Wired News, October 28
"File-Sharers Win More Protection"

...With Rufe's order, now ISPs in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania must provide a detailed notice to their customer advising them of their rights, before they hand over their customers' names to the music companies' lawyers.

"It's another step in the evolution of protections for people who are accused by the record labels of file sharing, but may have a defense and may want to protect their anonymity," said Wendy Seltzer, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an organization that filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the case. "It puts some procedural safeguards into the process."...

Associated Press, Oct. 27
"Web Server Takedown Called Speech Threat"

Devin Theriot-Orr, a member a feisty group of reporter-activists called Indymedia, was surprised when two FBI agents showed up at his Seattle law office, saying the visit was a "courtesy call" on behalf of Swiss authorities. Theriot-Orr was even more surprised a week later when more than 20 Indymedia Web sites were knocked offline as the computer servers that hosted them were seized in Britain.

...On Friday, a motion was filed in San Antonio federal court to unseal the original order in the case.

"The significance of this is that apparently, a foreign government, based on a secret process, can have the U.S. government silence independent news sources without ever having to answer to the American people about how that kind of restraint could happen," said Kevin Bankston, a lawyer for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which drafted the motion. "Every press organization should be asking, 'Am I next?'"...

All About Symbian, Oct. 25
Part 2 of the "Cory Doctorow is Our God" Interview

Endgadget, Oct. 25
Interview with Wendy Seltzer

Los Angeles Times, Oct. 25
"Paper Ballot Option an Unofficial Secret" (may require login)

...poll workers throughout Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties also plan to keep mum about the paper option and hand out such ballots only if voters ask for them. Critics of computerized voting machines say it shows how reluctant counties are to adhere to a state policy requiring all polling places with computerized voting booths to give voters the option of casting paper ballots.

"This certainly is not good enough," said Matt Zimmerman, staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco, a watchdog organization for electronic voting. "It seems awfully passive-aggressive for the local election officials to be behaving like this. It seems like they're dragging their feet... and trying to do everything they can do to minimize the number of people asking" for paper ballots.

Zimmerman's group is one of several that are urging voters to avoid electronic voting machines, which they consider unreliable, and cast paper ballots...

Nature.com, Oct 22
"Battle to stop e-voting steps up"

..."Voters using electronic machines without a paper trail will simply have to trust the good word of the vendors and local election officials that the electronic numbers recorded in the machine memories accurately reflect the intent of the electorate," says Matt Zimmerman, an attorney with the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation, which studies civil liberties issues related to technology.

This means that no option is available for a reliable recount if there are technical glitches or if the result is very close, as it may well be in the upcoming election. Critics are also concerned that it offers no protection against fraud, either by somebody who might be associated with one of the companies programming the machines, or from a clever hacker off the street...

NPR's Science Friday, Oct. 22
"Inside Voting Science"

With the presidential election less than two weeks away, we get an update on the science of elections. From paper trails for touch-screen machines to optical scans and butterfly ballots, how will technology affect the election results? And amid charges from both sides that pollsters are manipulating the data, we take a look at how polls are constructed, and what their results tell us about Election Day. With EFF's Annalee Newitz as one of the guests.

QC Times, Oct. 21
"Congress sets sights on infringers"

...There's been no outcry yet about the potential for prison time for heavy users, "because no one can believe these bills are actually real," says Jason Schultz, a staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation advocacy group. "Our jails are overcrowded, the police are overworked, and we're going to have to make room in the prisons for teenage file-sharers? If that really happens, people will be outraged."...

California Report (NPR affiliates throughout CA), Oct. 18
"Voters Can Choose Touch-Screen or Paper Voting"

Voters in 14 California counties will have a choice between touch-screen voting machines or paper ballots. But it appears that some of the counties are choosing not to provide voters with that information. With EFF's very own Matt Zimmerman.

Legal Times, Oct. 18
"Tone Deaf"

In an editorial dealing with the collateral damage caused by the RIAA's lawsuits over the past year, Fred Von Lohmann begins, "Four thousand two hundred and eighty lawsuits and counting. That's how many law suits have been brought by the major record labels against music fans for using peer-to-peer (P2P) File-sharing software (like KaZaA or Morpheus) to swap music over the Internet.

Last month marks the one-year anniversary of the recording indus try's unprecedented litigation campaign against its own customers. The campaign appears to have hit its stride, with the Recording Industry Association of America announcing roughly 500 new suits each month..."

New York Times (National Edition), Oct. 12
"Entertainment Industry Asks Justices to Rule on File Sharing"

It is unclear whether the Supreme Courtwill consider the current petition. Fred von Lohmann, the senior staff lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation who successfully argued the case before the Ninth Circuit court on behalf of StreamCast Networks, said the movie and music industries were unlikely to get relief from the courts.

"They seem to think what they can't get from the Senate, they can get from the courts," Mr. von Lohmann said. He said that judges can only apply the law, not make it, and so far, "every court has said copy right is a creature of statute."

BBC News, October 11
"US Seizes Independent Media Sites"

...In the US, the civil liberties group, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) said it was working with Indymedia over how to react to the seizures.

"The constitution does not permit the government unilaterally to cut off the speech of an independent media outlet, especially without providing a reason or even allowing Indymedia the information necessary to contest the seizure," said EFF Staff Attorney Kurt Opsahl...

NPR's All Things Considered, October 4
"Diebold Loses Case Over Documents on Web"

A California district court rules that Diebold, the voting machine manufacturer, knowingly misused the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to threaten ISPs for allowing users to post internal Diebold documents that showed flaws in its voting machines. The Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Center for Internet and Society sued on behalf of one of the ISPs and the students involved. The judge also ruled that there was no copyright infringement.

E-school News, Oct. 1
"Acacia Revises Video-Streaming Royalty Demands"

In an attempt to get more colleges and universities to pay royalties on revenue generating distance-education programs that include the use of streaming video. Acacia Research the company that claims to own the patent on streaming video technology has issued a revised licensing proposal to schools. The letter, which schools began receiving after Labor Day, marks the latest salvo by Acacia in the fight for streaming video and audio technology ownership on the internet...

Jason Schultz, an attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the San Francisco-based digital-rights group that recently said it would ask the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to reconsider Acacia's patents... admits the new, sweeter offer is tempting for schools looking to avoid a costly legal skirmish, he feels the letter is proof that Acacia is having second thoughts about the strength of its patents.

"This really is an indication that Acacia's claims are much weaker than they had originally thought," he said. By reducing its demands, he said, Acacia is demonstrating the kind of eleventh-hour desperation that often comes before these sorts of claims wind up in court.