EFF Urges Court to Reject Record Labels' Effort to Rewrite Copyright Law

San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and a coalition of libraries and public interest groups have asked an appeals court to affirm the downsized copyright damage award in Capitol v. Thomas-Rasset – the first individual file-sharing case to go to trial.
Juries in this long-running case have...

EFF Asks Judge to Prevent ‘Catch-22’ in Porn-Downloading Lawsuit

San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has asked a federal judge in Washington, D.C., to protect the identities of individuals sued in a mass copyright lawsuit involving pornographic materials.
In this case, adult film company Hard Drive Productions sued 1495 unnamed Internet users, claiming they illegally downloaded...

Unanimous Supreme Court Ensures Americans Have Protections from GPS Surveillance

San Francisco - In a unanimous decision, the U.S. Supreme Court has confirmed that Americans have constitutional protections against GPS surveillance by law enforcement, holding in U.S. v. Jones that GPS tracking is a "search" under the Fourth Amendment.
In Jones, FBI agents planted a GPS device on a...

Facebook Ploy to Criminalize Add-On Service Hurts Users and Innovation

San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) urged a district court judge Tuesday to block Facebook's attempts to criminalize an add-on service that helped users aggregate all of their social networking data in one place.
Power Ventures created a web-based tool to let users view information from different...

EFF Demands Withdrawal of Bogus Time Zone Database Lawsuit

San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has demanded the withdrawal of a bogus copyright infringement lawsuit against the operators of a database of time zone information relied on by software engineers across the globe.
Last September, an astrology software company called Astrolabe filed the suit against Arthur...

Appeals Court Revives EFF's Challenge to Government's Massive Spying Program

San Francisco - The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals today blocked the government's attempt to bury the Electronic Frontier Foundation's (EFF's) lawsuit against the government's illegal mass surveillance program, returning Jewel v. NSA to the District Court for the next step.
The court found that Jewel had alleged...

Protect Yourself from Intrusive Laptop and Phone Searches at the U.S. Border

San Francisco - Anytime you travel internationally, you risk a broad, invasive search of your laptop, phone, and other digital devices – including the copying of your data and seizing of your property for an indefinite time. To help travelers protect themselves and their private information during the busy holiday...

Judge: Prosecution of Online Critic Under Anti-Stalking Law Is Unconstitutional

San Francisco - A federal district court judge in Maryland today blocked the government's use of a federal anti-stalking law to prosecute a man for posting insults and criticism of a public figure to Twitter, ruling that "the First Amendment protects speech even when the subject or manner of expression...

New Global Chokepoints Project Tracks Censorship Around the World

San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), in collaboration with over a dozen civil society organizations worldwide, today launched Global Chokepoints at www.globalchokepoints.org to document how copyright enforcement is being used to censor online free expression in countries around the world.
Global Chokepoints, funded in part through a...

Illinois Appellate Court Upholds Anonymity of Online Critic of Political Candidate

San Francisco - The Illinois Court of Appeals today overturned a lower court ruling that had ordered the disclosure of the identity of an anonymous online critic of a political candidate, ruling that the First Amendment prevented such "fishing expeditions" undertaken by "those easily offended by online commentary."
The...

U.S. Senator, Encryption Innovator, and Tunisian Blogging Group Win EFF Pioneer Awards

San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is pleased to announce the winners of its 2011 Pioneer Awards: U.S. Senator Ron Wyden, encryption innovator Ian Goldberg, and Tunisian blogging collective Nawaat.
The award ceremony will be held on the evening of November 15 at the Children's Creativity Museum...

GPS Inventor Joins EFF in Fight Against Warrantless GPS Tracking

Washington, D.C. - The principal inventor of the Global Positioning System (GPS) and other leading technologists have joined the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) in urging the U.S Supreme Court to block the government from using GPS tracking without first getting a warrant, arguing that the massive collection of sensitive location...

Who's on the Intelligence Oversight Board? Government Won't Say

San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed suit today against the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) demanding records of who is on the Intelligence Oversight Board (IOB) -- the presidentially appointed, civilian panel in charge of reviewing all misconduct reports for American intelligence agencies.
...

Whistleblowers, Intelligence Experts, and Veterans Join EFF in Fight Against 'State Secrets'

San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and a coalition of whistleblowers, intelligence experts, and veterans urged a federal appeals court Wednesday to reject government attempts to bury yet another lawsuit challenging illegal surveillance with baseless claims of "state secrets."
"This group includes experts from throughout America's intelligence...

Government Domain Name Seizures Violate First Amendment

San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) urged a federal court to return two domain names seized in the U.S. government's fundamentally flawed anti-infringement campaign in an amicus brief filed Monday.
"This misguided intellectual property enforcement effort is causing serious collateral damage to free speech rights," said EFF...

Prosecutors Demand Limitless Warrant in Vermont Computer Search

San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), along with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and ACLU Vermont, urged the Vermont Supreme Court today to reject prosecutors' demands to override a judge's instructions and allow a limitless warrant for a computer search.
During the investigation into an alleged...

Microsoft Tries to Quash Innovation in Interoperability Battle Over Xbox

San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) urged a federal court Wednesday to block Microsoft Corporation's attempt to misuse copyright law to thwart a competitor offering memory cards for the Xbox gaming system.
Datel Holdings is a British company that sells memory cards that compete with Microsoft's own...

Criminal Justice Blog Moves to Dismiss Sham Copyright Troll Lawsuit

Las Vegas - The publisher of a criminal justice blog that provides resources for difficult-to-prosecute murder cases has asked a judge to dismiss the sham infringement lawsuit filed against him by copyright troll Righthaven LLC. Recently unsealed documents show that Righthaven is not the true owner of the copyright of...

'HTTPS Now' Campaign Urges Users to Take an Active Role in Protecting Internet Security

San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and Access have launched an international campaign for HTTPS Now, rallying consumers around the world to help us make web surfing safer.
"We've heard a lot about how malicious tools like Firesheep can be used to steal data, including passwords for...

Update: Friday Hearing Canceled in Battle Over Twitter Records' Role in Wikileaks Investigation

UPDATE: Friday's hearing about whether the government can collect the private records of three Twitter users as part of its investigation related to Wikileaks has been canceled.
Alexandria, VA - On Friday, April 22, at 10 a.m., a district court in Virginia will hear oral argument about whether the...

Urban Homesteaders Fight Baseless Legal Claims Over Generic, Descriptive Term

San Francisco - Activists in the urban homesteading movement petitioned today to cancel the registration of bogus trademarks for the terms "urban homesteading" and "urban homestead" -- trademarks that have been used to threaten other urban homesteaders and remove online content and discussion.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has...

EFF to Oregon Supreme Court: Police Need Warrant to Search Arrestees' Cell Phones

San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) urged the Oregon Supreme Court to block warrantless searches of arrestees' cell phones Friday, arguing in an amicus brief that granting law enforcement free rein to search data on the devices violates basic privacy protections guaranteed by the Constitution.
Other state...

Reader Privacy Act Introduced to Upgrade Book Privacy for the Digital Era

Sacramento, CA - California Senator Leland Yee has introduced the Reader Privacy Act of 2011 (SB 602), with backing from the California Affiliates of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). The law would bring a much-needed upgrade to match Californians' reading habits. Under SB...

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