As Kim Weatherallnotes, Australia has been undergoing two separate but not entirely equal deliberations over its national copyright law at roughly the same time: a review of the 2000 Digital Agenda Act, and negotiations with the U.S. over a free-trade agreement (FTA) that...
Congratulations and best of luck to our friends at the ACLU in their new lawsuit challenging the government's use of "National Security Letters" (NSLs). Authorized under the USA PATRIOT Act, NSLs are secret legal demands for your private records that are issued directly by the...
On Good Friday evening, after everyone, including its own spokespeople, had gone home, American Airlines quietly admitted that in 2002, it secretly transferred passenger data to government contractors. Specifically, the airline provided 1.2 million passenger records to contractors developing prototypes for the Transportation Security Administration's (TSA) controversial ...
Declan McCullagh rightly points out in his latest CNET piece on Gmail that EFF opposes California Senator Liz Figueroa's (D-Freemont) poorly conceived anti-Gmail bill (PDF) -- but not because we oppose any and all legislation to address the privacy concerns raised by new technology. A bill...
Yale fellow Ernest Miller and EFF's own Jason Schultz on Friday broke a story that provides an excellent opportunity for demonstrating the harm that the combination of overly restrictive copyright law and user-override technology can do to speech fundamental to a functioning democracy. The story...
CNET's Declan McCullagh this week picked apart the misguided Gmail bill (PDF) introduced before the California legislature by State Senator Liz Figueroa (D-Freemont). The upshot? The bill is so broadly written, it would do things like "make it illegal for a California technology company...
The RIAA has finally seen the light with regard to its "Clean Slate" program, which offered false amnesty, or shamnesty, to people who admitted to file sharing. Citing the success of its "education" campaign, the group has abruptly cancelled the program. "Clean...
Just over a year ago, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) issued a policy statement condemning government-mandated technical protection measures for digital content. "The imposition of technical mandates is not the best way to serve the long-term interests of record companies, technology companies, and consumers," read the...
Security Focus (hyperlinks, mine): "A one-time enforcer in DirecTV's anti-piracy campaign is suing his ex-employer for wrongful discharge, after he allegedly resigned rather than continue to prosecute the company's controversial war against buyers of hacker-friendly smart card equipment. John Fisher, a former police officer, alleges...
danah boyd has a long and worthwhile post offering her vision of what civil rights activists should do about the development of very cool technologies that nevertheless leave users vulnerable to privacy violations: "Let me dig out of this hole and return to the civil rights...
As we noted last week, Google has introduced a new beta email service called "Gmail" that raises a number of privacy concerns. While the media has largely focused on the fact that Gmail will scan the contents of your email messages in order to target ads, the more serious...
Google's announcement last week of its new Gmail email service sparked widespread speculation about the possible impact it would have on users' privacy. Among the questions EFF has been asking: What information would Google pull from email? Would it log this information? For how long? Could your Gmail address...
Today, we filed comments (PDF) with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to warn against overbroad interpretation of the CAN-SPAM Act -- new federal legislation aimed at stemming the current tidal wave of spam. We are pessimistic that the law will be effective in...
Via Howard Rheingold comes David Weinberger's NPR talk on emerging technologies that could significantly limit our ability to use and create with digital content -- the "triple threat" of content lockdown: Digital Rights Management (DRM), digital identity and trusted computing. Rheingold observes that "This...
An attorney lets his 10 year-old install a computer game. Here's what happens: So my 10 year-old took the lead and started installing the software. When he got to the license agreement, he quipped, "Let's see, it says I have to click 'accept' to continue. Well DUH! It's...
