Press Mentions: April, 2005

04.22.2005, PC Pro
"US Law Firm Hunts Down Man for Email Trespassing"

A San Francisco legal firm is using the power of the law to chase down someone for sending in a solitary email - on the pretext that it is trespassing on their systems.

Law Firm Shearman & Sterling have subpoenaed a bulletin board for the identity of a member who posted a message, which was later sent as an email to the company and which it found offensive.

. . . EFF staff attorney Kurt Opsahl, said: 'The Constitution does not permit subpoenas for identity just because someone was upset ... While it is unfortunate that a Shearman employee received an offensive email message, Shearman cannot manufacture a cause of action out of thin air just so it can unmask an anonymous speaker.'

04.21.2005, Newsday
"Bill Would Impose Tough Penalties for File-Sharing"
By Richard J. Dalton Jr.

It won't win an Oscar, but it may be Hollywood's favorite title of the year: The Family Entertainment and Copyright Act.

The bill, passed on Tuesday by the House, proposes up to three years in prison for anyone who electronically distributes a movie that hasn't been released on video or DVD, or songs or software that haven't been released to the public.

. . . That means someone who has a movie on his computer that can be shared via a file-sharing software could face up to three years in prison, said Fred von Lohmann, staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco-based organization supporting civil rights online. "It seems to me that that's not likely to be the first priority, but it is theoretically possible," he said . . .

4.30.2005, Washington Post
"Security Concerns Prompt Passport Redesign"
By Sara Kehaulani Goo

The State Department plans to improve technology that will be embedded in new U.S. passports after tests this month revealed that information in the documents could be vulnerable to identity theft.

Frank E. Moss, the State Department's deputy assistant secretary for passport services, said the agency will include new high-tech security features that will minimize the risk of identity theft, even if the change delays plans to start issuing the passports to new applicants later this year.

. . . The State Department said it wants to use it because it will be a standard around the world. Moss said earlier this month that the technology will also help to process visitors more quickly at borders and airports.

But Lee Tien, senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil libertarian group that focuses on technology issues, questioned that rationale.

"If you have to have the passport physically scanned, then where's all the supposed convenience of being able to read the passport at a distance," he asked. The argument for having the technology "is sort of falling apart," he said.

04.20.2005, San Francisco Chronicle
"Hybrids could pay more gas tax"
By Edward Epstein

. . . When the project begins later this year or early next year, every time a volunteer motorist fills up, the odometer's information will be electronically downloaded and the fee automatically added to the gas purchase price at the pump, just like today's per-gallon gas taxes. The GPS equipment tells the state when a vehicle has left Oregon, so motorists won't be charged for those miles. Oregon figures it will charge the volunteers 1.25 cents per mile in taxes . . .

But privacy advocates are worried. "It's one more step to a surveillance society,'' said Kurt Opsahl, staff attorney for the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation. "The right to travel freely without telling anyone is fundamental to our notions of privacy.''

04.18, 2005, New York Times
"When the Blogger Blogs, Can the Employer Intervene?"
By Tom Zeller

As the practice of blogging has spread, employees like Mr. Kennedy are coming to the realization that corporations, which spend millions of dollars protecting their brands, are under no particular obligation to tolerate threats, real or perceived, from the activities of people who become identified with those brands, even if it is on their personal Web sites.

They are also learning that the law offers no special protections for blogging - certainly no more than for any other off-duty activity.

As Annalee Newitz, a policy analyst with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights advocacy group in Washington, put it, "What we found is there really is quite a bit of diversity in how employers are responding to blogging" . . .

Ms. Newitz and others have cautioned that employees must be careful not to confuse freedom of speech with a freedom from consequences that might follow from what they say. Indeed, the vast majority of states are considered "at will" states - meaning that employees can quit, and employers can fire them, at will - without evident reason (barring statutory exceptions like race or religion, where discrimination would have to be proved).

"There really are no laws that protect you," Ms. Newitz said.

04.18.2005, New York Times
"Please Don't Call it a G-Rated Dispute"
By PAMELA LICALZI O'CONNELL

The Motion Picture Association of America's ratings code - G, PG, PG-13, R and NC-17 - is so familiar that the initials are used in everyday conversation about subjects that have nothing to do with movies. But that doesn't mean that the association wants just anybody to use them.

Recently the association sent e-mail messages and letters to people who write online fan fiction, demanding that they stop tagging stories with the ratings. Fan fiction, which uses characters from popular TV shows, movies and novels in original stories, has used movie ratings for years as a way to help adults find stories with mature content and to steer children away from it. Too many children looking for Harry Potter stories were stumbling onto new and unexpected uses for wands . . .

Wendy Seltzer, a lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, argues that the association would have a point only if the fiction sites had claimed that association reviewers had rated the works. Using the ratings as a rough comparison is not a trademark infringement, she said: "It's like saying a beverage tastes like Coke."

04.14.2005, EWeek
"Apple Decision a Threat to Journalists, Claims EFF"
By Wayne Rash

A decision by a local California judge poses grave threats to First Amendment protections for journalists, said a group of major media organizations in response to the latest actions in Apple Computer Inc.'s suit involving some bloggers who let a few of Apple's product plans out of the bag. . . .

Last week, the judge's decision was appealed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is representing the bloggers, Jason O'Grady, Monish Bhatia, and Kasper Jade. Apple is not charging that the bloggers stole the trade secrets. Instead, the company has sued 25 unnamed individuals, apparently Apple employees, and wants the bloggers' records and e-mail to finger the guilty parties. According to the amicus curiae brief filed by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press last week, Apple has made little effort to find the people at the company who may have leaked the information itself . . . "If this had been Ziff Davis, Apple would never have tried this," said Kurt Opsahl, a staff attorney for the EFF who is handling the legal challenges for the bloggers. Opsahl said that the case has reached the point where the question is no longer whether the bloggers were journalists, because the judge had already said they were. He said that the case now goes beyond that question into dangerous constitutional waters . . .

04.10.2005, Washington Post
"Maverick Billionaire Blogging Back" By Howard Kurtz

When he wanted to disclose last month that he was funding the Electronic Frontier Foundation in a Supreme Court appeal of an entertainment industry lawsuit against online sharing of music and videos, [Mark Cuban] did it on his blog:

``This isn't the big content companies against the technology companies. This is the big content companies, against me. Mark Cuban and my little content company.''

04.08.2005, Newsday
"Filmmakers fear huge losses from a program that makes copying easy"
"Bill Would Impose Tough Penalties for File-Sharing"
By RICHARD J. DALTON JR.

Last week the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments against Grokster, which entertainment industry giants sued, claiming the file-sharing software could be held liable for copyright infringement of music and movies. But the next frontier in file-sharing is emerging: a faster way to download movies.

At the center of the controversy is a free software called BitTorrent, which enables transmission of large files such as movies in minutes instead of hours, making it the Napster of video downloading . . .

"It's really a powerful publishing tool for independent artists, people who can't afford corporate Web hosting," said Fred von Lohmann, senior staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco-based group focusing on civil rights and technology . . .

04.08.2005, On Philanthropy
"Profile: The Electronic Frontier Foundation"

. . . As a nonprofit membership organization, the EFF is in the unique position of using the internet as its primary source of communication with constituents. However, unlike most nonprofits, the EFF does not use the information gathered online from its members to advance its fundraising initiatives. Transparency is paramount to the EFF, according to Terri Forman, who is the organizationb "Bill Would Impose Tough Penalties for File-Sharing"
s Director of Development. While some nonprofits share the names of their donors with other nonprofits, EFF is strictly opposed to this practice. Their privacy policy is plainly stated, assuring its potential members that the by+panel+picks+controversial+chairman/2100-7348_3-5657746.html">"Homeland Security panel picks controversial chief"
By Declan McCullagh

The Department of Homeland Security's privacy board chose as its chairman Paul Rosenzweig, a conservative lawyer best known in technology circles for his defense of the Pentagon's Total Information Awareness project. Bowing to privacy concerns, Congress pulled the plug on the program two years ago . . .

"I don't really regard Paul as a privacy advocate," said Lee Tien, a lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco. "I think he's much more focused on whatever homeland security mission there is. He tends to view privacy as something to be circumvented."

04.05.2005, Canadian Content
"MGM vs. Grokster case moves to the Supreme Court"

As the case between film studio Metro Goldwyn Mayer and file-sharing software firm Grokster continues in the US Supreme Court, protesters from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) adopted a new tactic. EFF Staff Technologist Seth Schoen acquired several Betamax tapes. As Jack Valenti, head of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), arrived at the courthouse, EFF Media Coordinator Annalee Newitz asked Valenti to sign one of the tapes; Valenti complied with her request.

04.04.2005, Kansas City Star
"Patriot Act up for renewal, but law's effectiveness unclear"
By Andrew Zajac

. . . But even in the cases cited by Gonzales, it's not clear how much help the Patriot Act provided. In addition to the Bjarnason case, the other case Gonzales has been emphasizing is the safe recovery of a baby cut from her murdered mother in December in Missouri.

The baby, Victoria Jo Stinnett, was found unharmed, according to Gonzales, because of a Patriot Act provision that allowed government officials to contact an Internet service provider and collect information on e-mail traffic between the victim and the accused murderer without getting a judge's approval. In this case, FBI spokesman Jeff Lanza estimated it would have taken "at least an hour or more" to get a search warrant from a judge. "We had the ability to get the records immediately and we did," he said.

The Patriot Act's opponents dismiss this.

"They may be able to move marginally faster, but I don't think that warrants tossing aside the Fourth Amendment," which prohibits improper searches and seizures, said Kevin Bankston, an attorney with the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation, a group that addresses civil rights issues raised by new technologies . . .

04.03.2005, E-Commerce Times
"Regulation of Blogs' Political Activity Sparks Furor"

. . . The possibility of new rules restraining the robust nature of the Internet has provoked an uproar among civil libertarians and in the online world, whose participants pride themselves on freewheeling, uninhibited debate. Ren Bucholz, a staffer with the civil liberties group Electronic Frontier Foundation, said the crucial question is how the commission will distinguish between personal speech and political contributions. "I'm nervous about how this line is going to be drawn because we're going to end up setting some arbitrary box around political communication," Bucholz said . . .