There seems to be a considerable amount of interest in, and confusion about, the copyright law consequences of embedding a YouTube video in your blog. In fact, the Blog Herald just ran a story suggesting that bloggers could be on the hook for copyright infringement if they embed...

A federal appeals court handed down a defeat for your civil liberties on Friday, ordering the dismissal of the ACLU?s case challenging the NSA?s warrantless wiretapping program. In a 2-1 ruling, the 6th US Circuit Court of Appeals found that the plaintiffs, attorneys and journalists who had...

On July 4, 1966, President Lyndon Johnson signed into law the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The Act gave weight to a principle that is fundamental to any democracy: The right of the people to know what the government is doing. Forty-one years later, FOIA remains an essential tool used...

Slashdot and Wired Compiler ran posts yesterday about Privatunes, a program that claims to remove personally identifying information from iTunes Plus files (the current version is closed source and Windows only, thought the site says that this will change in the future).
Privatunes 0.9 overwrites the...

Having voted to authorize subpoenas for information on the NSA spying program last week, the Senate Judiciary Committee has now officially issued them.
"Chairman Leahy issued subpoenas to the Department of Justice, the Office of the White House, the Office of the Vice President and the National Security...

During a public speech last week, the judge who presided over the super-secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) from 1995 to 2002 criticized the Bush Administration's warrantless domestic surveillance.
Judge Royce Lamberth made a simple point that bears repeating: "[J]udges understand the war has to be fought, but...

Former FISA Judge Criticizes Wiretap ProgramJudge Lamberth says "you can't trust the executive."
Video of Judge Lamberth's speech:
Justice Dept. vs. States on Phone PrivacyCan the feds stop states from investigating whether telcos
helped the NSA spy on Americans?
Google TransparencyGoogle's new...