In The News: February, 2008
Legal Aid for Whistle-Blower Site
BBC News
Whistle-blowing site Wikileaks is getting legal help to fight an attempt to keep it offline.
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The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Electronic Frontier Foundation are planning to "intervene" for Wikileaks at the continuation hearing.
The rights groups claim the order that knocked Wikileaks offline in the US raises "serious First Amendment concerns".
Suit Filed Over Hiring of Lawyer by Google
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Google Inc.'s hiring of a former Justice Department official as its senior privacy lawyer has prompted a lawsuit by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which wants to know more about her selection.
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"Google has an unprecedented ability to collect and retain very personal information about millions of Americans, and the DOJ and other law enforcement agencies have developed a huge appetite for that information," foundation Senior Counsel David Sobel said in a statement.
Judge is Asked to Rescind Shutdown of Website
Henry Weinstein, Los Angeles Times
A coalition of media and public interest organizations went to federal court in San Francisco on Tuesday urging a judge to reconsider his order to shut down a muckraking website that publishes leaked documents from businesses and government agencies worldwide.
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Laura Handman, a Washington, D.C., attorney for the news organizations, said White's order was so expansive that the only way to describe it was as if a judge had shut down a newspaper because of controversy over one article.
"I can't think of another injunction that was so broad," said Matt Zimmerman of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil rights group that focuses on digital issues.
Open Software Developers Meet at FOSDEM 2008
Michaël Laurent, IndyMedia
Thousands of developers of freely licensed and open source software from all over Europe met in Brussels, Belgium this weekend for FOSDEM 2008.
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Wikinews reporters attended a barbecue hosted by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) on Friday for an interview with EFF and Open Rights Group representatives about the upcoming E.U. proposal to extend copyright for performers to 95 years.
Researchers Find Way to Steal Encrypted Data
John Markoff, The New York Times
A group led by a Princeton University computer security researcher has developed a simple method to steal encrypted information stored on computer hard disks.
The technique, which could undermine security software protecting critical data on computers, is as easy as chilling a computer memory chip with a blast of frigid air from a can of dust remover. Encryption software is widely used by companies and government agencies, notably in portable computers that are especially susceptible to theft.
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The Princeton group included Seth D. Schoen of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, William Paul of Wind River Systems and Jacob Appelbaum, an independent computer security researcher.
Star Columnist Earns Digital Pioneer Award
Tyler Hamilton, Toronto Star
Internet law professor and Toronto Star business columnist Michael Geist has been named a digital pioneer by the highly respected Electronic Frontier Foundation, a U.S.-based advocate of civil liberties in a high-tech world.
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Geist, a tireless champion of Internet freedoms, has been credited for bringing the once-obscure issue of digital rights into the mainstream, and in doing so has ruffled many feathers in the music industry, within government and in other sectors resistant to change.
F.B.I. Received Unauthorized E-Mail Access
Eric Lichtblau, New York Times
WASHINGTON — A technical glitch gave the F.B.I. access to the e-mail messages from an entire computer network — perhaps hundreds of accounts or more — instead of simply the lone e-mail address that was approved by a secret intelligence court as part of a national security investigation, according to an internal report of the 2006 episode.
F.B.I. officials blamed an “apparent miscommunication” with the unnamed Internet provider, which mistakenly turned over all the e-mail from a small e-mail domain for which it served as host. The records were ultimately destroyed, officials said.
Bureau officials noticed a “surge” in the e-mail activity they were monitoring and realized that the provider had mistakenly set its filtering equipment to trap far more data than a judge had actually authorized.
The episode is an unusual example of what has become a regular if little-noticed occurrence, as American officials have expanded their technological tools: government officials, or the private companies they rely on for surveillance operations, sometimes foul up their instructions about what they can and cannot collect.
FBI Gained Unauthorized Access to E-Mail
Eric Lichtblau, New York Times
According to a document obtained by EFF through the Freedom of Information Act, an "apparent miscommunication" resulted in unauthorized FBI access to an entire domain's email, rather than the single email account the Bureau had permission to monitor.
Clarity Sought on Electronics Searches
Ellen Nakashima, Washington Post
Nabila Mango, a therapist and a U.S. citizen who has lived in the country since 1965, had just flown in from Jordan last December when, she said, she was detained at customs and her cellphone was taken from her purse. Her daughter, waiting outside San Francisco International Airport, tried repeatedly to call her during the hour and a half she was questioned. But after her phone was returned, Mango saw that records of her daughter's calls had been erased.
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Today, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Asian Law Caucus, two civil liberties groups in San Francisco, plan to file a lawsuit to force the government to disclose its policies on border searches, including which rules govern the seizing and copying of the contents of electronic devices. They also want to know the boundaries for asking travelers about their political views, religious practices and other activities potentially protected by the First Amendment. The question of whether border agents have a right to search electronic devices at all without suspicion of a crime is already under review in the federal courts.
Clarity Sought on Electronics Searches
Ellen Nakashima, Washington Post
The Washington Post reported on EFF's partnership with the Asian Law Caucus to bring a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit that will force the government to disclose its policies and procedures on border searches, including which rules govern the seizing, copying, storage and distribution information on electronic devices such as laptops.
Plan To Change Patent Review System Alarms EFF
IPLaw360
Joining a growing chorus of opposition to the pending Senate patent law reform bill, the Electronic Frontier Foundation has objected to a provision to change the way patents are challenged before the patent office...
