As we've mentioned before, Sony-BMG has been using copy-protection technology called XCP in its recent CDs. You insert your CD into your Windows PC, click "agree" in the pop up window, and the CD automatically installs software that uses rootkit techniques to cloak itself from you. Sony-BMG has...

Molly Wood over at CNET has done a wonderful job summarizing what Sony-BMG's "rootkit" CD copy-protection is all about, and why it's such a bad thing:
So, let's make this a bit more explicit. You buy a CD. You put the CD into your PC in order to...

Today's Washington Post contains a shocking (and breathtakingly thorough) investigative piece, worth reading in its entirety, which reveals how the FBI has been using its surveillance powers—greatly expanded under the USA PATRIOT Act—even more aggressively than we feared:
The FBI now issues more than 30,000 national security letters...

As we've noted before, the DMCA has increasingly been used to block competition, rather than to stop "piracy." First it was printer toner cartridges, then garage door openers, and today, in Storage Technology v. Custom Hardware Engineering, it's being used in an effort to tie...

Today the Second Circuit Court of Appeals heard argument in the case of Doe v. Gonzales, considering whether National Security Letters (NSLs) are unconstitutional. NSLs are secret subpoenas for communications logs, issued directly by the FBI without any judicial oversight. These secret subpoenas allow the FBI to demand that online...

Apologists justified the broad, civil-liberties corroding powers granted to the government under the USA PATRIOT Act by arguing that they would be used to put terrorists behind bars. Yet several provisions can be used against Americans in a wide range of investigations that have nothing to do with terrorism....

Printing presses are the prized platform of a public lynch mob spouting liberty but spewing lies, libel, and invective. Their potent allies in this pursuit include Ben Franklin and John Hancock.
Take the tea tax. Revenue was coming, providing much needed funding to help with his Majesty's benevolent aims...