In The News: January, 2007
January 30th, 2007
FBI turns to broad new wiretap method
Declan McCullagh, CNET
The FBI appears to have adopted an invasive Internet surveillance technique that collects far more data on innocent Americans than previously has been disclosed...
"What they're doing is even worse than Carnivore," said Kevin Bankston, a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation who attended the Stanford event. "What they're doing is intercepting everyone and then choosing their targets."
January 26th, 2007
EFF tells radio station to back off blogger
Grant Gross, InfoWorld
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has come to the aid of a liberal blogger whose Web site was taken down after a radio station complained that critiques containing on-air clips violated its copyright...
The EFF threatened a lawsuit against ABC and KSFO if they further attempted to shut down Spocko with Digital Millennium Copyright Act threats. "ABC/KSFO's complaints amount to nothing more than an attempt to silence an effective critic," EFF lawyer Matt Zimmerman wrote. "EFF ... will vigorously defend Spocko against misguided efforts to limit his First Amendment rights."
January 26th, 2007
Google and YouTube: A Catch-22
Catherine Holahan, Businessweek.com
Legal action from News Corp. concerning leaked episodes of the prime-time drama 24 has set the clock ticking for Google...
However, Google does have a quiet history of revealing information about users accused of copyright violations, says Fred von Lohmann, a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, who has been involved with subpoena fights concerning Google and its users. Typically, von Lohmann says, Google gives users 20 days' notice and an opportunity to respond before handing over information. In YouTube's privacy policy, the company indicates it will release identifiable information that it believes is necessary to enforce its Terms of Use, which bans uploading copyrighted material, or protect itself against liability and "third-party claims or allegations," among other things.
January 24th, 2007
Media outlets battle it out over free-speech rights
Martin Kasindorf, USA TODAY
In a dispute between the "new media" of the Internet and the "old media" of broadcasting, liberal bloggers and conservative talk-radio hosts are accusing each other of trampling the First Amendment's guarantees of free speech...
Matt Zimmerman, an EFF lawyer, says the first Web host surrendered too quickly to ABC's "saber-rattling." Spocko's use of the KSFO content comes "squarely" under federal law that protects "fair use" of copyrighted material for criticism and commentary, Zimmerman says.
January 22nd, 2007
RIAA Lawsuit Against XM To Proceed
Erik Sass, Media Daily News
A U.S. district judge has allowed a major lawsuit brought by the recording industry against XM Satellite Radio to proceed...
In a May interview, Fred von Lohmann, an attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation who practices digital copyright law, described the RIAA lawsuit as "a stretch." He thinks AHRA will ultimately protect XM: "The Audio Home Recording Act--which the lawsuit conspicuously fails to mention--gives XM and Sirius a pretty good defense. As far as I know, every one of these devices was designed to conform to the AHRA."
January 22nd, 2007
Court Finds NJ Users Can Expect Privacy from ISPs
Associated Press
Computer users in New Jersey can expect that personal information they give their Internet service providers be treated as private, a state appellate court decided Monday in the first such case considered in the state...
Yes, this indicates that New Jersey, like a lot of states, is ahead of the curve on Internet privacy,'' said Kevin Bankston, a staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco-based digital rights group.
Bankston also praised the decision for recognizing anonymity as a core free speech right.
January 19th, 2007
Your Right to Time-Shift Is Under Attack
Eliot Van Buskirk, Wired News
The latest attempt by the recording industry to take away our right to time-shift (i.e. record and play later) digital audio streams recieved a boost today from U.S. District Judge Deborah A. Batts, who saw merit in the labels' claims that "XM directly infringes on their exclusive distribution rights by letting consumers record songs onto special receivers marketed as 'XM + MP3' players"...
Senator Diane Feinstein's re-introduced PERFORM Act would make digital recording products such as XM's and others yet to come illegal from the get-go, and would even bar legally-licensed online radio stations from streaming in the MP3 format. Luckily, the EFF is all over Feinstein about this, with a special page where you can let your own Senators know exactly how you feel about the PERFORM Act.
January 18th, 2007
San Francisco expands public surveillance
Dan Goodin, The Register UK
In a controversial decision that pits civil libertarians against urban dwellers fed up with crime, San Francisco officials have agreed to almost double the number of surveillance cameras on city streets...
Several civil liberties groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, argue there is no evidence that cameras deter crime. They pointed to statistics that showed an increase in illegal incidents at half of the locations where monitoring has been implemented. They also contend that such programs are open to abuse by crooked law enforcement members.
January 18th, 2007
Proposed DRM legislation criticized as too harsh
Grant Gross, InfoWorld
Consumer rights groups have voiced opposition to legislation introduced in the U.S. Congress last week that would require Internet broadcasters to deploy DRM (digital rights management) technology to prevent listeners from making unauthorized copies of music files...
But the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and Public Knowledge oppose the legislation. The bill would be a "backdoor assault on your right to record off the radio," the EFF said. The PERFORM Act would prohibit digital and satellite radio services from offering TiVO-like recording options, the EFF said.
January 18th, 2007
WIPO Negotiators Try To Bear Down On Broadcasting Treaty
William New, Intellectual Property Watch
World Intellectual Property Organization officials negotiating this week on how to improve broadcasters' and cablecasters' ability to protect their signals have attempted to move into a deeper debate using an informal chair's text of a draft treaty...
The Electronic Frontier Foundation said the treaty raises fundamental questions for the rights of public and would restrict access to information in the public domain. Some broadcasters, such as from Japan, countered that absence of greater rights would weaken broadcasters and lead to less information and entertainment being made available to the public.
January 17th, 2007
Leaked Documents Spur First-Amendment Debate
Snigdha Prakash, NPR
A federal judge in Brooklyn, N.Y., is considering whether bloggers are entitled to the same free-speech protections given to reporters for newspapers and other media. The case involves leaked documents belonging to the pharmaceutical giant, Eli Lilly.
Fred von Lohmann of the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco will argue that the order to shut down the Web links violated the protections of the First Amendment.
"Courts in the United States, thanks to the First Amendment, are not allowed to issue what are called 'prior restraints,' Von Lohmann said. "After all, the Pentagon Papers were also allegedly improperly obtained. And the courts have said over and over again, 'It doesn't matter if the documents were improperly obtained. Courts do not issue stop-the-presses orders against people who happen to get the documents after they had been released.'"
January 15th, 2007
Documents Borne by Winds of Free Speech
Tom Zeller, Jr., New York Times
A showdown is scheduled for a federal courtroom in Brooklyn tomorrow afternoon, where words like "First Amendment" and "freedom of speech" and "prior restraint" are likely to mix seamlessly with references to "BitTorrent" and "Wiki"...
The case has attracted the attention of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the venerable digital rights group based in San Francisco, and one of its lawyers, Fred von Lohmann, who is now representing an anonymous Internet user caught up in the legal fracas.
"One of the core missions of the foundation's 16-year history has been to establish that when you go online, you take with you all the same civil rights with you had with you in prior media," said Mr. von Lohmann. "But of course, you need to fight for that principle."
January 13th, 2007
www.theregister.co.uk/2007/01/13/sanfrancisco_surveillance_cameras/
Civil rights groups slam San Francisco surveillance expansion Dan Goodin, The Register UK
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Northern California chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups are spearheading opposition to a plan by the San Francisco Police Department to install 25 new surveillance cameras throughout the city.
January 12th, 2007
Bill Would Force Webcasters' DRM Hand
Roy Mark, Internetnews.com
U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein re-introduced Thursday her controversial legislation to mandate DRM formats for all streaming media services. A similar bill failed in the last session of Congress under pressure from consumer advocates and the electronics industry...
Both Public Knowledge and the Electronic Frontier Foundation led the fight to defeat the PERFORM Act in 2006, and Sohn predicted Feinstein may again find tough sledding since new Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) opposes technology standards.
January 11th, 2007
Trying to censor blogger
Joe Garofoli, San Francisco Chronicle
A series of events involving a local liberal blogger, a San Francisco conservative radio station and the reaction of two of the larger corporate advertisers in the country -- Bank of America and MasterCard -- is revealing how slippery freedom of speech has become in the digital age...
"This is prototypical fair use of copyrighted material," said Matt Zimmerman, an attorney with the San Francisco civil liberties and digital privacy organization. EFF is not representing Spocko, but has reviewed his situation and is monitoring it. "Bloggers shouldn't have to be worried about being sued every time they post a screen shot from 'The Simpsons.' "
January 11th, 2007
House Seat Hangs by a Byte
Kim Zetter, Wired News
As the 110th Congress settles into the Capitol building this month, one congressman won't be able to get too comfortable in his chair, with a controversy over the electronic voting machines that put him in office boiling down to a battle over the source code...
"The source code is available, yet there is no easy and ready way to get access to it or for someone to go in and look at the machine and challenge them," says Matt Zimmerman, staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which has joined Jennings in her dispute of the election through a separate lawsuit representing voters. "And now we're left trying to convince a court that it would be a really good idea to take a look at it."
January 10th, 2007
Wiki Writer Goes to Court Over Freedom to Link
Shreema Mehta, The New Standard
An anonymous writer who linked from a collaborative website to a drug company's internal documents is appealing a court order demanding the removal of the links...
Preventing a citizen-journalist from posting links to important health information on a public wiki violates the First Amendment," said EFF Senior Staff Attorney Fred von Lohmann in a press statement. "Eli Lilly's efforts to censor these documents off the Internet are particularly outrageous in light of the information reported by the New York Times, which suggests that doctors and patients who use Zyprexa need to know the information contained in those documents."
January 9th, 2007
EFF Says First Amendment Protects Links To Leaked Corporate Documents
K.C. Jones, InformationWeek
An advocacy group claims the First Amendment allows citizen journalists to link from public Web pages to electronic copies of damaging internal documents...
"Preventing a citizen-journalist from posting links to important health information on a public wiki violates the First Amendment," EFF Senior Staff Attorney Fred von Lohmann said in a prepared statement. "Eli Lilly's efforts to censor these documents off the Internet are particularly outrageous in light of the information reported by The New York Times, which suggests that doctors and patients who use Zyprexa need to know the information contained in those documents."
January 9th, 2007
Blog Lands KSFO-AM In Hot Water With Advertisers
Joe Vazquez, CBS 5 (San Francisco)
At least two major corporations have pulled their advertisements from radio station KSFO-AM after bloggers publicized clips of broadcasts in which hosts took aim at politicians and a listener believed to be Muslim...
Matt Zimmerman with the Electronic Frontier Foundation said Spocko is well within his rights to post the audio clips, under a legal doctrine known as "Fair Use."
"If you are engaged in criticism or commentary or teaching -- those kinds of activities -- then it's acceptable to use copyrighted works to further those aims," Zimmerman said.
January 8th, 2007
Video leads parade as old media and new media hook up
Jefferson Graham and Michelle Kessler, USA TODAY
A year ago, CBS President Leslie Moonves came to the Consumer Electronics Show to trumpet CBS' new video alliance with Google...
Many anti-piracy protections rob consumers of the right to legitimately use entertainment they've paid for, says Fred von Lohmann, an attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an advocacy group.
For example, it's illegal to make a digital copy of a copy-protected DVD, even if it's just for backup, he says. And TV companies don't want consumers to be able to record a copy of a TV show on a DVR, then transfer it to another DVR or a portable device without paying a fee, he says.
January 5th, 2007
Hacker: Blu-ray, HD DVD copy protection cracked
Robert McMillan, IDG News
A computer hacker claims to have broken the AACS (Advanced Access Content System) encryption specification used to control unauthorized copying on HD-DVD and Blu-ray video players...
By cracking AACS, Muslix64 may have violated the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which prohibits users from circumventing copy-protection tools without the permission of the copyright holder, said Fred von Lohmann, senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Still, the software seems to have been written out of a legitimate sense of frustration with onerous copy-protection mechanisms, von Lohmann said. "He went out and bought a fancy new product that he thought would improve his experience and despite the fact that he's a legitimate buyer, it didn't work."
January 5th, 2007
Face Recognition for Online Photo Searches Sparks Privacy Fears
Mason Inman, National Geographic
A new type of search engine using facial recognition technology could soon be able to pinpoint images of a person among the billions of photos posted online-even if their name does not appear...
Lee Tien is an attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an Internet watchdog group that focuses on privacy and civil liberties.
"Photos [posted online] are effectively anonymous now," Tien said, unless they are labeled with some sort if identifying text. "But if Polar Rose works the way they say it will, that's all going to change."
January 5th, 2007
Experts say changes in e-voting likely to come
Grant Gross, ComputerWorld
Rules requiring independent audit mechanisms for electronic voting machines are likely coming, but the changes won't happen overnight, a group of advocates said Friday.
More than 18,000 undervotes in a still-disputed Florida congressional election from November show the need for independent audit mechanisms, said panelists at an event sponsored by several advocacy groups, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Common Cause.
January 5th, 2007
The legal rights to your 'Second Life' avatar
Daniel Terdiman, CNET
A Second Life land developer has convinced YouTube to pull down an off-color video of her virtual self being harassed during an interview, raising novel questions about the legal rights of virtual-world participants...
To Jason Schultz, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the issues surrounding the DMCA complaint are pretty cut and dried.
"Since the general theory (in Second Life) is that you own what you create, she completely owns the copyright in her avatar," said Schultz. "But that said, she absolutely has no rights under fair use to stop people from taking screenshots or screen captures of her avatar in Second Life."
January 4th, 2007
Signal-Based or Nothing, Some Say at US Broadcasting Treaty Roundtable
John T. Aquino, Intellectual Property Watch
At the 3 January roundtable discussion concerning the work at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) on a broadcasters' rights treaty, many of the more than 50 participants were vocal in their opposition, with some in support...
Gwen Hinze of the Electronic Frontier Foundation indicated that the draft proposal focuses on the rights of recording and intellectual property rights and urged the US delegation to pursue a signal-protection approach.
January 3rd, 2007
Op-Ed: The Digital Give And Take
Derek Slater, Tom Paine
Many progressives are partying like it's 1992 in the wake of the November election. But when it comes to technology and civil liberties policy, the newly elected Congress presents both new opportunities and new challenges. The truth is, neither Democrats nor Republicans are universally good or bad across all digital rights issues...
That's just a sampling of technology and civil liberties issues likely to come up in 2007. For continuing updates on new legislation, check out EFF's blog and Action Center.
January 3rd, 2007
When a Silicon Valley law firm dies, where do its records go?
Anne Broache, CNET
A prominent law firm that represented scores of Silicon Valley start-ups and venture capital firms in its heyday may have dissolved amid financial troubles a few years ago. But its records are poised to live on in digital form for years to come--and some former clients are raising questions about privacy implications...
Even so, requiring former clients to "opt out" rather than "opt in" doesn't seem quite right, said David Sobel, a senior counsel with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "A law firm's clients don't expect that their sensitive files will be made available to third-parties in this way, so they should not be given the burden of protecting their interests," he said in an e-mail interview.
January 2nd, 2007
New Websites To Watch Out For
Erik Rosales, ABC 7 News (San Francisco)
Attorney Fred Von Lohmann, with San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation says video sharing sites are filling the gaps abandoned by Youtube, which since its inception, has banned nudity and allows users to flag content they feel is inappropriate.
Von Lohmann says sites that host user generated content are not required by law to monitor or even screen the material before it goes up.
