e>EFF in the News
EFF in the News: June 2006
June 29, 2006
Information Week
"Media Distribution Rights: Here Come the Judges (And Congress)"
By Alice LaPlante
Not since Universal City Studios and Walt Disney Productions sued Sony to prevent it from selling its Betamax video recorder back in 1976 has the industry been more on fire about the rights of consumers to legally copy media in the home for their own use...
If Betamax had been decided in favor of the movie studios, there would have been a virtual stop to the devices that have been developed since that time, such as VCRs, rental movies, home DVDs, digital video recorders, MP3 players, and even PCs, says Fred von Lohman, a senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
June 29, 2006
Information Week
"The Complicated Web of Content Licensing"
By Alice LaPlante
Hollywood is deathly afraid of the possibilities that new technology offers consumers, and this is going to dramatically impact Apple's ability to deliver the same experience in the living room that it has on the iPod.
"Companies in dominant positions are generally afraid of disruptive technologies, and today's content producers are no exception," says Fred von Lohman, a senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "Such products tend to reorganize markets and turn today's leaders into tomorrow's has-beens." That being the case, the vision of consumers being able to access, copy, and move commercial content they've legally purchased however they choose is currently wildly optimistic.
June 29, 2006
Sci-Tech Today
"Child Porn Initiative Under the Microscope"
By Gwendolyn Mariano
EarthLink, Microsoft, Yahoo, AOL, and United Online face a daunting challenge: Waging a battle to combat online child porn...
Seth Schoen, a technologist with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit advocacy group, expressed concern about the accuracy of the database that the five companies will be developing and whether it will be able to distinguish, for instance, between a picture of a real child and an image that looks like a child.
"There is a question about who is making determination of what's child porn in the database," Schoen said. "The database still sounds nonspecific and so is still difficult to evaluate."
June 29, 2006
The New Standard
"Youth Rights Activists Defend MySpace Access"
By Kari Lydersen
When it comes to making rules about their Internet usage, young people say lawmakers—like parents—just don't understand...
Meanwhile, Kurt Opsahl, staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital-rights advocate, sees it as a media democracy issue.
"These are all tools that democratize the media, that allow anyone to publish and send their thoughts out to the world," he said. "All these technologies have great value as far as allowing people to speak freely and participate in national debates."
June 28, 2006
Petaluma Argus-Courier
"Petaluma author suing AT&T"
By Dan Golden
Carolyn Jewel of Petaluma is a plaintiff in a class action lawsuit filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation against AT&T, alleging that the telecommunications company is unlawfully giving records of her personal communication, along with that of many others, to the National Security Agency...
"I get e-mails from readers all over the world," she said. "If someone from Indonesia e-mails me, should I be worried about that? If we start talking about what is the perception of Islam in the U.S., I should be able to have that conversation at my computer without fear."
June 28, 2006
National Law Journal
"Online Peers Stand Up for Craigslist in Lawsuit"
By Lynne Marek
Google, Amazon.com, AOL and Yahoo are helping defend online peer Craigslist against a lawsuit that would hold the Web site liable for discriminatory housing ads that appeared on its site...
The brief was also signed by eBay Inc., which owns 25 percent of Craigslist, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, among others.
June 27, 2006
TechNewsWorld
"Bush Condemns Media Outlets for Leaking Anti-Terror Program"
By Keith Regan
In the latest example of the tension between government efforts in the war on terror and the media, the Bush administration is condemning news outlets that revealed details of a program that used the Internet to scan bank records for evidence of terrorism financing...
Technology has created new opportunities for government surveillance, such as by monitoring e-mails or digitized phone conservations, and has also changed the public's perceptions about their privacy, Electronic Frontier Foundation staff attorney Kevin Bankston told the E-Commerce Times.
"The public is comfortable with true anti-terror efforts, but the problem arises when wholesale monitoring or eavesdropping is done in the name of fighting terror," he said.
June 26, 2006
USA TODAY
"Always in the camera's eye"
By Janet Kornblum
Traffic cameras zoom in enough to capture your dangling cigarette. Crime cameras "see" in the dark. Satellite images show whether your car is in the driveway. Most Americans realize ubiquitous monitoring is the price of living in a high-tech world...
"We're going to be a society where tons and tons of photographs and information about us are available online without our consent," says Jason Schultz, staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a privacy and civil liberties advocacy group that focuses on computers and digital technology.
"Privacy is sometimes something we don't realize we value except in hindsight."
June 25, 2006
San Diego Union Tribune
"Battle lines drawn as driver's license ID law gets nearer"
By Michael Gardner
In the name of national security, California motorists probably will confront more hassles and higher fees when it's time to renew their licenses to drive...
"The Real ID Act is remarkably spineless when it comes to safeguards," said Lee Tien, an attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
June 25, 2006
San Jose Mercury News
"Race on to keep up with technology, competition"
By Jessie Seyfer
Phone and cable companies—stalwarts in American homes for decades—are in upheaval...
"Not only could a company have information about what you see online, but also who you call and what you watch on TV," said Rebecca Jeschke, a spokeswoman of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a technology watchdog group.
This information could create "a very complete picture of your personal life," she said.
June 25, 2006
AFP
"Judge told to drop domestic spying suit"
Federal lawyers have asked a court to reject a suit against the phone giant AT and T for allegedly sharing public phone records with authorities as part of the US anti-terror campaign.
The government argued the suit by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) was groundless and that its hearing could threaten national security by revealing how authorities gather intelligence.
June 24, 2006
New York Times
"U.S. Pushes For Dismissal Of Lawsuit Against AT&T"
By John Markoff
A Justice Department lawyer pressed a federal judge on Friday to dismiss a lawsuit against AT&T over a government surveillance operation. But the plaintiffs maintained that the case could go forward even if some aspects were set aside on national security grounds.
June 24, 2006
Reuters
"AT&T claims immunity in eavesdropping lawsuit"
By Jim Christie
Privacy rights advocates pressed a U.S. judge on Friday to allow their lawsuit against AT&T to go forward, charging the telecommunications giant is breaking the law by helping a U.S. government eavesdropping program.
Lawyers for AT&T, which will neither confirm nor deny it is letting the U.S. government monitor its telephone and e-mail traffic as part of a counterterrorism effort, shot back in U.S. District Court in San Francisco that the Electronic Frontier Foundation's charges were based on hearsay and that the group lacked standing to bring its lawsuit.
June 24, 2006
Los Angeles Times
Editorial: "Ma Bell's privacy problem"
By all means, AT&T should cooperate fully with law enforcement agencies and the NSA. But it should do so only when their requests follow the law. Otherwise, the safeguards that Congress and the courts have established against overzealous prosecution evaporate.
That's the issue in the Electronic Frontier Foundation's class-action lawsuit against AT&T, which contends that the company let the NSA vacuum up records without the necessary warrants or other valid orders. Unfortunately, we may never find out what the NSA has or hasn't done.
June 24, 2006
Los Angeles Times
"AT&T Case Weighs Secrecy"
By Joseph Menn
Even if telephone carriers are surrendering all the e-mail that travels on their networks to government investigators, customers have no right to sue — regardless of whether the program is legal, federal lawyers told a judge Friday...
Walker continued to explore with lawyers from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the civil liberties group that brought the case on behalf of AT&T customers, how he could let the case continue. Among other things, he said he could appoint an expert to advise him on the significance of various secrets.
June 23, 2006
Wired
"Watergate Echoes in NSA Courtroom"
By Kevin Poulsen
It was perhaps inevitable that someone would compare President Bush's extrajudicial wiretapping operations to Richard Nixon's 1970s-era surveillance of journalists and political enemies. Both were carried out by Republican presidents; both bypassed the courts; both relied on the cooperation of U.S. telecommunications companies...
EFF attorney Kevin Bankston argued that AT&T has a duty to know the law, and wouldn't be protected by a written request to assist in an illegal surveillance operation. "That piece of paper could not authorize the conduct that we allege here," Bankston said.
June 23, 2006
ZDNet
"Judge to decide on AT&T spying suit"
By Greg Sandovol
A U.S. District Court judge must decide whether to throw out a lawsuit alleging that AT&T improperly handed over records of customer phone calls and e-mails to the federal government.
Vaughn Walker, a U.S. District Judge for the Northern District of California in San Francisco, heard arguments Friday from AT&T and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the advocacy group that has accused the giant telecommunications company, in a lawsuit filed in January, of assisting the National Security Agency in warrantless electronic surveillance of U.S. citizens.
June 23, 2006
Salon
"New Light on NSA Spying"
By Kim Zetter
A federal court in California released a previously sealed 40-page document on Thursday in the Electronic Frontier Foundation's lawsuit against AT&T, which bolsters allegations that the telecommunications giant built secret rooms to allow the National Security Agency to conduct widespread surveillance of Internet traffic.
June 23, 2006
Associated Press
"Judge mulling whether to dismiss spy lawsuit"
The government urged a federal judge here Friday to dismiss a lawsuit challenging the Bush administration's domestic spying program because it threatens to reveal state secrets and jeopardize the war on terror...
Kevin Bankston, an EFF attorney, asked Judge Walker to rule on whether the president possesses wartime powers to authorize warrantless eavesdropping in the United States without publicly disclosing any classified or sensitive material. He said AT&T, which neither confirms nor denies the allegations, practices "wholesale surveillance" of its customers.
June 23, 2006
KCBS Radio
"White House Demands Spy Lawsuit be Dismissed"
A federal judge in San Francisco heard oral arguments Friday on the U.S. government's motion to dismiss the Electronic Frontier Foundation's class-action lawsuit against AT&T...
The Electronic Frontier Foundation said the surveillance program, purportedly authorized by the President as early as 2001 and primarily undertaken by the NSA, intercepts and analyzes the communications of millions of ordinary Americans.
June 23, 2006
NPR
Audio: "EFF Expands Influence on Digital-Rights Frontier"
By Shirley Skeel
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has risen from an obscure nonprofit group to a major political and legal force in national disputes over digital privacy and freedoms. Most recently, it sued AT&T over the phone giant's relationship with the National Security Agency (NSA).
June 23, 2006
ComputerWorld
"I'm looking for a new long distance company"
By Martin McKeay
AT&T has decided to rewrite their privacy policy in such a way that makes my call records theirs, not mine...
It doesn't take a genius to see where AT&T is headed with this change in policy. Given the lawsuit the Electronic Frontier Foundation is currently pressing against AT&T, this change in policy is clearly aimed at preventing further such lawsuits by consumers.
June 23, 2006
ZDNet
"Brewster Kahle's modest mission: Archiving everything"
By Elinor Mills
Brewster Kahle is on a mission. He wants the whole planet to have access to human knowledge. All human knowledge. And he's striving to make that possible--one byte at a time...
Beyond his librarian and archivist role at the Internet Archive, Kahle serves on the board of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and on the national digital strategy advisory board at The Library of Congress.
June 23, 2006
Associated Press
"White House demands dismissal of spy suit"
By David Kravets
A lawsuit challenging the Bush administration's domestic spying program must be dismissed because it threatens to reveal state secrets and jeopardize the war on terror, the government says...
The EFF is urging Walker in legal filings to rule on whether the president possesses wartime powers to authorize warrantless eavesdropping in the United States without publicly disclosing any classified or sensitive material.
June 22, 2006
Los Angeles Times
"Judge May Deny Bid to End NSA Suit"
By Joseph Menn
A federal judge weighing one of the first lawsuits against the National Security Agency's domestic spying efforts has asked the government how the case should proceed if he refuses authorities' request to dismiss it...
Another civil liberties group, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, filed the suit against AT&T Corp. on behalf of Internet and phone users, accusing it of violating wiretap and other laws by sharing customer calling records with the NSA.
June 22, 2006
USA TODAY
"AT&T: New privacy policy not 'knee-jerk'"
By Elliot Blair Smith
AT&T plans to adopt a new privacy policy Friday that requires Internet customers to consent to its ownership of their account information and authorizes it to track consumer usage, including their use of video.
The revisions coincide with a federal lawsuit against AT&T, filed by the non-profit Electronic Frontier Foundation, that accuses the company of improperly sharing customers' phone and Internet records to aid the federal government's counterterrorism efforts.
June 21, 2006
InformationWeek
"Locking The Wireless Network"
By Kevin McLaughlin
As the popularity of wireless networks in homes and small businesses continues to soar, so do the chances that outsiders will hack unsecured networks and use them for malicious purposes...
Kevin Bankston, an attorney with the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation, says there haven't yet been cases of homeowners in the United States prosecuted for the activities of other users who access their WLANs to conduct criminal activity. "However, it could lead to that house being the first step in the investigation," Bankston notes.
June 21, 2006
Today Show and NBC affiliates
"MySpace.com announces changes to its popular website"
Earlier this month, a Michigan teenager flew to Jordan to meet a 20-year-old man she met on MySpace.com.
Also, just this week, a 14-year-old girl filed a lawsuit, saying a 19-year old MySpace.com user sexually assaulted her...
MySpace.com is reviewing the lawsuit and says it can't stop people from lying about their identities. However, does it have a legal responsibility to protect people?
Kurt Opsahl of the Electronic Frontier Foundation says no. "Just as you wouldn't hold a bookstore liable for what's published in a book that it sells, or hold a cafe liable for what's posted on its bulletin board, this heinous crime was perpetrated by someone who was using MySpace, but is not MySpace's responsibility."
June 21, 2006
San Francisco Chronicle
"Brief says secrecy trumps any wiretap ruling"
By Bob Egelko
The Bush administration says its program of clandestine electronic surveillance, and AT&T's alleged participation in it, are secrets so important that a federal judge couldn't consider awarding damages even if he agreed with a lawsuit that accuses the company of breaking the law...
But the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a privacy-rights organization that represents the plaintiffs, said the government's brief amounts to a claim "that the program is above the law."
"We intend to vigorously oppose this radical assertion of power,'' the foundation said.
June 21, 2006
ComputerWorld
"Allow the lawsuit to continue"
By Martin McKeay
Whether you're for or against the NSA's spying on American citizens, hopefully you believe in the American judicial system enough to allow them oversight of the process...
But when it comes down to it, my opinion isn't really what counts. It's the opinion of the courts that count. And the federal government is taking steps to make sure that our courts are stifled concerning the NSA spying, citing 'state secrets' and trying to get the Electronic Frontier Foundation's lawsuit against AT&T thrown out.
June 21, 2006
San Francisco Chronicle
"AT&T rewrites rules: Your data isn't yours"
By David Lazarus
AT&T has issued an updated privacy policy that takes effect Friday. The changes are significant because they appear to give the telecom giant more latitude when it comes to sharing customers' personal data with government officials...
AT&T is being sued by San Francisco's Electronic Frontier Foundation for allegedly allowing the NSA to tap into the company's data network, providing warrantless access to customers' e-mails and Web browsing.
June 21, 2006
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
"Stuffing the mailbox of Congress"
By Bob Kemper
Before the bricks, the big ole chunk of foam bread arrived. Baby pacifiers, fake prescription bottles, tea bags and, ahem, free copies of Hustler magazine also have come...
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a California-based public interest network, says the absolute worst way is to send the kind of form e-mails that many groups offer on their Web sites.
Besides visiting your congressman personally, the most effective way to get a congressman's attention is with an old-fashioned letter, the foundation says. It should be handwritten but legible. And, the group recommends, short. Lawmakers have a lot of other letters to open.
June 20, 2006
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
"Missouri regulators demand AT&T records"
By Michael D. Sorkin
State regulators in Missouri have issued subpoenas to AT&T, demanding to know whether the company is violating consumer privacy laws by sharing customer phone and Internet records with the government.
On another front, a federal judge in San Francisco will hear arguments Friday on the government's motion to dismiss the Electronic Frontier Foundation's class-action lawsuit against AT&T.
June 20, 2006
Bay City News
"TUESDAY MIDDAY NEWS ROUNDUP"
The U.S. Justice Department has told a federal judge in San Francisco that allowing a surveillance lawsuit against AT&T Corp. to proceed "would cause grave harm to the nation's security"...
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has argued that the case against AT&T can proceed without revealing any security secrets.
June 20, 2006
Salon
"Is the NSA spying on U.S. Internet traffic?"
By Kim Zetter
In a pivotal network operations center in metropolitan St. Louis, AT&T has maintained a secret, highly secured room since 2002 where government work is being conducted, according to two former AT&T workers once employed at the center...
The disclosure of the room in Bridgeton follows assertions made earlier this year by a former AT&T worker in California, Mark Klein, who revealed that the company had installed a secret room in a San Francisco facility and reconfigured its circuits, allegedly to help collect data for use by the government. In detailed documents he provided to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Klein also alleged there were other secret rooms at AT&T facilities in other U.S. cities.
June 20, 2006
San Jose Mercury News
"Justice Department wants call records case moved"
The U.S. Justice Department asked a federal judicial panel to transfer to one judge in Washington, D.C., all lawsuits that accuse telephone companies of illegally turning over customer call records to the National Security Agency.
In San Francisco, where the Electronic Frontier Foundation is pressing a suit against AT&T, spokeswoman Rebecca Jeschke said: "We believe San Francisco is an appropriate forum to hear this case. Several cases are pending here. None are pending in Washington, D.C.''
June 20, 2006
Hollywood Reporter
"DOJ pushes back pirates"
By Jesse Hiestand
Federal authorities have met—and in some cases exceeded—the goals set out for them two years ago when the Bush administration ordered a more aggressive response to intellectual property crimes, the Department of Justice is set to announce in a progress report Tuesday...
"The legal changes that DOJ is seeking are completely outrageous and legally unjustifiable," EFF staff attorney Fred von Lohmann said. "Those changes are intended to make it possible to criminally convict someone without having to prove that actual copy infringement took place. There's no evidence here that we need to make it any easier to throw a person in jail than it is to sue them for money for infringement."
June 19, 2006
Sci-Tech Today
"Louisiana Sued over Violent Video Game Law"
By Gwendolyn Mariano
The video game industry has filed a lawsuit in federal court to overturn a new Louisiana bill that prohibits the sale and rental of violent games to minors, claiming it violates free speech and freedom of expression...
Kurt Opsahl, an attorney at the nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation and not involved in the current suit, pointed out that state legislatures will often pass violent video game bills that the ESA ends up challenging.
"It happens time and time again," Opsahl said. "You wonder why the state legislatures keep passing these bills when they routinely keep being struck down each time."
June 19, 2006
Federal Computer Week
"Diamonds in the Data"
By Aliya Sternstein
At this moment, public health officials are poring over terabytes of health care data to detect the first signs of a possible pandemic flu outbreak, bioterrorism attack or other contagion...
Lee Tien, a senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, cited the Transportation Security Administration's passenger screening system, Secure Flight, which violated the privacy of potentially millions of people. Last July, a GAO audit found that a TSA contractor, acting on behalf of the agency, collected more than 100 million commercial data records containing personal information, such as names, birthdates and telephone numbers, without informing the public.
"We are in a very difficult area, technologically, as well as policywise," Tien said. "It is really important to emphasize that we don't know the answers."
June 18, 2006
San Jose Mercury News
"Lawsuit Confronts a Barrier of Secrecy"
By Pete Carey
When a federal judge in San Francisco considers a government request Friday to dismiss a wiretapping lawsuit against AT&T, he will step into an acrimonious national debate over the power of courts to check the alleged excesses of the Bush administration's anti-terrorism programs...
"Essentially, the government is asserting it can unilaterally disregard the laws written by Congress, and there is nothing the judiciary can do about it because it is too secret for the judiciary to consider,'' said Kurt Opsahl, a lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
June 17, 2006
Houston Chronicle
"A new cell-phone service helps parents pinpoint the location of their children"
By David S. Rosen
Justine Brooks can understand why some parents would use technology to help keep track of their children. Some day, she says, using online tracking services will probably be the norm...
Tracking technologies have raised eyebrows at the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco.
"Parents won't be the only people who have this information. The cell phone company will have it, and if somebody gets access to this information, there's a record to where your kid is," said Rebecca Jeschke, a spokeswoman for the technology privacy think tank. "You need to ask yourself if you feel comfortable with that information existing."
June 17, 2006
Charleston Gazette
"Bill could lead to public ban of Web site"
By Nick Harrah
Are you a juvenile? Are you on MySpace? Well, you may want to sit down before you read this...
Kurt Opsahl, a lawyer with the nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation, made a good point when he told online magazine Salon, "You have, of course, a constitutional right not to incriminate yourself, but you have to exercise that right by not incriminating yourself."
June 13, 2006
MacDevCenter.com
"Apple vs. the Bloggers: How It Unfolded and Where It Stands Now"
By Richard Koman
When AppleInsider and PowerPage—blog-driven websites that report relentlessly on Apple—published apparently purloined confidential documents from Cupertino, Apple sued their ISPs to find out who inside the company was leaking. A California trial court said that was appropriate; the documents, after all, were nothing less than trade secrets. With the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) as counsel, the sites appealed...
The case is a victory for all journalists, not just those working online, said Kurt Opsahl of the EFF. "It's important to recognize that in addition to online journalists, this is a victory for journalists of all stripes. The trial court reached its decision regardless of online or offline, finding that trade secrets trumped source secrecy. So this is really a victory for all journalists."
June 12, 2006
WCBS
Video: "Internet Eavesdropping Is Very Real ... And Legal"
By Kirstin Cole
Before you send that next private e-mail, remember, it's a good bet that your every move is being watched...
"The law and the rules say everything done in company computers is the property of the company," said Brad Templeten of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Templeton also said property of the company can become property of the government.
June 12, 2006
VOipNews
"Can Skype Keep Its Secrets?"
By Robert Poe
Skype staffers in charge of refusing to explain things have a rough year ahead. With a crucial U.S. government wiretapping deadline less than 12 months away, questions about how—and even whether—the secretive VoIP provider can cope with the new requirements can only intensify...
On Friday a federal appeals court confirmed the FCC's right to impose such requirements, turning down a legal challenge filed October 25 of last year by organizations including the American Library Association, the Association of Research Libraries, the Center for Democracy and Technology, COMPTEL, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, Pulver.com, and Sun Microsystems.
June 12, 2006
San Jose Mercury News
"Digital footprints"
By Mike Langberg
You're driving down a dark road late at night when you have a serious accident. You dial 911 on your cell phone. Even though you have only a vague idea of where you are, the 911 operator instantly gets a precise fix on your location. An ambulance arrives within minutes...
I also called Kevin Bankston, a staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco. Bankston has been active in several court cases testing the question of when law enforcement should have access to cell phone location data, both in real time as a person is moving around and stored records of previous locations.
"I don't think the law is ready for this kind of pervasive view of your public and private movements," Bankston said.
June 12, 2006
Providence Journal
"Bill opens access to Internet records"
By Bruce Landis
The General Assembly is close to giving the police the right to obtain any Rhode Islander's Internet and "local and long-distance telephone connection records," along with credit card and bank information, without a warrant or other court review...
Kevin Bankston, a lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation who works regularly with federal surveillance and electronic records law, said the state police are "absolutely incorrect" and that their legislation contains language from federal law "that clearly reaches local and long-distance phone records."
June 9, 2006
Whittier Daily News
Editorial: "Government must end invasion of privacy"
By Elliot M. Gold
Do you want the federal government to listen to your private telephone conversations and read your e-mails or know whom you call or who calls you without your knowledge or a court order?...
The Electronic Frontier Foundation filed a lawsuit alleging that AT&T secretly, and without warrants required by FISA, disclosed the telephone conversations and e-mail messages of millions of its customers to NSA agents for "data mining" to determine if they are involved in terrorist plots.
June 9, 2006
BBC News
"Hollywood and the hackers"
By Adam Livingstone and Richard Taylor
Motion Picture Association President Dan Glickman locks horns with Electronic Frontier Foundation's John Perry Barlow over big media's war with the internet...
John Perry Barlow: The entertainment industry is as it always has been. It's a rough bunch of people and a rough industry. I don't think that the movie industry is any more ready than any other part of the information industries to adapt itself to the information age. But it's going to go there one way or the other.
June 9, 2006
Jurist
"DOJ to seek dismissal of multiple NSA phone records suits on secrecy grounds"
By Jaime Jansen
The US Department of Justice has said it will seek to dismiss 20 lawsuits accusing telecommunications companies Verizon, AT&T, and BellSouth of illegally providing customer phone records to the National Security Agency in conjunction with the NSA's domestic surveillance program...
Advocacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation filed a class action against AT&T in California, and the Department of Justice has argued that the case should be dismissed on the same grounds—that the lawsuit may reveal military and state secrets.
June 9, 2006
Wired News
"Soccer, Anyone?"
By Eli Milchman
World Cup soccer kicks off Friday, and the internet can offer one of the best seats in the house&mdashwith the assistance of a few not-so-secret tricks...
"This is extremely controversial&mdashthere is no clear answer here," says Gwen Hinze, a lawyer for the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "No court has squarely faced these facts."
"Rights holders are likely to think that this is an infringement?. The EFF doesn't agree with that," Hinze says.
June 8, 2006
Newsday
"Cops, using the Net, nab five in prostitution ring"
By Michael Fraizer
Millions of online users turn to the popular Craigslist.com Web site in search for a home, tickets or a car, but many also use it to find sex...
Under federal law, Craigslist isn't liable for what appears on its site, said Kurt Opsahl, a staff attorney for the San Francisco, Calif.-based Electronic Frontier Foundation.
June 8, 2006
CNET
"House panel OKs digital licensing bill"
By Anne Broache
A U.S. House of Representatives panel on Thursday approved a digital copyright bill that critics say could imperil home-use copying of music and video recording devices like TiVo...
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, for its part, encouraged its visitors to call their elected representatives and make their dissatisfaction known.
June 8, 2006
TP Tech News
"Apple Sues Creative Once Again"
By Gwendolyn Mariano
In another round in the fight between rival media-player manufacturers, Apple has filed lawsuit against Creative for patent infringement...
Jason Schultz, an attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation and not involved in the case, pointed out there are generally two types of patent suits&mdashone to generate money and the other to stop competition...
"If the suits are about money, then it could raise the cost of products for consumers," Schultz said. "Instead of these companies raising the cost of production for research and development, Apple and Creative invest in lawyers. Consumers don't benefit from lawyers."
June 8, 2006
Bloomberg
"Judge to Review Classified Papers in AT&T Case"
A federal judge will examine classified documents to determine whether a national security privilege applies in a case about claims that AT&T Inc. assisted with a domestic spying program...
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a privacy-rights group, has argued that the case could proceed based on publicly available information, including the government's admissions about its wiretapping program.
June 8, 2006
Wired News
"New CD-Swap Site Hooks Music Fans"
By Mark Anderson
I've been a la la user since March, and I'm hooked. This is a smartly coded site and a very clever business model...
Fred von Lohmann, senior intellectual property attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, who's used la la for the past month, said, "As a copyright lawyer, I think they are on very safe ground. They've managed to thread the needle pretty effectively&mdashcertainly more effectively than the companies that have been sued in the past."
June 8, 2006
FinancialWire.net
"Judge to Examine Documents in AT&T Suit"
A district court judge presiding over a class action lawsuit against AT&T (NYSE: T) for releasing records to the NSA has said that he will examine classified government documents to determine if their release would be harmful to the nation.
San Francisco district court judge Vaughn Walker said in a filing that it would be impossible to proceed in the case without examining the documents to determine to what extent state secrets privilege applied. Last month the same judge overturned a request by AT&T that Electronic Frontier Foundation return information that was provided by a former electrician for the telecom.
June 8, 2006
AlterNet
"Anonymity in the Age of Full Disclosure"
By Elizabeth Daily
Our lives are led increasingly online. According to the Pew Internet and American Life study, "the web has become the "new normal" in the American way of life." We buy and sell online, date, discuss and post credit card and social security numbers online. Private information, including photos, biographies, and zip codes are displayed in online profiles...
As Kurt Opsahl of the Electronic Frontier Foundation points out, our country was founded by pamphleteers, "the Federalist Papers, some of the founding documents on which our constitution was based, were published under pseudonyms. It is vital to having a public discourse that people be able to participate without having to reveal their identity."
June 7, 2006
CNET
"Google forging ahead with wi-fi efforts"
By Elinor Mills
Google will begin a phased rollout of a free wireless Net access service in its hometown of Mountain View, Calif., this summer and is still hammering out details with San Francisco officials for its citywide Wi-Fi service there...
Kurt Opsahl, staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said he still had questions about how secure user data would be under the proposal...
"Without more information on the record retention policies and how much of this info is tied together on the back-end it is hard to make a full assessment of what the privacy is," he said.
June 7, 2006
Associated Press
"Judge to examine classified documents"
The judge hearing a lawsuit against AT&T says he'll examine classified government documents to determine if they warrant "state secrets" protection.
The documents relate to a class-action lawsuit filed by privacy advocate Electronic Frontier Foundation against San Antonio-based AT&T.
June 7, 2006
PC Magazine
"Copyright Law Faces New Test on Thursday"
By Natali T. Del Conte
On Thursday, the Digital Media Association (DiMA), a lobbying group, will propose changes to the federal law covering music licensing...
"[SIRA] is a subtle way of setting a dangerous precedent for the fundamental meaning of copyright law," said Derek Slater, an activist with the EFF. "It says that basically every transmission of a copyright work is also a distribution. That's very dangerous because the record industry has said if you're performing these songs and you're allowing them to be recorded, like with a TiVo for radio, that's a distribution, and it treats it as licensable."
June 6, 2006
Ars Technica
"Will 'fair use' be fundamentally redefined this week?"
By Nate Anderson
Are Congress and the music publishing business trying to pull a fast one on US consumers? As usual, it depends on who you ask. The new Section 115 Reform Act (SIRA) of 2006 is scheduled for markup tomorrow, and the EFF is sounding the alarm. "Why the rush?" they ask. "Because otherwise someone might notice that the bill represents an unholy alliance between the major music service providers (AOL, Yahoo, Apple, Real Networks, etc.) and [the] music publishing industry. If the bill passes, they win, but fair use loses."
June 6, 2006
BusinessWeek
"Spying on the Snoops"
By Otis Port
In recent months, the National Security Agency and the Bush Administration have been taking increasing heat for bending the rules in the hunt for terrorists...
That may explain the arrangement that has outraged privacy stalwarts at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).
June 6, 2006
Markenbusiness News
"Amendment in American Trademark Law provokes Protests"
The American artist Don Steward was cautioned at the beginning of the year by Volkswagen because he had drawn a Beetle car out of insects...
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a non-profit organization, which applies itself to the protection of digital copyright, have classified the new ruling as a 'Dream for a Large Company'.
June 6, 2006
Computerworld
"Documents in AT&T spying case unsealed"
By Stephen Lawson
AT&T set up a special room at one of its internet facilities in 2003 that was open only to employees cleared by the US National Security Agency (NSA), according to a declaration by a retired engineer as part of a lawsuit over alleged mass invasion of privacy by the carrier.
That document was unsealed last week after a deal was reached between AT&T, the new owner of the long-distance company, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), which is suing on behalf of AT&T customers.
June 5, 2006
SecurityFocus
"Report: A third of large firms monitor e-mail"
By Robert Lemos
Forget about the NSA&mdashCorporate America is reading employee e-mail with more regularity, according to messaging security firm Proofpoint...
The results of the survey comes as wiretapping and Internet surveillance are much on the minds of Americans. Following reports in the New York Times that the NSA had wiretapped Americans, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed separate lawsuits only to have the U.S. government declared that the information at the heart of the cases comprised national secrets.
June 5, 2006
IT Week
"Windows Vista digital rights tools may tie firms to Microsoft"
By Roger Howorth
The Trusted Computing features in Windows Vista could lock firms into using Microsoft Office for years to come, warns Cory Doctorow, a key contributor and fellow of the charitable campaign group called the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).
June 4, 2006
Buffalo News
"Somebody's WATCHING YOU"
Western New York, welcome to surveillance nation. Your personal privacy is becoming a quaint relic from the past...
"It's kind of like when the first cars rolled off the assembly line. We're in an early-stage situation where we should think about these things and we should be careful," says Lee Tien, senior staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a non-profit group in San Francisco that seeks to protect the public's digital rights. "We've been promiscuous and sloppy and careless with our personal information."
June 4, 2006
New York Times
"Invoking Secrets Privilege Becomes a More Popular Legal Tactic by U.S."
By Scott Shane
Facing a wave of litigation challenging its eavesdropping at home and its handling of terror suspects abroad, the Bush administration is increasingly turning to a legal tactic that swiftly torpedoes most lawsuits: the state secrets privilege...
More recently the privilege has been wielded against lawsuits challenging broader policies, including the three lawsuits attacking the National Security Agency's eavesdropping program—one against AT&T by the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco and two against the federal government by the American Civil Liberties Union in Michigan and the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York.
June 2, 2006
Austin Chronicle
"Hanging Up on AT&T"
By Michael King
I never thought I'd get to use the names Studs Terkel and Louis Black in the same sentence...
More seriously, we're honored to stand with Louis Black, Jim Harrington, Robert Scheer, Studs Terkel, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the ACLU, and hundreds of other citizens who are telling the phone company and the government that enough is enough. You wanna know who I'm talking to on the phone? Get a warrant.
June 1, 2006
NPR - Marketplace
"What did you Google two years ago?"
By Steve Tripoli
The Department of Justice wants to know. The agency wants Internet providers to keep your search terms for two years&mdashor longer...
Lawyer Lee Tien of the advocacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation says civil liberties and crime busting don't need to be mutually exclusive.
LEE TIEN: I think the government has a tendency to always try to put those in diametric opposition. We think that's just a false dichotomy.
June 1, 2006
PC World Canada
"Apple Not Allowed to Censor the Web"
Apple has lost a bid to force ISPs to release user information under the claim that online journalists are not real journalists and are therefore not protected from having to release their sources...
"Today's decision is a victory for the rights of journalists, whether online or offline, and for the public at large," Kurt Opsahl, a spokesperson for online civil liberties group the Electronic Frontiers Foundation (EFF) said.
"In addition to being a free-speech victory for every citizen reporter who uses the internet to distribute news, today's decision is a profound electronic privacy victory for everyone who uses email," said EFF attorney Kevin Bankston.
June 1, 2006
USA TODAY
"U.S. asks Internet firms to save data"
By Jon Swartz and Kevin Johnson
Top law enforcement officials have asked leading Internet companies to keep histories of the activities of Web users for up to two years to assist in criminal investigations of child pornography and terrorism, the Justice Department said Wednesday...
Lee Tien, a lawyer for the privacy advocacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation, said he was concerned.
"I think that the request raises some really, really major privacy problems," he said. The Justice Department is "asking ISPs (Internet service providers) to really become an arm of the government."
June 1, 2006
Orange County Register
Editorial: "Bloggers Should Have Freedom of Speech"
America's founding fathers would be smiling at this decision...
Kurt Opsahl, chief counsel for the plaintiffs, told us that the court "purposely avoided the term 'bloggers' in its decision." The court, he said, looked on the issue not as a matter of "status" - that a blog or other new media source might be one person with a computer instead of a large organization - but as a matter of "function" - reporting the news. The decision "should provide comfort to other news-gathering" sources online, Mr. Opsahl added.
June 1, 2006
TechNewsWorld
"Sad Song for Streaming MP3, Satellite Radio"
By Andrew K. Burger
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has launched a new legal assault on digital radio in Washington, D.C. The "Perform Act of 2006" effectively hamstrings the ongoing growth and development of nascent digital satellite and Internet radio businesses, according to industry watchdogs, in the name of protecting musicians' and recording companies' property rights and leveling the playing field for traditional radio broadcasters...
"We'll get government-mandated technology decisions in radio and on the Web," said the EFF's Daniel O'Brien. "We'll get cheap, open source innovation locked out of media devices. We'll see consumers hamstrung in their ability to do what they can do with lawfully acquired content in their own homes."
June 1, 2006
Out-Law
"What if Apple had Sued British Bloggers?"
California's Court of Appeal ruled last week that staff at web magazines qualified for journalistic protection. While there has never been a test case in the UK, a Solicitor Advocate says bloggers are likely to enjoy similarly strong protections here...
"This is a victory for the rights of journalists, be they online or offline journalists, and it's a victory for the public at large," said Kurt Opsahl, the staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the lobBy group which represented the journalists. "It protects the free flow of information to the press and from the press to the public."
June 1, 2006
vnunet.com
"Apple iPod dominance makes DRM more restrictive"
By Tom Sanders
The market dominance of Apple's iPod music player is causing ever more restrictive digital rights management (DRM) technologies, argued Cory Doctorow, a fellow with the Electronic Frontier Foundation...
"Apple [turns] every iTune you buy into a 99 cent price tag on switching from Apple to a competitor's product," Doctorow told delegates.
June 1, 2006
Chattanooga Pulse
"All the News That's Fit to Click"
By Bill Colrus
Dear reader, let me let you in on a little secret: You are a reporter...
Furthermore, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (Eff.org), a federal law known as Section 230 ?can protect Internet intermediaries from most civil liability for statements By another information content provider.?
