Fifth Circuit Upholds Sanctions Award Against Copyright Troll Attorney
Today, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a district court order imposing sanctions on Evan Stone, attorney for adult film producer Mick Haig Productions, who improperly issued subpoenas without leave of court to ISPs seeking the identities of anonymous subscribers in a mass end-user copyright infringement case....
Raising Global Awareness of the Plight of Syrian Bloggers
As a headline from Reporters Without Borders stated today, the number of citizen journalists killed or arrested in Syria rises daily. While some, such as Razan Ghazzawi—who won Frontline Defenders' award for Human Rights Defenders at Risk—have received ample international attention for their plight, many others have gone...
New Malware Targeting Syrian Activists Uses Blackshades Commercial Trojan
Since March of this year, EFF has reported extensively on the ongoing campaign to use social engineering to install surveillance software that spies on Syrian activists. Syrian opposition activists have been targeted using several Trojans, including one disguised as a Skype encryption tool and others disguised...
ACTA’s Defeat in Europe and What Lies Ahead
The people spoke, and politicians finally listened. Last week, the European Parliament rejected the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) in a rare sweeping majority vote. After years of secretive negotiations over this international agreement that would crudely protect intellectual property at the expense of Internet freedom, it has been...
EFF Joins the International Freedom of Expression eXchange
EFF is proud to announce that we've joined the International Freedom of Expression eXchange (IFEX) as a 2012 interim member. IFEX is a network of more than 90 independent organizations in more than 50 countries worldwide that works to expose free expression violations around the world.
By joining...
This Week in Transparency: Demands for Cell Data, Drones, and Declassification
Law Enforcement Demands User Cell Phone Data 1.3 Million Times
Yesterday, Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) revealed that federal, state and local law enforcement agencies demanded user cell phone data 1.3 million times last year. The demands sought “text messages, caller locations, and other information.” The New York Times...
House Quietly Reintroduces a Piece of SOPA
Even after millions rallied against the passage of SOPA/PIPA, the House is still quietly trying to pass a related bill that would give the entertainment industry more permanent, government-funded spokespeople. The Intellectual Property, Competition, and the Internet Subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee recently held a hearing on Lamar Smith's...
Victory for Open WiFi: Judge Rejects Copyright Troll's Bogus "Negligence" Theory
Copyright trolls lost one of their knobby clubs this week. Judge Lewis Kaplan of the U.S. district court in Manhattan ruled that the owner of an Internet connection cannot be found liable for "negligence" simply because another person uses his wifi connection to commit copyright infringement -- even if he...
Privacy News Roundup: Tracking Customers, UK Snoopers’ Charter, and Drones in Latin America
When Customer Service Gets Creepy
With commercial use of biometrics and online tracking on the rise, emerging customer service products threaten to sacrifice consumer privacy for the sake of convenience and security.
Take, for example, the mobile “solution” a home-delivery services company called Blackbay dreamed up to solve...
Is the TPP—framed as a "21st century" agreement—the best way to build a 21st century society?
Last week, at the latest round of Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations in San Diego, California, the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) announced that it has proposed a new provision on limitations and exceptions to copyright. It's nice to hear about a proposal that seems to expand limitations like fair use,...
