March 20, 2005
San Francisco Chronicle
"The Secret World of Security"
By Paul Willner
"The cyber-revolution was partly inspired by iconic hackers like Captain Crunch and groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which are hardcore proponents of civil liberties . . . "
March 19, 2005
New York Law Journal
"Justices to Weigh Key Copyright Case"
By Marcia Coyle
. . . The 9th Circuit interpreted Sony correctly, countered Cindy A. Cohn of the Electronic Freedom Foundation, counsel of record to Grokster and StreamCast in the high court.
"As I look at history, [the entertainment industry] has always wanted to control distribution of their work," she said. "They've sued every new technology that's come along. They sued Sony over the VCR. They want a paradigm shift where copyright law suddenly means all those technologists have to come to Hollywood first and get some kind of dispensation before they create new products. That would be a bad result for consumers, for sure, and for the economy as well." . . .
March 14, 2005
BBC News
"Apple Makes Blogs Reveal Sources"
. . . The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is acting as legal counsel for Power Page and Apple Insider, said the ruling had potentially wide implications.
"Anyone who reports on companies or the trade press should be concerned about this ruling," said EFF lawyer Kurt Opsahl.
Mr Opsahl said the EFF was planning to appeal against the ruling because the bloggers were journalists and US federal laws stop net firms handing over copies of e-mail messages if the owner of that account does not give their consent . . .
New Orleans City Business
"Usenet file sharing thrives despite AOL dropping access to it"
Richard Slawsky
. . . Usenet used to be as big as the Web is now although it seems like it has passed out of vogue, said Chris Palmer, technology manager for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco-based nonprofit working to defend privacy and other digital rights. People have moved on to e-mail and the Web took over much of the one-to- many publication aspects of Usenet . . .
March 12, 2005
San Francisco Chronicle
"Apple can pursue those who leaked info"
By Todd Wallack
. . . "There is a real concern that the court is endorsing an end-run around journalists' privilege, because it is saying it is OK to go after the ISP," said Cindy Cohn, legal director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is representing PowerPage.com Publisher Jason O'Grady. "We think it should send a chill across reporters of all stripes." . . .
Contra Costa Times
"Two Online Reporters Can't Protect Secret Sources"
By Dawn Chmielewsky
. . . Kurt Opsahl, an attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the San Francisco advocacy group representing PowerPage and Apple Insider, said he plans to appeal the ruling to the California Court of Appeal.
"We're disappointed that the trial court has created a wholesale exception to the journalist privilege when the published information is alleged to be a trade secret," said Opsahl. "This could have ramifications for journalist of all stripes. Anyone who is reporting on companies is threatened by this ruling." . . .
March 11, 2005
New York Times
"Apple Can Demand the Names of Bloggers, Judge Says"
By Laurie J. Flynn
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, the civil liberties organization that represented the Web sites, called the ruling a blow to "constitutional rights," and said it would appeal. The organization argued that authors of Web sites were protected by California's shield law, which protects journalists who refuse to divulge sources.
Kurt Opsahl, staff lawyer with the foundation, said the ruling could have serious consequences on the rights of all journalists, not only those who write for Web sites.
"I had hoped the court would see it was important to protect the
confidentiality of sources," he said. "It's very easy for a company to contend that any piece of information is a trade secret."The organization has seven days to file an appeal with the California Court of Appeals, after which Apple would have 10 days to respond, Mr. Opsahl said. If the appellate court rules for Apple, he said, Electronic Frontier will try to have the case heard by the California Supreme Court. "Given the constitutional nature of the case, I would hope the California Supreme Court would decide this is important," Mr. Opsahl said.
USA Today
"Boeing scandal highlights e-mail checks -- More companies monitor messages"
By Jon Swartz
Monitoring employee e-mail is becoming the norm in Corporate America, where inexpensive software protects companies from incoming spam and computer viruses -- and from outgoing e-mail containing sensitive or offensive material.
Not that most employees know. Employers are obligated to notify them in only two states -- Delaware and Connecticut. ''People should get used to the idea their e-mail at work is just for work,'' says Kevin Bankston, a lawyer at the non-profit Electronic Frontier Foundation.
March 9, 2005
Los Angeles Times
"Apple's Lawsuits to Guard Its Secrets Leave Mac Faithful With Bitter Taste"
By Terril Yue Jones
Last week, Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge James Kleinberg said he would consider arguments by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an advocacy group for online rights, that Apple should exhaust all other avenues before subpoenaing website owners.
The group's lawyers argued that the websites' sources and unpublished material are protected by both California's shield law and reporters' protection under the 1st Amendment.
"The idea of reporter's privilege is absolutely fundamental, and it's generally agreed that reporters' sources are protected unless absolutely essential," said Annalee Newitz, the foundation's policy analyst.
San Jose Mercury News
"UN: Patents Under Accord Hit New Record"
. . . Gurry dismissed claims by campaigners that WIPO is trying to exclude them from discussions on ways to use intellectual property rules to help spur development in poor countries. Some campaigners claim WIPO is blinkered and is only directed toward protecting rich nations and corporations.
In a statement Monday, the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation protested a decision to let only accredited groups attend two key meetings next month. EFF, a cyberspace freedom organization which has WIPO accreditation said it was speaking for excluded groups.
Previously, WIPO let campaigners without formal accreditation attend as "ad hoc observers," so they could skip the yearlong accreditation process . . .
March 7, 2005
Miami Herald
"Teen convicted under Internet piracy law"
By Beth DeFalco
. . . University of Arizona student Parvin Dhaliwal pleaded guilty to possession of counterfeit marks, or unauthorized copies of intellectual property. Under an agreement with prosecutors, Dhaliwal was sentenced last month to a three-month deferred jail sentence, three years of probation, 200 hours of community service and a $5,400 fine. The judge in the case also ordered him to take a copyright class at the University of Arizona, which he attends, and to avoid file-sharing computer programs.
"Generally copyright is exclusively a federal matter," said Jason Schultz, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a technology civil liberties group. "Up until this point, you just haven't seen states involved at all."
March 6, 2005
Business Week
By Jessi Hempel
. . . The civil rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation, which represents two of the three sites under fire, says being able to ensure sources' confidentiality is critical to any journalist's ability to acquire information -- and that includes Web diarists, aka bloggers. Says EFF attorney Kevin Bankston: "They're people who gather news, and they do so with the intent to disseminate that news to the public. The only distinction to be made between these people and professional journalists at The New York Times is that they're online only." . . .
San Jose Mercury News
"Blog-Related Firings Focus on Policy"
By Anick Jesdanun
In 1997, blogging pioneer Cameron Barrett lost a job at a small marketing firm in Michigan after co-workers stumbled upon "experimental" short stories from his creative writing class on his site. Now, he's much more cautious, and he suspended his blog while campaigning for Wesley Clark during the Democratic presidential primaries.
"I knew that everything I wrote would be scrutinized at (a) microscope level by the other campaigns and their supporters," Barrett wrote in an e-mail.Annalee Newitz, a policy analyst at the civil liberties group Electronic Frontier Foundation, said employees often "don't realize the First Amendment doesn't protect their job."
The First Amendment only restricts government control of speech. So private employers are free to fire at will in most states, as long as it's not discriminatory or in retaliation for whistle-blowing or union organizing, labor experts say.
Mar. 5, New York Times
"Apple Asks Judge to Order Web Sites to Name Sources"
By Laurie Flynn
A state judge in California heard arguments on Friday
in a lawsuit brought by Apple Computer to force three Web site publishers to reveal the names of confidential sources who disclosed to them Apple's plans for future products . . ."If this ruling goes in favor of Apple, it will have a chilling effect on the use of confidential sources," said Kurt Opsahl, a staff lawyer with the foundation, which is based in San Francisco. Once the judge rules, the defendants will have five days to decide whether to appeal. After that period, Apple can issue the subpoenas.
Mar. 4, San Francisco Chronicle
"Free Speech Case Opens"
By Benny Evangelista
A Santa Clara judge on Friday heard arguments about whether laws protecting journalists from disclosing unnamed sources can be applied to Web sites that reported on a secret Apple Computer Inc. product . . .
Kurt Opsahl, a foundation staff attorney, said Apple lawyers questioned
whether the Web reporters were real journalists. But Opsahl said "what makes a journalist a journalist is whether they intend to disseminate information to the public at the point they began gathering the news."
Mar. 4, C|Net.com
"Apple Delays Decision in Trade Secret Case"
By John Borland
SAN JOSE, Calif.--Lawyers for Apple Computer and a trio of Mac enthusiast Web sites met in court here Friday in a case that could have wide-ranging implications for the future--and even the definition--of online journalism.
Apple is seeking the right to subpoena the e-mail providers of three Mac-focused sites that published information documenting details of future Apple products. The company says that information was stolen, and is seeking legal action against employees who leaked the data. But it says it needs the Web sites' sources in order to identify the employees . . .
"Apple is saying that trade secrets are an exception to reporters' privileges," said EFF attorney Kurt Opsahl. "If trade secrets are an exception, then a business writer should be concerned every time he or she gets a tip in their e-mail box."
Mar. 4, MacWorld
"Apple, Online Pubs Square Off in Court"
By Peter Cohen
A judge in Santa Clara County Superior Court earlier this week issued a tentative ruling that favors Apple in a case concerning the disclosure of confidential information on Mac-oriented Web sites. A full hearing is scheduled for Friday, when the sites will be represented by lawyers from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) . . .
"We're disappointed that the tentative ruling was a denial," said Electronic Frontier Foundation attorney Kurt Opsahl. Opsahl added that the EFF plans to make its case before Judge Kleinberg today . . .
Mar. 2, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
"Millionaire Can't Travel Because He Refuses to Present ID"
By Dennis Roddy
John Gilmore's splendid isolation began July 4, 2002, when, with defiance aforethought, he strolled to the Southwest Airlines counter at Oakland Airport and presented his ticket.
The gate agent asked for his ID. Gilmore asked her why. It is the law, she said. Gilmore asked to see the law.
Nobody could produce a copy. To date, nobody has. The regulation that mandates ID at airports is "Sensitive Security Information." The law, as it turns out, is unavailable for inspection.
What started out as a weekend trip to Washington became a crawl through the courts in search of an answer to Gilmore's question: Why?
Mar. 2, IndustryStandard.com
"Tech groups, lawyers speak out in Grokster case"
By Grant Gross
A group of technology trade groups, consumer advocates and lawyers filed more than 20 briefs Tuesday in support of peer-to-peer (P-to-P) software vendors facing a US Supreme Court showdown with the movie industry later this month.
Groups filing briefs in support of Grokster and Morpheus distributor StreamCast Networks argued that the movie industry's attempts to use courts to shut down the two vendors would stop innovative new technologies from being introduced in the US. The Supreme Court will hear arguments in the MGM versus Grokster case on March 29.
The entertainment industry has attempted to stall several technologies, including the VCR, the copying machine and tape recorders, as they became available, but in the end found ways to make money from those technologies, said participants in a press conference organized by digital rights advocacy group Public Knowledge. The case could affect the "entire American technology sector," said Fred von Lohmann, senor staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital civil rights group.
"The question really boils down to, will America's technology companies be hiring more engineers, or will they be firing engineers and hiring lawyers instead?" von Lohmann said . . .
Mar. 2, San Jose Mercury News
"Intel Urges High Court to Protect File Sharing"
By Dawn Chemielewsky
Intel joined some of the nation's most influential computer scientists and intellectual property experts Tuesday to urge the U.S. Supreme Court to protect Internet file-sharing lest technological innovation be stifled . . .
Mar. 2, 2005, Slashdot.org
"MGM v. Grokster: Here's Why P2P is Valuable"
Briefs defending Grokster's right to exist were filed yesterday in MGM v. Grokster, from Intel, Creative Commons [PDF], and many others. Among them, 17 computer science professors laid out the case for P2P, beginning with principles: "First, the United States' description of the Internet's design is wrong. P2P networks are not new developments in network design, but rather the design on which the Internet itself is based." Pointedly, the EFF compares this case's arguments to those made over 20 years ago in the Betamax case, which established the public's right to use video-copying technology, because of its "substantial non-infringing uses," even though many used videotape to infringe copyright. We'll soon see whether that right will extend to peer-to-peer software: the Supreme Court takes this up on March 29th.
Mar. 2, 2005, San Francisco Bay Guardian
"Build Your TV!"
By Annalee Newitz
'ALL I WANT is to make a high-definition copy of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, save it on a DVD, and loan it to my friend," says Sarah Brydon, looking up from a long table covered with half-built computers. These sound like the words of a science fiction nerd, not a revolutionary. But Brydon is a new breed of protester ? and she's expressing her discontent with the U.S. government by building a television.
She's one of a dozen consumer activists who have gathered on a Saturday morning in late January for a high-definition television "Build-In" at the Mission District office of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (where I work). Part computer hardware nerdfest, part hell-raising political action, the Build-In is a high-tech protest of a new Federal Communications Commission regulation called the "Broadcast Flag" . . .
Mar. 2, TechCentral Malaysia
"Tech Industry and Others United Against Film, Music Industry"
WASHINGTON: A coalition of tech firms, consumer advocates and others rallied their forces last Tuesday ahead of a Supreme Court hearing over the legality of music-swapping services, seen as a key test of copyright infringement in the digital age.
The groups filed briefs urging the highest US court to steer clear of any effort to shut down so-called peer-to-peer (P2P) networks Grokster and StreamCast, the targets of the music industry and Hollywood . . .
Fred von Lohmann, attorney for the Internet free-speech Electronic Frontier Foundation, said the entertainment industry "has a long history of crying wolf," but noted that new technologies such as the videocassette recorder "has enriched the industry."
Mar. 2, C|net
"Will restricting file-sharing slow innovation?"
By John Borland and Stefanie Olsen
Backed by powerful technology groups and a handful of artists, file-swapping software companies on Tuesday asked the US Supreme Court to reject proposals from the entertainment industry that could put them out of business.
Record labels and Hollywood studios, seeking to overturn lower court rulings shielding file-swapping companies, have asked the court to rule that businesses distributing products "predominately" devoted to copyright infringement should be held legally responsible for that illegal activity . . .
"This is no different from Microsoft or any other software vendor which distributes software which is capable of lawful use, but is also capable of unlawful use," said Fred von Lohmann, an attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is representing StreamCast . . .
Mar. 1, Reuters
"Leading Scientists Back File-Sharing Firms"
By Alex Veiga
LOS ANGELES -- Some of the nation's leading computer scientists are siding with file-swapping companies against the music and movie industries.
They were joined by tech firms and consumer groups, among others, in urging the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday to side with two online file-sharing firms in their high-stakes battle with Hollywood and the recording industry.
