a person’s BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes to determine if the person is at a higher risk of breast and/or ovarian cancer. Because of the patents and because Myriad chooses not to license the patents broadly, woman who fear they may be at an increased risk of breast and/or ovarian cancer are barred from having anyone look at their BRCA1 and BRCA 2 genes or interpret them except for the patent holder. Myriad and its co-defendants in this civil action quickly moved to dismiss the complaint. It’s lawyers were also clear. They wrote: [The] patent system has worked exactly as it was designed to do. Myriad Genetics and the other Defendants have spent considerable time, effort, and money, in competition with other researchers, to discover the BRCA 1 and BRCA 2 genes, synthesize DNA corresponding to the genes in test tubes, and identify specific gene mutations that are correlated with breast and ovarian cancer…. The plaintiffs accept these facts, but they object to the Defendants’ exclusive rights covering the diagnostic tests. Of course, such limited terms of exclusivity is exactly how the patent system rewards the Defendants’ landmark discoveries, and encourages the life-saving research that the Defendants have performed. Without such efforts incentivized by exclusivity, there would be a much smaller number of women, if any, tested for mutations in the BRCA 1 and BRCA 2 genes. Indeed, but for the prospect of the patent exclusivity, Myriad Genetics would not have been established and funded by investors. The federal government also responded to the gene patenting lawsuit. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, which had issued the patents to Myriad in the first place (and thousands more in this field), sought to defend its decision. The USPTO had both the statutory and constitutional authority to issue the patents, federal lawyers argued, and there were good reasons for the severe statutory restrictions on the ability of third-parties to challenge those patents. Science likes certainty — but capital and the law like it even more. The USPTO essentially told the judge that Myriad had truly “invented” something beyond a “product of nature” worth protecting through patent. The first ruling in the case came on November 1, 2009. Judge Sweet (who once upon a time was deputy mayor of New York) rejected the motions to dismiss. He said that the plaintiffs did have a right to challenge the constitutionality of the USPTO’s polices and practices as well as to evaluate the legitimacy of Myriad’s specific patents. In a footnote, tellingly, he wrote: “Although the USPTO suggests that finding … jurisdiction over Plaintiffs’ constitutional claims would open the gates to a flood of challenges to patents based on alleged constitutional violations, it is difficult to see how a colorable claim … could arise out of patents for more commonly patented inventions, such as computer chips or carburetors.” Having rejected the defendants’ move to toss the case out on procedural grounds, Judge Sweet then moved on to the merits of the plaintiffs’ claims. His next  ruling , in late March 2010, invalidated the patents and sent the biomedical and venture capital worlds into a tizzy. It is a long opinion, full of facts about molecular biology that even the judge acknowledged were often difficult to follow. But Judge Sweet was clear about the results: The USPTO had been too lax in issuing patents like these and Myriad’s patents were legally invalid. The judge wrote: The claims … directed to “isolated DNA” containing human BRCA1/2 gene sequences reflect the USPTO’s practice of granting patents on DNA sequences so long as those sequences are claimed in the form of “isolated DNA.” This practice is premised on the view that DNA should be treated no differently from any other chemical compound, and that its purification from the body, using well-known techniques, renders it patentable by transforming it into something distinctly different in character. Many, however, including scientists in the field of molecular biology and genomics, have considered this practice a “lawyer’s trick” that circumvents the prohibitions on the direct patenting of the DNA in our bodies but which, in practice, reaches the same result…. It is concluded that DNA’s existence in an “isolated” form alters neither this fundamental quality of DNA as it exists in the body nor the information it encodes. Gary Cohen (no relation), who is Vice President of Bioethics, Law & Policy at Foundation Medicine , takes no official position on the case. But he recognized in Judge Sweet’s ruling a shifting of paradigms in this area of law and science. Cohen told me: We’ve been accustomed to thinking of DNA as a molecule, a chemical entity (which, of course, it is). But in this more sophisticated era, we understand that DNA is not “just” a molecule; its an information-carrying molecule. Genes are better thought of as packets of information, not mere molecules, Judge Sweet reasoned. This reasoning is key to his decision — because the information encoded by a gene is the same, whether its sitting amongst its natural neighbor genes, or in isolated form. That’s why researchers want to isolate genes — because they are useful in all sorts of ways, but only because the isolated form contains the same genetic instructions as the naturally-occuring form. Using this information paradigm, the judge reasoned that “isolation” does not render a naturally-occurring gene something novel, something patentable. This part of the ruling is what makes it so interesting — its very much consistent with “information age” thinking — bits, bytes, genetic base pairs, genes: all information carriers. There have been dozens of amici briefs filed for one side or the other, all arguing over the policy choices inherent at the intersection of patent law, medicine and science. Should we be tinkering with the free market by allowing patents for such things? Is this how the government wants to exercise its prerogative to offer 20-year monopolies? Good questions. For now, all Uncle Sam will say is that it does not want to endorse either side in the argument. However, in a  court filing in advance of Monday’s argument, Justice Department officials undercut the USPTO’s initial determination, perhaps fatally. The feds now argue: The district court correctly held, however, that genomic DNA that has merely been isolated from the human body, without further alteration or manipulation, is not patent-eligible…. The chemical structure of native human genes is a product of nature, and it is no less a product of nature when that structure is “isolated” from its natural environment than are cotton fibers that have been separated from cotton seeds or coal that has been extracted from the earth. So many people in so many different industries and for so many different reasons are waiting for a ruling in this case from the Federal Circuit – and then perhaps from the United States Supreme Court. In a case over molecular biology, from small things, truly , big things one day come. Monday is the next big day in this case. It surely will not be the last.

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Nature vs. Nurture: The Continuing Saga of the Gene Patenting Case

Detectives investigating the murder of Sian O’Callaghan are searching for the body of another person who went missing “several years ago”.

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‘Second victim’ missing for years

Exercising or having sex roughly triples a person’s risk of heart attack in the hours immediately afterward, especially if the person does those activities infrequently, according to a new analysis in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

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Heart risk spikes after sex, exercise

Wideman hadn’t passed through the stately, arched entryway and brick facade of his old home gym since 1979, and he took me on a tour around the rectangular interior of the 1920s building, its walls decorated with photographs of former Penn greats. Eventually, we came across a black-and-white blow-up photograph of a player wearing number 10, shooting a free throw. It was John, so I stepped back and studied the 69-year-old man as he crouched down to contemplate his 21-year-old image. Did he remember the moment or the game? Not at all. “I see him, but it’s like another person altogether,” he said. . . .

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JOHN R. MACARTHUR—Revisiting a Hallowed Gymnasium with its Star Novelist

A guide to news and information resources from across the Internet that will help you stay on top of this developing story. A massive 8.9 earthquake struck about 80 miles off the coast of Japan, wreaking havoc on one of the world’s most disaster-prepared countries and generating a devastating tsunami. As in recent natural disasters, traditional news organizations, one-off sites, and Internet crisis agencies have swung into action. This is your guide for where to find information and resources about the 10th-largest quake since 1900. News Resources AP summary BBC liveblog Wikipedia page for the Sendai quake Japanese New York Times’ commenters write about the quake NPR Facebook page about the disaster CNN Video @earthquake_japan [updates in Japanese] The Atlantic’s In Focus photo blog The Atlantic Wire liveblog Mostly English Twitter hashtags: #japanquake , #jpquake , #earthquake , #Japan , #tsunami , #hitsunami Mostly Japanese Twitter hashtags: #saigai , #eqjp Columbia journalism professor Sree Sreenivasan’s link aggregation General Resources CrisisWiki.org U.S. Geological Survey quake updates Humanitarian Early Warning Service Resources for People in Japan Google Person Finder : a pop-up message board to post and find information about people missing. Almost 7000 records have been entered into the database. Global Voices’ bloggers on the ground in Japan Japanese Fire and Disaster Management Agency Resources for the Pacific Pacific Tsunami Warning Center Tsunami travel time map @HawaiiNewsNow HITsunami.com Live cam at Ocean Beach in San Francisco by Mat Honan Inundation map for the Bay Area [PDF]

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How to Follow the Japanese Earthquake on the Web

Google has launched a version of its Person Finder service for people caught up in the Japanese earthquake.

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Google aids Japan quake victims

Today, the court hears Abdullah al-Kidd’s case against John Ashcroft over the Bush administration’s detention practices Abdullah al-Kidd wasn’t what I expected when I met him on February 14 in a conference room at a legal firm in downtown Los Angeles. Al-Kidd’s name may not be readily familiar, but his civil rights lawsuit against former Attorney General John Ashcroft has become one of the most politically charged cases of the post-September 11 era to reach the U.S. Supreme Court, which agreed in October to hear the case. The 39-year old Al-Kidd was born Lavoni Kidd but changed his name after converting to Islam while a student — and star football running back — at the University of Idaho. He met with me after flying in from Saudi Arabia, where he currently lives and teaches English, to finally tell his side of the story — and the timing was propitious. Today, March 2, the Supreme Court hears arguments in this closely watched national security case, the ruling on which could determine, for the first time, whether a senior official of the Bush Administration can be held personally liable for U.S. detention practices adopted in the wake of September 11. In the spring of 2002, al-Kidd found himself under FBI surveillance. Agents came to his home three times, questioning him about his “activities” and about a former co-worker, Sami Omar al-Hussayen, who was later indicted for visa fraud and tried in 2004 for, among other charges, conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists. Before long, the FBI stopped coming around and al-Kidd thought the matter was closed. Meanwhile, FBI agents prepared an affidavit for his arrest as a material witness in al-Hussayen’s case. The agents cinched an arrest warrant by telling a judge that al-Kidd had purchased a one-way, first class ticket to Saudi Arabia. In fact, he had purchased a round-trip, coach class seat to the country, where he planned to continue his religious studies. At Dulles International Airport on March 16, 2003, as al-Kidd checked in for his flight, FBI agents arrested and again interrogated him. He was transferred on Con Air flights with convicted murderers and rapists, at gunpoint and in shackles and handcuffs, to prison facilities in three different states. Strip-searches were routine; guards at one prison left him sitting naked without privacy for hours. Once released, he was ordered to live with his in-laws in Nevada and regularly to report to a probation officer, in addition to which he consented to unannounced home visits throughout the year he was under federal supervision. Having surrendered his passport, al-Kidd could not leave the country and travel within the U.S. was limited to four states. In July 2004, he lost his job with a Las Vegas defense contractor once they learned of his arrest, al-Kidd claims. In the end, he was never called to testify at al-Hussayen’s trial, which ended without a single conviction. Al-Kidd’s attorneys argue that the material witness law adopted by the Justice Department and FBI after September 11 “was used in a sweeping and abusive manner.” Like other Muslim men during that time, al-Kidd was put under surveillance, questioned repeatedly by the FBI and, without any evidence of criminal activity, arrested and detained for days in harsh conditions. The ordeal, al-Kidd told me, “crushed me and nearly ruined my life.” Ashcroft’s position is that the case should be dismissed. In legal briefs he claims to have adhered to the Constitution in applying the material witness law, and that, as a government official, he is protected from prosecution by immunity. Knowing al-Kidd’s story well, meeting him I expected to see traces of anger or bitterness, or at least find a man who had become politicized. Instead, he was calm and polite, at times even humble. For his U.S. visit, he abandoned his long, flowing robe, and dressed conservatively in black pants and a green shirt and tie, his bald head and bushy beard a tribute to his religious beliefs. “I’ve never been a big political person,” he told me. “I never tried to fit into any political box.” Here is my interview with him. Q: If [FBI Director] Robert Mueller and John Ashcroft were sitting here, what would you say to them? A: I’d like to tell them my side of the story. That’s all. My main goal of this case is vindication, of my name, and I want the government to apologize and acknowledge their mistakes and right the wrongs so this won’t happen to other people. Q: What is your opinion of the Bush and Obama administrations? A: Interjected by al-Kidd’s ACLU attorney, Lee Gelernt, who was present. He’s not going to get into any of that right now. He’s here to talk about what happened to him. Q: Why did you convert to Islam? A: Religion has always mattered in my life, always, but I was missing structure and kind of concerned about being a young man without any direction. I had changed my major in college three times–from psychology to anthropology and then PR, but really wasn’t sure what I wanted to do. I was on my own for the first time away from my parents, and in a period of soul searching, I studied the teachings of Islam and certain things really appealed to me. I liked that my day would be structured around prayer and that I could have a direct connection to God without necessarily having an intermediary. Q: What was your experience of being a Muslim in America? A: Prior to 9-11, there was no stigma attached to being a Muslim and I felt comfortable living here. When I watched the terrorist attacks on television, I knew immediately that life would be very different for Muslims and for people in general, and almost right away, people began staring at me, I suppose because I had a beard. I felt a lot of pressure interacting with people because I could see the question mark in their eyes and tone of voice: who is this guy? I went out of my way to make people feel comfortable so I would be accepted. Q: How would you describe your experiences with the FBI? A: I met with FBI agents three times in 2002. The first time they interviewed me at my mother’s house in Seattle where I was staying. They were direct but polite, and the majority of their questions centered on me; who do you know, have you been to this or that mosque, why did you travel to Saudi Arabia? They asked only a few questions about the al-Hussayen case. Then I figured the interviews were done because I heard nothing from them for six months. Q: What did you think when FBI agents arrested you at Dulles International Airport? A: I was totally surprised and humiliated. I was at the ticket counter, dressed in a long [religious] robe, and they handcuffed me and paraded me back through airport. I was really embarrassed because I could imagine what the people who saw me were thinking: ‘Oh, there goes another one of those terrorist guys they just arrested on the plane.’ At the time, the agents weren’t clear why I was being arrested, but they told me if I talked to them I could probably continue my trip, so that’s why I talked to them. But I had a lot of emotions, frustration and fear, not knowing what the future held for me. Q: Once it was explained to you that you’d been arrested as a material witness to secure your testimony at al-Hussayen’s trial, what was your treatment like? A: I can’t imagine that a person who’s just a witness would be treated like I was. Through the whole ordeal, they treated me like a convicted criminal and I was singled out, because of what guards and others called ‘my situation.’ It made me feel like I was being singled out as a terrorist. At the end of my detention in Alexandria [Virginia], U.S. Marshals drove me three hours to a tarmac with planes, cars and hundreds and hundreds of prisoners. It was such a surreal event because I saw all these convicted criminals, some obviously extremely dangerous because guards surrounded them at gunpoint. They took off my chains and applied others as they escorted me, at gunpoint, onto a plane full of convicts headed for the Federal Transfer Center in Oklahoma City. There I was, with all these convicts, and I didn’t belong. I heard bits and pieces of conversations, like this person got 20 years for rape, this person’s doing life for murder. When convicts asked to use the restroom, marshals escorted them, but when I asked to go, the marshal told me he couldn’t unlock my restraints because of ‘my situation.’ Q: Did you ever speak up about your treatment? After all, as you said, you were just a witness. A: A few times I did, like in Oklahoma, when I was singled out and left sitting naked in a stall, with no curtain, for three or four hours. I asked the guard when I would get my prison clothes, but he had no answer. When I was transferred to Boise, and met with FBI agents again, I was really scared because it seemed like their focus was on me now. They were trying to push me in a direction and get me to change my story. At one point, the federal prosecutor pulled his chair close to me and threw down a stack of papers on the table. Mr. al-Kidd, he said, I know everything you said in these documents isn’t true. And I said: If what’s in there isn’t true, it’s not because I told a lie, it’s because you guys made mistakes. Q: How has this experience changed you? A: It’s changed me tremendously because I had to pick myself up from a very low point. This crushed me. It was like a big snowball that kept getting bigger and bigger. This case is not as simple as my being labeled a material witness. I’ve had relationships and friendships end because of this case and I call what happened to me a social assassination. I had a very painful situation with a really good friend of mine who I played football with and looked up to like a mentor. He stuck by me the whole time and told me: ‘I don’t know any person on earth besides you who could have survived this.’ Then people warned him to leave me alone, ‘or they [federal agents] will start watching you, too.’ So he did pull away and that really hurt me. After I was released, I was ordered to live with my in-laws, in Nevada, and once a month someone came to their home to make sure I was living there. I had no passport and had to check in with pretrial probation officer once a month. I felt so much pressure. I had a newborn child and was trying to provide for my family, but I couldn’t find work and the marriage started going down the drain. [The couple eventually separated.] Q: What are your plans now? On March 2, will you be in Washington, to sit in on the Supreme Court arguments in your case? A: No, I won’t be staying that long. I’ll be on my way back to Saudi Arabia then. I have a good job there, teaching English at a university, and I don’t want to be away for long. While I don’t feel like Saudi Arabia is my home now, my financial situation there is good, but one day I definitely want to live in the U.S. again. Photo: Abdullah al-Kidd with his ACLU attorney, Lee Gelernt

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Al-Kidd, Plaintiff in Supreme Court Case Against Ashcroft, Speaks Out

That didn’t take long. Tunisian Interim Prime Minister Mohammed Ghannouchi has announced his resignation following protests that killed three in Tunis. “I am not ready to be the person who takes decisions that would end up causing casualties,” said…

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Tunisian PM Resigns

Everyone has their eyes on Twitter. According to the Wall Street Journal ‘s Spencer Ante, the short-form messaging service “has become a very attractive takeover target, with some estimating 2011 revenues at $100 million and a potential takeover value of nearly $10 billion.” Who wants to buy? A number of companies have had talks with Twitter representatives, according to Thursday’s story, but Google and Facebook are the clear favorites. Both Google and Facebook have discussed buying Twitter in the past and have kept their lines of communication open, people familiar with the matter said. One of these people said companies including Facebook and Google have expressed “latent interest” in an acquisition. On Wednesday, venture-capital firm Andreessen Horowitz said it had bought more than $80 million of Twitter shares through exchanges for private-company stock. A spokeswoman for Andreessen Horowitz declined to say what percentage of Twitter those shares represent. Twitter’s revenues and valuation have risen even as the company continues to work on ways to translate its more than 200 million registered users into a profitable business. Twitter, which was created in 2006, introduced advertising into its service last year. One of the new Twitter ad services, called Promoted Trends, has been selling out its inventory every day, said one person familiar with the matter. The other two ad products, Promoted Tweets and Promoted Accounts, are also doing brisk business, this person said. Despite the high valuations, Twitter’s executives and board are continuing to work on building a large, independent company. People familiar with the situation said the company believes it can grow into a $100 billion company. To do that, Twitter has been hiring engineers and increasing its work force to more than 350, up from 100 in January 2010. Twitter has also been building an executive team, appointing Mr. Costolo, a former Google executive, as CEO last year. Read the full story at the Wall Street Journal .

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Google and Facebook Discuss Buying Twitter at $10 Billion Valuation

This blows away Time ‘s cover when “You” were named Person of the Year. That flimsy piece of reflective paper meant to function as a mirror was a gimmick that helped to move copies of the magazine off the newsstand. The cover of the latest issue of Wired UK is much more personalized. It’s so personalized, in fact, that it may be scaring some subscribers, who have been told everything from where they live to when they last had a rendezvous with an ex. Titled ‘Your Life Torn Open’, I was asked if everything was well at Channel 4 News. Told at my next birthday I will be 29. So far fine, as I know that’s on my public Facebook profile. But Wired also knew I just moved house (with the exact address of my last property). It printed that my parents had just moved too (with both addresses). Using Companies House data it published how many shares I own in Pink Unlimited, the parent company of PinkNews.co.uk . But then Wired knew I had a meeting with my ex-boyfriend Adam on the 6th January! As I showed the magazine to a colleague, I racked my brain to what happened on the 6th January that could have allowed Wired to know that. Had we both attended an event that was organised on Facebook? Then I remembered, I had mentioned on Twitter that I was meeting my ex. I also tweeted that it went ok. At the time I thought nothing of it because Adam isn’t on Twitter, so in a sense it was a ‘private’ message to the six thousand or so people who follow me. What’s shocking though is seeing all of this printed in black and white (or yellow in this case). Everything was available from Facebook, Twitter, Company House and the Land Registry but it shows the information is so readily available. It also shows how powerful these resources can be for private detectives or government agents. Read the full story at Channel 4 News .

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Wired UK Freaks Out Subscribers With Highly Personalized Covers

So, you want to learn how to be an Internet detective, huh, kid? You could do worse than starting with Charles Arthur’s attempt to ascertain the identity of the person who hacked Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook page. His step-by-step account of his investigation is a model for this kind of thing. It might not be as fun as staking out a house in a beat up Lincoln, but this is sleuthing for our times. In other words: this might be someone in the military. Most likely those edits don’t come from one person – they come from all sorts of people in the Williamsburg location. Or, just as possible, it was someone who had hacked into the computers there from outside (not as difficult as you’d hope it would be) and is using them as a proxy to make the Wikipedia edit, and, quite possibly, hack Zuckerberg’s page. (We’ve asked Facebook whether Zuckerberg’s page was accessed from that IP, but haven’t had an answer yet.) Read the full story at Guardian (UK) .

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Hot on the Trail of Zuckerberg’s Fan Page Hacker

What happens after you die? It’s a seemingly innocuous question that’s been asked by curious five-year-olds and questioning believers for centuries. But that relatively new invention we know as the Internet has really messed things up. We all know someone — or know someone who knows someone — who has died after creating a Facebook page and building an online identity. That page, inaccessible without the users login and password, often turns into a memorial where friends and family grieve together. This was rare enough — until Facebook and other social networks exploded in recent years. Rob Walker , a contributor to The Atlantic and the New York Times Magazine ‘s Consumed columnist, recently wrote a story concerning digital estates left behind by the recently deceased. We’ve discussed Walker’s piece in a few posts on this site, but also wanted to share an excerpt from Your Digital Afterlife , a new book that Walker’s mentioned in his story. There, he called it a “tips-and-planning book” from Evan Carroll and John Romano, interaction-design experts who run TheDigitalBeyond.com. More on Rob Walker’s “Cyberspace When You’re Dead:” 375,000 Facebook Users May Die This Year. What Do We Do With Their Stuff? Facebook and Death: A Love Story Finding Time: A Response to Rob Walker on the Digital Afterlife Read more Atlantic Technology Channel  Book Excerpts . Creating and leaving behind things for future generations can be a way to preserve a person’s identity. The desire for immortality, or at least remembrance, is a persistent human trait. To see a master of immortality at work, look no further than Pharaoh Khufu or Emperor Qin Shi Huang. Over 4,500 years ago, Khufu built the Great Pyramid of Giza in order to leave behind the most spectacular tomb in history. And 2,300 years later, the first emperor of China’s Qin Dynasty, Qin Shi Huang, took his shot at immortality when he commissioned the largest tomb ever built and a terracotta army — an array of over 8,000 unique clay soldiers and chariots that he would be able to command after his death. These were huge endeavors to show the world how important they were and to ensure that the world would never forget them. Their plans seem to be working marvelously. Of course when we see these marvels we have to understand that these great men built them on the backs of their workers. Khufu spent hundreds of millions of manhours constructing his monument. Qin Shi Huang employed hundreds of thousands of men. These anonymous workers died with little or no fanfare and are forgotten as individuals. Now, most people don’t get to build a 450-foot-high monument, mostly because they don’t have hundreds of thousands of minions at their command. For the rest of us, a modest headstone or nameplate is the extent of our monument. But, make no mistake. These are identity objects just the same, meant to provide a meaningful, long-lasting memorial to one’s life. Wilber Hewett, Evan’s grandfather, has a headstone that provides rudimentary information: his name, the dates of his birth and death, his spouse’s and children’s names, and his army service. He is buried in a sealed vault, in a sealed casket that contains a sealed tube with similar information in case the casket has to be moved. While incredibly meaningful to the people who knew Wilber, his grave is one of many in the cemetery. Grave markers tend to look alike, and visitors get only the most basic information about the person buried there. But monuments are just one of many ways that we use to preserve our identities. If we want to be remembered as more than a stone in the field, we should consider taking a page out of Qin Shi Huang’s playbook and take an active role in shaping our legacies before we die. This broader approach enables us to leave behind a more personal legacy. The general process most people use is to accentuate aspects of our personal history that we think are admirable and commendable, and downplay or ignore what we don’t want remembered. We then collect and create meaningful objects that we pass on along as a way to reinforce that legacy. There are many ways to do this: Transfer your treasured possessions, along with their stories and meaning, to your heirs. Write your memoirs to tell your story the way you want it remembered. Granted, a memoir can totally whitewash undesirable aspects of your life. Create an ethical will to preserve your identity. The idea of this document, although not legally binding, is to communicate to your heirs your ethical and spiritual values, life lessons, and family history. But even with these efforts, in the past it has been true that the deceased’s identity inevitably became scattered. Without you there, your identity will slowly dissolve. Each asset becomes part of each heir’s identity. In this way, your content makes it to the next generation and if it has meaning and value to the recipient, it stands a chance of being passed along into the future. As you can imagine, identity preservation has a digital equivalent as well. Here we use digital objects in the same way we use physical objects. We attach stories and meaning to objects and pass them on. We can write memoirs and ethical wills as digital documents and pass them on. We can also add new types of content such as archives of our social accounts and conversations. But in the new medium of digital communication, there is a greater opportunity to preserve identity — something that has heretofore been available only to kings, pharaohs, and emperors. THE BIRTH OF THE DIGITAL LEGACY Your data is going to outlive you. The question is in what form and for how long. In its simplest form, a digital legacy is a summation of the digital assets you leave behind for others. As the shift to digital continues, the digital assets left behind will become a greater part of your overall legacy. These assets, to one degree or another, can be distributed in much the same way that physical assets are, meaning each one can be bequeathed to one or many heirs. Assigning digital assets in this way is an important step because, as we have seen, most people aren’t even doing this now. But if that’s all we do, we’ve only dealt with our digital assets in the same way that we’ve dealt with our physical ones. At that point all we have is a digital equivalent of the physical world. If your digital assets, like your physical assets, are simply passed on, they get incorporated into an heir’s identity. This process still relies on another person to value them, take care of them, and pass them on in turn. But let’s be honest about the effectiveness of this method: People may manage to get their digital assets passed to their children or loved ones, but this is no guarantee that those assets will live any farther into the future. The things you value may simply not be valuable to your heirs. This brings us to a more arresting idea: Your digital identity could have a different fate. Maybe the identity you create over your lifetime can maintain cohesion after your death. Maybe the connection between the creator and creations (complete with the original meaning) can be preserved, maintaining the gestalt. In other words, your digital identity may have the opportunity to become a lasting, maybe even immortal, digital legacy — an expression and reflection of you that will survive far into the future. This possibility represents an opportunity that has never before existed for ordinary people. Imagine a way that your intentions, accomplishments, values, and actions could be preserved for all time. You may not be as famous as Khufu or Qin Shi Huang, but your legacy could be just as accessible. But How Could This Work? There are many possible solutions, but the basic idea is to replace the live person curating an online identity with some kind of permanent digital record. This record would allow all the disparate assets on the Internet to point back to a source that would maintain your identity after your death. There could even be connections back to real world memorials. We’ve already seen digital headstones for sale that have a chip that allows users to access information about the deceased on the Web. The result would be a richer physical and digital experience of the deceased. IMMORTAL ISSUES It’s true that we don’t yet have a framework to maintain a cohesive posthumous identity. There are many other aspects to consider before we can truly suggest a permanent digital legacy. Identification The fact is we still don’t have a unified way to manage and verify people on the Internet. But as the Internet evolves, solidifying an identity is becoming important. In 2007, the OpenID Foundation launched an effort to solidify identity on the Web. Then, in June 2010, the U.S. government drafted the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (NSTIC) to “develop a comprehensive Identity Ecosystem Framework.” One problem with most of the identity work so far is that it fails to consider the effects of death on identity. But this is something that many people (including the authors of this book) are looking to rectify. Active of Passive Collection There are two views of what a digital legacy is made of. The first is an active, managed legacy that contains only what the person wants as a part of it. It’s human nature to want to forget the bad and mundane things and concentrate on the good and noteworthy. It’s true that this kind of whitewashing may be disingenuous to one degree or another, but no more so than a photo album that only shows the good times. This kind of legacy might be appropriate for relatives and friends who want to reminisce or for a child to get to know a grandparent who died before his or her birth. The other is a passive view of legacy, which would include everything you do online — every comment, email, tweet, video, and post. Everything added up equals your legacy. Whie this may be more accurate, it doesn’t take into account importance or focus. Every piece of data is equal to the next. While the possibilities of a massive data store are intriguing, this could be overwhelming to a person in a raw form since it is a lot more data than you might think. Thankfully computers don’t mind data quantity, and parsing the data could provide unique insights into a person’s life. Data Myning But the reality is that all these assets are far more disconnected than you may think. There is currently no definite way to pull them all together. Think for a moment about how many people share your name. We have a friend names Paul Smith. Do you have any idea how many Paul Smiths there are? Well, a lot. Disambiguation is harder than you think. The Sociable Media Group at MIT’s Media Lab recently created a project called Personas to demonstrate just that. They ask individuals to put their name into an interactive exhibit and it returns with a view of how the Internet sees you. If you ask it to process Paul Smith, you’ll find a rather generic profile, as it chronicles all of the Paul Smiths in the world, not just our dear friend. A new trend is “data myning,” a term coined by TrendWatching.com, in which a person points to assets on the Web and says “this is mine, and this is not mine.” The OpenID provider called ClaimID allows you to do just this. Perhaps it will help Paul Smith disambiguate himself from the fashion designer; the hotelier and namesake and Paul Smith’s College; and countless others. THE BURDEN OF DATA AND EMOTIONAL ECONOMICS One thing to consider as you begin to think about your digital legacy is the fact that your digital content may be a burden to your heirs. You may have an overwhelming amount of data by the end of your life. You may have assets that are too messy and unorganized. You may have a lot of data that your heirs just don’t really care about. It’s sad but often true. Consider a situation in which a photo collection is handed down from a parent to a child. The parent may want the child to have some photos to remember him or her by. The child may want photos from this parent’s collection to remember his parent by. But it does no one any good to lob 10,000 photos at the child. The reality is that a behemoth collection will not be valuable to him or her. The photos might be kept out of a sense of guilt. But with all those photos, the chances of the child actually connecting with an individual photo is lessened because he or she would have to wade through 10,000 to get at the one. This is a concept that we like to call emotional economics. The laws of supply and demand apply to emotional value just as they apply to markets. When supply is high, demand is low. If John has 10,000 photos of his beloved grandfather, chances are that none of them will be highly valued. There are just too many. It’s the same feeling you get when your neighbors show you 300 photos from their vacation. By the end you just don’t care anymore. Do your heirs a favor and think ahead during your life and tend to your data. Curate and weed your collections. Consider tagging your favorites, deleting the duplicates, editing them, and tagging them. Got fifty of your birthday? Narrow it down to five or fewer. You could certainly keep all of your photos, but be sure that your favorite are kept separately. Not only will this make inheriting those photos better, but it will make your life better as well, because chances are you will connect with those remaining photos in a much deeper way when there are fewer of them. We hope this gives you an understanding of the possibilities that await us in the future. But before we marvel at our technological beauty and start planning our immortal legacy, we need to understand a sobering fact: All the digital content you have on the Internet is at risk, and if you don’t do something about it, your content may be lost, left behind, or simply deleted. Excerpted from Evan Carroll’s and John Romano’s  Your Digital Afterlife: When Facebook, Flickr and Twitter Are Your Estate, What’s Your Legacy? .

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Book Excerpt: Your Digital Afterlife