In The News: September, 2009
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.
