Today, the federal Second Circuit Court of Appeals gave another setback to the Bush Administration's claims for sweeping new Executive powers. The court found the National Security Letter (NSL) statute's gag provision unconstitutional in Doe v. Mukasey. The NSL law allows the government to seek your electronic communications...

Obama May Keep CIA ChiefMichael Hayden, a major player in the Bush administration' wiretapping program, may stay on as head of the CIA under Obama.
Panel to Call for Review of Wiretapping ScholarThe House Select Intelligence Oversight Panel plans to ask the NSA to open a formal...

Finally. The major record labels are coming around to voluntary collective licensing, as we've been urging (and predicting) since 2003. Last week, TechDirt posted a set of leaked slides suggesting that Warner Music Group has opened a discussion with several major U.S. universities about creating a collective licensing...

Obama's Attorney General Pick: Good on Privacy?Eric Holder has an unfortunate history of supporting schemes that broaden law enforcement powers at the cost of privacy and other civil liberties.
Principles for an Open TransitionLeaders of the open government movement published three principles to guide President-elect Obama's transition...

Yesterday, EFF filed petitions (1, 2) with the Copyright Office seeking DMCA exemptions for three categories of activities that do not violate copyright laws, but that are still jeopardized by the DMCA's ban on bypassing technical protection measures used to control access to copyrighted works (i.e, DRM)....