In The News: 2009
Will secret copyright treaty restrict digital rights?
By Jeff Porten, Computerworld
The Electronic Frontier Foundation received a copy with 159 pages intact, but an additional 1,362 pages redacted with the claim that the contents were crucial to national security.
S.F. cops may have gone too far in seizing DJ gear at underground parties
Jennifer Maerz, SF Weekly
San Francisco police have been confiscating DJs' laptops when they break up warehouse parties, even though no one is being arrested or even cited. The practice is chilling, and deprives the DJs of their means of livelihood, even though the DJs did nothing wrong. This article reviews what's been happening and EFF's role in trying to protect laptop privacy.
D.C. Circuit Examines Warrantless GPS Surveillance
Legal Times
This is a news report about the oral argument in U.S. v. Jones, a GPS tracking case in which EFF filed an amicus brief arguing that such surveillance requires a warrant.
Mac cloner guilty, but "hackintosh" tools will persist
By Jacqui Cheng, Ars Technica
Psystar has a ray of hope left in this case, but the ruling's language indicates that the clone maker's success on the remaining claims is unlikely. Psystar did not respond to our request for comment, but the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Fred von Lohmann doesn't think this is necessarily a death blow to the hackintosh industry as a whole.
"While the ruling is a serious setback for Psystar, I don't see it having much impact beyond the facts of that case," von Lohmann told Ars. "On a number of important points, the outcome was driven by Psystar-specific factors, such as Psystar forfeiting one of their strongest defenses by failing to plead it in time. Moreover, my understanding is that the commercial 'hackintosh' industry has moved on to selling software that enables the user to bring their own PC and OS X DVD, rather than selling a pre-installed solution like the one at issue in the ruling."
iPhone app developer quits over approval process
by Jim Dalrymple, CNET News
In order to get the fixes to customers, Kafasis took out all of the offending images and replaced them with the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) logo. If you tap on the logo, you will be taken to a page explaining why the images have been removed.
These Hobbyists Add to Calculators, Multiplying Their Fun
Dionne Searcey, Wall Street Journal
Calculator hobbyists having fun with and studying programmable calculators got unwanted attention from Texas Instruments' legal department. EFF is representing three of the hobbyists, who are violating no law. This article introduces some of the hobbyists and illuminates their interests and motivations.
Google Book Search Database Halved By Removing Most Foreign Texts
By Norman Oder, Library Journal
Cindy Cohn of the Electronic Frontier Foundation wrote, "Unfortunately, the parties did not add any reader privacy protections. The only nominal change was that they formally confirmed a position they had long taken privately that information will not be freely shared between Google and the Registry."
Copyright overreach goes on world tour
By Rob Pegoraro, Washington Post
Much information about ACTA has come from leaked documents posted to such sites as http://wikileaks.org; other details have been pried out through Freedom of Information Act requests by such groups as the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Knowledge Ecology International.
Facebook Case Sets Up Google Latitude as Tempting Legal Tool
By Clint Boulton, eWeek
Kevin Bankston, senior staff attorney for the EFF, who originally harangued Google over Latitude, was not happy about the feature, noting that Location History for Latitude creates a whole new set of privacy risks because that history may be vulnerable to demands by the government or civil litigants.
Activists launch online copyright database
By Shaun Nichols, V3.co.uk
The new Copyright Watch site is slated to serve as a reference base for users on copyright laws around the world. Among the groups participating in the effort are the US-based Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and Electronic Information for Libraries.
Bush Feared Successor Might Revoke Telco Spy Immunity
By David Kravets, Wired News
The documents, unearthed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation via a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, also suggest the administration was wary it might first have to concede that the telcos were complicit in the alleged dragnet surveillance to garner congressional support for the amnesty bill. The legislation, passed in July 2008, killed the EFF’s federal civil rights lawsuit against the companies.
Web Site Says Justice Department Demanded It Secretly Turn Over Readers' Information
By Diane Macedo, FOXNews.com
"Not only was this request a plain violation of federal privacy law -- which would require the government to at least get a court order based on a factual showing to get that kind of data; not only did it violate Department of Justice regulations that require subpoenas to media organizations to be vetted by the attorney general; not only did it threaten the First Amendment right to read anonymously of all of Indymedia's users, it also violated Ms. Clair's First Amendment rights by ordering her not to disclose the subpoena's existence," EFF Senior Staff Attorney Kevin Bankston told FoxNews.com.
Two German Killers Demanding Anonymity Sue Wikipedia’s Parent
By John Schwartz, New York Times
“He who controls the past, controls the future,” said a bulletin on the case issued Thursday by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an online civil liberties group. Jennifer Granick, a lawyer for the group, said the case “really is about editing history.”
Help Threat Level Examine Federal Spy Documents
By David Kravets, Wired News
In response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by the EFF, the government has now begrudgingly divulged thousands of pages of documents pertaining to the legislation’s development.
We will be poring through them today.
The EFF notes, “The government has said it will continue to try to block the release of additional documents, including communications within the Executive Branch and records reflecting the identities of telecoms involved in lobbying for immunity.” More litigation on the disclosure matter is set for January.
Take a look at the immunity negotiation documents and, in the comments section, report your findings.
Justices question patent for abstract business innovations
By John Schwartz, New York Times
Pamela Samuelson, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law, said "It's not very often that some obscure issue of patent law can excite so much attention."
Samuelson, who was an author of a brief on behalf of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an online civil liberties group, and others, said it was time for the court to tap the brakes on the business patents rush. The earlier State Street decision, her brief stated, had the effect of "knocking patent law loose from its historical moorings and improperly injecting patents into business areas where they were neither needed nor wanted."
Yes Men punk US Chamber of Commerce on climate change, sued
By John Timmer, Ars Technica
The EFF, having worked with the Yes Men to keep their fake site accessible, has announced that it will continue with what it terms a "free speech fight." To defend against the lawsuit, it will be joined by Davis Wright Tremaine, a large international law firm with a history of pro bono work.
EFF to Represent Yes Men in Court Battle Over Chamber of Commerce Action
By Juliana Gruenwald, National Journal
The Electronic Frontier Foundation said Wednesday that it will represent the Yes Men in fighting a lawsuit filed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce against the activists for staging a fake news conference claiming the business association had changed its stance on climate change legislation. The chamber's lawsuit, filed in October, claimed the Yes Men unlawfully used the group's trademark and other intellectual property by using the chamber's logo in a press release and at the fake news conference.
What is Acta and what should I know about it?
By Bobbie Johnson, Guardian UK
"The US government appears to be pushing for three strikes – despite the fact that it has been categorically rejected by the European parliament," said Gwen Hinze of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, adding that the leaks "confirmed everything that we feared".
Knock it off: Global treaty against media piracy won't work in Asia
By Jeff Yang, SFGate
"The leaks confirm everything that we feared about the secret ACTA negotiations," wrote Gwen Hinze of the Electronic Frontier Foundation in a grim post on the advocacy organization's "Deeplinks" blog. Or, as author and Boing Boing blogger Cory Doctorow put it even more pithily: "It's bad. Very bad."
Google's digitization of books
By Susan Noakes, CBC News
The main issue for readers is privacy. Because you are searching and reading on a public network, there is little assurance that your browsing and reading habits are private. Here are some of the questions raised by groups such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation:
Are your reading habits safe from fishing expeditions by the government or lawyers in civil cases?
How will Google itself use information about your reading history?
How will Google combine information about your reading habits with other information it may have about you through its other products?
Top 10 Bogus Software Patents That Need to Get Busted
eWeek
The Electronic Frontier Foundation says it is tired of what it calls bogus software patents. While Congress dithers over patent reform, the EFF is taking action against the software patents it considers are suppressing noncommercial and small-business innovation or limiting free expression online. To combat these annoying patents, the EFF has targeted its own Top 10 egregious patents. eWEEK presents the EFF's most bogus software patents.
Supreme Court Hears Bilski Case
By Roy Mark, eWeek
In a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of the PTO, the Electronic Frontier Foundation wrote, "EFF believes that patents should only be granted for technological processes. Congress never intended the strong protections of the patent monopoly to be available for mere services and methods of doing business."
Justice Dept. Asked For News Site's Visitor Lists
By John Eggerton, CBSNews.com
Kevin Bankston, a senior staff attorney at the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation, replied to the Justice Department on behalf of his client in a February 2009 letter (PDF) outlining what he described as a series of problems with the subpoena, including that it was not personally served, that a judge-issued court order would be required for the full logs, and that Indymedia did not store logs in the first place.
ACTA Internet Chapter Leak Signals Far-Reaching Copyright Policy
Kaitlin Mara, Intellectual Property Watch
As governments negotiating the secretive Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) meet in Seoul this week, public interest concern has surfaced over leaked information on internet enforcement.
The leaks “confirm everything that we feared,” wrote Gwen Hinze of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. “It’s bad. Very bad,” said Cory Doctorow, at influential blog BoingBoing.
It “provides firm confirmation that the treaty is not a counterfeiting trade, but a copyright treaty,” said University of Ottawa professor Michael Geist.
Five classic Apple marketing tactics that lock you in
By Dan Tynan, PC World
Apple claims that jailbreaking the iPhone violates its copyrights and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Digital-rights organizations like the Electronic Frontier Foundation beg to differ.
The EFF's Fred von Lohman argues that iPhone owners should be free to tinker with their phones, especially when they can add capabilities that App Store programs don't yet provide. He notes that "the courts have long recognized that copying software while reverse-engineering is a fair use when done for purposes of fostering interoperability with independently created software, a body of law that Apple conveniently fails to mention."
Trade Talks Hone in on Internet Abuse and ISP Liability
Paul Meller, IDG
ISPs around the world may be forced to snoop on their subscribers and cut them off if they are found to have shared copyright-protected music on the Internet, under an international agreement being promoted by the U.S.
Countries including Japan, Canada, South Korea, Australia as well as the European Union and U.S. have been negotiating an anticounterfeiting trade agreement (ACTA) over the past two years to combat the growing problem of counterfeit products ranging from designer clothes to downloadable music.
Dirty Air, Dirty Fight
By Eliza Newlin Carney, National Journal
Neither the Chamber's copyright nor its trademark claims have legal merit, countered Matthew Zimmerman, a senior staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is representing the Yes Men. "It seems rather clear that this is a fair use of copyright material," he said. "This is for fair comment and criticism."
Watchdog Group Calls Out 'Bogus Internet Censorship'
By Ki Mae Heussner, ABCnews.com
EFF's online " "Hall of Shame" spotlights high-profile examples of what it considers violations of copyright and trademark law.
"Free speech in the 21st century often depends on incorporating video clips and other content from various sources," EFF staff attorney Corynne McSherry said in a statement. "It's what 'The Daily Show with Jon Stewart' does every night. This is 'fair use' of copyrighted or trademarked material and protected under U.S. law. "
Did Congress really give the FCC power to protect the 'Net?
By Matthew Lasar, Ars Technica
But it isn't just Comcast that says that the FCC is out of bounds. The Electronic Frontier Foundation calls the agency's proposed rulemaking a "Trojan Horse" which is "built on a shoddy and dangerous foundation." Since Congress didn't give the FCC specific authority in this area, what's next, worries EFF—an "Internet Decency Statement" pushed by conservatives, or an "Internet Lawful Use Policy" urged on the agency by the Hollywood studios? That's why the group calls the move "a power grab that would leave the Internet subject to the regulatory whims of the FCC long after Chairman Genachowski leaves his post."
Obama administration moves to stop release of classified information
By Jeanne Meserve, CNN
But Kevin Bankston, senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said the decision to invoke the state secrets privilege represented a continuation of Bush administration policy. He said it is a sharp contrast to the promises of greater government transparency and accountability made during the Obama campaign.
"It turns out that 'change we can believe in' hasn't really resulted in any change at all when it comes to government secrecy," Bankston said.
America's Chamber of horrors
By Andrew Leonard, Salon.com
You might think that an organisation boasting as long a history and as much accumulated savvy about how the American political system works as the US Chamber of Commerce would know better than to pick a fight with satirical hoaxsters who will only gain from more publicity. This is not the kind of behaviour we expect from such an august institution. As Corynne McSherry, a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is representing the Yes Men in its legal battle with the Chamber, told Salon, "We are surprised and disappointed that the Chamber of Commerce has chosen to go to court over obvious political criticism."
Attorney General Holder Asserts State Secrets in Wiretap Suit
By Karen Gullo, Bloomberg
“It’s disappointing that they campaigned for a return to the rule of law, and have them turn around and say that courts can’t even look at these cases,” said Cindy Cohn, legal director at the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation, a privacy group that has challenged the warrantless wiretap program in court.
Obama Administration Invokes State Secrets Privilege…Again
By Jake Tapper, ABCnews.com
"The Obama administration has essentially adopted the position of the Bush administration in these cases," said Kevin Bankston, a lawyer for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, "even though candidate Obama was incredibly critical of both the warrantless wiretapping program and the Bush administration's abuse of the state secrets privilege."
EFF Creates a ‘Hall of Shame’ for Disputed Takedowns
By Marisa Taylor, Wall Street Journal Blogs
The Electronic Frontier Foundation’s latest effort to call out what it considers violations of copyright and trademark law comes in the form of a mock-awards page, complete with “honorees,” called the Takedown Hall of Shame.
Obama administration seeks to block wiretap suit
By Devlin Barrett, Associated Press
Kevin Bankston, a lawyer for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties group in San Francisco that is pursuing a similar lawsuit against the government, called Holder's decision "quite disappointing."
"The Obama administration has essentially adopted the position of the Bush administration in these cases, even though candidate Obama was incredibly critical of both the warrantless wiretapping program and the Bush administration's abuse of the state secrets privilege," said Bankston.
The case against the FCC's Net neutrality plan
By Larry Downes, CNET News
In arguing against ancillary jurisdiction, Comcast has found a surprising ally: the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The advocacy group--strong supporters of the principles of neutrality--believes that the commission has no authority to issue these rules without sweeping new authority from Congress. Regulating neutrality under ancillary jurisdiction, the EFF worries, is a cure far worse than the disease; a "power grab that would leave the Internet subject to the regulatory whims of the FCC long after Chairman Genachowski leaves his post."
Internet turns 40 with birthday party
By Glenn Chapman, AFP
"It feels to me like the alumni meeting of the framers of the US Constitution," Electronic Frontier Foundation co-founder John Perry Barlow said as he addressed the gathering.
"There are a lot of people in this room who are honest to god uncles and aunts of the Internet. What you did is conceivably the most important technological event since the capture of fire."
Analyst: ‘Trigger Day’ Looms for Paramount, Redbox
By Erik Gruenwedel, Homemediamagazine.com
“Nothing would stop Netflix from renting titles under First Sale, other than the risk of losing the discount,” said Fred von Lohmann, senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Digital Bread Crumbs: Following Your Cell Phone Trail
Martin Kaste, NPR
Cell phones leave a data trail, and it is becoming standard operating procedure for police departments and federal agents to use this data to locate and track people. NPR talks to a forensic expert and to EFF attorney Jennifer Granick about the practice.
For Texas Instruments, Calculator Hackers Don't Add Up
David Kushner, IEEE Spectrum Magazine
Calculator hackers code games and even get USB peripherals running on their machines. There's one problem: Texas Instruments doesn't want hackers modifying their calculators. TI insisted hackers take down links leading to signing keys that enable such modifications. The incident raises compelling questions about the boundaries of innovation and collaboration online.
Punked US Chamber sues faux press release pranksters
By Cade Metz , Register UK
But even after the Yes Men acknowledged the hoax, the press release remained online, and the Chamber couldn't help but toss a DMCA takedown at the pranksters' ISP. Those net watchdogs at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) cried foul over the takedown notice, arguing that parody is protected under copyright law and the US Constitution's First Amendment.
EFF opens the "Takedown Hall of Shame"
By Nate Anderson, Ars Technica
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is a big fan of naming and shaming... So when it wanted to highlight the overzealous use of DMCA takedown notices on the Web, the EFF went a similar route with its new "Takedown Hall of Shame."
Hoaxed US Chamber thumps pranksters with blunt instrument
By Cade Metz, Register UK
The Net watchdogs at EFF have come out against the Chamber's DMCA tactics, demanding the takedown notice be rescinded. "We are very disappointed the Chamber of Commerce decided to respond to political criticism with legal threats," EFF staff attorney Corynne McSherry said from inside a press release.
Obama & Google (a love story)
By Jia Lynn Yang and Nina Easton, Fortune Magazine
"Google will know what pages you read and how often you read it," says Cindy Cohn, legal director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which represented authors in the settlement with Google. "Google has come out with a policy saying it promises to protect our privacy, but it doesn't have any specific commitments -- it's pretty thin gruel."
Judge Urged To Not Restrict Comments on Google Settlement
By Norman Oder, Library Journal
While the largest library organizations are not signatories to the letter, among the signers are the Urban Libraries Council; the networks Lyrasis, Nylink, and BCR; and the Open Book Alliance, (OBA) which includes the New York Library Association and SLA. Among the other signatories are the American Society of Journalists and Authors; the Electronic Frontier Foundation; Microsoft; Yahoo; law professor Pamela Samuelson; and various foreign publishing societies.
ISP Takes Down Parody After Chamber Of Commerce Complains
By Wendy Davis, Mediapost
The digital rights organization Electronic Frontier Foundation fired back a letter on behalf of the Yes Men, arguing that the site is protected by fair use principles because it "is obviously designed for purposes of criticism and comment."
EFF defends Yes Men from business rage over climate hoax
By Matthew Lasar, Ars Technica
But lawyers from the Electronic Frontier Foundation are telling the Chamber to cool off about the whole affair.
What's the furor about? The Yes Men staged a fake press conference this week at the National Press Club in Washington. A "Yes Man" calling himself "Hingo Sembra" actually took to the podium in front of reporters to announce the Chamber's shift on climate change, only to have the whole spectacle turn truly bizarre when a real Chamber official showed up.
Judge Throws out Craigslist Lawsuit
By Nancy Gohring, PC World
"Meritless cases brought by law enforcement officers, amounting to little more than publicity stunts with little to no chance of success, do little to address the officers' underlying concerns," Matt Zimmerman , a senior staff attorney with the EFF, wrote in a blog post. "Service provides are not liable because Congress correctly understood that the soap box should not be held responsible for the speech of others. Just as phone companies are not liable for harassing phone calls, or e-mail software providers for deceptive messages, online message boards like Craigslist are in most instances not liable for their users' posts."
Judge rejects sheriff's prostitution suit against Craigslist
AFP
While prostitution is a serious problem, targeting websites like Craigslist is simply "a cheap and easy way to score political points," wrote Matt Zimmerman of the advocacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation.
"Meritless cases brought by law enforcement officers, amounting to little more than publicity stunts with little to no chance of success, do little to address the officers' underlying concerns," he wrote in a blog posting.
"Service provides are not liable because Congress correctly understood that the soap box should not be held responsible for the speech of others."
France adopts three-strikes law for piracy
By Greg Sandoval, CNET News
There is yet another way that copyright owners could get ISPs to help in their antipiracy efforts, according to Gwen Hinze, international policy director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
FCC proposes network neutrality rules (and big exemptions)
By Nate Anderson, Ars Technica
In an odd twist, the Electronic Frontier Foundation agrees. Despite supporting neutrality, the group argues that "Congress has never given the FCC any authority to regulate the Internet for the purpose of ensuring net neutrality."
Web Sites Donate Ad Space for Social Good
By Allison Mooney, Advertising Age
Their goal is to raise both awareness and money for worthy organizations, which currently include the Alliance for Climate Protection, Architecture for Humanity, Charity:Water, Donors Choose, Electronic Frontier Foundation and National Resources Defense Council.
House Considers Limiting Patriot Act Spy Powers
By David Kravets, Wired News
Kevin Bankston, a privacy lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, applauded the latest NSL proposal.
“As currently written, NSLs can be used to obtain the records of somebody not suspected of a crime. It’s a suspicionless standard. Under the proposal they must relate to an agent of a foreign power, of somebody working for a foreign government or foreign terror organization, ” he said. “That ensures that there is a particularized suspicion rather than allowing them to go on a fishing expedition.”
Getting bugged by e-mail subpoenas
By Eric Zorn, Chicago Tribune
"The law hasn't kept up with technology," said Cindy Cohn, legal director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "Up through most of the 1900s, the idea was that when you wrote something down, it was a signal that it was somehow important. Therefore it was reasonable for the law to say that written communication and other documents could be deemed relevant in criminal and civil proceedings."
White House readies phone-tap case concession
By Josh Gerstein and John Bresnahan, Politico
“The Executive Branch will be providing to the Electronic Frontier Foundation in its FOIA suit a large number of e-mail communications between House staffers and Executive branch employees regarding the legislation involving immunity to telecommunications companies enacted as part of the [revised Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] legislation last year,” Nathan wrote.
Texas Instruments: Don't hack your calculators, or else
By Bobbie Johnson, Guardian UK
"This is not about copyright infringement. This is about running your own software on your own device - a calculator you legally bought," said EFF Civil Liberties Director Jennifer Granick. "Yet TI still issued empty legal threats in an attempt to shut down discussion of this legitimate tinkering. Hobbyists are taking their own tools and making them better, in the best tradition of American innovation."
Why hack a calculator? Why climb Mount Everest?
By Stephen Shankland, CNET News
Some complied with TI's demand, but while the company may have won a battle, it may yet lose the war. The Electronic Frontier Foundation argues TI's DMCA letters are baseless, and some TI calculator hackers represented by the EFF plan to republish their posts later this month.
Judge: Cellphone Ringtones Are Not Concerts
By David Kravets, Wired News
“The ruling is an important victory for consumers, making it clear that playing music in public, when done without any commercial purpose, does not infringe copyright,” wrote Fred von Lohmann, a copyright attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Internet watchdog challenges VoIP patent
By Marguerite Reardon, CNET News
The Electronic Frontier Foundation says it has discovered another bogus patent, and it's taking the newly found evidence to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to have the patent invalidated.
45th Mersenne prime revealed
By Austin Modine, Register UK
This prime among Mersenne Primes is now a certified record-smasher, and it will net GIMPS a $100,000 award from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) for finding a prime number over 10 million digits.
EFF Challenges VOIP Systems Patent
By Roy Mark, eWeek
As part of its Patent Busting Project, the Electronic Frontier Foundation claims it has discovered a prior patent and published reference material that should invalidate a patent granted to Acceris for implementing VOIP using analog telephones as endpoints
Apple Tweaks iPhone 3GS to Lock Out Jailbreakers
By Richard Adhikari, MacNewsWorld
"Apple is certainly entitled to modify its hardware as it likes -- just like Toyota can use nonstandard parts to make it hard on replacement part makers," Fred von Lohmann, EFF's senior staff attorney, told MacNewsWorld. "What Apple should not be entitled to do is invoke the DMCA to block hobbyists from tinkering with their own property -- just like a car company shouldn't be able to use the DMCA to prevent me from using replacement parts of my choice."
EFF: TI calculator hackers didn't violate DMCA
By Stephen Shankland, CNET News
The Electronic Frontier Foundation on Tuesday rebutted legal assertions by Texas Instruments that enthusiasts who figured how to install their own operating systems on TI calculators violated the Digital Millenium Copyright Act.
EFF challenges Texas Instruments over calculator mods
By John Timmer, Ars Technica
Those issues were elaborated in a letter to TI from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which has agreed to represent the three bloggers targeted by DMCA takedowns. The EFF points out that the keys don't actually control access to the OS in residence on the calculators, which TI makes available as a free download.
Google Books: Scanning the Future
By Ben Hallman, The American Lawyer
Fred von Lohmann, a lawyer for the digital rights group the Electronic Frontier Foundation, says the proposed settlement may encourage stakeholders to "stop worrying about control, and to start worrying about remuneration.
Is EZ-Pass infringing on people’s privacy?
By Bruce Landis, Providence Journal
“That can very easily be used to track people’s location history,” said Lee Tien, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco nonprofit that supports civil liberties in the high-tech arena. “It’s something people just don’t think about, that the system knows where you are and when you pay.”
Democrats Split on Patriot Act
By Daphne Eviatar, Washingon Independent
Civil liberties advocates quickly expressed their disappointment. The American Civil Liberties Union called it “a watered-down version” of the original Leahy bill. Kevin Bankston of Electronic Frontier Foundation similarly described it as having “even fewer PATRIOT reforms than the original Leahy bill.”
File-hosting site up in arms over Firefox plug-in
By John Timmer, Ars Technica
The SkipScreen developers, however, have gotten the Electronic Frontier Foundation to take up their case. In a letter that has also been sent to Mozilla, the EFF calls MediaFire's claim's "baseless," arguing, "SkipScreen, like many other add-ons, simply automates certain browser tasks in order to improve the user experience." The letter points out that only users who set up accounts agree to the company's acceptable use policy; downloaders just go straight through to the file. Furthermore, it notes, there's no real difference in total bandwidth use for downloads initiated with or without the plugin.
Firefox Automation Plug-In Draws Legal Threat
By Thomas Claburn , InformationWeek
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has elected to help SkipScreen defend itself and senior staff attorney Fred von Lohmann offers this succinct response in a blog post: "It's my browser, and I can ignore your ads if I want to."
Civil Libertarians Dismayed by Patriot Amendments
By Daphne Eviatar, Washingon Independent
I just spoke to Kevin Bankston, the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s senior attorney specializing in free speech and privacy law, about his reaction to today’s Senate Judiciary Committee markup session on the Patriot Act, which resulted in passage of the Leahy-Feinstein bill, with a few amendments. Bankston, who’s been following this debate closely, was not pleased.
Telephone Company Is Arm of Government, Feds Admit in Spy Suit
By Ryan Singel, Wired News
The Electronic Frontier Foundation wanted to see what role telecom lobbying of the Justice Department played when the government began its year-long, and ultimately successful, push to win retroactive immunity for AT&T and others being sued for unlawfully spying on American citizens.
The feds argued that the documents showing consultation over the controversial telecom immunity proposal weren’t subject to the Freedom of Information Act since they were protected as “intra-agency” records...
The Norm Coleman Web crash and full disclosure
Network World
In contrast, Attorney Jennifer Granick is the Civil Liberties Director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Executive Director of the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School. According to her, neither Richards nor Wikileaks.org broke the law. "Based on her knowledge of this case, as well as the law, Granick said it was legal for Richards to view the Web directory on which Coleman's donor list resided. "There has to be some kind of indication that information is locked away," she said.
Google, Authors Given Until November To Fix Book Settlement
By Wendy Davis, Mediapost
Separately, digital rights advocates like the Electronic Frontier Foundation and ACLU objected to the deal on the grounds that Google had not guaranteed to preserve readers' privacy. They argued that the deal should not go forward without assurances from Google that it will guarantee readers the same privacy and anonymity that patrons of brick-and-mortar libraries have.
This week, the digital rights groups, along with a coalition of authors and other interested parties, asked Google to revise the settlement by including "enforceable privacy protections."
Twitter user who helped G20 protestors facing charges
AFP
According to the police complaint obtained by the non-profit Electronic Frontier Foundation and posted online on Tuesday, Madison and another man were in the motel room when police arrived.
Publishers disconnect on e-book biz
NPR - Marketplace
Fred von Lohmann represents the Electronic Frontier Foundation. He warns publishers are inviting piracy.
FRED VON LOHMANN: I do think that's going to become a real threat if publishers decide to take the view that people only get to read what they tell them to read, in the format they tell them to enjoy, at the price point that they insist on. That's exactly the kind of short-sighted, anti-customer attitude that landed the music industry in so much trouble.
Web surfers say no to tailored ads, study found
By Alejandro Martinez-Cabrera , San Francisco Chronicle
"The problem is not so much the customization of advertising but the customization of the data the advertising is based from. It's an indication that people are being watched in a profound and surreptitious way they're unaware of," said Peter Eckersley, a senior technologist with the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
FBI disclosure stokes fears
By Josh Gerstein, Politico
For some, the manual raised concerns about the vague rules for initiating a category of FBI activity known as an “assessment,” which stops short of a preliminary or full-scale investigation. Assessments “require an authorized purpose but not any particular factual predication,” but the newly released FBI manual acknowledges that the standard is “difficult to define.”
“That’s not a reassuring basis on which to be poking into people’s private lives,” said David Sobel of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an online privacy group.
Advocates object to FBI surveillance guidelines
By Nedra Pickler, Associated Press
Late Friday the FBI posted an edited version of its Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide on its Web site as a result of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The guide was approved in December, during the final days of the Bush administration, and establishes policy that guides all the FBI's domestic operations, including counterterrorism, counterintelligence, criminal or cyber crime.
Foundation attorney David Sobel said he's more concerned with what the FBI removed from its guidelines for public consumption than what it disclosed.
Regulators’ Role Seen Rising As E-Content Tied To Devices
By Dugie Standeford, Intellectual Property Watch
“Absent a warrant requirement, the police could track unlimited numbers of members of the public for days, weeks or months at a time, without ever leaving their desks,” the EFF’s brief argues. “No person could be confident that he or she was free from round-the-clock surveillance of his or her movements and associations by a network of satellites constantly feeding data to a remote computer ... .”
Government Aims for Cost, Security Benefits With Cloud Computing
By Chris Amico, PBS Newshour
Peter Eckersley, staff technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said the government needs a better way to rate how sensitive and secure data is.
"What we'd really want to see is Apps.gov doing some kind of risk analysis for each of the services it offers: how much time would it cost a hacker to break into this service, how much data could they get out, how sensitive would that data be?" he said. "If the risk looks small, or lower than the in-house alternative, go ahead and use the service."
Is it legal to download music if you don't upload?
By Nate Anderson, Ars Technica
We checked in with Electronic Frontier Foundation's Fred von Lohmann to see if he agreed with the music business legal position.
"Does it infringe US copyright law to download music without authorization from a P2P network?" he said. "It depends. If you're a teacher who needs a clip for use in a class presentation, I think there's a good chance it's a fair use. But if you're downloading just because you don't want to pay for the song, then you're probably an infringer. Intermediate cases can be imagined, but that gives a pretty good idea of the two poles."
(When it comes to appropriate penalty for infringement, though, von Lohmann parts ways with the record industry.)
Without warrants, police use trackers to follow suspects
By Brian Smith, Richmond Register
“Absent a warrant requirement, the police could track unlimited numbers of members of the public for days, weeks or months at a time, without ever leaving their desks,” the EFF’s brief argues. “No person could be confident that he or she was free from round-the-clock surveillance of his or her movements and associations by a network of satellites constantly feeding data to a remote computer ... .”
Massive FBI Data Mining Revealed, Set to Expand
By Alex Newman, John Birch Society
“We have a situation where the government is spending fairly large sums of money to use an unproven technology that has a possibility of false positives that would subject innocent Americans to unnecessary scrutiny and impinge on their freedom,” explained Kurt Opsahl, an attorney for the privacy watchdog Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). “Before the NSAC expands its mission, there must be strict oversight from Congress and the public.”
EFF scores a victory in campaign against telecom spying
By Kenneth Corbin, InternetNews
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has scored a victory in its ongoing crusade to wrest information from telecoms about their involvement in the government's warrantless wiretapping program.
Newly Declassified Files Detail Massive FBI Data-Mining Project
By Ryan Singel, Wired News
“We have a situation where the government is spending fairly large sums of money to use an unproven technology that has a possibility of false positives that would subject innocent Americans to unnecessary scrutiny and impinge on their freedom,” said Kurt Opsahl, a lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. “Before the NSAC expands its mission, there must be strict oversight from Congress and the public.”
Texas Instruments aims lawyers at calculator hackers
Dan Goodin, The Register
Lawyers for Texas Instruments are taking aim at a group of calculator enthusiasts who posted the cryptographic keys used to modify the devices so they run custom-designed software. Is TI improperly using the DMCA to control the way its calculators are being used by people who legally own them?
xkcd's Randall Munroe Answers All of Your Questions
By Lauren Davis, Io9
Munroe, who just released xkcd: volume 0 last week, appeared at last night's Electronic Frontier Foundation's Geek Reading fundraiser. Munroe talked a bit about the experience of publishing the book, which contains strips from the site as well as annotations, the centerpiece of the event was a question and answer session.
Online Comments Spark Lawsuits
By Rebecca Webber , Parade
“People have the right to free speech,” explains Matt Zimmerman, senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which defends digital rights. “But they’ve never had the right to defame someone. They still don’t.”
Project ‘Gaydar’
By Carolyn Y. Johnson, Boston Globe
“Even if you don’t affirmatively post revealing information, simply publishing your friends’ list may reveal sensitive information about you, or it may lead people to make assumptions about you that are incorrect,” said Kevin Bankston, senior staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit digital rights organization in San Francisco. “Certainly if most or many of your friends are of a particular religious or political or sexual category, others may conclude you are part of the same category - even if you haven’t said so yourself.”
Opposition To Aspects Of Google Book Project Settlement Mounts
By Bruce Gain, Intellectual Property Watch
“I think the settlement could be in serious trouble, given the array of filings with the court,” Fred von Lohmann, a staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). “But it’s difficult to predict outcomes at this stage.”
Disloyal employees are not hackers, says court
By Jacqui Cheng , Ars Technica
As pointed out by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the CFAA has been used (or misused, depending on your view) to go after people who have otherwise done perhaps unethical things on computers, but are not hackers.
Governing from the cloud
By James Temple, San Francisco Chronicle
"It's always essential to be vigilant for privacy concerns that can result from moving into the cloud," said Peter Eckersley, staff technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco. He said cloud-computing companies have yet to demonstrate applications that ensure complete confidentiality for users.
FTC to Hold Privacy Roundtables
By Andrew LaVallee, Wall Street Journal Blogs
"It's always essential to be vigilant for privacy concerns that can result from moving into the cloud," said Peter Eckersley, staff technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco. He said cloud-computing companies have yet to demonstrate applications that ensure complete confidentiality for users.
Study: eBay, Yahoo among most trusted companies
By Elinor Mills, CNET News
While the list ranks the most trusted companies based on consumer brand perception it doesn't necessarily translate to the list of the most trustworthy companies, Kevin Bankston, a senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told CNET News.
Stunned film, music sectors react to Veoh decision
By Greg Sandoval, CNET News
Companies such as YouTube and Veoh have filtering technologies in place that help keep infringing materials off the site, and Fred von Lohmann, senior attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, has always said there isn't any way for such services to determine what content is infringing and what isn't. The copyright owners, according to EFF, are in the best position to do that.
Sneaky UK Attempt To DRM Television
By Michael Masnick, Tech Dirt
Danny O'Brien over at the EFF has the details on how the entertainment industry is attempting to push through an attempt to DRM TV in the UK. It's not quite a "broadcast flag," but close enough.
Who Should Control The Virtual Library?
NPR
Google stands to be the single repository for millions of the world's books. Advocates applaud the organization and the access a digital library can afford. But critics worry about monopoly and profit motives, and what it means for readers' privacy. (With EFF Senior Staff Attorney Fred von Lohmann.)
UC Davis case shows how Web comment anonymity's not absolute
By Hudson Sangree, Sacramento Bee
Online anonymity is "a speed bump that's relatively easy to clear for people with legitimate causes of action," said Matt Zimmerman, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Veoh wins copyright case, is it good for YouTube?
By Greg Sandoval, CNET News
YouTube and Google could be the big winner in all of this, said Fred von Lohmann, senior attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Viacom accused YouTube of infringing its copyright in a lawsuit filed in March 2007.
"Veoh's policies are very similar to YouTube's," von Lohmann said. "The judge gave Veoh a clean bill of health. I think the court in New York (where the Viacom-YouTube case is being heard) is going to take this ruling very seriously. The facts are very, very close."
Judge: Safe Harbor applies to Veoh; UMG lawsuit eviscerated
By Eric Bangeman, Ars Technica
The EFF's Fred von Lohmann believes the Viacom-YouTube judge may very well be influenced by the decision. "[T]his ruling could prove to be influential on the judge in the YouTube case, since Veoh's policies are very similar to YouTube's," von Lohmann told Ars. "The ruling further cements a number of earlier rulings that have insisted that the burden of policing user-generated content for copyright infringements falls to the copyright owner, not to the video hosting provider."
Editorial: Hacking your life
Las Vegas Sun
“This is an important point that people haven’t grasped,” said Peter Eckersley of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. “If you have any hacker who is competent and spends the time and targets you, he’s going to get you.”
A Look At The RIAA's Copyright Propaganda For Schools
By Michael Masnick, Tech Dirt
However, if schools really are interested in educating kids about copyright, why not use a non-industry curriculum, like the one put together by the EFF, called Teaching Copyright.
Twitter Confirms User Ownership Of Tweets
By Thomas Claburn, InformationWeek
"The vast majority of tweets are likely to be too short and lacking in creativity to qualify for copyright," said Fred von Lohmann, senior staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, in an e-mail. "So they are not 'owned' by anyone, much like your idle chatter while walking down the street isn't 'owned' by anyone."
Can a mere domain name be defamation? Glenn Beck says yes
By Nate Anderson, Ars Technica
Corynne McSherry, a lawyer for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, chose the same word to describe the WIPO domain name dispute process: "preposterous." But she's less convinced that Beck's lawyers have a case to make regarding defamation, even when it comes to the website's name. "I'm not sure of any case where someone has claimed that a domain name was defamatory," she tells Ars. And while domain names do pop up alone in search engines and other places, the public generally thinks of a site's name in connection with the full content of the site, not as some standalone morsel of content.
Google finds opposition in copyright case
UPI
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, the American Civil Liberties Union and several other groups filed a brief objecting to Google's privacy policy.
The brief says the policy "fails to safeguard reader privacy."
Google's 2 concessions try to calm book-deal turmoil
By James Temple, San Francisco Chronicle
On Tuesday, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Samuelson Law, Technology & Public Policy Clinic at UC Berkeley and other privacy groups filed a court brief that said the settlement "fails to safeguard reader privacy."
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/09/08/BU6519KAPM.D...
Google Books opposition pours in at deadline
By Tom Krazit, CNET News
As expected, lawyers for Microsoft, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and a coalition called the Open Book Alliance blasted the deal as anticompetitive and detrimental to consumers.
EFF, ACLU says Google Books will chill reading, speech
By Richard Koman, ZDNet
Privacy concerns are at the heart of a new objection to the Google Books settlement filed by the ACLU, Electronic Frontier Foundation, UC Berkeley’s Samuelson Clinic and private attorney David Pankin. With EFF’s Cindy Cohen taking the lead, the group objects to the settlement because of the chilling effect on reading, research and writing Google’s control over user data could have.
Password Hackers Are Slippery To Collar
By Tom Jackman, Washington Post
"This is an important point that people haven't grasped," said Peter Eckersley, a staff technologist for the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco. "We've been using e-mail for years, and it's been insecure all that time. . . . If you have any hacker who is competent and spends the time and targets you, he's going to get you."
Administration Seeks to Keep Terror Watch-List Data Secret
By Ellen Nakashima, Washington Post
David Sobel, senior counsel for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a privacy advocacy group, said the government has successfully used existing FOIA exemptions to deny requests for watch-list records. He cited a court case last fall brought by the EFF in which the government, in keeping with it policy, refused to confirm or deny whether a European Parliament member's name was on the terrorist watch list. The government claimed in part an exemption that bars disclosure of law enforcement information on "techniques and procedures" for investigations. The EFF, concluding that the government would win, withdrew the case.
EFF: Google Books Privacy Policy "Needs to Do More"
By Clint Boulton, eWeek
One day after Google unveiled a privacy policy for Google Books at the behest of the Federal Trade Commission, the Electronic Frontier Foundation said Google's privacy policy was insufficient.
Google rebuffed the EFF's requests for a policy more than a month ago.
One imagines, then, the EFF would turn a critical eye toward the policy and it sure has; it is so dissatisfied it is filing a rejection to the settlement in time for the New York district court's Sept. 8 deadline to hear support and opposition before the court's Oct. 7 hearing.
Google's Book Scanning Has Authors On Edge
By Laura Sydell, NPR
Some critics of the settlement say that despite its flaws, they would prefer to find a way to make the scanning effort work rather than scratch the whole effort. For example, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties group, is raising objections to the settlement. But EFF attorney Cindy Cohn thinks the public is better off having something than nothing.
Cohn grew up in a small town and remembers feeling limited by the size of her local library: "Google's creating a digital library that's going to create tremendously more access to the world's books than we'll have if we sit around and wait for 10 years for something better," she says.
Editorial: Don't let a president turn off the Internet
Washington Examiner
As the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Lee Tien told CNET: "The language has changed but it doesn't contain any real additional limits. It simply switches the more direct and obvious language they had originally to the more ambiguous." Tien adds that the bill contains no administrative or appeals process to limit what he describes as the "amorphous" powers granted to the president.
A Casualty of the Technology Revolution: ‘Locational Privacy’
By Adam Cohen, New York Times
Privacy advocates are rightly concerned. Corporations and the government can keep track of what political meetings people attend, what bars and clubs they go to, whose homes they visit. It is the fact that people’s locations are being recorded “pervasively, silently, and cheaply that we’re worried about,” the Electronic Frontier Foundation said in a recent report.
Privacy Groups Urge Congress to Toughen Up on Online Ads
By Andrew LaVallee, Wall Street Journal
The coalition, which included the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Consumers Union and Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, singled out behavioral advertising, in which Internet users are tracked, analyzed and served ads based on the information gleaned from their movements, in its recommendations.
Consumer Groups Call for Online Privacy Guarantees
By Rob Hof, BusinessWeek
It’s the first united push by the group, which includes the Center for Digital Democracy, the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and Consumers Union, against the Internet industry’s opposition to any legislation to limit ad targeting.
Today's Burning Man: Anarchy? Not so much
By Phil Bronstein, San Francisco Chronicle
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco digital-rights nonprofit group that includes a lot of "burners" among its members, accused Burning Man of "fast and easy online censorship." Burning Man's Andie Grace fired back that the foundation's hit was "a startling disappointment" coming from a fellow traveler counterculture group, as both organizations are Bay Area-bred and dedicated to free expression. Burning Man is just trying to protect privacy and counter "the creep of ... commercialist wolves," she insisted.
It's like a battle between two giant, fluffy, white do-good rabbits. But this is serious business.
Editorial: Speak up for anonymity
Baltimore Sun
Today, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a group that defends citizens' rights on the Internet, is fighting the Bush administration-era warrantless wiretapping, seeking the release of FBI surveillance rules, and investigating the Google Book Search settlement, which threatens to strip away the privacy and anonymity of readers everywhere. These are the cases that Ms. Cohen's lawsuit should bring to the forefront. They illustrate how precious our privacy is, and why we should fight for it, while also underlining that we must keep in mind what's good for the people and the safety of all.
Google Books is Privacy Battle's New Frontier
By Gerald Helguer, International Business Times
"They have this argument that they haven't built the product yet, well that's fine. Your policy on disclosure doesn't turn on the product," says Cindy Cohn, chief attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a non-profit online rights group.
Google Co-Founder Sergey Brin Says Trust Us With Your Personal Information
By Laura Sydell, NPR
That isn't enough for Cindy Cohn, a staff attorney at the online civil liberties group Electronic Frontier Foundation. She doesn't doubt Brin's sincerity. But, Cohen says, "Even if you believe that the Google of today would never, ever do the wrong, I don't think it's wise to assume that the Google of tomorrow will be the same."
Cohen says EFF wants Google to put in writing terms for privacy around its Google book searches.
Judge Won't Lower $5M Bail for SF IT Administrator
By Robert McMillan, PC World
But California's law was designed to prosecute people who break into computers, not those engaged in workplace disputes, said Jennifer Granick, civil liberties director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. In Childs' case, his bosses asked him to hand over a password and he refused to do it, she said. "I don't think the California legislature contemplated that as a criminal action when they passed [the state's computer crime law]."
"This interpretation of the statute basically criminalizes certain types of commercial and employment disputes," she said.
Bill would give president emergency control of Internet
By Declan McCullagh, CNET News
The privacy implications of sweeping changes implemented before the legal review is finished worry Lee Tien, a senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco. "As soon as you're saying that the federal government is going to be exercising this kind of power over private networks, it's going to be a really big issue," he says.
Gov't tightens oversight of laptop border searches
Associated Press
Marcia Hofmann, a lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a ditigal civil rights advocacy group, said in an interview the new rules are an improvement. But they don't go far enough, she said.
She said travelers should be told if information is copied from their devices. The new directive states that federal agents must tell travelers if they are looking at their property. But if officials copy the hard drive during this search, the traveler will not know.
"I don't think that's the way to go," Hofmann said.
Michigan State University: Serious Student Complaints = Spam
By Greg Lukianoff, Huffington Post
After the intervention of FIRE and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, along with the support of eleven other civil liberties organizations, MSU withdrew the charges against Kara and promised to reform its spam policy. Unfortunately, the university has put in its place a new spam policy that is not much of an improvement.
Hey Flickr ... why so censorious?
By Helen A.S. Popkin, MSNBC
Now comes the part where we all start cryin’ “free speech” and “censorship” and la, la, la …but guess what, kids? It’s Flickr’s ball and the law says Flickr gets to make the rules. Matt Zimmerman, senior staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, digital civil rights advocates, confirms the law favors Flickr. “It actually implicates the First Amendment rights of who's running the forum,” he said.
Fashion blogger's Google suit seen as weak
By James Temple, San Francisco Chronicle
Matt Zimmerman, senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco, has voiced many of these concerns himself, but he, too, doesn't see a valid legal argument for Port.
That said, he and other privacy advocates do worry about the legal precedent established, given the growing number of what are known as CyberSLAPP lawsuits. In such cases, targets of anonymous criticism file suits, often frivolous, just so they can issue a subpoena to a Web site or Internet service provider to uncover the identity of the authors and intimidate, embarrass or silence them. Cohen, in fact, has dropped her subsequent defamation suit, according to the New York Post.
"The notion that you can use the court as your personal private investigator to out anonymous critics is a dangerous precedent to set," Zimmerman said. "I think the practical impact (of the Cohen case) is that litigious people will see this as a green light to try to out critics."
DHS Clarifies Laptop Border Searches
By Thomas Claburn, InformationWeek
Marcia Hofmann, staff attorney at the EFF, says the new directives appear to be largely the same as past policy, although they do provide welcome specificity about border search procedures. "For example, the July 2008 border search policy issued by CBP said that agents could detain devices or copies for a 'reasonable period of time to perform a thorough border search,' but it wasn't clear what a 'reasonable period of time' was," she explained in an e-mail. "The new directives specify actual time lines, which is a positive change."
U.S. unveils new rules on border searches of laptops
Reuters
Privacy groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation have pushed Congress to stop border officers from searching laptops, cell phones and other electronic devices without probable cause when people enter or return to the country.
Dealing With The Secret Government
By Christopher Hayes, The Nation
In these and other cases, however, the White House is fighting outside groups like the ACLU, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which it can try to stonewall in the courts with relatively little press attention.
High-Tech Tug of War Over iPhone
By Eriq Gardner, IP Law & Business
The Electronic Frontier Foundation sought the exemption, staff attorney Fred von Lohmann says, because it believes Apple is exploiting copyright laws to protect its business interests and those of its iPhone partner, AT&T. By deciding whether entrepreneurs like Arlo Gilbert get access to the iPhone platform, von Lohmann says, Apple can stymie innovation for reasons totally unconnected to copyright. He likens it to giving automakers the power to decide who can fix cars. "Sure, GM might tell us that for your own safety, all servicing should be done by an authorized GM dealer using only genuine GM parts," he says. "But we'd never accept this corporate paternalism as a justification for welding every car hood shut and imposing legal liability on car buffs tinkering in their garages."
ACLU sues for information on laptop searches at U.S. borders
By Jaikumar Vijayan, Computerworld
Today's lawsuit is not the first time the DHS has been pressed for more information on its policies relating to border laptop searches. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the Asian Law Caucus had filed a similar FOIA lawsuit in February 2008, in which they had sought similar data from the CBP.
In response to that lawsuit, the CBP released about 600 pages worth of information on its policies relating to border laptop searches, said Marcia Hoffman, an attorney for EFF. (The documents are available on EFF's site.)
"It gave us some insight into their policies and procedures around border searches," Hoffman said. What the documents showed was that until fairly recently DHS had not thought about how policies covering other forms of searches applied to digital information, she said. Following the EFF and Asian Law Caucus lawsuit, the CBP also published a formal note describing its policy regarding border searches.
Google Maps Now Shows Live Traffic Reports For Back Roads
By Clint Boulton, eWeek
The problem with the location-based services is that it affects a skittishness in people. Concepts like location-based services that send "bits of data back to Google" tend to make people nervous. Electronic Frontier Foundation has a great report on the intersection of location services and privacy.
'Skanks' case over Google's release of e-mail address tests limits of bloggers' anonymity
By David Lieberman, USA TODAY
"As opposed to 20 years ago, everyone’s moving online the general discussion that they’d have had with their friends in the lunchroom," says Electronic Frontier Foundation senior staff attorney Matt Zimmerman. "Are we really saying that it’s the job of the courts to monitor these kinds of tit-for-tat, silly, pointless insults?"
Real Estate Developer Seeks To Unmask Anonymous Commenters
By Wendy Davis, Mediapost
EFF attorney Matt Zimmerman says the developer is targeting people "solely based on their critical speech and nothing else." He adds that the developer has no reason to think that any of the Web commenters are involved in the lawsuit. "This would be like going into the neighborhood that is affected by this development project and subpoenaing every resident because -- who knows? -- maybe the resident might have information relevant to their case," he says.
The coming-out stories of anonymous bloggers
By John D. Sutter, CNN.com
Matt Zimmerman, senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which advocates for the rights of anonymous speech, said there are tools people can use to try to hide their footprints online. But none is 100 percent effective, he said.
That leaves some online writers who use pseudonyms in the stressful situation of not knowing if or when their real names will be revealed.
"Skank case" precedent worries privacy groups
James Temple, San Francisco Chronicle
Matt Zimmerman, senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco, said of the Cohen case:
"The notion that you can use the court as your personal private investigator to out anonymous critics is a dangerous precedent to set. This doesn't change the rules ... but I think the practical impact is that litigious people will see this as a green light to try to out critics. It's one of those bad facts make bad law cases. The court looked at the type of statements being made and the person wasn't engaging in very defensive behavior and unfortunately that affected the court's outcome. ... What the court was reacting to was what was more sympathetic, which was the plaintiff."
Classification Comments from Public?
By Aliya Sternstein, Nextgov
The co-signers of the Aug. 1 request include representatives from OpenTheGovernment.org, Federation of American Scientists, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Tech giants unite against Google
By Maggie Shiels , BBC News
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, the ACLU of Northern California and the Consumer Watchdog advocacy group wrote to Google to ask the company to "assure Americans that Google will maintain the security and freedom that library patrons have long had: to read and learn about anything... without worrying that someone is looking over their shoulder or could retrace their steps".
“Your Papers, Please!”
By Becky Akers, The New American
Rather, organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (which “defend[s] your rights in the digital world”) led the charge. Joining them were the governors of various states in a nigh revolutionary stand-off with the feds.
In the pursuit of easy money
By Thomas Levenson, Telegraph
There is another approach to digital security: “fingerprinting” the machines that make modern counterfeiting so tempting. The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports that US authorities have succeeded in getting some colour laser printer makers to digitally label each page their printers produce. The privacy concerns are obvious: these machines do not know if a document is a forged banknote or a love letter.
Miami Man Charged In Major Identity Theft Case
By Ari Shapiro, NPR
This attack is three times that size. Jennifer Granick of the Electronic Frontier Foundation says this is clearly a growing problem.
Ms. JENNIFER GRANICK (Electronic Frontier Foundation): And I think one of the causes of the problem is that companies have not being careful about creating these treasure troves of customer information.
Law and disorder in cyberspace
By Cyrus Farivar, PRI's The World
FARIVAR: That’s just one problem. Peter Eckersley can think of others. He’s with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a tech advocacy group in San Francisco.
PETER ECKERSLEY: There’s a hugely complicated ethical problem about vigilantism as a response. Sure these researchers that you’ve mentioned in Germany may be genuinely well-intentioned and may genuinely have found a flaw in one particular botnet that they think they can use to shut the botnet down but who watches the vigilantes? How do we know that parties like that are actually making the situation better and even have the public’s interest at heart?
Op-Ed: Lawless Surveillance, Warrantless Rationales
By Cindy Cohn, American Constitution Society
Both former NSA Director Michael Hayden and former Justice Department attorney John Yoo have taken to the editorial pages of major national newspapers this summer to defend the so-called Presidential Surveillance Program, the still-shadowy set of programs that spy on Americans in America without any probable cause or warrant. This campaign to sway public opinion is ongoing because neither the past Bush officials nor the current Obama administration officials dare to defend their illegal activities on the merits in a court of law.
Obama Joker artist unmasked: A fellow Chicagoan
By Mark Milan, Los Angeles Times
"You really want to think twice about going after a political commenter," said Corynne McSherry, a senior staff attorney at the EFF. In Time's case, "a news organization probably doesn't want to be in the situation of pursuing political criticism."
EFF on Locational Privacy
By Bruce Schneier, Schneier on Security
Excellent paper: "On Locational Privacy, and How to Avoid Losing it Forever."
Obama's cookies may not go down so easy
By Robert X. Cringely, San Francisco Chronicle
For example: The CDT/EFF say Uncle Sam should only use the data for measuring Web site performance and not share it with third parties. They want the feds to nuke the data after 90 days, disclose the use of tracking cookies to all Web site users, let them opt out without penalty, and have an inspector general or other third party verify they're following the rules.
Can Fans Be Banned From Posting On Facebook?
By Wendy Davis, Mediapost
Among other conditions, ticket purchasers must agree to assign the copyright in their photos or videos to Burning Man, the Electronic Frontier Foundation reports. Audience members also must agree to refrain from using Burning Man trademarks online -- which means they can't label photos or videos with the words "Burning Man," the EFF reports.
RealNetworks court loss a reminder about limits of "fair use"
By Jacqui Cheng, Ars Technica
As pointed out by the EFF, this doesn't spell good things for Real or anyone else looking to enter into the market, even if Real decides to appeal. "[G]iven the pace of the federal appeals process, this means that the RealDVD products will likely stay off the market for at least a year," wrote EFF staff attorney Fred von Lohmann.
Kaleidescape loses; DVD copying falls again
By Greg Sandoval, CNET News
Fred von Lohmann, senior attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an advocacy group for Internet users and technology firms, said late Tuesday evening that Patel's decision is a setback for innovators and consumers.
"This is yet another example of the way the DMCA harms innovation without doing anything to stop what the studios call piracy," von Lohmann said. "This enables the studios to take consumers' fair use rights and sell them back to them one DVD at a time.
“What Are you Doing,” Soon to be “Where are You?”
KPCC
A new report out by the Electronic Frontier Foundation says it’s up to the programmers to start respecting our privacy and stop collecting and storing this information. We hear from a co-author of EFF’s report and a privacy officer from a programming company
Google Deal With Publishers Raises Privacy Concerns
By Martin Kaste, NPR
Lethem is one of several authors — including Michael Chabon and Cory Doctorow — who have signed on to a campaign to pressure Google Books to offer greater privacy guarantees for its readers. The effort was organized by the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
"They know which books you search for," says Cindy Cohn, legal director for the foundation. "They know which books you browse through; they know how long you spend on each page."
Are Your Privacy Rights in Danger?
By Bret Baier, Fox News
Cindy Cohn, the legal director at the online rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation, says: "It appears that these companies are forcing the government to lower the privacy protections that the government had promised the American people."
Judge Rules DVD-Copying Software Is Illegal
By David Kravets, Wired News
“These seem to be contradicting points,” said Fred von Lohmann, a copyright attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties group based in San Francisco.
U.S. Web-Tracking Plan Stirs Privacy Fears
By Spencer S. Hsu and Cecilia Kang, Washington Post
Cindy Cohn, legal director for Electronic Frontier Foundation, called the contract "troubling."
"It appears that these companies are forcing the government to lower the privacy protections that the government had promised the American people," Cohn said. "The government should be requiring companies to raise the level of privacy protection if they want government contracts."
Locational Privacy: The EFF Weighs in on Safeguarding Your Location
By Brady Forrest|, O'Reilly Radar
The EFF has weighed in on this trend with a timely whitepaper: On Location Privacy and How to Avoid Losing It Forever. The paper includes a number of scenarios with actionable solutions and a number of reason why companies should care.
Privacy Plan for Federal Web Sites Gets Mixed Reviews
By Miguel Helft, New York Times
Meanwhile other privacy advocates, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Center for Democracy and Technology, gave the proposed changes a warmer reception. In comments filed jointly, the two groups said that the principles proposed by the government “form a solid foundation to govern the use of tracking technologies.” But the groups also suggested various additions, including better disclosure of the mechanisms used to track individuals, to the proposed policies.
Privacy Researchers Push for Location Services Protected By Cryptography
By Clint Boulton, eWeek
In a whitepaper, "On Locational Privacy, and How to Avoid Losing it Forever," Peter Eckersley, staff technologist for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and Andrew Blumberg, a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University, argue that modern cryptography allows data processing systems to be designed with privacy policies ranging from limited to complete anonymity.
Twitter attack may have been tech warfare
Andrew S. Ross, San Francisco Chronicle
Recommended reading for those taking up arms on behalf of the former might be the Electronic Frontier Foundation's "Practical Guide to Internet Technology for Political Activists in Repressive Regimes." Observing that "governments have also used the Internet to track, harass and undermine," the San Francisco organization warns activists to consider the risks as well as the rewards in using the enabling technologies.
Dobbs pushes debunked Cars.gov claim to accuse admin. of being "authoritarian regime in waiting"
Media Matters
In fact, PolitiFact.com and the Electronic Frontier Foundation have debunked the claim that would-be car consumers who go to the Cars.gov website would have their computers taken over by the government.
Technology Can Help In The Absence of Privacy Laws
Nancy Gohring, IDG News, Industry Standard
A summary of Jennifer Granick's keynote talk at Privacy Enhancing Technology Symposium 2009, in which she issued a Call to Action for technologists to create simple-to-use tools to help citizens protect the privacy of their email, location and identity, areas where legal protections may be inadequate.
Modder Arrest a Reminder That Most Console Hacks are Illegal
Ben Kuchera, Ars Technica
Ars Technica talks to Jennifer Granick about the legality of console modding under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
Digitized Stalking Is the New World Order
By David Kravets, Wired News
You’re being followed. Stalkers are everywhere, even in your pocket.
That’s the warning Wednesday from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the San Francisco-based civil liberties group.
New Fox Conspiracy: Cash for Clunkers Will Allow Gov’t To Seize ‘All Of Your Personal and Private Information'
By Zaid Jilani, Think Progress
Guilfoyle may be worried about the “Terms of Service” on a government site. But as Hugh D’Andrade at the Electronic Frontier Foundation notes, these agreements do not give the government the right to tap into your system “any time they want.” “Moreover, the law has long forbidden the government from requiring you to give up unrelated constitutional rights (here the 4th Amendment right to be free from search and seizure) as a condition of receiving discretionary government benefits like participation in the Cars [sic] for Clunkers program,” adds D’Andrade.
The Third World War Will Be Fought Over Information
By Lauren Davis, Io9
Moore plans to sell the posters, with 25% of proceeds going to the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Green Apple Books Scores with Kindle Satire
By Wendy Werris, Publishers Weekly
“We’re thrilled with the kind of support we’ve received for the Smackdown videos so far,” said Hunsanger. The first three spots have received thousands of hits since launching last Wednesday, and have already shown up on Boing Boing and the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s website. “They’ve greatly exceeded our hopes, and we have seven more to come over the next week. As satire, the videos are very effective in conveying the message about the Kindle’s presence in the marketplace,” said Hunsanger.
State considers revised mileage-based auto insurance
Central Valley Business Times
The Electronic Frontier Foundation said the regulations would let insurance companies require customers' cars to be outfitted with electronic devices “that could transmit back to the insurance companies all sorts of data about car motion (acceleration, braking, and so forth) as well as driver behavior (steering and seat-belt wearing).”
6 Mods for the Ultimate High-Tech Police Car
By Erik Sofge, Popular Mechanics
“These devices allow for the forensic reconstruction of much of your life,” says Lee Tien, senior staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation. “The police could go back through GPS data and plate records and know when you visited a strip club or an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, or which political rallies or gun shows you drove to.”
Apple Shows Google The Web Hasn't Won
By Thomas Claburn, InformationWeek
But Apple's rejection of the Google Voice app may be enough to bring the company to the attention of government regulators. Although spokespeople for the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Communications Commission, and the Department of Justice all declined to comment on whether Apple's actions might merit regulatory scrutiny, Fred Von Lohmann, senior staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, believes that Apple will have to confront questions about anti-competitive behavior.
"The Google Voice events this week underscore the fact that if you're worried about competition, you're worried about Apple," he said, noting that the incident shows why the EFF asked the Copyright Office to sanction the jailbreaking of iPhones.
Apple cautions iPhone users about jailbreaking
By Dong Ngo, CNET News
Well, there wouldn't be any problems at all, really, if the devices were shipped without being locked down to a carrier or to Apple's App Store. People just want to use their devices the way they want, and they should be able to do so. This is why the Electronic Frontier Foundation has asked regulators (PDF) to basically legalize the jailbreaking practice of the iPhones.
Apple: Jailbreaking Could Knock out Transmission Towers
By Jeremy Kirk, PC World
Apple's arguments, filed June 23, seek to rebut a request to the agency by the digital rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) that modifications to the iPhone's software do not violate the DMCA and should be allowed.
Jailbreaking iPhone could pose threat to national security, Apple claims
By Dong Ngo, CNET News
What makes me feel a little better for my wrongdoing with my iPhones, however, is the fact that the Electronic Frontier Foundation has asked regulators for the DMCA exemption (PDF) that would allow consumers to run any app on the phone, including those not authorized by Apple. This would basically legalize the jailbreaking practice of the iPhones.
iPhone Jailbreaking Could Crash Cellphone Towers, Apple Claims
By David Kravets, Wired News
Fred von Lohmann, the EFF attorney who made the request, said Apple’s latest claims are preposterous. During a May public hearing on the issue in Palo Alto, California, he told regulators there were as many as a million unauthorized, jailbroken phones.
In an interview Tuesday, he said he suspected those phones have not been used to destroy mobile phone towers. “As far as I know, nothing like that has ever happened,” he said.
Amazon boss Bezos: Kindle move was 'stupid'
Guardian UK
Cindy Cohn, legal director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said that she decided to go ahead with the public campaign after months of discussions with Google. She said that Google’s response was insufficient and that the company should commit to guarantees in writing before the settlement is reviewed by a court in October. And she dismissed the argument that Google could not make privacy guarantees until the product was built.
“Whether to hand data only in response to a warrant or not is not a tech decision,” she said in an interview. “Whether you are holding data for 30 days or longer is not a tech decision.”
Open Government — or ‘Transparency Theater’?
By Maura Reynolds, Congressional Quarterly
David Sobel, senior counsel at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which studies and advocates on electronic privacy issues, says he has been struck by how closely Obama is hewing to Bush-era objections to increased disclosure.
For instance, the new administration used arguments identical to those marshaled by Bush’s Justice Department when it moved in April to dismiss a lawsuit brought by Sobel’s organization on behalf of those who contend that they were subjected to illegal warrantless wiretaps. “No change. Not one word,” Sobel said. “They’ve said all the right things, but they haven’t really delivered on the rhetoric.”
Op-Ed: Here Comes the Sun, Mr. President
By Nate Cardozo, American Constitution Society
This week, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed suit to compel the CIA, FBI, National Security Agency and other members of the intelligence community to turn over documents detailing their concerns about their own misdeeds. We sued under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), a law that allows anyone to request information about the federal government's activities. President Obama has called the FOIA "the most prominent expression of a profound national commitment to ensuring an open Government."
Apple Drops Pursuit of Site With iPhone Hacking Tips
By Zusha Elinson, The Recorder
But EFF lawyer Fred von Lohmann claimed victory, saying that Apple had backed off of overreaching legal claims it made in a November takedown notice it sent to BluWiki. Apple's lawyers at O'Melveny & Myers charged that posts on the site, which included reverse engineering of Apple's iTunes software, were a violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act's anti-circumvention measures.
"Apple's threats were clearly designed to censor pure speech -- there was no software there, there were no tools, there were no hacking devices -- this was just people talking," von Lohmann said. "Apple was well beyond the statute when it made these threats, and apparently they think so now, too."
EFF Urges Members to Pressure Google on Books Privacy
By Grant Gross, PC World
The EFF posted its concerns with Google Book Search on its blog Thursday, with EFF designer/activist Hugh D'Andrade saying the search product could infringe on "privacy of thought."
"If you suspect you may have a serious disease, you can go into a bookstore and browse for books about your illness, find one that's useful, and buy it with cash," D'Andrade wrote. "And you can rest assured that your insurance premiums won't increase as a result, because there is no way your insurance company can find out about your choice of reading material."
Group Worries That Google Books Could Violate Readers' Privacy
By Wendy Davis, Mediapost
The digital rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation is raising concerns about whether Google's upcoming digital book service will adequately protect readers' privacy.
"As Google expands its Google Book Search service, adding millions of titles, it will dramatically increase the public's access to books," the civil liberties organization says. "But Google may be leaving out the privacy we have come to expect, with systems that monitor the digital books you search, the pages you read, how long you spend on various pages, and even what you write down in the margins."
Advocates Ask Google for Privacy Guarantees in Online Library
By Miguel Helft, New York Times
Cindy Cohn, legal director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said that she decided to go ahead with the public campaign after months of discussions with Google. She said that Google’s response was insufficient and that the company should commit to guarantees in writing before the settlement is reviewed by a court in October. And she dismissed the argument that Google could not make privacy guarantees until the product was built.
“Whether to hand data only in response to a warrant or not is not a tech decision,” she said in an interview. “Whether you are holding data for 30 days or longer is not a tech decision.”
Op-Ed: Learning from Tehran and Urumqi
By Danny O'Brien, San Francisco Chronicle
Political protests overseas demonstrate the enormous power of the most mundane Internet technologies. Social-networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter are being used to organize protests after Iran's contested election and have allowed Iranians to speak anonymously to one another and the world. In China, access to reports and photos on the Internet fueled protests in Urumqi after a violent confrontation ended with more than 150 dead.
Group Will Push Open Source in US Gov't
By Grant Gross, CIO.com
Members of the Open Source For America coalition, which launched Wednesday, include Google, The Linux Foundation, the Mozilla and Debian projects, Oracle, Sun Microsystems, Advanced Micro Devices and the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Why did Big Brother remove paid-for content from Amazon's Kindles?
By Bobbie Johnson, Guardian UK
"We have long been concerned that digital rights management is essentially tricking people," says Cindy Cohn, legal director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the campaign group based in San Francisco. "It's creating a situation where people think they've purchased something – in the way you might purchase a pair of shoes, for example. But from the perspective of the seller, and often from the perspective of the law, it's quite a lot less."
Group tries to expose intelligence misdeeds
By Nedra Pickler, Associated Press
The Electronic Frontier Foundation's Nate Cardozo said the lawsuit is especially important now because some members of Congress have complained this year that the intelligence community hasn't kept them informed about spy activities.
Apple drops DRM case against Bluwiki
By Peter Cohen, Macworld
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and Apple are standing down over a legal dispute involving the Web site Bluwiki. Apple is no longer going after Bluwiki's operators for what it says was a violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), and in return EFF has dropped its own lawsuit against Apple, reports The Loop.
Apple Withdraws Threat Against BluWiki
By Yukari Iwatani Kane, Wall Street Journal Blogs
Fred von Lohmann, senior staff attorney for the EFF, said he was a little disappointed that he didn’t have a chance to argue the case, adding that the hobbyists’ discussions on BluWiki were protected by the first amendment.
Apple drops legal threats against wiki operator—for now
By Jacqui Cheng, Ars Technica
OdioWorks and the EFF insisted that hosting information on how to enable third-party software to work with Apple's devices did not make one a hacker or pirate, and they apparently still do. Apple decided to call off the dogs only because the code is now obsolete; what will happen when users inevitably start talking about Apple's new code and trying to get the Palm Pre to work with iTunes again?
Aiming at CIA, NSA misdeeds, free speech group sues for oversight records
By Stephen Lee, Examiner.com
EFF hopes to tap into CIA, NSA, and other agencies’ records of self-reporting on potential wrongdoing to learn more about how US collects intelligence on US citizens, for example, or homicides or other crimes that may have occurred during detainee interrogations or detentions. EFF’s earlier FOIA requests to US intelligence agencies for information on these topics have yielded little, Threat Level reports.
Local Tech Activists Advise You to NOT Use a Computer?
By Andy Wright, SF Weekly
Today the EFF released a guide called "Surveillance Self-Defense International." The guide is exactly what it sounds like: a six-step manual that helps online dissenters living in authoritarian regimes cover their digital tracks and try to remain anonymous.
Group Plans Lawsuit To Unveil the CIA’s ‘Pentagon Papers’
By Ryan Singel , Wired News
The CIA is among the agencies that failed to respond to the EFF’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests for copies of the reports. Given the unfolding controversy over the CIA’s apparent failure to notify Congress of a secret agency assassination program, the withholding of these documents takes on even greater importance, according to EFF lawyer Nate Cardozo.
“If the CIA hasn’t been reporting these types of activity to Congress, which apparently they haven’t, then who are they reporting it to?” Cardozo asked. “If this is only body for the intelligence oversight, whether they are actually filing these reports is a good question.”
Could The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Act Undermine The 'Internet Economy'?
By Wendy Davis, Mediapost
Last year, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Public Knowledge sued to force the trade representative to disclose documents relating to the treaty. But the digital rights groups withdrew their lawsuit last month, after the Obama Administration told the court the documents should remain classified.
Wikipedia May Be a Font of Facts, but It’s a Desert for Photos
By Noam Cohen, New York Times
The gallery threatened legal action against Mr. Coetzee, saying that while the painted portraits may be old and thus beyond copyright protection, the photographs are new and therefore copyrighted work. The gallery is demanding a response by Monday from Mr. Coetzee, who is being represented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation. In an e-mail message on Friday a gallery spokeswoman, Eleanor Macnair, wrote that “contact has now been made” with the Wikimedia Foundation and “we remain hopeful that a dialogue will be possible.”
EFF, libraries: Keep your ACTA out of our Internet!
By Nate Anderson, Ars Technica
This is precisely what the EFF, the Center for Democracy & Technology, Public Knowledge, and the American Library Association fear. In most respects, they don't oppose the idea of ACTA. "Rather, we believe the [US Trade Representative] also should be pursuing this objective in a manner that benefits, rather than harms, US technology companies and consumers," they wrote in a letter (PDF) this week to the US Trade Rep., Ron Kirk.
Pay-as-you-drive insurance, privacy, and government mandates
By Ari Allyn-Feuer, Ars Technica
California's revised Pay-As-You-Drive auto insurance proposal has drawn fire from the EFF, which hailed the amended bill as an improvement over the original, but voiced substantially the same privacy complaints.
Amazon Says It Will Stop Deleting Kindle Books
By Thomas Claburn, InformationWeek
"The irony that the two books involved were 'Animal Farm' and '1984' is just too much," said Fred Von Lohmann, staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
The NSA Wiretapping Story That Nobody Wanted
By Robert McMillian, PC World
Amazingly, however, nobody wanted to hear his story. In his book he talks about meetings with reporters and privacy groups that went nowhere until a fateful January 20, 2006, meeting with Kevin Bankston of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). Bankston was preparing a lawsuit that he hoped would put a stop to the wiretap program, and Klein was just the kind of witness the EFF was looking for.
Wikipedia's Gallery guy hung up to dry?
By Charles Eicher, Register UK
Wikimedia Foundation did not respond to the NPG's original takedown request in April 2009, so the NPG is pursuing Coetzee directly. Coetzee is now being represented pro bono by attorney Fred von Lohmann of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Obama goes to bat for Bush wiretap program
By Bob Egelko, San Francisco Chronicle
Although both the Bush and Obama administrations have refused to discuss the extent of phone company participation, several members of Congress have confirmed that the government obtained records from phone companies, the plaintiffs' lawyer, Kevin Bankston of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told Walker.
Obama Claims Immunity, As New Spy Case Takes Center Stage
By David Kravets, Wired News
“With both lawsuits, it’s the same underlying factual theory: The secret room on Folsom,” Cindy Cohn, the EFF’s legal director, said in a telephone interview. “If it was illegal for AT&T to hand this information over to the government, it was illegal for the government to get this information from AT&T,” Cohn added.
Feds Say ‘Dragnet’ Surveillance Lawsuit Threatens Security
By David Kravets, Wired News
“What the government is arguing is that the president decides what is legal or not,” EFF legal director Cindy Cohn told Judge Walker at the end of the hearing.
Obama Administration Defends Bush Wiretapping
By Robert McMillan, PC World
After the nearly two hours of arguments ended in court Wednesday, EFF lawyers said Obama had reneged on campaign promises by continuing to support the program. "It's not surprising; it is disappointing," said Kevin Bankston, an EFF attorney.
AP, AHN Media settle intellectual property lawsuit
By Elinor Mills, CNET News
The fact that AHN agreed to acknowledge the hot news principle won't necessarily affect other cases, said Fred von Lohmann, a senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation who specializes in intellectual property.
The case "does send a message that the AP is serious about this hot news theory," he said. "Most intellectual property experts view hot news as a very narrow doctrine and the AP is going to have a very hard time protecting all its assets with hot news."
Chips in official IDs raise privacy fears
By Todd Lewan, Associated Press
That thinking is flawed, says Lee Tien, a senior attorney and surveillance expert with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which opposes RFID in identity documents.
It won't take a massive government project to build reader networks around the country, he says: They will grow organically, for commercial purposes, from convention centers to shopping malls, sports stadiums to college campuses. Federal agencies and law enforcement wouldn't have to control those networks; they already buy information about individuals from commercial data brokers.
"And remember," Tien adds, "technology always gets better ... "
'Cloud Computing' Could Transform Data Storage
By Spencer Michels, NPR
CINDY COHN, Electronic Frontier Foundation: There's plain-old hackers, security breaches. Sometimes we call those "Data Valdez" at EFF, where there's a spillage of data.
SPENCER MICHELS: Like the Exxon Valdez?
CINDY COHN: Like the Exxon Valdez, only it's your data spilling out, not the oil.
Consumers could pay for Google's power
By David Lazarus , Los Angeles Times
"As a consumer, it's hard to complain when you're being given incredible new things for free," said Fred von Lohmann, senior staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "But who knows where this ends up."
Baseball Manager La Russa Pulls Twitter Suit
By Zusha Elinson, The Recorder
"I would say that it looks like saner heads prevailed -- I don't think this lawsuit should've been brought in the first place," said Corynne McSherry, a lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation who has followed the case. "I think their legal claims were weak at best."
Obama's Cyber Plan Raises Privacy Hackles
By Andy Greenberg, Forbes.com
"The same folks are being potentially entrusted with cybersecurity who have already shown that they have no regard for the law," says Lee Tien, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit group that sued AT&T for its involvement in those wiretapping programs. "It's troubling that the Obama administration would consider this sort of thing."
Washington Supreme Court Weighs Whether Library Can Refuse To Disable Internet Filter
By Norman Oder, Library Journal
In an amicus brief, Electronic Frontier Foundation and Center for Democracy & Technology joined the plaintiffs, aiming to emphasize the core First Amendment protections that library users have and to remind the court that libraries play a key role in providing Internet access, particularly in rural areas.
As a practical matter, NCRL’s processing of unblocking requests can severely hinder job-seekers, the brief states. Even under NCRL’s new “automated’ unblocking system, fewer than one third of the 90 requests were responded to on the same day, and some were delayed by more than three days.
Cell phone ring tones spark copyright questions
By Benny Evangelista, San Francisco Chronicle
If ASCAP proves its case, the Electronic Frontier Foundation of San Francisco says it could cost consumers and technically turn millions of ring tone users into copyright violators.
"Clearly they are pointing a finger at every consumer that is holding a cell phone that goes off in the park or at the beach," said Fred von Lohmann, the digital rights group's senior intellectual property attorney. "We may be annoying people, but we're not infringing copyright law."
MySpace cyber-bullying conviction tentatively dismissed
By Alexandra Zavis , Los Angeles Times
"The implication was that anyone on the Internet would be a criminal if they filled out a website registration using a fake name or using the wrong age," said Matt Zimmerman, a lawyer at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
"And I think that was a path the judge was not terribly interested in going down."
New BT Principles May Not Go Far Enough To Stop Regulation
By Wendy Davis, Mediapost
Some consumer advocates said they were unimpressed with the new principles. Lee Tien, an attorney at the digital rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation, argues that self-regulatory programs will not adequately protect privacy because consumers currently have no way of knowing their privacy has been compromised, much less complaining about it to an enforcement body.
"There's no good reason to expect self-regulation to work," Tien says, adding that companies currently compile dossiers used to target people based on behind-the-scenes data-crunching without explaining how specific information is being used.
Briefs: Country Sales, EFF, Spotify, TuneUp
By Glenn Peoples, Billboard
The Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Center for Democracy and Technology and Public Knowledge joined in an amicus brief that argues against ASCAP in its lawsuit brought against mobile carriers for additional royalties for the public performance of ringtones.
Assaulted by someone you met online? Don't sue the website
By Jacqui Cheng, Ars Technica
Unsurprisingly, free speech advocates are applauding the decision. "The idea is, you hold the speaker responsible, not the soapbox," Electronic Frontier Foundation spokesperson Rebecca Jeschke told Reuters. "If you want any kind of social interaction on the Internet this is very important."
Ringtones Are Not Concerts, Groups Tell Judge
By Ryan Singel, Wired News
Public Knowledge, the Center for Democracy and Technology and the Electronic Frontier Foundation told a federal court Wednesday that a publicly ringing phone is no different from a person humming a tune in an elevator, listening to music in a convertible, or singing Happy Birthday at a party in the park — all activities that are not considered copyright infringements.
Phone ringtones a "public performance"? EFF, AT&T say no
By Matthew Lasar, Ars Technica
It isn't often that you find AT&T and the Electronic Frontier Foundation in agreement, but consensus has been reached on one matter: ASCAP's demand that wireless companies pay it license fees for ringtones is, well, ridiculous.
When Your Phone Rings, the Copyright Police May Come Calling
By Jeremy Kirk, PC World
"These wrongheaded legal claims cast a shadow over innovators who are building gadgets that help consumers get the most from their copyright privileges," the EFF said in a blog post.
Facebook changes privacy controls so members feel safe to share
By Jon Swartz, USA TODAY
Privacy experts lauded the move. Kevin Bankston, senior staff attorney at non-profit Electronic Frontier Foundation, says the new options solve a long-standing issue. Some Facebook users often shared provocative photos and off-color comments with workers and casual friends, creating awkward situations.
"The new settings allow greater flexibility and control," he says. But he is concerned that even if users share intimate information only with close friends, it could leave them exposed if hackers break into accounts or the government requested access to the sensitive data.
Tuesday Tidbits: Remote DVR Gets Court OK
By Rob Pegoraro, Washington Post Blogs
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit agreed with that logic and rejected the lawsuit (see this recap of its ruling by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which filed a brief in support of Cablevision); when the Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal, that ended the case. Now Cablevision is free to roll out this feature--and, more importantly, other companies can experiment with other video-recoding services that rely on network storage.
Brave New World
By Kim Hart, Washington Post
Tim Jones, manager of activism and technology for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said "there is a stronger expectation of privacy when you're dealing with the government rather than ordering a pizza online . . . . This is an opportunity for government to create new technology."
Copy-wrong! Unpacking the $1.92M Downloading Verdict
By Ashby Jones, Wall Street Journal Blogs
In any event, we left the office Thursday of last week feeling uneasy; we just didn’t understand how or why someone could get hit so hard for illegally downloading two dozen songs. With that in mind, we went back and checked in with Fred von Lohmann, a senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation out in San Francisco, to bring us up to speed.
Are Flickr Photos Fair Game for Home Printing?
By Sonia Zjawinski, New York Times Blogs
“The real core question is, is this a fair use or not?” said Corynne McSherry, a senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights group. “Frankly the answer is, we don’t know.” Ms. McSherry suggests playing it safe and always asking.
South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, Town 'N Country's Susan Jordan knew how to disappear
By Michael Kruse, St. Petersburg Times
"This is a profound question about our identity and our place in society," Peter Eckersley said Wednesday from San Francisco. He's a staff technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. He studies privacy issues brought on by rapidly advancing technologies.
"Do we," he asked, "have the right to say, 'Hey I want to escape the life I was living? I want to be a new person in a new place.' "
EFF sues for publication of FBI domestic surveillance manual
By Jon Stokes, Ars Technica
Now the EFF appears to be looking to get its hands on a copy of the equivalent manual for the FBI—the agency's Domestic Investigative Operational Guidelines, which details the rules of the road for FBI-run domestic surveillance. The only problem is that its contents are a secret. So, the EFF is filing suit to have the manual's contents released to the public.
Finding a fair price for free knowledge
By EFF Staff Technologist Peter Eckersely, New Scientist
Ten years ago, a piece of software called Napster taught us that scarcity is no longer a law of nature. The physics of our universe would allow everyone with access to a networked computer to enjoy, for free, every song, every film, every book, every piece of research, every computer program, every last thing that could be made out of digital ones and zeros. The question became not, will nature allow it, but will our legal and economic system ever allow it?
Rights group sues FBI to reveal its surveillance rules
BY Daneil Tencer, Raw Story
“The Attorney General’s Guidelines are troubling, allowing for open investigative ‘assessments’ of any American without factual basis or reasonable suspicion,” EFF lawyer David Sobel said in a statement. “The withholding of the Operational Guidelines compounds our concerns. Americans have the right to know the basic surveillance policies used by federal investigators and how their privacy is — or is not — being protected.”
Lawsuit Filed Over FBI Surveillance Docs
National Journal
"Americans have the right to know the basic surveillance policies used by federal investigators and how their privacy is -- or is not -- being protected," EFF senior counsel David Sobel said.
Group advocates electronic medical records
By W.J. Hennigan , Los Angeles Times
Some privacy advocates are wary of how electronic medical records will be used. Lee Tien, a senior attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco, agrees that patients should have more access to their records, but not at the expense of security.
Dueling curricula put copyright ed in spotlight
By Laura Devaney, eSchool News
"Most of these curriculums paint the copyright issue in a very singular way and talk about it as something that only benefits the industries," said Richard Esguerra, an activist for EFF, which champions the public interest in digital-rights issues. "Copyright infringement is a real issue, but there's also a 'know your rights' angle and a right way to use copyrighted materials" legally.
Report details Apple's unusual veil of secrecy
By Katie Marsal, Apple Insider
The Times even recalls a widely publicized case five years ago in which Apple attempted to subpoenaed AppleInsider's Kasper Jade and the PowerPage's Jason O'Grady to force them to identify sources who provided accurate details of an unreleased hardware product code-named Asteroid. The journalists refused to cooperate and instead enlisted the services of the Electronic Frontier Foundation as their counsel.
We're All Iranians Now: US Online Spying...
By Jonathan Eyler-Werve, Talking Points Memo
The US National Security Agency has a legal charter to spy on foreigners online. Unfortunately Internet traffic is nearly impossible to sort by nationality of user, meaning the NSA is snooping on all US Web and email traffic and storing it, with the cooperation of US telecoms companies. This has been extensively documented in court cases filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, including testimony from an AT&T cable technician who worked on dragnet hardware spliced into the Internet backbone cables routed through downtown San Francisco.
Transatlantic coalition calls for "halt" to ACTA talks
By Nate Anderson , Ars Technica
TACD is an umbrella group for consumer activists from the US and Europe, including the EFF, Public Knowledge, the Consumer Council of Norway, and UFC-Que Choisir of France (a group that also opposed the recent graduated response law there).
Late last week, it issued a lengthy resolution on intellectual property enforcement that included some strong language on ACTA. Not content with calling for a halt to negotiations, TACD demanded an end to the treaty's linguistic sleight of hand.
ASCAP Brief Pushes Royalty For Ringtones
By Antony Bruno, Billboard
The Electronic Frontier Foundation notes the dicey nature of this claim. For starters, public performance royalties are generally due only when there is a "direct or indirect" commercial advantage to playing music, such as in a bar or restaurant. Comparing ringtones to such a use is like claiming car companies should pay the performance royalties when people listen to their car stereo with the windows open.
Will File-Sharing Case Spawn a Copyright Reform Movement?
By David Kravets, Wired News
Copyright expert Fred von Lohmann of the Electronic Frontier Foundation noted in a recent blog post that under a Supreme Court precedent, the justices have concluded that punitive damages, generally, should be no higher than nine times the actual damages. The case is not squarely on-point with Thomas-Rasset’s, where the award was based on the statute, and not an arbitrary number intended purely to punish a defendant. But assuming each download in the Thomas-Rasset case is valued at $1, her judgment is at a ratio of a stunning 800,000-to-1.
Ringing up cash: ASCAP suing AT&T for ringtone "performance"
By John Timmer , Ars Technica
The EFF's Fred von Lohman, who analyzed the filing, argues that the brief ignores some well-defined areas of precedent and the legal code. In short, he concludes that, if a ringtone constitutes a public performance, then so does playing the car radio when the windows are down.
Bozeman to job seekers: We won't seek passwords
By Natalie Weinstein, CNET News
"I think it's indefensibly invasive and likely illegal as a violation of the First Amendment rights of job applicants," EFF attorney Kevin Bankston told CNET News earlier this week. "Essentially, they're conditioning your application for employment on your waiving your First Amendment rights...and risking the security of your information by requiring you to share your password with them...Where does it stop? How about a photocopy of your diary?"
Facebook Taps Privacy Hawk as Lobbyist
By Kim Hart, Washington Post
"It's always a good development when a civil liberties perspective gets injected in a corporate culture," said Kevin Bankston, senior attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "Instead of advocating for the general public, he's advocating for Facebook users, which is quickly becoming synonymous with the general public."
Has the RIAA's Fight Against File Sharing Gone Too Far?
By JR Raphael, PC World
"I think $2 million for downloading 24 songs strikes almost everyone as being a little disproportionate," says Fred von Lohmann, a senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "According to people who were in the courtroom, almost everyone inside uttered an audible gasp when that verdict came in."
America accused of spying on millions of emails
By Bobbie Johnson, Guardian UK
American intelligence agencies have been accused of spying on the emails of millions of Americans, including those of former president Bill Clinton...
"Ordinary Americans' most private emails have been and still are being intercepted in bulk and then stored in secret NSA databases, without probable cause," said Kevin Bankston, a lawyer with the campaign group Electronic Frontier Foundation.
EFF, Public Knowledge Drop ACTA Lawsuit, Realizing 'National Secrets' Claim Will Block Them
By Mike Masnick, Tech Dirt
With the Obama administration bizarrely claiming that documents pertaining to negotiations over ACTA, the industry-written treaty that will push countries to change their copyright laws, are somehow a state secret, EFF and Public Knowledge have reluctantly decided to drop their lawsuit to try to open up the proceedings and get access to the documents (freely shared with industry lobbyists, but kept secret from consumers or consumer watchdogs).
New EFF Site Tracks Terms-Of-Service Changes
By Rob Pegoraro, Washington Post Blogs
Everybody who religiously reads those terms-of-use documents that Web sites and services ask us to accept -- then re-reads them after every announced change -- can stop reading this post now.
Now that I've reduced my readership by two, let me tell you about an interesting Web site that debuted a couple of weeks ago. TOSBack -- a project of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco-based online civil-liberties group -- monitors the terms-of-service rules of 58 sites and services, using open-source software to scan for revisions, then highlight deletions in blue and additions in yellow.
Music-Swapping Woman Told by Jury: Pay $80,000 a Song
By Tom Wilkowske and Susan Decker, Bloomberg
Vivendi SA’s Universal Music Group and other record labels were awarded $1.92 million in the retrial of a Minnesota woman accused of swapping music over the Kazaa Internet service...
“The disproportionate size of the verdict raises constitutional questions,” said Fred von Lohmann, a lawyer with the consumer group Electronic Frontier Foundation that’s criticized the music industry’s tactics. “Was the jury punishing her for what she did, or punishing her for the music sharing habits of tens of millions of American Internet users?”
Want A Job? Hand Over Your E-Mail Login
By Declan McCullagh, CBSNews.com
If you're planning to apply for a job with the city of Bozeman, Montana, be prepared to hand over much more than your references and résumé...
An attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights group based in San Francisco, questioned Bozeman's choice to ask for usernames and passwords.
"I think its indefensibly invasive and likely illegal as a violation of
the First Amendment rights of job applicants," said Kevin Bankston, an EFF attorney. "Essentially they're conditioning your application for employment on your waiving your First Amendment rights ... and risking the security of your information by requiring you to share your password with them... Where does it stop? How about a photocopy of your diary?"
The fan at the firm
By Alison Lee Satake, MarketWatch
Fred von Lohmann's love for music, film and art goes way beyond mere consumerism. Not only does he devote his life's work to free expression, but he's also a fan.
"Everybody who cares about art is a fan of something. Whatever that might be, the Internet has really democratized access to that information," von Lohmann said.
Dramatic Increase in Number of Tor Clients from Iran: Interview with Tor Project and the EFF
By Timothy M. O'Brien, O'Reilly Radar
I decided to track down some experts and get some perspective on different proxy servers and the laws surrounding them. In this entry, I speak with Andrew Lewman, the Executive Directory of the Tor Project about Tor and I also get some legal guidance from Peter Eckersley of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Putting Flesh on the FOIA Bones
By Hannah Bergman, HispanicBusiness.com
The Obama administration's promises to increase transparency in government gained strength during Sunshine Week in March when Attorney General Eric Holder issued a far-reaching memo for agencies on the Freedom of Information Act...
"The articulation of the policy has been fairly good, starting with the president, men fleshed out by the AG and then . . . with the OIP guidance," said David Sobel, an attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "All of which I diink are very positive."
EFF Busts Another Bogus Patent... Five Years Later
By Mike Masnick, Tech Dirt
In writing about ridiculously bad patents, we've seen a trend of commenters insisting that if a patent is truly "bad," then there's no problem, since it will likely get rejected. However, the process of getting a bogus patent rejected is ridiculously long and cumbersome. The EFF is rightfully happy that the USPTO is going to throw out a ridiculous patent on web subdomains, presenting another victory for the EFF's Patent Busting Project.
DTV Arrives With No Flag
Television Broadcast
A Bay Area think tank noted that the DTV transition arrived without the broadcast flag, a code embedded into HDTV content meant to prevent copyright violation...
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is one of the groups that fought the flag in court.
YouTube Won't Watch White House Videos With You
By Chloe Albanesius, PCMag.com
YouTube has agreed to ditch its monitoring cookies for videos viewed on the official White House Web site, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).
"This is a good step and we commend YouTube and the government for taking it," Cindy Cohn, legal director at EFF, wrote in a blog post. "It shows that they recognize that tracking the government videos that Americans view is creepy and wrong. It also shows that Google/YouTube technologists can build and offer clever, useful privacy-protective modifications to their standard software."
YouTube changes cookie use policy on Whitehouse.gov
By Jaikumar Vijayan, Computerworld
In an apparent acknowledgment of the concerns expressed by privacy advocates, YouTube has changed its use of tracking cookies for videos embedded on the Whitehouse.gov Web site...
Cindy Cohn, the legal director with the EFF wrote about the more recent change, said that YouTube will continue to use cookies for storing user preferences, but will ignore tracking cookies on Whitehouse.gov. In an interview, Cohn welcomed the change and said she hopes that YouTube will adopt a similar cookie use policy for videos embedded on other government sites.
U.S. Court Weighs E-mail Privacy, Again
By Thomas Claburn , InformationWeek
In a replay of a court decision from two years ago, civil liberties groups are once again trying to persuade the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit that e-mail messages deserve the same privacy protection as telephone calls...
In a statement, EFF senior staff attorney Kevin Bankston says that the Justice Department conducted what amounts to a "back-door wiretap" when it intercepted six months of Warshak's e-mail without a warrant. "Thankfully, this abuse has given the appeals court yet another opportunity to clarify that the Fourth Amendment protects the privacy of e-mail against secret government snooping, even when it's in the hands of an e-mail provider," he said.
Minn. woman who lost music-share suit gets replay
Associated Press
Corryne McSherry, a staff attorney with the digital-rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation, said the new defense team is taking a creative approach. She said it would have been interesting to see how all the cases that settled might have turned out if those defendants had free lawyers who were willing to push as hard.
"This case could end up being the tail end of a frankly shameful and certainly failed campaign to go after users," McSherry said. "Maybe this will be the coda to that long campaign."
EFF brief accuses DOJ of "backdoor wiretapping"
By Jon Stokes, Ars Technica
In the course of gathering electronic evidence in an investigation, apparently the Justice Department sometimes has trouble telling the difference between a subpoena of "stored communications" and warrantless wiretapping... So, the EFF filed an amicus brief in Warshak v. United States to help ensure that the DOJ's apparent confusion isn't transmitted to the 6th US Circuit Court of Appeals.
TOSBack Keeps Track Of Changes To Terms Of Service Policies Around The Web
By Chris Walters, Consumerist
It's difficult enough to parse a lengthy TOS for one web-based service, let alone for dozens, or to keep track of when and how they update them. It would be nice if some public-service website out there would keep track of this stuff for all of us, wouldn't it? Last week, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) did just that with the launch of TOSBAck.org, "the terms-of-service tracker." It tracks TOS agreements for 44 different services, including Facebook, YouTube, Amazon, Twitter, and eBay.
20 Years Ago Today: Birth of the Dot-Com Era
By David Coursey , Computerworld
It doesn't seem like it, but 20 years ago today, the dot-com era was born. On June 8, 1989, Brad Templeton, started Clarinet.com, an online newspaper business that many consider to be the company that started it all.
"ClariNet was the first company created to use the internet as its platform for business, and as such this event has a claim at being the birth of the 'dot-com' concept which so affected the world in the two intervening decades.," said Templeton, who for many years has been president and chairman of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Twitter Says It Will Fight La Russa Suit Over Fake Tweets
By Zusha Elinson, The Recorder
The first celebrity lawsuit against Twitter came and went as fast as a tweet -- or did it?...
"It may be part of the calculus that they shouldn't fold now because others might make the same arguments against them," said Corynne McSherry, an Electronic Frontier Foundation lawyer who's following the case. "There is that risk if you settle right away."
Apple Rejects EFF App Over YouTube Parody
By Nick Spence, Macworld UK
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has become the latest victim of Apple's iTunes App Store "objectionable" content policy, after a submitted app was rejected over a link to a YouTube parody video.
Web sites' terms of service changes tracked
By Benny Evangelista, San Francisco Chronicle
The Electronic Frontier Foundation on Thursday launched a new online tool that tracks changes in the Terms of Service agreements of 44 Web sites like Google, eBay, Amazon, Craigslist and Facebook...
Most people skip reading the TOS because it's boring and confusing. "When you do look at it, in most cases you've got to be a lawyer to understand it," said Tim Jones, the foundation's activism and technology manager. "And even if you are a lawyer, a lot of it can be vague."
Judge Tosses Warrantless Wiretap Cases
By Martin Kaste, NPR - Morning Edition
A federal judge in San Francisco has thrown out more than 30 lawsuits against AT&T and other phone companies...
"We need to be able to trust them," says Cindy Cohn, legal director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which sued the phone companies. "The only way we can have trust in them is if there's accountability when they violate our privacy rights."
Web site tracks policy changes at popular sites
By Deborah Yao, Associated Press
A new Web site unveiled Thursday will track policies imposed by popular Internet sites such as Facebook and Google, hoping to help users spot potentially harmful changes.
TOSBack.org, the brainchild of privacy advocacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation, will track terms of service modifications within hours of an update.
EFF tracking policy changes at Google, Facebook and others
By Elinor Mills, CNET News
The Electronic Frontier Foundation on Thursday launched a new online site that keeps track of the policy changes at popular Web sites as specified in their terms of service...
"'Terms of Service' policies on websites define how Internet businesses interact with you and use your personal information," the EFF said in a statement. "But most web users don't read these policies--or understand that the terms are constantly changing."
TOSBack: EFF's Much-Needed Terms of Service Tracker
By Brady Forrest|, O'Reilly Radar
The EFF just launched a service for tracking Terms of Service changes of 44 major sites including Google, Apple and recursively the EFF. TOSBack provides a feed of changes. In the screenshot below you can see a comparison of Facebook's privacy policy, which has been updated to Facebook's new address.
Judge Tosses Telecom Spy Suits
By David Kravets, Wired News
A federal judge on Wednesday dismissed lawsuits targeting the nation’s telecommunication companies for their participation in President George W. Bush’s once-secret electronic eavesdropping program...
“We’re disappointed,” said Cindy Cohn, the EFF’s legal director. “We think the judge is wrong.”
Telecoms Win Dismissal of Wiretap Suits
By Eric Lichtblau, New York Times
A federal judge on Wednesday threw out more than three dozen lawsuits claiming that the nation’s major telecommunications companies had illegally assisted in the wiretapping without warrants program approved by President George W. Bush after the 2001 terrorist attacks...
Cindy Cohn, legal director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said one “silver lining” was that Judge Walker had kept intact related claims against the government over the wiretapping program, as well as a suit by an Oregon charity that says it has evidence it was a target of wiretapping without warrants.
Judge halts suits over NSA wiretapping
By Declan McCullagh, CNET News
A federal judge in San Francisco has tossed out a slew of lawsuits filed against AT&T and other telecommunications companies alleged to have illegally opened their networks to the National Security Agency...
EFF said it would appeal to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. "We're deeply disappointed in Judge Walker's ruling today," EFF Legal Director Cindy Cohn said in a statement. "The retroactive immunity law unconstitutionally takes away Americans' claims arising out of the First and Fourth Amendments, violates the federal government's separation of powers as established in the Constitution, and robs innocent telecom customers of their rights without due process of law."
Tiananmen Security Tight on Anniversary
By Mark Matthews, ABC-7 San Francisco
China is barring foreign journalists from visiting Tiananmen Square in Beijing, on the 20th anniversary of a brutal military crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators. China is also blocking Internet access...
"Well, usually it's primarily about people learning about what happened in Tiananmen Square," said Danny O'Brien from the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Apple rejects Electronic Frontier Foundation app over YouTube f-word parody
By Nick Spence, Macworld UK
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has become the latest victim of Apple's iTunes App Store "objectionable" content policy, after a submitted app was rejected over a link to a YouTube parody video...
McSherry responds in the EFF post saying: "This is just the latest example of the failings of Apple's iTunes App Store approval process, which has been revealed to be not just anti-competitive, discriminatory, censorial, and arbitrary, but downright absurd."
Apple's Rejection Of EFF RSS Reader App Sort Of Proves EFF's Point About Arbitrary App Rejections
By Carlo Longino, Tech Dirt
It's pretty clear that Apple's policies covering what iPhone applications are acceptable for its App Store are pretty absurd and arbitrary...
The company may have now unwittingly given a little more juice to the EFF's claims that the approval process is arbitrary, censorial and anti-competitive, though, by rejecting an application that displays the EFF's RSS feed.
Cybersecurity Act an open door for government control
By Karyn Brownlee, Everyday Christian
In my last post, I challenged you to read and consider the ramifications for the CyberSecurity Act of 2009 that is currently in the congressional queue...
Jennifer Granick of the Electronic Frontier Foundation reports, “The bill would give the Commerce Department absolute, non-emergency access to ‘all relevant data’ without any privacy safeguards like standards or judicial review. The broad scope of this provision could eviscerate statutory protections for private information, such as the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, the Privacy Protection Act, or financial privacy regulations.“
Social-networking sites Twitter, Flickr go dark in China
By Jon Swartz, USA TODAY
Some of the world's most popular networking services have gone dark in China, apparent victims of government censors in the days leading to a notorious anniversary...
"Authorities make a point of locking down public discussion this time of year — especially tools like Twitter and Flickr that could be used to organize protests," says Danny O'Brien, international outreach coordinator at Electronic Frontier Foundation, a non-profit.
EFF Launches Copyright Curriculum To Counter RIAA Propaganda Being Handed Out To Schools
By Mike Masnick, Tech Dirt
It's been quite troubling that for years various schools have simply accepted propaganda and totally inaccurate "teaching materials" about copyright and used them to teach students...
Luckily, the EFF has finally launched a much more accurate and reasonable curriculum that was actually created by those who know the subject matter, rather than corporate execs and lobbyists.
EFF gives copyright education a crack with new curriculum
By Nate Anderson, Ars Technica
Not pleased with the copyright curricula generated by Big Content, the Electronic Frontier Foundation has produced classroom materials of its own. Not surprisingly, fair use, the public domain, and artists who love P2P file-sharing of their music all make appearances.
Tips for Gripe and Parody Sites on Avoiding Lawsuits
By Marisa Taylor, Wall Street Journal Blogs
Say you create a Web site poking fun at a company that irks you. But since you’ve identified it by name and used its logo, it slaps you with a trademark complaint, saying that you are blurring the connection between the company and its logo in the minds of the public. Before long, your Internet service provider has taken your site down. What to do?
Corynne McSherry lays out a few guidelines designed to keep site owners from being caught in trademark and copyright disputes in a new paper published by the tech-advocacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation.
BC student to get his computers back after high court throws out search warrant
By Jaikumar Vijayan, Computerworld
Massachusetts' highest court ruled there was no probable cause for Boston College police to seize computers from the room of a student who was being investigated for allegedly sending an e-mail claiming that a fellow student was gay...
The search was challenged by attorneys from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil rights group, and the Boston office of law firm Fish & Richardson PC, which represented Calixte in the case.
Public Citizen, EFF, CDT And CMLP Team Up To Question Recent Ruling On Section 230 Safe Harbor
By Mike Masnick, Tech Dirt
A few weeks back, we wrote about a court ruling that said that Yahoo was protected against actions by users, thanks to Section 230 safeharbors, but that the company had effectively given up some of that protection by promising to remove some content...
Public Citizen, EFF, CDT and the Citizen Media Law Project all joined in with an amicus brief. Hopefully the court realizes the earlier sloppy ruling was a mistake, and the ability to dismiss using Section 230 safe harbors remains.
Police return electronic gear to BC student
By Hiawatha Bray, Boston Globe
State police have returned electronics gear belonging to a Boston College computer science student, after a state supreme court judge last week threw out a search warrant that had led to its confiscation...
The ruling drew praise from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an Internet civil liberties organization that assisted in Calixte's defense.
"We're grateful that the court was able to see through the commonwealth's smokescreen and rectify this mistake," said the foundation's civil liberties director Jennifer Granick.
Police use GPS to track suspects despite murky law
By Ryan J. Foley, Associated Press
Investigators were tipped that habitual criminal Bernardo Garcia was back to making and dealing methamphetamine in 2005 but they needed more evidence to nail him...
"We're seeing more and more cases," said Jennifer Granick, civil liberties director at the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation. "The law is struggling to understand the way in which these kinds of sophisticated tracking technologies change the calculus for what is private and what is an overly invasive technique."
Yahoo and Advocates Request Ruling Revision
By Wendy Davis, Mediapost
A coalition of digital rights groups is warning that language in a recent federal appellate ruling about Yahoo "threatens significant mischief" to other Web companies.
Public Citizen, joined by the Center for Democracy & Technology, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Citizen Media Law Project, filed papers Thursday asking the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to rewrite its opinion by deleting a passage that could make it costlier for Web sites to defend themselves in court.
EFF Posts Gripe Site Legal Guide
By Jason Lee Miller, WebProNews
Because copyright and trademark lawyers have had such itchy trigger fingers when it comes to issuing DMCA takedown notices, there’s a lot of confusion out there what exactly constitutes infringement, and what webmasters can and can’t do with intellectual property...
The Electronic Frontier Foundation posted a great, easy to understand guide to dealing with intellectual property with regard to “gripe” or parody websites. In addition to three guidelines dealing with trademarks themselves, the fab-four fair use guidelines regarding copyright are there as well.
FCC’s Warrantless Household Searches Alarm Experts
By Ryan Singel, Wired News
You may not know it, but if you have a wireless router, a cordless phone, remote car-door opener, baby monitor or cellphone in your house, the FCC claims the right to enter your home without a warrant at any time of the day or night in order to inspect it...
“It is a major stretch beyond case law to assert that authority with respect to a private home, which is at the heart of the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable search and seizure,” says Electronic Frontier Foundation lawyer Lee Tien. “When it is a private home and when you are talking about an over-powered Wi-Fi antenna — the idea they could just go in is honestly quite bizarre.”
Right-to-Repair Law Is Right On
By Chuck Squatriglia, Wired News
Computers play an increasingly important role under the hood of our cars, which can make repairing your ride a nightmare...
“The issue goes beyond the importance of being able to get independent repair and maintenance services,” EFF writes. “The use of technological ‘locks’ against tinkerers also threatens user innovation - the kinds of innovation that traditionally have come from independent tinkerers - which has increasingly been recognized as an important part of economic growth and technological improvement.”
So. Carolina AG appears to back down in Craigslist case
By Greg Sandoval, CNET News
Henry McMaster, the South Carolina attorney general who threatened Craigslist with criminal prosecution last week, must assume Web users and the people of his state don't take the time to read...
McMaster never had legal grounds in which to prosecute Craigslist managers, according to Matt Zimmerman of the the Electronic Frontier Foundation. He told CNET News the Communication Decency Act protects Web sites like Craigslist from being held criminally liable for the actions of users.
Craigslist struggles with sex ad crackdown
By Greg Sandoval, CNET News
Craigslist's managers have complied with the wishes of most of the state attorneys general who demanded they rid the site of prostitution ads...
This is at best an empty threat, says Matt Zimmerman, a senior staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
The Communication Decency Act protects Web sites like Craigslist from being held criminally liable for the actions of its users, Zimmerman said, who added that Craigslist has no legal obligation to even review ads before they go online.
Craigslist Blasts SC Attorney Over Legal Threats
By JR Raphael, PC World
The gloves are off, it seems, in the controversy over Craigslist's "erotic services" section. The site's been under fire for the slew of sex-related ads in the category, with several state leaders calling for action and even threatening a criminal investigation against the company. Now, just days after deciding to shut the section down, Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster is getting back in the ring and demanding an apology...
"The notion that Craigslist and [its] officers should be held responsible for third-party content on their site because they didn't do enough to satisfy the individual whims of respective state attorneys general is wholly inconsistent with the law," EFF senior staff attorney Matt Zimmerman explains.
Judge Delays Decision In MySpace Suicide Case
By Wendy Davis, Mediapost
A federal judge postponed sentencing in the MySpace suicide case because he is still considering whether the jury's verdict against Lori Drew should stand...
But Drew's lawyers, as well as outside groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation, had argued that ignoring a Web site's terms of service doesn't violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act -- a statute aimed at penalizing hacking and identity theft.
CBS13 Investigates: Code Of Conduct
By Tony Lopez, CBS News
It's a simple sheet of paper, some text, and a touch of color, but secrets lie hidden on the surface, invisible specks that hold enormous implications.
"It's not something that's sort of sunk into general public consciousness by this point," says Seth Schoen, a cyber investigator.
Schoen's base of operations is San Francisco's Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties organization focused on privacy.
Standards for Government Online Tracking Called For
Television Broadcast
Two think tanks concerned with privacy have recommended protections for people who visit government Web sites, while also allowing federal agencies more freedom in using advanced Web tracking technology. Those recommendations were compiled in a report issued May 12 by the Center for Democracy & Technology and the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
French File-Sharing Law Would Cut Internet Access
By Neda Ulaby, NPR - Morning Edition
The French Senate passed a controversial new law Wednesday that would punish people who illegally share copyrighted music or movies by taking away their right to use the Internet for as long as a year, on a three-strikes-you're-out basis...
"There's no judge keeping an eye on this," says Danny O'Brien, who coordinates international outreach efforts for the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "There's no right of appeal, and it's entirely separate from the usual judicial system."
Heavy Broadband Users in Cable’s Cross-Hairs
By Chris Tribbey, Home Media Magazine
Time Warner Cable backed down mid-April on its plan to test usage-based pricing for its broadband subscribers, but it likely won’t be the last time the idea is discussed, analysts agree...
“I don’t think it’s the end of it by any means,” said Fred von Lohmann with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, who called the tiered plan a result of the free market. “When consumers have no choice, that’s where the problem lies.”
RealNetworks: MPAA Is ‘Price-Fixing Cartel’
By David Kravets, Wired News
RealNetworks is upping the ante in litigation seeking to prevent it from distributing DVD-copying software. The company argues the Hollywood studios are a “price-fixing cartel” that have no right to prevent consumers from duplicating DVDs...
Fred von Lohmann, a copyright attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, agreed that “this will be one of their arguments. But whether the court will buy it is another.”
Craigslist erotic services: Legal pressure shuts down section tied to prostitution
By Robert Mitchum and Monique Garcia, Chicago Tribune
It was the Internet's version of a seedy street corner, a largely unregulated hotbed of prostitution that allowed easy access to illegal sex, authorities say...
Such rhetoric concerned Internet free-speech supporters who said Craigslist's capitulation to law-enforcement pressure set a troubling precedent for other Web sites.
"If law enforcement feels it's a good idea to threaten criminal liability to strong-arm Web sites into doing what they want, I think they will do that," said Matt Zimmerman, senior staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Craigslist Replacing 'Erotic Services' With A Monitored 'Adult Services'
By Mark Spencer, The Hartford Courant
Facing increasing pressure from law enforcement officials to curb ads for prostitution on the Internet, craigslist will eliminate its "erotic services" section and replace it with a monitored "adult services" section...
Despite the legal saber-rattling, Matt Zimmerman, senior staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco, said craigslist had immunity from prosecution under the Communications Decency Act of 1996, which says site operators are not responsible for postings by third parties.
"They got strong-armed by the attorneys general, who had absolutely no legal basis to make threats," Zimmerman said.
Facebook wrestles with Holocaust-denial groups
By Corilyn Shropshire, Houston Chronicle
The debate rages at the Facebook group “1,000,000 for the TRUTH about the Holocaust"...
Facebook is in a difficult position in trying to define “hate” in a forum of more than 200 million users, said Jennifer Granick, civil liberties director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
“That’s when decisions to remove content become even more relevant because it affects so many people,” she said.
Granick supports keeping these discussions in the open.
“Driving these groups underground doesn’t remove their power or attractiveness,” she said. “It enhances it.”
All's Fair Under Fair Use?
By Dan Fisher and Dirk Smillie, Forbes
On a late May morning, Srinandan R. Kasi, general counsel for the Associated Press, eyes four clusters of blue dots scattered across his computer screen as if they were a crime scene. Each dot represents a unique URL hosting content carrying a digital fingerprint of an AP-produced story...
During the last presidential election, for example, some television news outfits succeeded in pulling Internet campaign commercials containing snippets of their programs--despite the obvious fair-use exemption. Campaign managers used the counternotice provision to put their ads back up, said Corynne McSherry, staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, but with more people using the Internet as an information source even a brief interruption can hurt an ad campaign.
"If it's so easy to take material down, you need some check to prevent people from abusing it," McSherry said.
Watchdogs Call For More, But Limited, Cookie Use By Government
By J. Nicholas Hoover , InformationWeek
It's not often that the Center for Democracy and Technology and the Electronic Frontier Foundation get together to argue for less-restrictive privacy measures by the federal government. They're more likely to argue for just the opposite.
Boston College student challenges computer seizure
Associated Press
What started as an accusation of computer fraud by one Boston College student against another went before the state’s highest court today as an electronic privacy issue...
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco-based civil liberties group that specializes in privacy cases involving the Internet, is representing Calixte.
Craigslist to Drop "Erotic Services" Section
KQED Radio
Craigslist said today it will remove its erotic services section and replace it with a new adult services category. The change comes after months of pressure from state and local law enforcement officials, worried about prostitution. But internet free speech activists say the move will only open the door for law enforcement officials to bully legally operating websites. Host Cy Musiker talks about the decision with Matt Zimmerman Senior Staff Attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Craigslist to dump 'erotic services' ads
By Jon Swartz, USA TODAY
Online classified ads service Craigslist says it will dump the "erotic services" category that law enforcement officials have called a front for prostitution and replace it with a fee-based adult category that will be reviewed by site employees...
Craigslist made the move more as a public relations gesture than a legal one, free-speech advocates say. Under federal law, websites that host third-party material are "absolutely immune" from state criminal law liability, says Matt Zimmerman, an attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a non-profit that advocates free speech online.
Ninth Circuit pokes a few holes in Section 230 immunity
By Richard Koman, ZDNet
Most people in businesses that operate anywhere near the world of Web 2.0 have a least a vague notion of the protections of section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. The law provides wide-ranging protections to “publishers” of others’ content. Thus websites, blogs, listservs, social networks, etc., are not liable for user-generated content that would otherwise create a cause of action...
Speaking at the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Compliance Bootcamp in San Francisco today, EFF staff attorney Marcia Hofmann explained the basic outlines of the law and the cases filling in the limits.
Groups rip secrecy over IP protection talks
By Jaikumar Vijayan, Computerworld
The secrecy surrounding an anticounterfeiting trade agreement that's being negotiated by several countries, including the U.S., is heightening concerns about the intent of the pact...
One of the many troubling aspects of ACTA is that it would criminalize copyright infringement even in cases where there is no profit motive, said Eddan Katz, the EFF's international affairs director.
It would also enable the creation of three-strike and take-down laws around the world, where someone could be disconnected from the Internet for alleged copyright violations, Katz said. ACTA could also mandate that ISPs monitor custom
Unofficial Software Incurs Apple's Wrath
By Jenna Wortham, New York Times
The iPhone can teach its users how to perform CPR, show them how to mix a White Russian and allow them to identify any song playing on the radio...
Jailbreaking your own iPhone does not infringe on any copyright, and the tools that help iPhone owners modify their devices do not distribute anything that belongs to Apple, said Fred von Lohmann, a senior staff lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit group that advocates more openness on the Internet. “In our view, consumers are allowed to adapt software for their own personal use,” he said.
Documentarians, DVDs and the MPAA
By Jon Healey, Los Angeles Times
You would think that the movie industry, which celebrates documentarians every year at its awards ceremonies, would want to help those same filmmakers overcome the hurdles posed by changing technology...
The MPAA opposed the request, along with a broader one by the Electronic Frontier Foundation that sought permission to take short clips from DVDs for any noncommercial, non-infringing video.
Craigslist's erotic services ads draw more fire from states
By David Sarno , Los Angeles Times
State attorneys general from across the country are stepping up pressure on Craigslist to shutter what they call the nation's busiest virtual street corner, where prostitution runs rampant...
For that reason, federal courts have generally upheld a law that protects Internet intermediaries from criminal prosecution over the content of postings by their users, said Matt Zimmerman of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco civil liberties group.
"This is all about bringing public pressure on Craigslist to do something that the law does not obligate them to do," Zimmerman said of the attorneys general.
US officials step up pressure on Craigslist
By David Gelles, Financial Times
Law enforcement officials in the US are again putting pressure on Craigslist, hoping to capitalise on increased media scrutiny of the classified-advertising website and press it into more stringent self-policing. But their efforts seem unlikely to work...
“The law is settled here,” said Matt Zimmerman, senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an advocacy group based in San Francisco. “There really isn’t a question about whether websites can be held accountable for what their users do.”
Will Craigslist Have to Crack Down?
By Olga Kharif, Business Week
The pressure is on Craigslist to clean up its act. If the online classified ad site doesn't remove a section devoted to erotic services in South Carolina by May 15, the state's attorney general, Henry McMaster, says he'll open a criminal investigation into the company's executives, including Chief Executive Jim Buckmaster...
If the case goes to court, South Carolina may have a hard time proving Craigslist is acting illegally. The Communications Decency Act of 1996 protects Web sites that feature third-party content. "While the posters can certainly be charged if they are violating state laws, any intermediaries can't be held responsible," says Matt Zimmerman, senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "This is very clear."
Craigslist: Sheriff's Lawsuit Should be Dismissed
By Chloe Albanesius, PCMag.com
In the ongoing drama over its Erotic Services section, Craigslist this week urged an Illinois District Court to dismiss a lawsuit brought against it by a Cook County sheriff...
"While the AGs may wish it was not so, federal law protects Craigslist and no amount of posturing will change that fact," Matt Zimmerman, an EFF senior staff attorney, wrote in a blog post. "And that's a good thing. The existence of sites that rely on third party content depends on strong uniform legal protections against liability based on material posted by users. If site operators were forced to screen all third party contributions under risk of civil or criminal penalty, the Internet would lose many of the vibrant services that have made it so dynamic."
ACTA transparency: can shame work where lawsuits fail?
By Nate Anderson, Ars Technica
President Obama was supposed to champion the geek ethos by sweeping into DC and backing network neutrality, mashups, and transparency—but the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Public Knowledge both say they're not impressed by the "transparency" seen so far on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA).
EFF: AGs have no case against Craigslist for racy ads
By Sharon Gaudin , Computerworld
While state attorneys general hammered away this week on Craigslist Inc.'s racy ads, a major digital rights advocacy group says law enforcement doesn't have a legal leg to stand on...
Matt Zimmerman, a senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said in a blog post Wednesday that he believes if any of the attorneys general launch charges against Craigslist, they're sure to lose the case.
Apple sued for oppressing free speech
AFP
Internet rights champions on Monday accused Apple of stifling free speech by bullying OdioWorks into ending online sharing of ways to get iPods to work with music websites other than iTunes.
Attorneys from nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) teamed with OdioWorks lawyers to file a lawsuit against California-based Apple in a U.S. federal court.
Britain's ban of Savage decried by detractors
By Joe Garofoli and Carla Marinucci, San Francisco Chronicle
Conservative talk show host Michael Savage's commentary has offended groups from parents of autistic kids to Muslim leaders...
Banning Savage in Britain could create an example of "the Streisand Effect," said Danny O'Brien of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which seeks to preserve "freedoms in the networked world"...
"I'm sure right now, there are millions of people in the U.K. searching online to find out more about Michael Savage and what he said that was so offensive," said O'Brien, the foundation's international outreach coordinator. "I'd be more concerned if the U.K. law was attempting to block Mr. Savage's commentary online."
Groups Complain of Continued Secrecy About Trade Pact
By Grant Gross, PC World
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) continues to withhold important details about a closely held copyright enforcement trade agreement, despite promises from U.S. President Barack Obama to release more information, two digital rights groups said Wednesday...
"We are very disappointed with the USTR's decision to continue to withhold these documents," EFF senior counsel David Sobel said in a statement. "The president promised an open and transparent administration. But in this case and others we are litigating at EFF, we've found that the [president's] new guidelines liberalizing implementation of the Freedom of Information Act haven't changed a thing."
Facebook’s E-mail Censorship is Legally Dubious, Experts Say
By Ryan Singel, Wired News
When The Pirate Bay released new Facebook features last month, the popular social networking site took evasive action, blocking its members from distributing file-sharing links through its service.
Now legal experts say Facebook may have gone too far, blocking not only links to torrents published publicly on member profile pages, but also examining private messages that might contain them, and blocking those as well.
“This raises serious questions about whether Facebook is in compliance with federal wiretapping law,” said Kevin Bankston, a lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, responding to questions from a reporter about the little-noticed policy that was first reported by TorrentFreak.
Craigslist Tough Talk by South Carolina AG Lacks Legal Foundation, EFF Says
By Brian Prince, eWeek
Critics of Craigslist are calling for the site to remove its erotic services section in response to controversy. But threats by South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster to pursue a criminal investigation lack substance, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation digital rights advocate organization.
Rep. Jane Harman may not be taking on wider wiretap issues
By Gene Maddaus, Daily Breeze
When news first broke two weeks ago that she had been wiretapped, South Bay Rep. Jane Harman fought back in a tone of populist outrage...
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which has led the legal battle against unwarranted wiretapping, called Harman's recent outrage "the height of hypocrisy."
"When countless ordinary Americans are being wiretapped without warrants, Harman declares the program `both necessary and legal,"' wrote EFF staffer Tim Jones. "But when Harman herself is victim to a court-approved wiretap, she decides it's `a gross abuse of power."'
Hollywood battling 'DVD copying'
By Maggie Shiels , BBC News
Hollywood has locked horns with the technology industry over who will control digital entertainment and how it is watched...
Fred Von Lohmann, a senior lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation suggested the picture is not so black and white.
"Hollywood says that without encryption, the DVD market would collapse. I say, the pirates have already won, the software to copy is free and you're still selling DVDs."
"The sky has not fallen," added Mr Von Lohmann.
Attorneys General Want Craigslist Clean-Up
By Kelly Wallace, CBS News
In a closed meeting in a Manhattan office building, three attorneys general, and representatives from six other states, pressed lawyers from Craigslist to permanently remove the site's erotic services section...
"Congress' rationale, which I think was a good one, that we want to not make illegal content legal or somehow inexcusable but place the onus on the people who are behaving badly in the first place," said Matt Zimmerman, a senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Podcast: Apple, EFF square off over jailbreaking
Computerworld
Apple, EFF square off over jailbreaking; Via wants to see Nano in servers; and criminals use LexisNexis for identity theft.
Libraries Ask Judge to Monitor Google Books Settlement
By Miguel Helft, New York Times
Three groups representing libraries, including the American Library Association, the largest such group in the United States, have asked a federal judge to exercise “vigorous oversight” over a class-action settlement between Google, authors and publishers...
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, an online civil liberties group, has said that it, too, plans to ask the court to ensure that Google does not monitor the reading habits of users of its Book Search service.
“What we’d like to see Google do is make affirmative representations as to how they will protect privacy,” said Cindy Cohn, legal director of the foundation.
Precrime and Punishment: The FBI's New Era of Terror
By Tom Burghardt, Pacific Free Press
From COINTELPRO to the illegal targeting of antiwar activists and Muslim-Americans, the FBI is America's premier political police agency. And now, from the folks who brought us Wi-Fi hacking, viral computer spyware and al-Qaeda triple agent Ali Mohamed comes the Bureau's Department of Precrime!
A chilling new report by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) reveals the breadth and scope of the FBI's Investigative Data Warehouse (IDW), the Bureau's massive data-mining project.
Apple v. EFF: The iPhone Jailbreaking Showdown
By David Kravets, Wired News
To jailbreak or not to jailbreak the iPhone.
That was the heated topic of discussion late Friday between Apple’s iPhone marketing czar Greg Joswiak, Fred von Lohmann, the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s copyright genius, Copyright Office officials including registrar Marybeth Peters, the record labels, movie studios and software industry.
High-Def 'Hunt For Gollum,' New Lord Of The Fanvids
NPR - All Things Considered
On Sunday, a movie is due to get its premiere. It's a 40-minute high-definition film, released over the Internet, made by fans who are earning no profit on it...
It's an interesting question to Fred von Lohman, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Von Lohman says it's not really clear whether Bouchard and his crew of volunteers are in violation of the copyright for Tolkien's work.
YouTube Pulls Stanford Law Prof Clip
By Wendy Davis, Mediapost
Warner Music's well-publicized licensing dispute with YouTube has resulted in numerous clips being removed from the site...
"Larry Lessig is not alone," said Corynne McSherry, an attorney with the digital rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation. "Unfortunately, this is one of many, many, many examples where obvious fair uses get taken down."
Fight to legalize iPhone jailbreaking set for Friday
By Robert McMillan, Computerworld
Apple's iPhone marketing chief will square off against the Electronic Frontier Foundation and others Friday as the U.S. Copyright Office considers whether to allow an exemption to the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) that would permit jailbreaking...
The problem is that the iPhone's digital rights management system not only prevents people from illegally copying its software, it also blocks legitimate users who want to run software on the device that is not approved by Apple, according to EFF attorney Fred von Lohmann. "When an iPhone owner jailbreaks her iPhone, no copyrights are infringed," he said in an e-mail message. "Granting an exemption will not reduce the availability of iPhone firmware or apps -- in fact, it's likely to increase the availability of both, by creating a more competitive, vibrant, consumer-driven marketplace."
RealDVD is a burning issue with Hollywood
By George Cole, The Guardian
Last week saw the start of a trial that pitches Hollywood studios against the technology industry, and whose outcome could change the face of home entertainment. The trial, taking place in San Francisco, centres around a $30 (£20) software package published last year called RealDVD...
RealNetwork's defence is that RealDVD strengthens DVD copy protection. Some observers, such as Fred von Lohmann, a senior lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, think Hollywood is fighting a losing battle: "I'm not sure what alternate version of reality the MPAA is living in, but consumers have been able to copy DVDs for a long time, thanks to free, widely available DVD rippers," he says.
Anti-DMCA crusaders fight for the right to crack DRM
By Nate Anderson, Ars Technica
Every three years, the US Copyright Office reviews the Digital Millennium Copyright Act's most controversial section—the ban on circumventing DRM, even for legal uses...
The three-year exemption process looked so broken back in 2005 that the EFF issued a screed about how the process wasn't worth participating in. One of the authors was Fred von Lohmann, EFF's super-sharp copyright lawyer, who tomorrow will find himself defending not one but three new exemption requests. What changed?
The EFF digs deep into the FBI's "everything bucket"
By Jon Stokes, Ars Technica
Earlier this week, the EFF published a new report detailing the FBI's Investigative Data Warehouse, which appears to be something like a combination of Google and a university's slightly out-of-date custom card catalog with a front-end written for Windows 2000 that uses cartoon icons that some work-study student made in Microsoft Paint.
Is RealDVD dispute really about a DVD jukebox?
By Greg Sandoval, CNET News.com
When it comes to RealNetworks' strategy to offer consumers a digital alternative to movie discs, RealDVD is only one facet...
If Real wins the case, it would open the door for others to create devices without having to first seek studio approval. EFF's von Lohmann has long accused the MPAA, which he says has a long anti-innovation history going back to the Sony Betamax, of targeting RealDVD to preserve its business models rather than to protect movies from piracy.
Obama’s 100 Days: High Marks for Science, Low for Privacy
By David Kravets, Wired News
As President Barack Obama marks his 100th day in office today, we’ve set out to grade the 44th president’s performance on the bread-and-butter issues near and dear to Wired.com: copyright, cyber security, science, net neutrality, transparency and privacy...
“It’s more Obama is cutting class than a particular grade,” says Fred von Lohmann, a copyright attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. “I think the administration is facing more important priorities than copyright law right now. The economy is the most obvious issue right now. ”
Minnesota calls for 200-site net gambling blockage
By Dan Goodin, The Register
Minnesota officials have ordered 11 internet service providers to block all computers in the state from accessing nearly 200 online gambling sites...
Last year, Kentucky officials seized 141 domain names used by some of the world's biggest internet betting sites. That seizure was blasted by civil liberties groups, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which argued the laws of an individual state shouldn't trump the rights of everyone else to access sites that are perfectly legal elsewhere. Kentucky's Court of Appeals later reversed the action.
OdioWorks Drags Apple to Court in Free Speech Battle
By Erika Morphy, MacNewsWorld
With the Electronic Freedom Foundation backing it up, OdioWorks is playing David to Apple's Goliath in a lawsuit based on its First Amendment right to freedom of speech. The dispute centers on Apple's efforts to shut down online discussions that it claimed were violations of its copyrights.
Apple sued for threatening fan wiki
By Robert Munro, The Inquirer
The Electronic Frontier Foundation and a San Francisco law firm sued Apple yesterday, accusing the Cupertino flogger of expensive PCs and personal technotoys of having illegally suppressed open discussion of its gadgets on a fan forum late last year.
Apple is being accused of stifling free speech; again
By Jason D. O'Grady, ZDNet
In November 2008 Virginia-based OdioWorks, operator of BluWiki a non-commercial wiki that promises publishing without censorship, received a takedown notice from Apple demanding that it remove user postings about how to “write software that can sync media to the latest versions of the iPhone and iPod Touch"...
Two San Francisco-based law firms, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Keker & Van Nest have announced that they are taking up the case and representing BluWiki.
iTunes DRM spat pits EFF against Apple
By Paul Boutin, The Industry Standard
The Electronic Frontier Foundation filed a lawsuit against Apple on Monday. For a lot of MacBook toting, copyright-hating tech-sector workers, it's like watching our parents fight. But who's right?
Studios Assert RealDVD Violates Digital Millennium Copyright Act
By Erik Gruenwedel, Home Media Magazine
The second day of a three-day hearing pitting Hollywood studios against RealNetwork’s DVD copying technology saw a computer scientist testify that the RealDVD software circumvented encryption safeguards, thereby violating provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)...
Fred von Lohmann, senior attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco-based civil liberties organization, attending the hearing said the studios are banking on the notion that the 1998 DMCA precludes a fair use right of duplication to consumers when encryption technology is circumvented.
Device identification in online banking is privacy threat?
By Elinor Mills, ZDNet
A widely used technology to authenticate users when they log in for online banking may help reduce fraud, but it does so at the expense of consumer privacy, a civil liberties attorney said during a panel at the RSA security conference last week...
Even though none of the information gathered during a log-in is personally identifiable, the bank shouldn't have to collect regular data on when, how often and from where a consumer accesses a bank account, said Jennifer Granick of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Such information can be compiled with other more sensitive information to create profiles and cross referenced to learn more about consumers, she said.
Obama Urged To Name FTC Commissioner
Tech Daily Dose
Representatives from consumer, privacy and other public interest organizations urged President Obama on Monday to fill a vacant commissioner post at the FTC with someone who will uphold the agency's mandate of protecting American consumers. The Center for Digital Democracy, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Electronic Privacy Information Center, the World Privacy Forum and others signed a letter arguing that charge has "too often been ignored in the recent past."
Apple Is Sued After Pressuring Open-source ITunes Project
By Robert McMillan, PC World
The operator of a technology discussion forum has sued Apple, claiming that the company used U.S. copyright law to curb legitimate discussion of its iTunes software...
The lawsuit was filed jointly in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and attorneys representing OdioWorks a small Herndon, Virginia, company that runs Bluwiki. Lawyers argue that the iPodhash discussions were about reverse-engineering software, not breaking copy protection, and ask for a court ruling to clarify the matter.
Apple sued over legal threats to wiki operator
By Jacqui Cheng , Ars Technica
The operator of a public wiki site has filed a lawsuit against Apple in an attempt to defend its rights to publish information under the First Amendment. OdioWorks LLC, which runs BluWiki, filed the lawsuit in a US District Court in the northern district of California today with the help of the Electronic Frontier Foundation in order to seek a declaratory judgment that would protect the company from continued attacks by Apple's legal team.
Judge Cool to DVD Copying
By Zusha Elinson, The Recorder
Bart Williams calmly held up an "Eyes Wide Shut" DVD to emphasize how RealNetworks' new DVD-copying software will supposedly harm his Hollywood movie studio clients...
Corynne McSherry of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which has been critical of the movie studios' claims, said the case is all about control.
"What this case is about iswhether Hollywood is going tobe allowed to control innovation," McSherry said. "Whether Hollywood can use its copyrights to control how people use what they own."
RSA 2009: Benefits and dangers of device fingerprinting
By Shaun Nichols , vnunet.com
Security experts and privacy advocates weighed the merits of device fingerprinting on Thursday...
Electronic Frontier Foundation civil liberties director Jennifer Granick warned that the information banks gather from the digital fingerprints could be used for more than just security.
"The question is what kind of privacy protection is there, and the answer is very little," said Granick.
"One thing we really do not want is for this information to be shared with affiliates who do advertising or marketing, because then you have the same problem we have with cookies, but much worse."
Quotations of the day
Associated Press
"If Hollywood wins, I don't think much changes in the real world. Anybody who wants DVDs copied can download software for free in 10 minutes." Fred von Lohmann, an attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The movie industry is challenging RealNetworks Inc. in court over software it contends allows the illegal copying of films.
Wikipedia Art dispute pits artists against Wikimedia Foundation
By Chris Foresman , Ars Technica
Two artists attempted to create a performance art piece by establishing a Wikipedia entry entitled "Wikipedia Art," which could then be freely edited and "transformed" by anyone choosing to do so...
The EFF's Corynne McSherry likewise noted the irony (and in her opinion, futility) of Wikimedia pursuing legal action in this particular matter, despite the EFF being a staunch advocate for Wikipedia in the past.
Hollywood in showdown over DVD 'ripper'
By Paul Elias, Associated Press
Hollywood calls it "rent, rip and return" and contends it's one of the biggest technological threats to the movie industry's annual $20 billion DVD market — software that allows you to copy a film without paying for it...
"If Hollywood wins, I don't think much changes in the real world," said Fred von Lohmann, an attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "Anybody who wants DVDs copied can download software for free in 10 minutes."
RealNetworks vs. Hollywood
KUOW Radio
In a San Francisco courtroom today Hollywood is going after Seattle–based RealNetworks for its software that makes it a snap to copy DVDs. The movie industry says it will destroy them. Are they right? Is ripping DVDs stealing? An interview with EFF's Fred von Lohmann.
ACLU: US Attorney used GPS to track cell phones
By Angela Delli Santi, Associated Press
A former federal prosecutor running for governor approved the tracking of citizens through their cell phones without warrants while he was head of the U.S. Attorney's Office for New Jersey, civil rights attorneys said Thursday...
The documents are part of an ongoing lawsuit by the ACLU and Electronic Frontier Foundation on how the government tracks cell phone users. The ACLU sought documents under the Freedom of Information Act to learn about the tracking because the cases are typically under court seal, ACLU lawyer Catherine Crump said.
Obama Administration Lock(e)s And Loads Against Movie Piracy
By Liza Porteus Viana, Intellectual Property Watch
The Obama administration will fight for the movie industry and work to aggressively enforce its intellectual property protections both at home and abroad, United States Commerce Secretary Gary Locke said here Tuesday...
Fred von Lohmann of the Electronic Frontier Foundation downplayed Locke’s strong enforcement message. “We all agree that commercial piracy and counterfeiting are a bad thing and ought to be the subject of enforcement,” he said. “Rather, it’s other aspects of the MPAA agenda, often misleadingly cloaked in ‘piracy’ rhetoric, that have given the public interest community reason for concern.”
Why Did The NSA--And Not The FBI--Conduct The Wiretap Which Snagged Harman?
By Brian Beutler , Talking Points Memo
Sunday's bombshell article by Jeff Stein--and the New York Times' helpful follow up piece--open up so many new lines of inquiry it's hard to know where to begin...
One benign possibility is that the NSA was surveilling this agent for completely separate reasons. But Electronic Frontier Foundation's Kevin Bankston cautions that there "has been a greater level of cooperation since 9/11," so there's no reason to assume the NSA wasn't involved from the outset.
Senate Proposal Could Put Heavy Restrictions on Internet Freedoms
By James Osborne, Fox News
The days of an open, largely unregulated Internet may soon come to an end...
Others are concerned about the potential erosion of civil liberties. "I'm scared of it," said Lee Tien, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco-based group.
"It's really broad, and there are plenty of laws right now designed to prevent the government getting access to that kind of data. It's the same stuff we've been fighting on the warrantless wiretapping."
College Police Target Linux User; Bloggers Up in Arms
By Katherine Noyes, LinuxInsider
We've all heard arguments about whether the command line is a powerful and elegant tool or an unnecessary pain, but does using a no-pretty-colors interface constitute suspicious behavior?...
It all apparently began when an email was sent to a Boston College mailing list alleging that a particular student was gay, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). "Police say they know who sent the email and that the sender committed the crimes of 'obtaining computer services by fraud or misrepresentation' and obtaining 'unauthorized access to a computer system,'" the EFF explained.
Congress Ponders Cybersecurity Power Grab
By Timothy Lee, Techdirt
There was a lot of attention paid last week to a new "cybersecurity" bill that would drastically expand the government's power over the Internet...
Perhaps even more troubling, the EFF notes a section that states that the government "shall have access to all relevant data concerning (critical infrastructure) networks without regard to any provision of law, regulation, rule, or policy restricting such access."
Copyright Alliance Wants Administration To Promote Innovation, Protect Rights
By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable
TV and movie studios, publishers (indlucing B&C parent Reed Elsevier) and other copyright holders have written the president to argue that the administration does not need to choose between protecting IP and spurring innovation.
The letter came in response to one sent to the White House earlier this month by Public Knowledge, Consumer Electronics Association, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and more than a dozen other fair use fans asking that appointments to administration posts dealing with intellectual property--including at State and the U.S. Trade Representative--"reflect the diversity of stakeholders affected by IP policy."
Plans to expand Internet access in Cuba prompt censorship warnings
By Aliya Sternstein, Nextgov
Democracy activists are urging the Obama administration and industry leaders to prevent Cuba from restricting Internet access, as the United States moves ahead with plans to offer expanded telecommunications services in that country. But the administration says it is too early -- and could be legally difficult -- to broker preconditions barring Cuba from suppressing political dissent on the Internet...
Even if the United States cannot gain assurance that Cuba will protect online freedoms, Cubans will find ways to circumvent restrictions, said Eddan Katz, the international affairs director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit civil liberties group.
Promises, Promises: Obama keeps some Bush secrets
By Michael J. Sniffen, Associated Press
Despite a pledge to open government, the Obama administration has endorsed a Bush-era decision to keep secret key details of an FBI computer database that allows agents and analysts to search a billion documents with a wealth of personal information about Americans and foreigners...
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights advocacy group, had sued under the Freedom of Information Act to get records showing how the FBI protects the privacy of Americans whose personal information winds up in the vast database...
"In light of all the fanfare at the highest levels of the administration about a new transparency policy, it's remarkable that not one word of additional material has been released as a result of that new policy," said David Sobel, the foundation's lawyer in the case.
Has online piracy reached a tipping point?
By Greg Sandoval, CNET News.com
For years, digital technology and the Internet have provided a virtual buffet of digital content from which millions have feasted for free...
"It's not that they might not obtain their short term aims," said Danny O'Brien, International outreach coordinator for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a group that advocates for Internet users and technology companies. "But what is the long-term goal? What is the end game? You take out The Pirate Bay and people will still make copies of movies. People will continue to share music online...It's been five years since Grokster. How has that helped the music industry?"
Pirate Bay: Music file-sharing site's co-founder ordered to pay $3.6 million, serve year in jail
By Wailin Wong, Chicago Tribune
Peter Sunde, one of the founders of file-sharing site The Pirate Bay who was sentenced on Friday to a year in jail for copyright violation, wasted no time in thumbing his nose at the entertainment industry...
The focus on harnessing new Web tools, rather than pursuing legal action, is a more sustainable strategy, said Rebecca Jeschke, a spokeswoman for the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
The EFF has criticized the recording industry's litigious approach to combating illegal file-sharing. It supports a system where the music industry would form "collecting societies" that charge consumers a "reasonable regular" fee to download and share content across any platform.
'Torture memos' embolden liberal groups
By Josh Gerstein, Politico
President Barack Obama’s decision to release the so-called “torture memos” has emboldened civil-liberties activists and top Democrats in Congress to step up their demands for ever broader disclosure of the most closely held secrets of the Bush anti-terror fight...
“Certainly, this demonstrates what we all already know. Which is the administration can, when it chooses to, declassify things and share them with the public. They can and should do so when it comes to the memos regarding warrantless surveillance,” Kevin Bankston of the Electronic Frontier Foundation said. “I think the same exceptional circumstances there apply here.”
Teen Twitter worm writer gets job, spreads new worm
By Elinor Mills, CNET News.com
The teenager who takes credit for the worms that hit Twitter earlier this week has been hired by a Web application development firm and on Friday released a fifth worm on the microblogging site, he said...
Asked earlier in the week about the prosecution scenario for Mooney, Jennifer Granick, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said in an e-mail: "If he's 17, he will not be federally prosecuted and the sentencing, should he be found or plead guilty, should be more about rehabilitation than punishment."
Is Obama listening to Dick Cheney?
By Nat Hentoff, United Media
Very soon after taking office, President Barack Obama ringingly pledged: "My administration is committed to creating an unprecedented openness in government. ... Openness will strengthen our democracy." However, as with an increasing number of his promises to repair the Bush-Cheney administration's deep cracks in our rule of law, Obama is giving defenders of the Constitution less and less hope they can believe in...
On April 3, Obama's Department of Justice filed an answer to a federal lawsuit against warrantless wiretapping of Americans brought by the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation, which has been the lead litigator concerning lawless Bush, and now Obama, violations of our privacy.
Obama reverses course on FOIA
By Ben Bain, Federal Computer Week
On his first full day in office, President Barack Obama said the “Freedom of Information Act should be administered with a clear presumption: In the face of doubt, openness prevails.” Open-government groups cheered the Obama administration’s initial policy statements, but they’re waiting to see if change has really come to a government that grew opaque under the previous administration...
The FBI is one of the agencies that open-government advocates sued during the Bush administration because of its response to FOIA requests. In one holdover case brought by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the new Obama guidance appears to uphold the previous decision to withhold information. Justice said in a court filing April 13 that it did not intend to reverse its decision.
Video: Obama Administration Claims “Sovereign Immunity” in Attempt to Dismiss Lawsuit Against NSA over Domestic Surveillance
Democracy Now
We speak to attorney and blogger Glenn Greenwald about how the Department of Justice has demanded the dismissal of a lawsuit brought by the Electronic Frontier Foundation based on “state secrets” and “sovereign immunity.”
Senate panel to probe wiretapping violations
By Pamela Hess, Associated Press
The head of the Senate Intelligence Committee said Thursday that the panel would hold a hearing to get to the bottom of reports that the National Security Agency improperly tapped into the domestic communications of American citizens...
Kevin Bankston, an attorney with the privacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation, said the revelation shows the "NSA surveillance program is not narrowly targeted against international terrorist communications as the government has claimed, but actually sweeps in masses of domestic communications from telecommunications companies fiber optic networks."
Google must defend suit over ad keywords, court says
Bloomberg
Google Inc., owner of the most popular internet search engine, must defend itself against claims that its sponsored links on search results violated a New York company’s trademark rights, an appeals court said.
Google was supported by consumer groups Public Citizen and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which said Rescuecom’s claims would “improperly expand the boundaries of trademark use and chill speech.”
The NSA is Still Wiretapping. And We’re Surprised?
By Daphne Eviatar, Washington Independent
Just the other day, when I was writing about the case of Jewel v. NSA (and responding to the Columbia Journalism Review’s criticism that no one was covering this important case about warrantless wiretapping), I remarked that while everyone’s been up in arms about the Obama administration’s claiming the case should be dismissed because it would reveal “state secrets” — the same argument the Justice Department has made repeatedly in previous cases alleging illegal wiretapping and abusive interrogation programs — no one seemed to notice that the Jewel case charges that the wiretapping program is still going on...
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif) and the Senate Intelligence Committee today promised to investigate. They might want to call the Electronic Frontier Foundation and their clients in the Jewel case as witnesses.
BC student fights warrant seizing his computer
By Jaikumar Vijayan, ComputerWorld
Boston College (BC) is finding itself in the middle of a controversy over its handling of a case involving a student who allegedly sent an e-mail claiming that a fellow student was gay and used a college computer network to change grades...
The March 30 search and seizure is being challenged by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties group, and Boston law firm Fish & Richardson, which works with the EFF and has agreed to represent Calixte in the case.
After Police Confiscate His Computer, Boston College Student Fights Back
By Jeffrey R. Young, Chronicle of Higher Education
A Boston College undergraduate has asked a judge in Massachusetts to invalidate a search warrant issued to the police last month that led to the seizure of the student’s computers, iPod, cellphone, digital camera, and other electronic devices...
The Electronic Frontier Foundation issued a statement this week on behalf of Mr. Calixte, whom The Chronicle could not reach for comment.
BC senior fights seizure of his computer
By Erin Ailworth and Hiawatha Bray, Boston Globe
A senior at Boston College is locked in a legal battle with the school and the state, after authorities confiscated his computer, cellphone, and iPod as part of an investigation into alleged computer fraud...
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco nonprofit group that pursues high-profile legal cases involving civil liberties and the Internet, has gone to court on Calixte's behalf, seeking to quash the warrant.
Apparently, using Linux is a crime at Boston College
By Christopher Dawson, ZDNet
The Electronic Frontier Foundation reported over the last couple of days that a Boston College computer science student has been targeted by BC police largely on the basis of using Linux.
Obama’s (State) Secrets
By Eric Etheridge, New York Times
For weeks, lefty commentators have been hammering away on President Obama for dawdling disastrously on bank nationalization and being too easy on Wall Street...
As Greenwald noted, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is suing the government for warrantless wiretapping in the case Jewel v. NSA, has described the Obama administration’s latest arguments for dismissing the case as worse than those from Bush officials.
US mulls stiffer sentences for common Net proxies
By Jordan Robertson, Associated Press
"Proxy" servers are an everyday part of Internet surfing. But using one in a crime could soon lead to more time in the clink...
"Even if someone did use a technology that made law enforcement's life harder, and even if they did have criminal intent, technologically it may not be sophisticated at all," Seth Schoen, staff technologist with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco-based nonprofit focused on online free speech and privacy. The EFF also helped fund development of the Tor anonymity proxy service.
"They're proposing to make a kind of judgment that this is something unusual or remarkable, which just doesn't match my experience with the technology. This is an everyday technology."
Use A Command Line At Boston College... Have Your Computer Equipment Confiscated
By Mike Masnick, Tech Dirt
A bunch of folks have submitted various versions of a story in Boston, involving Boston College police being granted a warrant which they used to confiscate the computers of a student as part of an investigation over an email sent to a mailing list...
Luckily, the EFF is now representing the student, pointing out how this appears to be a pretty significant violation of the student's rights.
Magid: Internet access too important to be cut off arbitrarily
By Larry Magid, San Jose Mercury News
Viva la France! French lawmakers have unexpectedly rejected a bill that would have cut off Internet access to people who repeatedly download music or videos illegally. The law, which was supported by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, could have resulted in a year's suspension of Internet access for individuals after being warned by both an e-mail and a letter...
Based on the number of votes, I'd hardly call the outcome in France a repudiation. The Electronic Frontier Foundation's international outreach coordinator, Danny O'Brien, expects the bill to be reintroduced and passed. But he thinks it will then be reviewed by France's Constitutional Council, which is roughly equivalent to our Supreme Court.
"There's a strong chance that the council will have something to say about this," said O'Brien, "because it does raise so many questions about natural justice and civil liberties."
An emerging progressive consensus on Obama's executive power and secrecy abuses
By Glenn Greenwald, Salon
In the last week alone, the Obama DOJ (a) attempted to shield Bush's illegal spying programs from judicial review by (yet again) invoking the very "state secrets" argument that Democrats spent years condemning and by inventing a brand new "sovereign immunity" claim that not even the Bush administration espoused, and (b) argued that individuals abducted outside of Afghanistan by the U.S. and then "rendered" to and imprisoned in Bagram have no rights of any kind -- not even to have a hearing to contest the accusations against them -- even if they are not Afghans and were captured far away from any "battlefield"...
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) -- which, to the cheers of liberals everywhere, was one of the nation's most stalwart defenders against the Bush assault on core civil liberties -- declared last week: "In Warrantless Wiretapping Case, Obama DOJ's New Arguments Are Worse Than Bush's."
Cybersecurity Act would give president power to 'shut down' Internet
By Greg Fulton, Raw Story
A recently proposed but little-noticed Senate bill would allow the federal government to shut down the Internet in times of declared emergency, and enables unprecedented federal oversight of private network administration...
Adds Jennifer Granick, civil liberties director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, "Essentially, the Act would federalize critical infrastructure security. Since many systems (banks, telecommunications, energy)are in the hands of the private sector, the bill would create a major shift of power away from users and companies to the federal government."
iPhone Jailbreaking More Popular Than Ever
By Mel Beckman, PC World
Although most iPhone users seem satisfied with the smorgasbord of applications delivered by Apple's iPhone App Store, power users yearn for more. Copy and paste, video recording and streaming, Internet tethering, and content search are just a few features third-party developers have already delivered to users hungry enough to "jailbreak" their iPhones...
Open source browser developer Mozilla joined the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) in requesting an exemption to the DMCA specifically clarifying that installation of legal apps on cell phones does not infringe the phone manufacturer's copyright.
Computer science student challenges tech seizure
By Stephanie Condon, CNET News.com
A Boston graduate student is challenging the legality of a warrant that enabled police to search his dorm room and seize several of his computers, an iPod, a cell phone, and other devices...
The EFF is arguing it is irrelevant whether or not Calixte sent the e-mails, since the application for the warrant fails to establish probable cause that sending such an e-mail is a criminal offense.
Calixte "stands accused of fraud, though no money or thing of value is at issue," EFF said in its statement of support. "He is accused of 'hacking' merely by sending an e-mail to a list server. Without a crime, there is no just cause for the search."
Examiner Editorial: Keep government from snooping in our e-mail
San Francisco Examiner
Civilian libertarians were apoplectic about President George W. Bush’s “warrantless wiretap” program, which sought to monitor communications from terrorist networks overseas...
Jennifer Granick, director of civil liberties at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said such an approach would actually make the Internet even more vulnerable by “basically establish[ing] a path for the bad guys to skip down.” The best response to increasing cyber threats, then, is less centralization, not more.
On 'State Secrets,' Meet Barack W. Obama
By Jake Tapper, ABCNews.com
In February, President Obama's Justice Department quietly argued in a San Francisco court that it was maintaining the same position as President Bush's Justice Department on a case involving detainees trying to sue a private company for its role in their (allegedly) extraordinary renditions...
This time the issue was the National Security Agency's warrantless wiretapping program, and whether courts would be able to assess its constitutionality in a case called Jewel v. NSA, where the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is challenging the NSA surveillance by suing on behalf of AT&T customers whose records may or may not have been caught up in the NSA "dragnet."
Obama and State Secrets? Shhh…
By Clint Hendler, Columbia Journalism Review
Obama, like Bush, decides to limit what the courts and the people can know about warrantless wiretapping. Isn’t that a big story?
Not just yet.
On April 3, the Holder Justice Department filed arguments in Jewel v. National Security Agency, a lawsuit being waged by the Electronic Frontier Foundation on behalf of five people who claim that their constitutional rights were abridged when they were subjected to the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping program.
Pundits escalate attacks against Obama
By Carla Marinucci and Joe Garofoli, San Francisco Chronicle
It took fewer than 100 days for conservative critics to start lobbing the F-bomb at President Obama...
And the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation ripped the Obama Justice Department this week for "continuing the Bush administration's cover-up of the National Security Agency's dragnet surveillance of millions of Americans" - a stance echoed by progressive MSNBC commentator Rachel Maddow over the past several weeks.
Obama's State Secrets Overreach
By Dan Froomkin, Washington Post
There are two things you really need to know about the "state secrets" privilege...
The three cases in question are Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation v. Obama; Mohammed v. Jeppesen Dataplan, in which five victims of "extraordinary rendition" say Jeppesen, a Boeing subsidiary, participated in their delivery to countries that tortured them; and Jewel vs. NSA, in which the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is suing the government on behalf of AT&T customers.
Podcast: EFF on French rejection of piracy bill
By Larry Magid, CNET News.com
By a vote of 21 to 15, the lower house of France's Parliament rejected a bill that would have required Internet service providers to suspend access to people who have received three warnings for illegally downloading copyrighted music...
EFF's International Outreach Coordinator Danny O'Brien explains his organization's position on the issue.
EFF: YouTube's ContentID more strict than DMCA
By Justin Mann, Tech Spot
Google has for a long time enjoyed a good reputation with many Internet users. Often people point to them as an example of a company that does things “the right way” and works to maintain user freedom. It seems, however, that not everyone takes that same stance towards them. In fact, a lawyer for the Electronic Freedom Foundation has harshly criticized YouTube, one of Google's sore spots.
Big Break From Bush on ‘State Secrets’ Unlikely Under Obama
By Daphne Eviatar, Washington Independent
In an interview that aired Wednesday night on the CBS Evening News, Attorney General Eric Holder suggested to Katie Couric that the Obama administration is unlikely to depart dramatically from the Bush administration’s position on the use of the state secrets privilege, noting just one case out of about 20 currently under review in which the Justice Department is seriously considering changing its stance. He did not say which case that was...
For example, in a federal court in San Francisco on Friday, the Obama Justice Department moved to dismiss the Jewel case based in part on the state secrets privilege. The AT&T customers who filed suit, represented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, claim the National Security Agency illegally intercepted their calls and obtained their phone records as part of a broad-reaching, ongoing national security surveillance program and in violation of the First and Fourth Amendments of the United States Constitution, the separation of powers doctrine and federal statutes.
EFF: Obama DOJ's Warrantless Wiretapping Arguments Are Worse Than Bush's
By Mike Masnick, Tech Dirt
On the issue of warrantless wiretapping, we've never been given a clear explanation by anyone why it makes sense to allow the government to totally skip over the warrant process...
The EFF has an analysis of the new Justice Department in trying to get one of the warrantless wiretapping cases dismissed, noting that the new administration appears to be taking an even more extreme position than the previous administration (which was already quite extreme).
Keith Olbermann's scathing criticism of Obama's secrecy/immunity claims
By Glenn Greenwald, Salon
Several weeks ago, I noted that unlike the Right -- which turned itself into a virtual cult of uncritical reverence for George W. Bush especially during the first several years of his administration -- large numbers of Bush critics have been admirably willing to criticize Obama when he embraces the very policies that prompted so much anger and controversy during the Bush years...
Even better, Olbermann tonight will have on as a guest Kevin Bankston of EFF, the lead counsel for the plaintiffs suing Bush officials for illegal spying, which means Olbermann intends to cover this issue again tonight.
Video: EFF's Kevin Bankston on Countdown with Keith Olbermann
EFF's Kevin Bankston interviewed by MSNBC's Keith Olbermann.
Government opts for secrecy in wiretap suit
By Bob Egelko, San Francisco Chronicle
The Obama administration is again invoking government secrecy in defending the Bush administration's wiretapping program, this time against a lawsuit by AT&T customers who claim federal agents illegally intercepted their phone calls and gained access to their records...
Kevin Bankston of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a lawyer for the customers, said Monday the filing was disappointing in light of the Obama presidential campaign's "unceasing criticism of Bush-era secrecy and promise for more transparency."
US Trade Office Releases Information on Secret Piracy Pact
By Grant Gross, PC World
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) has released some new details about an anticounterfeiting trade agreement that has been discussed in secret among the U.S., Japan, the European Union and other countries since 2006...
ince last June, Public Knowledge, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and Knowledge Ecology International (KEI) have filed Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests for information about ACTA. USTR had argued that most of the information about the trade pact was classified while releasing just 159 pages of information on the agreement in January. Public Knowledge and EFF said then that USTR was withholding more than 1,300 pages of information.
EFF's von Lohmann: YouTube worse than DMCA for fair use
By Richard Koman, ZDNet
I passed Jason’s post about getting DMCA’d by Warner Music onto Fred von Lohmann at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. You’ll recall that Jason and his wife put up on Vimeo a reunion slideshow with several tracks of music and that Warner Music Group promptly filed a DMCA take-down notice.
Beware online programs that promise cash
By James Temple, San Francisco Chronicle
A pyramid scheme that regularly surfaces during recessions is gaining momentum, this time supercharged by the social-networking power of the Internet, according to the Better Business Bureau and other consumer watchdog groups...
Under the Communications Decency Act of 1996, Web sites aren't liable for content generated by their users, even if it's illegal, said Kurt Opsahl, senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco, which advocates online free speech rights...
The law fostered "an environment where you can have media being democratized and all the voices of ordinary people going online," Opsahl said. "If they were subjected to liability depending on the content, the Internet would become the province of only rich, cautious media companies."
Obama Administration Seeks Dismissal of Wiretapping Lawsuit
Bay City News
The Obama administration Justice Department has asked a federal judge in San Francisco to dismiss a lawsuit that alleges the government engaged in illegal "dragnet surveillance" of American's telephone and e-mail communications...
Electronic Frontier Foundation attorney Kevin Bankston said his group was disappointed the Obama administration is continuing the position of the previous administration.
Bankston charged that the current administration "is continuing the Bush administration's cover-up of the National Security Agency's dragnet surveillance of millions of Americans."
He said, "It feels like deja vu all over again."
Google loses on appeal, will face AdWords trademark suit
By John Timmer , Ars Technica
Google's ability to continue to use other companies' trademarked names in selling and placing advertising will be decided at trial. That's the message sent last Friday by the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, which vacated an earlier ruling in Google's favor. The search giant may still prevail at trial, but the Electronic Frontier Foundation is already voicing concerns about the possibility that the case could have far reaching consequences for company critics.
New and worse secrecy and immunity claims from the Obama DOJ
By Glenn Greenwald, Salon
When Congress immunized telecoms last August for their illegal participation in Bush's warrantless eavesdropping program, Senate Democratic apologists for telecom immunity repeatedly justified that action by pointing out that Bush officials who broke the law were not immunized -- only the telecoms...
Taking them at their word, EFF -- which was the lead counsel in the lawsuits against the telecoms -- thereafter filed suit, in October, 2008, against the Bush administration and various Bush officials for illegally spying on the communications of Americans.
Consumer Interest Groups Ask Obama To Stop Appointing RIAA Lawyers
By Mike Masnick, Tech Dirt
With the Obama administration appointing a whole bunch of copyright maximalists to various positions (despite an early indication that perhaps he recognized issues with copyright law), a bunch of public interest and consumer interest groups have gotten together to write a letter to Obama, asking him to recognize that he seems to be filling every open slot with a very heavily biased viewpoint which could do significant harm towards innovation...
Still, the EFF also took the opportunity to point out that it seems likely that Obama violated copyright himself, in giving a gift of an iPod filled with music to the Queen of England.
Coalition: administration needs balance, diversity on IP
By John Timmer, Ars Technica
One could be forgiven for thinking that intellectual property issues were simply a matter of determining how to enforce the rights of the owner of said property...
Several consumers groups, such as the Consumer Electronics Association and Consumers Union, signed on, as did Web organizations like the Internet Archive and Wikimedia Foundation. There are also several general public interest organizations, like the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Public Knowledge. All told, nearly 20 groups have signed on to the letter.
IPod: Gift 'Fit For A Queen' Might Violate Copyright Law
By Wendy Davis, Mediapost
This week, President Barack Obama gave the Queen of England an iPod preloaded with 40 tracks from Broadway shows. Did doing so violate the copyright law?
Fred von Lohmann at the Electronic Frontier Foundation says the answer might be yes.
Does Mark Cuban Have a Case?
By Ryan Corazza, ESPN
Friday night, Mark Cuban used his Twitter feed to complain about the refs during the Mavericks-Nuggets game. The NBA promptly fined him $25,000...
"In the example behind this story where somebody had re-posted his message in commenting on the NBA fine, it's really quite clear to me that that would be fair use," said Fred von Lohmann, an attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a group that has specialized in defending speech in the digital realm since 1990. "They are reporting the news about a public figure. Mark Cuban does not independently make money on these Twitter messages, so it's not displacing the market that he has for these copyrighted works. In my view, this is an easy fair use case."
Obama: Stop Filling Administration with RIAA Insiders
By David Kravets, Wired News
Nearly two dozen public interest groups, trade pacts and library groups urged President Barack Obama on Thursday to quit filling his administration with insiders plucked from the Recording Industry Association of America...
Groups such as Public Knowledge, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Consumer Electronics Association, the Wikimedia Foundation and, among others, the American Library Association, are demanding Obama to look outside the content industry when filling up his administration.
EFF Wonders: Did Obama Violate Copyright Law With iPod Gift?
By David Kravets , Wired News
President Barack Obama gave Queen Elizabeth II an iPod on Thursday with some 40 Broadway songs from popular musicals like West Side Story and the King and I.
Yet convoluted U.S. copyright laws make it unclear whether the chief executive is a copyright scofflaw. Fred von Lohmann, a copyright expert at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, explains:
"You know your copyright laws are broken when there is no easy answer to this question," he wrote.
iPhone OS 3.0 beta successfully jailbroken
By Dan Moren, Macworld
Despite the fact that iPhone OS 3.0 is still a ways from seeing the public light of day, those who are concerned over whether or not they’ll be able to jailbreak Apple’s newest iteration can take heart...
Not that this is likely to put a stop to jaibreaking, as is clearly evident from the 3.0 jailbreak. But I imagine that Apple felt it had to give itself some recourse that could be used in a legal situation if necessary, such as the issue that has arisen over the DMCA exemption proposed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Geek Reading Fundraises for the Electronic Frontier Foundation
VidSF
VIDEO: Author Cory Doctorow and others read from their works to raise funds and awareness for the EFF, a non-profit which defends digital civil liberties.
Is AT&T violating DMCA by not booting 'repeat infringers'?
By Greg Sandoval, CNET News.com
One of revelations that surfaced following last week's report that AT&T was helping the recording industry fight illegal file sharing was how differently Internet service providers interpret U.S. copyright law...
Nowhere in the DMCA does the law call on ISPs to send warning notices to customers on behalf of copyright owners, said Fred von Lohmann, senior attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a group that advocates for the rights of Web users...
The "repeat infringer" provision applies to all service providers, YouTube as well as AT&T, said von Lohmann. But he also said that AT&T is correct to leave the determination of who violates the law up to judges and not entertainment executives.
SeeqPod Files for Bankruptcy Following Major Label Lawsuits
By Eliot Van Buskirk, Wired News
SeeqPod has filed for bankruptcy protection as it fends off lawsuits from major labels seeking billions of dollars from the music search engine for alleged copyright infringement...
Despite its predicament, experts including Fred von Lohmann of the EFF have questioned whether SeeqPod's search engine — which hosts no music — constitutes copyright infringement under United States law. If anyone is infringing the labels' copyrights, one might argue, it's the sites that host the music played by SeeqPod.
Wireless Wars - Jailbreaking, Unlocking and the DMCA
By Luke Simpson, Wireless Week
It’s Apple, Virgin Mobile and CTIA versus the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), Skype, Mozilla, eBay, MetroPCS, Pocket Communications and The Wireless Alliance in a battle for control, security, choice and freedom. The outcome could revolutionize the way mobile manufacturers, carriers and content providers do business.
The State Of DRM: Is The Customer Right?
By Joel Rose, NPR
Back in the early 2000s, a bunch of online music services competed to sell music — each with its own form of Digital Rights Management (DRM) and each with its own set of restrictions on how and where those songs would play...
"They wasted years and years fighting the technology instead of figuring out how to work with it," says Corynne McSherry, a staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation. She adds that the music industry gradually found that DRM wasn't preventing piracy — just sales.
Myxer.com focuses on following the law
By Bridget Carey, Miami Herald
Myxer doesn't seem to be worried about being sued by major record labels...
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act was created in 1998, and back then, Congress didn't predict there would be these massive content sharing sites like YouTube -- and according to Fred von Lohmann, senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the copyright owners of today are not satisfied with the 1998 rules. And the lawsuits are an effort to re-negotiate the deal.
''The service providers are saying we can't do the policing for you. You have to police the content,'' according to von Lohmann.
FTC: Digital Rights Management Software Use Requires Disclosure
By Wendy Davis, Mediapost
Companies that bundle music, movies and games with digital rights management software must prominently disclose information about such software to consumers, a Federal Trade Commission official warned last week...
Corynne McSherry, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told the FTC that digital rights management software threatens consumers' ability to use media. "Fair use means that you can do things like buy a CD and take it home and play it on various different devices and play it in the background in your kitchen and your toddler can dance to it and then you can put a video of the toddler dancing up on YouTube," McSherry said. "Unfortunately, DRM (digital rights management) can interfere with those expectations."
Will New Tracker Tools for Your Cell Phone Give You Away?
By Erik Larkin, PC World
Cell phone apps like Loopt and the new Google Latitude allow you to track your friends' physical locations, and be tracked in return...
But here's the kicker: As Kevin Bankston of the Electronic Frontier Foundation points out, the safeguards in place are only company policy, not a legal requirement. And policies can change.
AT&T to start sending copyright warnings
By Peter Svensson, Associated Press
AT&T Inc., the nation's largest Internet service provider, will start sending warnings to its subscribers when music labels and movie studios allege that they are trafficking in pirated material, according to an executive...
AT&T and other participating ISPs are doing more for copyright owners than they are legally obliged to, according to Fred von Lohmann, a senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. However, they do have an obligation to have a policy in place to kick off repeat offenders, he said.
New Zealand Reconsiders Three-Strikes Rule on Internet Use
By Marisa Taylor, Wall Street Journal Blogs
New Zealand agreed this week to reconsider a controversial law that cut off Internet access to people accused of copyright violations...
How could a democratic government consider cutting off Internet access for people who haven’t been convicted of a copyright violation? Danny O’Brien, the international outreach coordinator at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, says that New Zealand changed its copyright law to be in accordance with the Digital Millenium Copyright Act in the U.S., but then chose to interpret the language differently than the U.S.
Courts Pay Attention to New FOIA Policy
By Steven Aftergood, Secrecy News
A skeptical person might presume that the new Freedom of Information Act policy announced by Attorney General Eric Holder on March 19 declaring that agencies should “adopt a presumption in favor of disclosure” is a rhetorical posture without much practical significance...
In one case, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) asked a court to stay a proceeding and to order the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Justice to reconsider their denial of requested records by employing the new Holder guidelines. Those agencies opposed the idea. But in a March 23 opinion (pdf), Judge Jeffrey S. White of the Northern District of California granted the EFF motion.
Three Strikes and You're Offline: Music Industry, ISPs May Cut Internet Access for File-Sharers
By Liza Porteus Viana, Fox News
Under pressure from the big record labels, several countries around the world are cracking down hard on illegal file-sharers with a "three strikes, you're out" policy — and the United States may be next...
"We ... have now an increasing amount of power passed on to the hands of the copyright holders," says Danny O'Brien of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco-based digital-rights group.
"It's cutting out the middleman, which the Internet is very good at, except in this case the middleman is a judge," O'Brien continued. "All they have to do is accuse you three times and then you're off. There's no checking to see if the evidence is good."
Why Is The AP Invoking The DMCA Over The Obama Poster?
By Mike Masnick, Tech Dirt
We've been covering the ongoing legal brouhaha between the Associated Press and Shepard Fairey over whether or not his iconic Obama poster was copyright infringement of an Associated Press photo -- with most of the focus being on whether or not the use was protected by fair use. However, the EFF is noting something quite odd (and quite troubling) in the AP's countersuit against Fairey: it's claiming that his post violates the DMCA.
Students Sue Prosecutor in Cellphone Photos Case
By Sean D. Hamill, New York Times
When a high school cheerleader in northeastern Pennsylvania learned that she might face criminal charges after investigators reported finding a nude photo of her on someone else’s cellphone, she was more confused than frightened at being caught up in a case of “sexting”: the increasingly popular phenomenon of nude or seminude photos sent over wireless phones...
Lee Tien, a senior staff lawyer for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit group in San Francisco that studies technology issues, said such cases also raise thorny legal issues around the searching of students’ cellphones, many of which are seized when they are used during class.
“If they confiscate the phone, that’s reasonable to hold it for the day and return it,” Mr. Tien said. “But there’s a serious question of whether that justifies going through the cellphone.”
YouTube removing Warner Music videos again, not just muting
By Samantha Rose Hunt, TG Daily
Thousands of user-created videos, rather just their audio tracks, are once again being pulled from YouTube. Due to the ongoing copyright dispute between Warner Music Group and YouTube, tens of thousands of amateur videos have been removed from the site. Users believe their videos fall under the category of "Fair Use", but failed negotiations between YouTube and Warner Music have resulted in all content being affected...
Fred von Lohmann, a lawyer for the EFF said, "Thousands of videos disappeared. Either [YouTube] turned off the audio, or they pulled the video." The majority of the videos which have been removed contain clips of Warner Music songs in the background of slideshows, family videos, or are even videos of artists who simply cover Warner Music's tracks.
Trade agency pledges to review its transparency
By Grant Gross, IT World
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) has pledged to review the transparency of its trade negotiations after criticism over its recent decision to withhold information on an intellectual-property trade agreement...
The pledge to review transparency comes after three groups, Knowledge Ecology International (KEI), Public Knowledge and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), filed Freedom of Information Act requests seeking details about the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), a trade pact being negotiated among the U.S. and several other countries.
Zoombak tracking device raises questions about privacy and safety
By Joshua Melvin, Palo Alto Daily News
After Stella escaped from the yard of her Los Altos home for the third time, her owner decided she needed a way to track the husky-mix dog...
"Now you have cheap surveillance...think of how easy this makes it for an ex who wants to harass somebody or a neighbor who wants to get some dirt on you," said Lee Tien, senior staff attorney at the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights watchdog group
Songwriters rewrite bid for legalized file sharing
By Michael Geist, Toronto Star
In November 2007, the Songwriters Association of Canada shocked the music industry and many Canadians by proposing music file sharing be legalized. The proposal was based on the premise that file sharing was not going away, that lawsuits do more harm than good and the continued emphasis on digital locks to control copying has failed completely...
The voluntary approach – which resembles elements of a plan the Electronic Frontier Foundation began promoting in 2003 – should remove the consumer concerns associated with stiff monthly fees for non-music sharers. While some artists may reject the plan, the SAC is betting most will participate given the opportunity to benefit from a new source of revenue.
Flipping burgers or writing code?
By Maggie Shiels, BBC News
For students the world over, summertime marks the end of exams and a few months away from the books, tutorials, and professors. Harsh reality though soon comes knocking in the shape of economic reality and it also usually means, for most, the need to find a summer job...
This year the programme, which is now in its fifth year, will match 1,000 students from 98 countries to 150 open source projects. The projects include lots of familiar names like Blender, MySQL, Apache, the Berkman Centre at Harvard, Creative Commons, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Linux Foundation, Mozilla, OpenMRS, Sahana and even Google.
Search Tool Launched for Uncovered Government Documents
Government Technology
To commemorate Sunshine Week, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)last week launched a search tool that allows the public to closely examine thousands of pages of government documents the organization has obtained through litigation and FOIA requests. The documents relate to a wide range of cutting-edge technology issues and government policies that affect civil liberties and personal privacy, according to a release from the organization.
As Rights Clash on YouTube, Some Music Vanishes
By Tim Arango, New York Times
In early December, Juliet Weybret, a high school sophomore and aspiring rock star from Lodi, Calif., recorded a video of herself playing the piano and singing “Winter Wonderland,” and she posted it on YouTube...
“Thousands of videos disappeared,” said Fred von Lohmann, staff lawyer for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an Internet civil liberties group that asked affected YouTube users to contact it. “Either they turned off the audio, or they pulled the video.”
Are lots of teens 'sexting'? Experts doubt it
By Justin Berton, San Francisco Chronicle
Seventeen-year-old Natalie Tracey recently adjusted her cell phone plan to accommodate her growing text-messaging addiction. But the Sacramento high school senior had never heard of anyone at her school "sexting" - sending a nude photo via cell phone...
Lee Tien, a senior staff attorney at San Francisco's Electronic Frontier Foundation, said law-enforcement agencies that bring felony charges against minors are misusing the federal child pornography laws, which he said were written to protect children from adult predators.
"We may not want teenagers to engage in this behavior," Tien said, "but police officers and schoolteachers and judges should not feel like they need to bring up criminal charges on these kids.
"It's become a frenzy of people who are trying to out-moralize one another and come out strongly against it," he added. "I'm hoping people will come to their senses and this will result in less sexting but, more importantly, less overreacting by the authorities."
Digital model ‘all you can eat’
By Jeannie Naujeck, Nashville Business Journal
The struggling music industry is looking to new technology solutions that could help it regain some lost ground and make music consumption more convenient and affordable for fans...
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a California-based nonprofit founded in 1990, has come out strongly in favor of such an “all you can eat” subscription model, saying it fairly compensates creators. The foundation estimates such a model could collect $3 billion annually.
Time to Shield Researchers
By Oliver Day, Security Focus
Research is the backbone of the security industry but the legal climate has become so adverse that researchers have had to worry about injunctions, FBI visits, and even arrest...
Despite their knowledge of this significant vulnerability, the researchers were less worried about attackers finding out and more worried about being sued by Internet service providers embarrassed by the flaw. To head off the problem, they — with the help of the Electronic Frontier Foundation — were able to get Microsoft and the Mozilla Foundation to sign non-disclosure agreements.
RADIO: Smirch Engine
NPR - On the Media
There’s a name for how cruel people can get given a little anonymity on the internet. It’s called “online disinhibition effect” and the resulting venom can ruin your day or worse, destroy your good name. Bob looks at the fraught relationship on the web between reputation, privacy and the law...
BOB GARFIELD: So does the Communications Decency Act need a do-over? It was passed, after all, in 1996 while the Internet was in its infancy. Privacy hawks say no. Kurt Opsahl is senior staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
KURT OPSAHL: We as a society have taken a bet that it would be better to have a lot of different voices rather than have the law or the courts decide which voices can come forward.
New FOIA rules official—let the data flood begin
By Julian Sanchez , Ars Technica
Since 2001, the rule of thumb for government agencies responding to Freedom of Information Act requests has been "when in doubt, leave it out"...
A suit concerning those documents is just one of a slew filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, seeking records pertaining to the lobbying surrounding last year's telecom surveillance immunity legislation, FBI databases, and White House policies governing electronic communications records. Several of those cases have been stayed pending the implementation of new FOIA guidelines.
Sentencing commission ponders extra jail time for proxy users
By Julian Sanchez, Ars Technica
I'm betting Michael DuBose, chief of the Justice Department's Computer Crime & Intellectual Property Section, is a Steven Seagal fan...
Seth Schoen, staff technologist for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said that these tools "do not necessarily require technical sophistication or indicate unusual expertise; they do not necessarily contribute to avoiding detecting; and they do not necessarily indicate premeditation or a commitment to a course of criminal conduct." He noted that he himself had authored a manual explaining how any ordinary computer user could make use of proxies to avoid Web filtering or censorship. He also urged the commission against conflating the sophistication of a tool itself—citing the anonymous and encrypted Tor routing system as an example—with the sophistication required to use it.
Federal data to be released unless harm foreseen
By Michael J. Sniffen, Associated Press
The Obama administration advised federal agencies Thursday to release their records and information to the public unless foreseeable harm would result...
An attorney in several pending lawsuits, David Sobel, of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights advocate, was pleased by Holder's decision to review some existing cases and said it should open more records to public view.
"Both the president and the Attorney General have now articulated an extremely pro-disclosure policy for the federal government, and that is a very positive development," Sobel said. "If there is really a new presumption in favor of disclosure, one would expect to see the outright reversal of many Bush-era decisions to withhold information."
Obama DOJ Supports Warrantless Wireless Location Searches
By Roy Mark, eWeek
The Department of Justice is urging courts to allow law enforcement officials to obtain users' cell tower location data without a search warrant. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups are objecting, and the courts have so far held that location information stored by a mobile phone provider is legally protected by the Fourth Amendment's prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures.
Jailbreakers Get Busy on iPhone OS 3.0
By Ian Paul, PC World
The iPhone Dev-Team (not the Cupertino version) hasn't wasted anytime in declaring the iPhone 3.0 operating system "jailbreakable"...
However, keep in mind that despite the Electronic Frontier Foundation's efforts, jailbreaking the iPhone is still illegal.
Who Should Monitor Online Counterfeiters?
By Alison Arden Besunder and Loni J. Sherwin, New York Law Journal
Oral arguments will soon be heard by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in the highly watched dispute between renowned jeweler Tiffany & Co. and eBay, the popular online auction site, over who bears the burden of "policing" online counterfeit activity...
The Electronic Frontier Foundation reaches even further, arguing that Inwood is entirely inapplicable because eBay does not possess or access the goods and lacks the ability to discern infringements.
Obama Administration: Constitution Does Not Protect Cell-Site Records
By David Kravets, Wired News
The Obama administration says the Fourth Amendment prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures does not apply to cell-site information mobile phone carriers retain on their customers...
The latest surveillance case is believed to be the only one of its kind to reach the federal appellate level, said Jennifer Granick, the civil liberties director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
"Almost everybody in the United States carries or will carry a cell phone," she said. "This tracking ability is a means where the government can find out the location of pretty much everybody without much effort or expense."
Apple Suicide: Obsessive Control
By Ian Paul, PC World
How does a tech company spell suicide in 2009? D-R-M...
More troubling is a report from the Electronic Frontier Foundation that suggests Apple may be embracing the authentication model after it pushed other industries to abandon copy protection.
New EFF search tool opens up FOIA documents
Lincoln Spector, The Industry Standard
Want to know what the feds have been up to? Anyone with Internet access can now search through thousands of once-classified documents that the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has "has pried loose from secretive government agencies" through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). On Monday, the EFF announced a new search engine specifically designed for these documents.
How To Opt Out Of Google's New Targeted Ads
By Alex Chasick, Consumerist
Last week, Google introduced its new "interest based" ads, which is based on tracking your browsing activity and targeting ads based on that behavior. Fortunately, there are several ways to opt out.
There are obvious privacy issues that pop up when a company tracks your web history; it's also annoying and creepy. Fortunately, Google has implemented targeted ads in a relatively benign way, working with privacy groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation to make avoiding these ads pretty easy. As EFF points out, the best way to do this would be to require users to opt in to targeted ads, rather than opt out.
A few rays of optimism during Sunshine Week
BY John Murrell, Good Morning Silicon Valley
nformation may want to be free, but sometimes information collected on the public’s behalf needs some help making its way out of the government labyrinth and into the daylight...
Meanwhile, on the tech front, the Electronic Frontier Foundation marked Sunshine Week by launching a new search tool to let the public paw through the thousands of pages of government documents it has extracted over the years through FOIA requests.
Obama Administration Says Treaty Text Is State Secret
By Grant Gross, PC World
The Office of U.S. Trade Representative (USTR), part of President Barack Obama's office, has denied a company's request for information about a secretive anticounterfeiting trade agreement being negotiated, citing national security concerns...
Two digital rights groups, Public Knowledge and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), have a pending lawsuit against USTR for its denial of their requests for information on the trade pact. That lawsuit, dating back to the administration of former President George Bush, has been stayed until June 30 as both sides wait on FOIA guidance from new U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder.
Copyright treaty is classified for 'national security'
By Declan McCullagh, CNET News.com
Last September, the Bush administration defended the unusual secrecy over an anti-counterfeiting treaty being negotiated by the U.S. government, which some liberal groups worry could criminalize some peer-to-peer file sharing that infringes copyrights...
The White House appears to be continuing the secretive policy of the Bush administration, which wrote to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (PDF) on January 16 that out of 806 pages related to the treaty, all but 10 were "classified in the interest of national security pursuant to Executive Order 12958."
Real ID law to receive makeover under Obama
By Austin Modine, Register UK
A law requiring US citizens to present federally mandated ID cards for "official purposes" such as boarding a plane is likely to be shaken down at the door under the US Department of Homeland Security's new secretary, Janet Napolitano...
Privacy advocacy groups such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) claim the Real ID law fails to provide critical privacy-security safeguards for personal data.
Can websites that I'm not visiting still track me?
By Peter Eckersley (EFF), Popular Science
Yes, and there are lots of ways they can do it. Web pages are a flexible platform for exchanging information, but that also means it can be easy to track what you’re looking at on them. The first method is through third-party content. Say Company A is an advertising or tracking firm. When you visit sites that display A’s ads or use A to track their visitors, A can identify your browser and see what pages you visit on those sites (and more). To learn how to mitigate these tactics, go to ssd.eff.org/cookies.
Keeping the government's prying eyes at bay
By Paul McNamara, Network World
The Electronic Frontier Foundation last week took the wraps off a new Web site that is designed to help you keep the government from taking the wraps off your personal communications and stored data.
Google's DMCA takedowns leaving Blogger users high and dry
By Julian Sanchez, Ars Technica
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act is supposed to balance the rights of copyright holders and online authors, while protecting Internet service providers from getting caught in the crossfire. But Google's policy for handling DMCA notices seems to leave bloggers with scant hope of getting improperly removed content restored...
According to Fred von Lohmann, an intellectual property attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, this presents an "unsettled question" for both bloggers and providers. "Many countries, including the UK, have a 'making available' right for copyright owners," says von Lohmann. "As a result, those copyright owners frequently argue that anything that can be accessed in their country violates their rights. I think that's wrong—the making available right is territorial, just like every other copyright interest, and so it only applies if someone is making the work available in the UK (i.e., the server is in the UK). But I don't think any courts have definitively ruled on this issue."
Civil liberties hero of the week: Electronic Frontier Foundation
Guardian UK
A heartfelt thank you from liberty central to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) for its Surveillance Self-Defence website, which aims to educate the public about "the law and technology of government surveillance ... [as well as] providing the information and tools necessary to evaluate the threat of surveillance and take appropriate steps to defend against it."
Craigslist’s “Erotic Services” Issue Bubbles Up Again
By Geoffrey A. Fowler, Wall Street Journal
Craigslist, the online classifieds juggernaut, has run afoul of authorities once again, over the ads in its adult section. On Thursday, the sheriff in Cook County, Ill., called the site the “largest source of prostitution in America,” and filed a civil lawsuit to get Craigslist’s “erotic services” section shut down...
Does the sheriff’s suit have a legal leg to stand on? Electronic Frontier Foundation senior staff attorney Matt Zimmerman doesn’t think so. “I would be surprised if it went very far,” he said today. Aside from Craigslist already cooperating with authorities, a federal court has already ruled that Web sites are immune to liability for what a third party posts, so long as the site doesn’t directly help create that content. And if it ever got that far, constitutional freedom of speech protections likely also apply to Craiglist, he said.
Company Threatens EFF With Defamation In Response To EFF Trying To Bust Its Patent
By Mike Masnick, Tech Dirt
Back in January, we noted that the EFF had scored another hit in its ongoing patent-busting project, getting the USPTO to re-examine a patent held by Seer Systems. It appears that Seer Systems doesn't much like being targeted by the EFF and decided to threaten the group with a defamation lawsuit over how it described Seer's actions.
Oh Kindle, Read to Me!
By Corynne McSherry, New York Times Letter to the Editor
“The Kindle Swindle?,” by Roy Blount Jr. (Op-Ed, Feb. 25), missed the heart of the matter.
As we explained in the blog post to which Mr. Blount referred, there is no legal basis for the claim that authors are owed royalties for the Kindle’s “read to me” feature.
Docs Threaten Review Sites With Copyright Suits
By Wendy Davis, Mediapost
In the five years since he co-founded RateMDs.com, a site where patients rate their doctors, John Swapceinski has been threatened with lawsuits at least once a week. Not one disgruntled physician has actually carried out his threats, Swapceinski tells MediaPost...
Certainly digital rights advocates are chomping at the bit to take on Medical Justice in court. When asked about the prospect of a review site defending a copyright infringement lawsuit for posting a patient review, the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Matt Zimmerman had this to say: "I want that case."
7 Ways to Stop Uncle Sam from Spying On You
By Ki Mae Huessner, ABCNews.com
You say you have no secrets. Your life's an open book. You have nothing to hide. But still, do you really want to make it easy for Uncle Sam -- or anyone else for that matter -- to rifle through your contact lists, read your e-mails or monitor your cash flow?...
"We all benefit from the explosion in communications technology, but it also means that there are new and growing caches of sensitive data about us," said Kevin Bankston, a senior staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights group that, this week, launched a surveillance self-defense campaign.
Google Latitude to Cops: 'I Don't Remember'
By Ryan Singel, Wired News
Google is promising that its new location-reporting service Latitude, which lets you broadcast where you are to your friends, will have a memory leak and won't remember anything...
The policy, created in consultation with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, puts Latitude on equal privacy footing with Loopt, a popular friend-finding service that predates Latitude. Both services now overwrite your previous location with your new location, and don't keep logs.
MPAA: RealNetworks hamstrings lawsuit by destroying evidence
By Jacqui Cheng, Ars Technica
The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) has accused RealNetworks of destroying evidence relevant to a lawsuit over the company's DVD-copying software...
In a letter sent to the Electronic Frontier Foundation in October, the MPAA said that groups who defend companies like Real are living in the past, and that P2P is out while legit video options are totally in.
Setting the iPhone Free from AT&T
By Olga Kharif, Business Week
As the exclusive U.S. carrier for the Apple (AAPL) iPhone, AT&T has had a lot to celebrate. Rivals hope to crash the party...
"[The issue arose] in large part because of the iPhone, because the iPhone did not exist in 2006," says the Electronic Frontier Foundation's senior intellectual property attorney, Fred von Lohmann.
EFF creates anti-snooping site
By Nick Farrell, Inquirer
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has opened a web site designed to help you keep the government from get its grubby mitts on your hard-drive today.
Should the Govt Be Allowed toTrack You Via GPS?
By Chloe Albanesius, PCMag.com
Should the government be able to surreptitiously install GPS tracking devices on your vehicle without a warrant? The San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation argued this week that such activity is a violation of civil liberties.
YouTube Denies Being 'Ditched' By White House
By Thomas Claburn, InformationWeek
The White House and YouTube have not parted ways, despite claims to the contrary...
Among those calling for greater privacy protections at the White House site, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) expressed cautious optimism that the White House Web team was responding to privacy concerns, even if it appeared reluctant to acknowledge its response.
White House Web site moves to generic video player; privacy advocates applaud
By Jaikumar Vijayan, ComputerWorld
A White House decision to use a generic flash video player for hosting President Barack Obama's latest weekly video address on WhiteHouse.gov is being seen by some as a sign that the executive office is responding to previous concerns about the use of embedded YouTube videos on the site...
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a privacy rights group, in January sent a letter to White House Counsel Gregory Craig about the issue. Yesterday, it expressed hope that the latest change shows that the White House is listening to the concerns.
Police use of warrantless GPS tracking challenged
By Matthew Barakat, Associated Press
Police should be required to get a search warrant before placing GPS tracking devices on vehicles belonging to criminal suspects, privacy and civil liberties groups argued in court papers Tuesday.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation and the D.C. chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union filed a brief in the federal appeals court in Washington on behalf of Antoine Jones of Waldorf, Md.
White House ditches YouTube after privacy complaints
By Chris Soghoian, CNET News.com
Responding to complaints by privacy activists, the White House has quietly abandoned YouTube as the provider of the embedded videos on the president's official home page...
The White House's decision to embed YouTube videos in the president's official home page drew instant criticism from privacy activists. In addition to several critical posts on my blog, by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Center for Democracy and Technology and the Center for Digital Democracy blasted the choice of video providers.
White House Videos Go On Cookie-Free Diet
By Wendy Davis, Mediapost
At the end of January, the digital rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation complained to the Obama administration about its practice of embedding YouTube clips on the site WhiteHouse.gov. The EFF argued that YouTube poses a potential threat to users' privacy because it places persistent cookies on users' computers, including hard-to-delete flash cookies.
Is cloud computing inherently evil?
By William Hurley, InfoWorld
Recently I spoke at the BIL conference in Long Beach, Calif. One of the other presenters was Brad Templeton, chairman of the Electronic Frontier Foundation...
At BIL '09, Brad gave a presentation entitled "The Evils of Cloud Computing: Data Portability and Single Sign On." I wanted to give Brad the opportunity to discuss the problems he sees and propose solutions to the cloud computing community, so I asked him a few questions. This way we won't speculate or judge what Brad means when he calls cloud computing "evil."
Amend telecommunications surveillance laws
By Paul M. Schwartz, San Francisco Chronicle
How can we, the people, decide if there is too much or too little telecommunications surveillance in the United States? How can we know if law enforcement is using its surveillance capacities in the most effective fashion?...
This particular issue is now before a U.S. District Court in the Northern District of California in pathbreaking litigation led by the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Appeals Court Allows Classified Evidence in Spy Case
By David Kravets, Wired News
A federal appeals court dealt a blow to the Obama administration Friday when it refused to block a judge from admitting top secret evidence in a lawsuit weighing whether a U.S. president may bypass Congress, as President George W. Bush did, and establish a program of eavesdropping on Americans without warrants...
The Electronic Frontier Foundation claims the TSP went further, and accuses the nations' telecommunication companies of funneling all electronic communications to the National Security Agency without warrants. However, as part of the spy bill approved in July, the government immunized the telcos from lawsuits accusing them of being complicit with the Bush administration.
Amazon retreats on Kindle's text-to-speech issue
By Greg Sandoval, CNET News.com
Apparently, Amazon won't fight the publishing industry on the issue of whether the Kindle 2's text-to-speech function violates copyright...
Fred von Lohmann, senior attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an advocate group for the rights of Web users and technology companies, said he was grateful that Amazon went out of its way to make the point that the company didn't believe text-to-speech technology violated copyright.
"Nevertheless, Amazon decided to allow copyright owners to make the decisions themselves whether to use the feature," von Lohmann said. "They are entitled to do that. The issue of text-to-speech will have to wait for another innovator."
Obama Administration Supports Telco Spy Immunity
By David Kravets, Wired News
The Obama administration vigorously defended congressional legislation late Wednesday that immunizes U.S. telecommunication companies from lawsuits about their participation in the Bush administration's domestic spy program...
Walker is weighing a challenge to the immunity legislation in a lawsuit brought by the Electronic Frontier Foundation of San Francisco. Congress crafted the bill after Walker refused to dismiss separate challenges brought by EFF accusing the nation's telecoms of violating the rights of millions of Americans for allegedly funneling electronic communications to the National Security Agency without warrants.
Obama administration backs telecom immunity
By Bob Egelko, San Francisco Chronicle
The Obama administration has asked a federal judge in San Francisco to uphold a law aimed at dismissing suits against telecommunications companies that cooperated with President George W. Bush's wiretapping program...
Cindy Cohn, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation who represents AT&T customers in the lead case before Walker, said she was disappointed.
"It's unfortunate that the Obama administration has taken the position that it's OK for the president to decide whether millions of ordinary Americans get their day in court," Cohn said. "That's exactly the kind of presidential power that candidate Obama was critical of the Bush administration for."
Kindles and "creative machines" blur boundaries of copyright
By Julian Sanchez, Ars Technica
The Authors Guild has come in for a fair amount of ridicule since their executive director, Paul Aiken, claimed that the speech-to-text feature of Amazon's new Kindle 2 violated copyright law, telling the Wall Street Journal: "They don't have the right to read a book out loud"...
Michael Kwun of the Electronic Frontier Foundation argues that it doesn't, for two reasons. First, he says, a "derivative work" must be a work of creative authorship: He cites the copyright statute's definition of "derivative work" as "a work based upon one or more preexisting works . . . which, as a whole, represent[s] an original work of authorship."
Judge questions law giving telecoms immunity
By Bob Egelko, San Francisco Chronicle
A federal judge in San Francisco is raising questions about the constitutionality of a law designed to dismiss suits against telecommunications companies accused of cooperating with government wiretapping...
The point of the 1944 ruling, said the phone customers' lawyer, Cindy Cohn of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, was that "Congress is supposed to write the laws. Congress isn't supposed to abdicate the ability to write those laws to the president."
RIAA Shifts From One Wreck to Another
By Frank Beacham, TV Technology
It's easy to understand why the United States is losing ground in the race to build cost-effective broadband services across the nation. The latest reason: a trade group of longtime losers—the Recording Industry of America—wants Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to protect them from their own music customers...
The RIAA's lawsuits, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), have been "ineffective and unconstitutional." Fred von Lohmann, the EFF's senior staff attorney, said the trade group's campaign has been—by any measure—a failure. The lawsuits, he said, have not reduced unauthorized file-sharing and have not gotten a single artist paid.
Webcasting Of File-Sharing Trial Faces New Hurdle
By Wendy Davis, Mediapost
Last month, federal district court judge Nancy Gertner granted a request by grad student Joel Tenenbaum to Webcast his trial for allegedly sharing music files online. She ruled that the "Internet generation" should be able to virtually attend the proceedings via the Web. The Recording Industry Association of America filed an emergency appeal, arguing that a Webcast would hurt its case.
The controversy drew the attention of civil rights groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which filed a friend-of-the-court brief, as well as major media organizations like The Associated Press.
Korbel wants Comcast to ID anonymous critics
By Steve Hart, Santa Rosa Press-Democrat
Korbel Champagne Cellars will ask a Sonoma County judge next week to make Comcast Corp. identify Internet customers who criticized the wine company in a Web forum.
The case shows that Internet users should be careful what they say in anonymous Web forums, said Matt Zimmerman, an attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco nonprofit that defends free speech online.
“Even if you think you are speaking anonymously, you are leaving digital footprints that could ‘out’ you,” he said. “You could still be held liable.”
Proposed law might make Wi-Fi users help cops
By Stephen Lawson, Network World
A proposed U.S. law would require Internet service providers to store information about every user of their services and keep that data for at least two years, in a bid to crack down on Internet-based predators and child pornographers...
"Data retention proposals are sort of like zombies, in that they're kind of easy to knock down, but they tend to come back," Bankston said.
Stop the presses! Some guy from Microsoft just bought a house!
By Todd Bishop, TechFlash
That, at least, is how it initially feels to read BlockShopper -- a site whose new Seattle portal currently features such headlines as Senior pastor acquires Sammamish 3BD, Microsoft Corp. lawyer spends in Issaquah, and Medical couple gets 4BD in Seattle...
Among those who didn't like it was whe big law firm Jones Day, which sued BlockShopper for trademark infringement after the site ran items on real estate deals involving two of its lawyers. The firm's suit was roundly criticized by First Amendment advocates, and BlockShopper had the support of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and other groups.
BlockShopper bullied into settling over Web links
By Jacqui Cheng, Ars Technica
A tiny startup that was threatened by a massive law firm over nothing more than a humble hyperlink has been forced to settle and change its linking policies, handing Goliath the win in this gratuitous trademark case...
Soon thereafter, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Public Citizen jointly filed an amici curiae brief on behalf of BlockShopper, pointing out the obvious: "linking is what web sites do—that is, after all, why it is called the 'World Wide Web'."
Nevada bill would outlaw RFID security research, EFF says
By Elinor Mills, CNET News.com
A proposed bill in the Nevada State Legislature would make it a crime to do legitimate research on security weaknesses in radio frequency identification, the Electronic Frontier Foundation said on Friday.
Privacy Groups Blast ISP Data-Retention Bill
By Kenneth Corbin, InternetNews
Privacy advocates are lashing out at a renewed effort by lawmakers to impose requirements on ISPs and wireless network operators to keep records about the identities of Internet users...
"These data retention proposals unnecessarily threaten the privacy and anonymous speech rights of every law-abiding internet user," EFF Senior Attorney Kevin Bankston told InternetNews.com. The law would "create vast new troves of data vulnerable not only to government overreaching but also to any civil litigant wielding a subpoena," he added.
Appeals Court To Hear Arguments Over Webcast Of Downloading Trial
By Wendy Davis, Mediapost
An appellate court in Boston has stayed a trial judge's order authorizing a Webcast of the legal proceedings in the record industry's lawsuit against grad student Joel Tenenbaum...
The digital rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation filed a friend-of-the-court brief backing Tenenbaum's request. "What transpires in these courts should be available to all members of the public, whether they can travel to the courthouse or not," the group argued.
Mozilla, Skype support EFF's case for iPhone jailbreaking
By Prince McLean, Apple Insider
In a filling with the US Copyright Office, Mozilla and Skype have added their voices of support to a request by the Electronic Frontier Foundation for an exemption to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act related to iPhone jailbreaking.
Mozilla backs EFF in iPhone jailbreak support
By Tom Krazit, CNET News.com
Mozilla has thrown its support behind the Electronic Frontier Foundation's push to have the U.S. Copyright Office allow iPhone jailbreaking.
Master P's Theater
By Mike Miliard, Boston Phoenix
"It's quite simple, really," Dr. Branom tells Alex DeLarge in A Clockwork Orange. "We're just going to show you some films"...
Fred von Lohmann, senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, guesses the clips were culled thanks to YouTube's Content ID system, an automated filter that seeks "fingerprints" encoded onto copyrighted video or audio.
Facebook Withdraws Changes in Data Use
By Brad Stone and Brian Stelter, New York Times
Facebook, the popular social networking site where people share photos and personal updates with friends and acquaintances, lost some face on Wednesday...
“If I post something on your wall, and then I decide to close my account, what happens to that wall post?” said Marcia Hofmann, a lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an Internet civil liberties group. “Is that my data or your data? That’s a very tricky issue, and it’s one that hasn’t come up a whole lot in the past.”
Deadline extended for subpoenas
By Lorraine Swanson, Chicago Journal
The anonymous bloggers of Uptown Update, and What the Helen, won't be unmasked anytime soon...
The blogs and Buena Park Neighbors block club are not directly involved in the Fix Wilson Yard lawsuit. They are being represented pro-bono by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco-based organization that defends the First Amendment rights of those who use the Internet and other digital media to exercise their freedom of speech. The civil liberties group is working to quash the subpoenas.
Mozilla backs move to decriminalize iPhone jailbreaking
By Gregg Keizer, Computerworld
Mozilla Corp. is backing a move that would nullify copyright infringement charges against people who "jailbreak" their iPhones, a practice that Apple Inc. considers against the law.
In comments submitted to the U.S. Copyright Office, the maker of Firefox said it supports the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) in its request for an exemption to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). The EFF wants the Copyright Office to let users jailbreak their phones without fear of copyright infringement penalties.
As Data Collecting Grows, Privacy Erodes
By Noam Cohen, New York Times
There are plenty of people who can muster outrage at Alex Rodriguez, the Yankees third baseman who is the latest example of win-at-any-cost athletes. But I’d prefer to see him as at the cutting edge of another scourge — the growing encroachment on privacy...
Perhaps a more direct explanation is that data collection is part of what Cindy Cohn, the legal director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, calls “the surveillance business model.” That is, there is money to be made from knowing your customers well — with a depth unimaginable before Internet cookies allowed companies to track obsessively online behavior.
Google Tracker Appeals to Facebook Crowd, Spurs Privacy Worries
By Brian Womack, Bloomberg
Richard Acton-Maher of San Francisco was in nearby Berkeley last month and wanted to meet friends for lunch. Instead of making calls to see who was around, he looked at a digital map on his iPhone that plotted their locations...
Besides competition, Google’s effort to turn mobile phones into tracking devices faces criticism from privacy advocates. Useful for friends and family, location data would also be valuable to the government, said Kevin Bankston, an attorney with the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation, a not-for-profit organization focused on civil-liberties.
Despite Obama pledge, Justice defends Bush secrets
By Michael J. Sniffen, Associated Press
Despite President Obama's vow to open government more than ever, the Justice Department is defending Bush administration decisions to keep secret many documents about domestic wiretapping, data collection on travelers and U.S. citizens, and interrogation of suspected terrorists...
To withhold some material, the FBI cited discretionary FOIA exemptions and ones that require balancing privacy and public interests. David Sobel, attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco-based group that advocates civil liberties in cyberspace and brought the lawsuit, said those decisions might come out differently under the new guidelines.
Apple files opposition to DMCA exemption for jailbreaking
By Dan Moren, Network World
Last December, the Electronic Frontier Foundation proposed an exemption to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act that would make legal jailbreaking phones--the process of hacking phones to allow running third-party applications from other sources. Exemptions to the DMCA can be proposed to the Copyright Office every three years, and are valid for three years. In response, Apple has now filed a 27-page argument (PDF link) that jailbreaking should not be given an exemption.
Apple Claims Jailbreaking An iPhone Is Copyright Infringement
By Mike Masnick, Tech Dirt
Apple has remained pretty quiet, on the whole, concerning the fact that people "jailbreak" their iPhones to allow them to run non-Apple-approved software on the devices (or to use them on other mobile carriers). However, in responding to an attempt by the EFF to get jailbreaking (and other phone unlocking efforts) declared clear of any potential copyright claims, Apple has now officially said they believe that jailbreaking the iPhone is infringing on their copyright. This is troubling for a number of reasons.
Apple: iPhone jailbreaking violates our copyright
By Tom Krazit, CNET News.com
Apple recently told the U.S. Copyright Office that it believes iPhone jailbreaking is a violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and infringes on its copyright, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
The EFF is trying to get the Copyright Office to grant a DMCA exemption on behalf of iPhone owners who have chosen to jailbreak their iPhones, or bypass the restriction Apple places on standard iPhones that only allows the installation of applications from approved sources: the App Store. In its response to the Copyright Office, Apple disagreed that such an exemption was proper because the very act of jailbreaking the iPhone results in copyright infringement.
Apple fights iPhone unlocking (again)
By Rik Myslewski, Register UK
Apple has told the US Copyright Office that jailbreaking an iPhone should be illegal under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DCMA).
Apple's defense of its practice of locking down the iPhone to software and services provided only by itself and its partner AT&T came in response to petitions for DCMA exemptions that were proposed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) in December 2008.
Apple and EFF argue over iPhone jailbreaking
By Prince McLean, Apple Insider
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has filed requests with the US Copyright Office to exempt activities from legal threats under the DMCA, one of which attacks Apple's secured software business model on the iPhone.
Could You Go to Jail for Jailbreaking Your iPhone?
By Saul Hansell, New York Times
There is something deeply exasperating about the debate, exposed today, about whether unlocking an iPhone violates Apple’s copyright on the cellphone’s software. There’s a real issue at stake, but it isn’t fundamentally about copyrights.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, in a filing to the Copyright Office, argues that the government should allow iPhone owners to circumvent technical barriers meant to keep them from changing the phone’s software, a process called jailbreaking. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act bans people from defeating technical protections for copyrighted materials (such as the encryption on DVDs). The act requires the government to consider exemptions to this ban every three years.
Art turns ugly in squabble over 'Hope'
By Joe Garofoli, San Francisco Chronicle
Artist Shepard Fairey says that he has distributed more than 300,000 copies of his iconic poster of President Obama with the word "Hope" written underneath and that it has inspired countless other versions. Now, the 38-year-old Los Angeles street artist, who says he used an Associated Press photograph as a "visual reference" for his piece, is in the middle of a copyright battle that goes to the heart of how media is made, remixed and mashed up.
Given the notoriety of Fairey's iconic poster, "it is kind of the perfect storm," said Michael Kwun, a senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco digital advocacy organization. "It raises questions about what we as a culture and a legal society feel is proper."
Record Labels Turn ISPs Into ‘Copyright Cops’ to Deter Piracy
By Kristen Schweizer and Adam Satariano, Bloomberg
The world’s biggest record companies sued college students, a 12-year-old girl and a dead woman and still failed to stamp out music piracy. Now they’re turning to Internet service providers...
“There has been an international push by the rights holders to pursue a similar strategy across the world,” said Danny O’Brien, international outreach coordinator for the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation, which advocates expanded digital rights for consumers. “The end goal is the same: co-opt Internet service providers as copyright cops.”
EFF Calls On Government To "Mitigate" DRM
By Andy Chalk, Escapist Magazine
In the lead-up to FTC "Town Hall" meetings on digital rights management, the Electronic Frontier Foundation has issued a statement calling on the U.S. government to "mitigate the damage that digital rights management technologies cause consumers."
Transparency in Government?
By Joan Indiana Rigdon, Washington Lawyer
At dawn on January 20, some of the earliest of millions of inauguration-goers stationed along Pennsylvania Avenue might have caught a glimpse of a truck—or three—backing up to the White House to take deliveries of history: calendars, disks, executive orders, hard drives, memos, notes, photographs, tapes, and any other records former President George W. Bush had not turned over to the United States National Archives and Records Administration by then...
“Increasingly there is a broad array of alternative modes of communication that all of us use in all aspects of our lives, and the concept of one e-mail account that’s used exclusively for one purpose is really starting to erode due to mobility and a variety of other factors,” says David Sobel, who litigates FOIA cases as a senior counsel for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit group that seeks to protect civil liberties threatened by emerging technologies.
Wilson Yard developer fights to unmask Uptown bloggers
By James Janega, Chicago Tribune
Subpoenas seeking the identity of anonymous bloggers opposed to the Wilson Yard project are the latest salvo in a decade-long fight over the development, one that plays off class warfare and dueling political agendas over a sprawling tract of land in Uptown...
"Regardless of what the motivations are, there's certainly a chilling effect as a result of subpoenas sent out specifically targeting sites criticizing this development," said lawyer Matt Zimmerman of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an advocacy group for free speech and privacy rights that represents the bloggers.
Animal rights vs. rodeo DMCA takedown fight settled
By Julian Sanchez, Ars Technica
In a settlement announced today, a rodeo association has agreed to pay the animal rights group SHARK (SHowing Animals Respect and Kindness) $25,000 to resolve a lawsuit filed this summer in which SHARK accused the cowboys of abusing the takedown provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to silence criticism...
The dispute resolution stipulations—which EFF's announcement describes as providing a "new model for handling takedown notices"—may actually be the most interesting aspect of the agreement.
Rodeo group to pay $25,000 for YouTube takedown requests
By Elinor Mills, CNET News.com
A rodeo association has agreed to pay $25,000 to an animal welfare group to settle a lawsuit over the improper removal of videos from YouTube that showed roped calves being dragged off to die and tasers being used on tame horses to get them to buck...
The group that posted them, Showing Animals Respect and Kindness (SHARK), with the help of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, sued the rodeo group last summer. The group sued for misrepresentation, alleging that the videos could not have infringed any copyright because the rodeos themselves weren't copyrightable, the EFF said.
Copyright in the Age of YouTube
By Steven Seidenberg, ABA Law Journal
Holden Lenz had just learned to walk when—on Feb. 7, 2007—he stepped into the front lines of the copyright wars...
“Companies that depend on user-generated content —and MySpace, Facebook, AOL, virtually every major Internet company incorporates user-generated content —they create a new and more vibrant public sphere,” says Corynne McSherry, staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco, who is representing Lenz in her lawsuit against UMG. “We have a whole new set of channels of communication. It’s good for con sumers and good for citizens.”
Bill Would Limit Judges on State Secrets
By David Kravets, Wired News
Lawmakers on Wednesday introduced legislation that might make it more difficult for federal judges to scuttle lawsuits in which the government claims state secrets might be exposed...
The public became familiar with the privilege when the Bush administration invoked it in the Electronic Frontier Foundation's lawsuit accusing the nation's telecoms of funneling Americans' electronic communications to the National Security Agency without warrants.
White-hat hacker to show way to clone passport card data
By Dan Kaplan, SC Magazine
A computer security researcher is set to demonstrate this weekend how simple it is to read and clone RFID tags from U.S. government-issued passport cards...
Hugh D'Andrade, an activist with the privacy watchdog Electronic Frontier Foundation, said any "average tech geek" easily could use the reader to steal passport data. He said the problem could prove particularly worrisome from a privacy perspective if there are multiple people carrying the passport card at a crowded event, such as a political rally.
"[RFID is] a great technology if you want to be able to scan items easily at a store," D'Andrade told SCMagazineUS.com on Friday. "EFF thinks it's a really risky technology when it's connected to a personal ID that the government issues. There are concerns that we could be building a world where people can be constantly tracked all the time."
Google puts 1.5 million free books on your cellphone
By Carolyn Kellogg, Los Angeles Times
Before you authors get upset, never fear: Google is making 1.5 million books available, it announced today, that are in the public domain. There's a lot of good stuff, including everything by Charles Dickens and (pre-zombified) Jane Austen...
The Electronic Frontier Foundation thinks there are still issues to consider. The foundation points to "Google and the Future of Books," an article in the New York Review of Books by Robert Darnton, director of the Harvard University Library.
Groups: Calif. DMV snuck in biometrics for driver's licenses
By Jaikumar Vijayan, Network World
Consumer rights groups in California are protesting what they claim is an attempt by the state Department of Motor Vehicles to sneak in via the backdoor a fingerprint and facial recognition system for issuing driver's licenses in the state...
Unlike other forms of identification, such as a driver's license number, a biometric identifier such as a facial image or thumb print, cannot be changed in the event of a data breach, potentially resulting in lasting problems for victims, added Lee Tien, a senior staff attorney at the EFF. "Basically, any kind of biometric is a piece of information that is uniquely linked to you and cannot be revoked," he said.
YouTube's copyright system goes wrong, EFF intends to sue
By Samantha Rose Hunt , TG Daily
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is coming to the rescue of YouTube users. They feel YouTube and Warner Brothers have crossed the line when it comes to content issues and disagreements when, for example, they remove a young girl's video of her singing "Winter Wonderland" - which is copyrighted content.
EFF Mounts Fight Over YouTube Takedowns
By Antony Bruno, Billboard
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is offering to represent YouTube users who wish to fight back when their videos are removed from the user-generated video service at the request of media companies such as record labels.
EFF seeks mashup makers to fight YouTube filtering
By Julian Sanchez , Ars Technica
If you're the sort of person who reads Ars Technica regularly, there's a good chance that at some point in the past few months, someone has forwarded you a link to Corey Vidal's YouTube a capella tribute to film composer John Williams—a four part harmony in which the saga of the original Star Wars trilogy is recapped to a medley of Williams' celebrated scores. If you've tried to pull it up recently, however, you've instead encountered YouTube's Pink Bar of Doom, informing you that "this video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by WARNER MUSIC GROUP"...
In a post at the Electronic Frontier Foundation's blog today, attorney Fred von Lohmann warns that such filtering threatens to squelch amateur online creativity—and he's looking for a few good clients who are prepared to fight back.
EFF Gears Up To Fight Back Against Bogus YouTube Takedowns
By Mike Masnick, Techdirt
Last month, we were a bit surprised by claims from an NBC Universal representative that filtering technology in use today could distinguish between fair use and infringement when it came to content online...
Now, the EFF is clearly looking for a test case, asking those whose videos have been taken down, despite clear fair use -- such as the teenaged girl who's video of herself singing "Winter Wonderland" was removed -- to contact the EFF.
Free Speech Activist Defeats Union Square Partnership Censors Church
News Blaze
In a victory for free speech and political parody, Savitri Durkee, Director of Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping, has successfully defended her right to publish a website satirizing the Union Square Partnership (USP) and their efforts to turn the historic Union Square pavilion into an upscale restaurant...
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a well known civil liberties defense group working in this case with the law firms of Mayer Brown and Gross & Belsky, LLP, filed a response to USP's complaint on Durkee's behalf, pointing out that Durkee's parody is protected under the First Amendment and fair use doctrine.
Kentucky suit has Web world in tizzy
By Marcia Coyle, National Law Journal
What if China seized the domain names of U.S. Web sites promoting religions that China bans? Or what if (horrors of horrors!) Nebraska seized and shut down the domain name law.com because its cutting-edge legal content, that state believed, encourages frivolous litigation in violation of state law?...
"I think in this case, ultimately, even if the state here won in the sense that the forfeiture order was proper, it isn't the end of the story," said Matthew Zimmerman, senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "Another important part of this story is the role of third-party intermediaries that make Internet discourse possible."
Sunlight sought for shady trade agreement
By Angela Gunn, Betanews
An agreement negotiated in secrecy among governments and industry representatives and known to the public only through leaked documents and the efforts of privacy activists may sound so 2008...
The Electronic Frontier Foundation and Public Knowledge have issued a call for some of that fabled new-administration transparency for the notorious Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), asking that background documents on the agreement be released as per the Freedom of Information Act.
Top 10 most inspiring moments in IT
By Shaun Nichols and Iain Thomson , IT News
7. The Electronic Frontier Foundation
In 1990 Secret Service agents raided the offices of Steve Jackson Games, which designed and sold role-playing titles. The raid was carried out with an unsigned search warrant and the offices were trashed, all in pursuit of a hacker accused of stealing a technical document later valued at US$13.
The raid, documented in Bruce Stirling's excellent The Hacker Crackdown, was the spur that led to the formation of the EFF. Mitch Kapor, founder of Lotus, was so enraged by the raid that he, John Gilmore (employee number five at Sun) and Grateful Dead lyricist John Perry Barlow set up the EFF, with funding from Apple's Steve Wozniak, among others.
Court Asked To Uphold Order Allowing Webcast
By Wendy Davis, Mediapost
Digital rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation is asking an appellate court to uphold a groundbreaking order authorizing the Webcast of a file-sharing case.
"In general, we're big fans of the Internet and if the Internet can be used to give us more access to our government, that's a good thing," said Cindy Cohen, legal director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Irish ISP agrees to disconnect repeat P2P users
By Nate Anderson, Ars Technica
One of Ireland's largest ISPs, Eircom, has capitulated to the major music labels and agreed to implement a full "graduated response" program—complete with disconnections...
But Eircom has agreed to the plan on a voluntary basis, without any government pressure. The move lead the Electronic Frontier Foundation to blast the ISP over its claim that it will consider the evidence presented by the music industry before shutting anyone off.
EFF Explains Why You Should Be Allowed To Sell Promo CDs
By Mike Masnick, Tech Dirt
Last summer, a district court ruled that selling promo CDs is perfectly legal. This was an important ruling, because it reinforced the right of first sale -- which has been a part of copyright law for ages -- and it made it clear that companies couldn't wipe out the limits of copyright law simply by declaring them void...
The EFF has now filed its own brief, noting the ridiculous consequences of any ruling where Universal wins.
Groups: US gov't still withholding treaty information
By Grant Gross, Network World
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative has withheld more than 1,300 pages on an anticounterfeiting trade agreement being quietly negotiated after two digital rights groups filed a request for information, the groups said.
The USTR has released only 159 pages for public viewing after the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and Public Knowledge filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request seven months ago. In September, the two groups filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after USTR didn't immediately respond to the FOIA request, which asked for information on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) being negotiated between the U.S. and more than a dozen other countries.
College student wins free-speech spat, but ...
By Paul McNamara, Network World
News arrived this week via the Electronic Frontier Foundation that Michigan State University had dropped disciplinary action against a student who had been accused of spamming and network abuse because she sent e-mail about a controversial campus matter to 391 faculty members.
EFF Questions YouTube Clips On White House Site
By Wendy Davis, Mediapost
President Barack Obama's use of YouTube has drawn fire from the digital rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is questioning whether it poses a threat to people's online privacy.
"Overall, we believe visitors to government Web sites should be able to view official information securely, without fear of being tracked either by the government itself or by third parties such as YouTube," EFF director Cindy Cohn wrote Tuesday in a letter to White House counsel Gregory Craig. "If the government uses the services of private companies, it should make sure that those companies employ the same privacy-protective standards that the government sets for itself."
When you watch these ads, the ads check you out
By Dinesh Ramde, Associated Press
Watch an advertisement on a video screen in a mall, health club or grocery store and there's a slim — but growing — chance the ad is watching you too...
The idea still worries Lee Tien, a senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil-liberties group in San Francisco. Tien said it's not enough to say some system is "not as bad as some other technology," and argues that cameras that study people contribute to an erosion of privacy.
Cookie use in YouTube videos on WhiteHouse.gov prompts privacy concerns
By Jaikumar Vijayan, Computerworld
Back when he was campaigning for president, Barack Obama's skillful use of Web 2.0 technologies such as Facebook and YouTube enabled him to get his message out to new audiences of voters in an unprecedented fashion. But using the same technologies in his new role as president is already proving to be more controversial...
n a letter mailed Tuesday to White House Counsel Gregory Craig, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) questioned a waiver that was issued by Craig's office concerning the use of cookies on the WhiteHouse.gov site. The waiver, which is now part of the site's modified privacy policy allows the use of persistent cookies by "some third-party providers to help maintain the integrity of video statistics."
White House: C is for cookie, it's good enough for YouTube
By Julian Sanchez, Ars Technica
It's nice to see that someone at the White House is reading the work of privacy maven Chris Soghoian. Less than a day after Chris drew attention to a special YouTube exemption in the privacy policy for WhiteHouse.gov—permitting YouTube to plant tracking cookies on visitors' machines—the president's virtual home made some rapid changes.
First, they implemented what amounts to a homegrown version of EFF's MyTube tool, so that only those who actually click on the video, rather than all who visit the page, get cookified. Soon thereafter, they amended the posted privacy policy to refer to "third party providers" generically, rather than signaling a special status for YouTube. Still, the fuss prompted the Electronic Frontier Foundation to write to White House lawyers seeking more information about how an administration fond of touting the transformative power of tech would work to protect the privacy of visitors to government sites.
Data Privacy Day's messages for Obama, consumers
By Elinor Mills, CNET News.com
We have Valentines Day and Mothers Day and even Inauguration Day. And now that cyber crooks have turned the Internet into their playground, we've got Data Privacy Day...
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a group that advocates for the rights of Internet users, has its own suggestion for Obama's administration. In a statement published on its Web site on Tuesday, the EFF said the new Whitehouse.gov site uses embedded YouTube movies that place a cookie on the visitor's computer, which enables tracking of the computer as it visits different Web sites. The White House should work with YouTube to end the retention of cookie data for any video on a government site, the EFF said.
YouTube users caught in Warner Music spat
By Greg Sandoval, CNET News.com
Corey Vidal is no pirate, but he's been branded one as a result of the licensing spat between Warner Music Group and YouTube...
YouTube users should not assume copyright holders are always correct when they accuse someone of a violation, according to Fred von Lohmann, senior attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a watchdog group that advocates for the rights of Internet users. In the Viacom case, for instance, the company acknowledged erring in a small number of cases.
Whistleblower Says NSA Monitors Everybody, Targets Reporters and Dissidents
By Tom Corelis, Daily Tech
In a scenario that sounds like the ramblings of a conspiracy theorist, former NSA analyst and now-whistleblower Russell Tice unveiled a massive NSA spying and wiretap program, which he claims vacuumed up an astonishing amount of communications and financial data on journalists and innocent Americans...
Tice could not say whether the program was still in operation, as his access to all such information was shut off after being fired in 2005. Shortly after voicing his initial allegations, as well as serving as a source for the New York Times article that launched the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s warrantless wiretapping investigation, Tice was subpoenaed by a federal grand jury in what The Raw Story called “an apparent attempt at intimidation.”
White House acts to limit YouTube cookie tracking
By Chris Soghoian, CNET News.com
Just 12 hours after this blog highlighted the privacy problems associated with the White House's use of embedded YouTube videos, the Obama team rushed to deploy a technical fix that significantly protects the privacy of many (but not all) of the site's visitors...
This is clearly a step in the right direction--and it is particularly interesting to see that the White House has essentially rolled their own version of the Electronic Frontier Foundation's MyTube privacy tool.
White House plans open government
BBC News
Searching for data about the Obama administration should get easier as the Whitehouse.gov website gets overhauled...
The moves were welcomed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which said the memoranda stood in stark contrast to a memo issued by John Ashcroft soon after 9/11. This called on government bodies to only release information after exhausting all strategies, including legal action, to withhold it.
While Mr Obama's memoranda do not explicitly overturn this policy, the EFF said: "This is a big step in the right direction."
Obama's transparency push could lead to more official Web resources, blogs
Carla Thornton, Industry Standard
In his first full day in office, President Barack Obama issued several broad directives that are being widely hailed by consumer-advocacy groups as important first steps toward making government more transparent. Even though implementation plans have yet to be drafted, some observers believe that the Web will begin to play a much larger role in disseminating information from government agencies...
In a telephone interview with The Standard, Marcia Hofmann, staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said the new directives would make it easier for people to gain access to information.
"On the whole, it's an incredibly positive development and in line with the guidelines we asked for," she said.
White House quietly exempts YouTube from federal Web privacy rules
By Chris Soghoian, CNET News.com
The new website for Obama's White House is already drawing attention from privacy activists and tech bloggers. While the initial focus has been on site's policies relating to search engine robots, a far more interesting tidbid has so far escaped the public eye: the White House has quietly exempted YouTube from strict rules regulating to the use of cookies on federal agency websites...
The Obama White House website is only two days old, and so it is certainly possible that the team simply hasn't gotten around to deploying a more privacy preserving system for YouTube video embeds. Protecting users who do not click play from automatically receiving a cookie is certainly possible -- the Electronic Frontier Foundation in 2008 released a wrapper script for YouTube videos that provided this very feature. Let us hope that the Obama team deploys such a technology in due course.
Kentucky cannot seize Internet domain names, court says
By Jaikumar Vijayan, Computerworld
he Kentucky Court of Appeals has overturned a Circuit Court ruling that had authorized the state to seize the Internet domain names of 141 online gambling sites in an effort to block access to them from inside the state...
Matthew Zimmerman, senior staff attorney at the EFF, today said that the appellate court's decision was based on an interpretation of state statutes and was the "right one." Though the lower court decision was appealed on constitutional issues as well, the appellate court did not have to examine those issues in deciding the case.
Ten years of futility: COPA finally, truly dead
By Nate Anderson, Ars Technica
The Child Online Protection Act, now a decade old, appears to be permanently, completely, and otherwise absolutely dead now that the Supreme Court has rejected Bush Administration pleas to consider reviving the law one more time. According to the Associated Press, the rejection was made without comment by the justices...
In 2007, a federal court issued a permanent injunction against enforcing the law, saying that it violated the First and Fifth Amendments to the Constitution. That ruling came after a four-week trial featuring an array of plaintiffs that included the American Civil Liberties Union, Salon.com, Condomania (described in the opinion as the "nation's first condom store"), the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and other organizations and individuals. The government continued to appeal.
US High Court Refuses Internet Age Restrictions Case
By Grant Gross, PC World
The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to resurrect a law requiring Web sites containing "material harmful to minors" to restrict access based on age, presumably ending a 10-year fight over whether the law violated free speech rights...
Opponents of the law, including the ACLU, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Nerve.com, Salon.com, the Urban Dictionary and the Sexual Health Network, argued the law amounted to government censorship and was so broad that it would affect many Web sites, including those that included information on sexually transmitted diseases.
Kentucky reverses 141-site net casino land grab
By Dan Goodin, The Register
Kentucky officials must return 141 gambling domain names they seized last year in a bid to block internet betting within state borders, an appeals court panel ordered on Tuesday...
The reversal is a victory for civil-liberties advocates who argued that the laws of an individual state shouldn't trump the rights of others to access sites that are perfectly legal elsewhere. In friend-of-the-court briefs filed in November, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Center for Democracy and Technology, and the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky argued the decision would pave the way for Kentucky to take control of any domain name if it pointed to sites that were deemed illegal in that state.
Patent office rejects subdomain patent claims
By Stephanie Condon, CNET News.com
Technology firms are often hampered by patent disputes, but the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office called into question last week a patent that had the potential to disrupt the habits of millions of Internet users.
The PTO rejected all 20 patent claims over Internet subdomains held by a company called Hoshiko, which were used to bully sites like LiveJournal and Freehomepage.com and pursue litigation against larger companies like Google. The idea behind how to manage subdomains--domains hosted within larger domains, such as news.cnet.com--is too obvious to patent, the PTO ruled after the nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation requested the patent be re-examined.
USPTO overturns patent for virtual subdomains
By Jacqui Cheng, Ars Technica
The US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has rejected 20 patent claims on an Internet subdomain patent, ruling that the concepts were obvious and therefore not patentable. The patent owner must now decide whether to amend the claims and make them more narrow, or to give up altogether...
The Electronic Frontier Foundation took aim at the patent via its Patent Busting Project, calling it a "bogus software patent" that stifles creativity and innovation. The Ideaflood patent made the EFF's Top Ten Most Wanted list, and the EFF joined forces with attorney Rick Mc Leod to request a USPTO reexamination of the patent's claims.
The Bush Years: A growth in communication, evolving politics and war on terror
By Kevin Baron, Stars and Stripes
When Barack Obama takes the oath of office, many of the estimated 2 million people in the crowd will hold up their cell phones to capture a photo of the moment...
In 2006, the Army’s Web Risk Assessment Cell, or AWRAC, which didn’t exist when Bush took office, scanned 1,200 military Web sites and blogs, or milblogs, for potential security leaks. Immediately, bloggers flagged it as a Soviet-style purge against digital freedom.
The audit’s results, obtained a year later by the Electronic Frontier Foundation via a Freedom of Information Act request, showed nearly 2,000 cases of operational security breaches on the military’s own Web sites, but "at most, 28," breaches on nearly 600 personal blogs reviewed.
Illegal wire-tapping suit now in Obama's court
By Bob Egelko, San Francisco Chronicle
President-elect Barack Obama dismayed civil liberties groups last summer when he voted to authorize President Bush's clandestine wiretapping program after publicly denouncing it...
A lawyer for the customers, Cindy Cohn of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said their case differs from Al-Haramain's but comes down to the same argument: that the president can't unilaterally authorize spying on Americans.
If the new administration wants to take a different course, she said, "we certainly hope that they'll come talk to us" about a settlement.
A DIY Test For Your Broadband Provider’s Net Neutrality
By Christopher Rhoads, Wall Street Journal
Worried that your broadband provider is slowing down your Web traffic?
If so, you might want to download the aptly named “Switzerland” — a tool that tests whether your Internet provider is violating the principles of so-called “network neutrality"...
“Congress may or may not decide to pass legislation on this,” said Peter Eckersley, a staff technologist with the EFF who designed Switzerland. “But we are going to need tools to know what’s going on and spot causes for concern on the network.”
Despite RIAA Loss, File Sharers Face Hefty Fines
By David Kravets, Wired News
The blogosphere is humming Friday with reports a federal judge is refusing to require the nation's first peer-to-peer admin convicted by a jury of criminal copyright infringement to pay tens of thousands of dollars in restitution to the Recording Industry Association of America...
"The factors that go into the calculation of restitution are different than the ones that go into the calculation of statutory damages in civil cases," said Fred von Lohmann, a staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
FreeYourPhone.org launches, pushes for new DMCA exemption
By Jacqui Cheng, Ars Technica
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has begun a new campaign to get the public to complain to lawmakers about the limitations of locked mobile phones. The new site, FreeYourPhone.org, encourages citizens to sign a petition going to the US Copyright Office in support of the EFF's recent push for an exemption to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which it hopes will offer legal protection to phone users who have jailbroken or unlocked their devices.
Long Haul Sues UC, FBI, County
By Richard Brenneman, Berkeley Daily Planet
Attorneys for two civil rights group filed a federal court lawsuit Wednesday charging numerous violations by local law enforcement and the FBI in an Aug. 27 raid of Berkeley’s Long Haul Infoshop...
“The Slingshot and EBPS computers were clearly marked and kept behind locked doors,” said EFF Civil Liberties Director Jennifer Granick. “Yet the raid officers broke into the offices to take information these organizations collected and relied on to publish information to their readership.
Activist group sues UC, claiming illegal search
By Bob Egelko, San Francisco Chronicle
Attorneys for two civil rights group filed a federal court lawsuit Wednesday charging numerous violations by local law enforcement and the FBI in an Aug. 27 raid of Berkeley’s Long Haul Infoshop...
“The Slingshot and EBPS computers were clearly marked and kept behind locked doors,” said EFF Civil Liberties Director Jennifer Granick. “Yet the raid officers broke into the offices to take information these organizations collected and relied on to publish information to their readership.
Activist newspaper sues FBI over wrongful computer raid
By Ryan Paul, Ars Technica
The FBI, Alameda County, and the Regents of the University of California are named in a lawsuit filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) on behalf of two activist groups near Berkeley who were recently the targets of a law enforcement raid. The organizations—the East Bay Prisoner Support Group (EBPS) and an independent bookstore and library called Long Haul—claim that their computers and records were wrongfully seized. They are asking the court for injunctive and declaratory relief...
"The Slingshot and EBPS computers were clearly marked and kept behind locked doors," said EFF Civil Liberties Director Jennifer Granick in a statement. "Yet the raid officers broke into the offices to take information these organizations collected and relied on to publish information to their readership. This is a blatant violation of federal law and the First and Fourth Amendments, interfering with the freedom of the press."
High Court Asks New Admin's Opinion In Broad-Reaching Case
By Wendy Davis, Mediapost
The U.S. Supreme Court has asked President-elect Barack Obama's administration to weigh in on a copyright case that could affect a broad swath of online media and technology companies...
Michael Kwun, a lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, added that the case could provide support to companies like MP3Tunes.com, which offers a digital music locker that allows people to access their songs from any Web-enabled computer. MP3Tunes.com is currently defending a copyright infringement lawsuit brought by EMI. "It's relevant to any remote storage system," he said.
Vodafone's Child Porn Filter Blocks Innocent Czech Tech Blogs
Mark Glaser, PBS Mediashift
Is there a way for the IWF and other filtering organizations to be transparent about the sites they block, without somehow promoting that information online? Already, the site Wikileaks has obtained and posted the site blacklist of the Thai government, which strangely enough includes Hillary Clinton campaign videos and Charlie Chaplin clips on YouTube.
The EFF's O'Brien says that the IWF has been more public than other groups and governments that filter, but that its system is flawed from the start.
FISA Could Change Under Obama
By Tim Starks, Congressional Quarterly
With one legal step, President Obama could undo the retroactive legal immunity for telecommunications companies allegedly involved in warrantless wiretapping that he opposed as Sen. Obama...
“We think the only thing for the Obama administration to do, if Sen. Obama actually meant what he said about his opposition, is, well, he’s now in a position to stop it immediately,” said Kevin Bankston, senior staff attorney with the foundation.
SF: Two Berkeley Groups Sue Over Search in Which 14 Computers Were Seized
Bay City News
Attorneys for two civil rights group filed a federal court lawsuit Wednesday charging numerous violations by local law enforcement and the FBI in an Aug. 27 raid of Berkeley’s Long Haul Infoshop...
"The Slingshot and EBPS computers were clearly marked and kept behind locked doors," said EFF Civil Liberties Director Jennifer Granick. “Yet the raid officers broke into the offices to take information these organizations collected and relied on to publish information to their readership.
Ruling near on state's plan to seize domain names
By Jaikumar Vijayan, ComputerWorld
The Kentucky Court of Appeals is expected to issue a ruling soon on whether a state court can order the seizure of Internet domain names that are registered in another state or country...
In a friend-of-the-court brief, Matthew Zimmerman, senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said the ruling is "unconstitutional and [was] made without jurisdictional authority."
Zimmerman said he expects that the appeals court will issue a ruling later this month.
EFF proposing DMCA exemption for iPhone jailbreaking
By Justin Berka , Ars Technica
A number of iPhone owners out there have chosen to jailbreak their devices, and although Apple hasn't done much to stop the practice, it's unclear what the legal situation related to jailbreaking looks like. In an effort to protect jailbreakers from DMCA claims, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has asked the Copyright Office for a DMCA exemption for jailbreaking, and the organization would like developers (and presumably iPhone users as well) to chime in on the proposed exemption.
S.F. Yelp user faces lawsuit over review
By Deborah Gage, San Francisco Chronicle
In a case that could chill free speech online, a San Francisco chiropractor has sued a local artist over negative reviews published on Yelp, the popular Web site that rates businesses...
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a local nonprofit that supports free speech online, is considering helping with Norberg's defense. Matt Zimmerman, an attorney with the group, said Biegel will get far more negative publicity from filing the lawsuit than from a bad review on Yelp. He said the foundation is seeing more and more cases of people trying to use the courts because they're unhappy with postings on the Internet.
"When people try to pull down unflattering material, it has the absolute opposite effect" of what they intend, he said. "It's very difficult to silence speakers on the Internet - it's a culture of people who don't like those kinds of attempts."
Fox News Uses DMCA To Take Down Videos Used In Commentary
By Mike Masnick, Tech Dirt
The DMCA has plenty of problems, but one of the more ridiculous is the whole concept of the "notice and takedown" procedure that service providers need to follow...
Take for example, the latest example, presented by the EFF, who notes that Fox News has used the DMCA takedown process to pull down three clips from Fox News that were being used by a group called Progress Illinois who was using the videos as part of commentary on current events -- a common and valid fair use of content.
Patent Office presses rewind on broad digital music patent
By Nate Anderson, Ars Technica
Overturning bad patents does not happen at Internet speed, and if you need evidence for that thesis, consider the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Patent Busting Project. The group set out to overturn 10 hugely broad patents back in 2004; four years later, only six of the patent reexamination requests have even been written, much less acted on. But the good news for the EFF is that it is batting 1.000 with its filings, as the US Patent & Trademark Office has just granted the EFF's sixth patent reexam request...
As Michael Kwun explained to me, "The other five are at various stages in the reexam process. Each of those five reexams is a so-called ex parte reexamination. That means, for the most part, that the rest of the reexamination is conducted between the PTO and the patentee. There is another form of reexamination, called an inter partes reexamination, in which the requester [EFF] can continue to participate in the reexamination proceedings on an ongoing basis, but that type of reexamination can only take place with respect to newer patents."
EFF: DRM-free iTunes is good, but DRM from Apple ain't dead
By Jacqui Cheng , Ars Technica
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has taken the opportunity to both applaud and slam Apple on the digital rights management (DRM) front just one day after the company announced that some 10 million iTunes Store tracks would be DRM-free by the end of April. In a blog post on the EFF's website, EFF Activist Richard Esguerra points out that the deal between Apple and the record companies shows "DRM's true colors"—that is, that it's designed to act as a form of control rather than to fight piracy.
Woman sues Google over blogger's comments
By Matt Hartley, Globe and Mail
A Canadian woman has launched a lawsuit against Google Inc., demanding that the company reveal the identity of the people she says posted offensive statements about her on a blog hosted by the U.S. technology titan...
“Google is not responsible for what people write on its Blogger service,” said Kurt Opsahl, a senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation who focuses on civil liberties, free speech and privacy law.
“A suit against Google will not succeed because Google is given immunity by federal law,” he said.
Appeals court set to rule on Kentucky effort to seize domain names
By Jaikumar Vijayan, Computerworld
The Kentucky Court of Appeals is expected to issue a ruling soon on whether a state court can order the seizure of Internet domain names that are registered in another state or country. The appeals court is deliberating whether to uphold a lower court's approval of a state plan to seize Internet domain names belonging to 141 online gambling sites...
In an amicus brief filed in the appeals court, Matthew Zimmerman, senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) a San Francisco-based advocacy group, called the Franklin County Circuit Court's ruling "unconstitutional and made without jurisdictional authority."
Judge: transcoding doesn't block Veoh "safe harbor" defense
By Nate Anderson, Ars Technica
On December 29, video-sharing site Veoh won another legal victory after Universal Music Group sought to keep the company from using a "safe harbor" defense against copyright infringement. A federal judge has rejected such pleas...
Veoh might not qualify for a safe harbor in the end, but the judge's ruling makes clear that automated processing of UGC won't be the reason for any disqualification. This is crucial; as the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Fred von Lohmann notes in his analysis of the case, "If the court had accepted UMG's arguments, every web host would lose the safe harbor as soon as it made web pages available to the public. The ruling should also help YouTube in its ongoing battle with Viacom, which also turns on the continuing strength of the DMCA safe harbors."
Judge: 'Sufficient Facts' Exist That U.S. Spied on Islamic Charity Lawyers
By David Kravets, Wired News
A federal judge ruled Monday that "sufficient facts" exist to keep alive a lawsuit brought by two U.S.-based lawyers for a Islamic charity who say they were eavesdropped on without warrants...
Walker is also considering a lawsuit brought by the Electronic Frontier Foundation challenging whether Congress unconstitutionally granted immunity to telecommunications companies from those lawsuits accusing them of assisting the Bush administration to secretly spy on Americans without warrants.
DMV proposal for face-detection technology irks privacy groups
By Edwin Garcia, San Jose Mercury News
Even as cost-conscious Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger looks to trim state spending every way he can, officials at the Department of Motor Vehicles are planning to spend tens of millions of dollars on new driver's license technology...
The ACLU is fighting the proposal with a handful of other groups, including Consumers Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Consumer Federation of California, which says the plan poses "massive threats" to personal privacy.
Bloggers not only target of developer’s subpoena
By Lorraine Swanson, Chicago Journal
Two more Uptown community groups have been named in subpoenas filed by the attorney representing Wilson Yard developer, Peter Holsten...
Matt Zimmerman, a senior staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, characterized the subpoenas as "overreaching."
"I think there is a temptation of litigators in casting a pretty broad net to find as much information as they can," Zimmerman said. "The First Amendment provides pretty clear limitations on litigants and what information they can obtain about the identities of people exercising their First Amendment rights. This case even more squarely falls into the First Amendment category because these are Web sites that people are commenting on matters of public importance concerning this development."
Facebook nudity policy draws nursing moms' ire
By Jessica Mintz, Associated Press
Web-savvy moms who breast-feed are irate that social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace restrict photos of nursing babies. The disputes reveal how the sites' community policing techniques sometimes struggle to keep up with the booming number and diversity of their members...
While Schnitt said Facebook's policies predate a recent push by law enforcement agencies to better protect children from online predators, the whole field of Web hangouts may be skittish about anything that might expose kids to nudity, said Lee Tien, a senior staff attorney at the free-speech watchdog group Electronic Frontier Foundation.
