Author: rebecca

San Francisco – A federal judge in San Francisco has quashed a baseless subpoena aimed at outing an anonymous online critic of Pennsylvania corporation USA Technologies after the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) successfully argued that the First Amendment shields the identity of anonymous speakers who engage in lawful speech.

“All too frequently, companies turn to the courts in misguided attempts to chill speech and ‘out’ their critics, believing that those critics lack the resources or will to defend themselves,” said EFF Senior Staff Attorney Matt Zimmerman. “The First Amendment ensures that vigorous debates about matters of public concern can continue unabated, a fact that the court correctly recognized.”

EFF represents Yahoo! user “Stokklerk,” who criticized USA Technologies and its CEO, George Jensen, Jr., on a Yahoo! message board, drawing attention to plummeting stock prices, high compensation rates for executives, and a consistent lack of profitability. Other anonymous posters had similar complaints.

In response, USA Technologies filed a lawsuit in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania alleging that the statements violated federal securities regulations, because they were part of a “scheme” for the authors to “enrich themselves through undisclosed manipulative trading tactics.” USA Technologies also alleged that the online posts — which characterized USA Technologies’ executive compensation practices as, among other things, “legalized highway robbery” and a “soft Ponzi” — were defamatory. Pursuant to that lawsuit, USA Technologies issued a subpoena out of the Northern District of California to Yahoo! demanding the critics’ identities.

In her ruling, Judge Susan Illston agreed with Stokklerk and quashed the subpoena, recognizing “the Constitutional protection afforded pseudonymous speech over the internet, and the chilling effect that subpoenas would have on lawful commentary and protest.” Judge Illston further found that none of the statements at issue were defamatory in context and were instead “protected opinions” under the First Amendment.

“We’re gratified that the Court saw it the way we did,” said David M. Given of Phillips, Erlewine & Given LLP, which served as co-counsel with EFF in the matter. “The First Amendment principle at stake in this case is paramount to preserving the free interchange of ideas and opinions on the Internet.”

For the full ruling:
http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/usatechnologies/USAT-order-051710.pdf

For more on this case:
http://www.eff.org/cases/usa-technologies-v-stokklerk

Contact:

Matt Zimmerman
Senior Staff Attorney
Electronic Frontier Foundation
[email protected]

San Francisco – New research by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has found that an overwhelming majority of web browsers have unique signatures — creating identifiable “fingerprints” that could be used to track you as you surf the Internet.

The findings were the result of an experiment EFF conducted with volunteers who visited http://panopticlick.eff.org/. The website anonymously logged the configuration and version information from each participant’s operating system, browser, and browser plug-ins — information that websites routinely access each time you visit — and compared that information to a database of configurations collected from almost a million other visitors. EFF found that 84% of the configuration combinations were unique and identifiable, creating unique and identifiable browser “fingerprints.” Browsers with Adobe Flash or Java plug-ins installed were 94% unique and trackable.

“We took measures to keep participants in our experiment anonymous, but most sites don’t do that,” said EFF Senior Staff Technologist Peter Eckersley. “In fact, several companies are already selling products that claim to use browser fingerprinting to help websites identify users and their online activities. This experiment is an important reality check, showing just how powerful these tracking mechanisms are.”

EFF found that some browsers were less likely to contain unique configurations, including those that block JavaScript, and some browser plug-ins may be able to be configured to limit the information your browser shares with the websites you visit. But overall, it is very difficult to reconfigure your browser to make it less identifiable. The best solution for web users may be to insist that new privacy protections be built into the browsers themselves.

“Browser fingerprinting is a powerful technique, and fingerprints must be considered alongside cookies and IP addresses when we discuss web privacy and user trackability,” said Eckersley. “We hope that browser developers will work to reduce these privacy risks in future versions of their code.”

EFF’s paper on Panopticlick will be formally presented at the Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium (PETS 2010) in Berlin in July.

For the full white paper: How Unique is Your Web Browser?:
https://panopticlick.eff.org/browser-uniqueness.pdf

For more details on Pantopticlick:
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/05/every-browser-unique-results-fom-pa…

For more on online behavioral tracking:
http://www.eff.org/issues/online-behavioral-tracking

Contacts:

Peter Eckersley
Senior Staff Technologist
Electronic Frontier Foundation
[email protected]

Denver – The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) along with Google and numerous other public interest organizations and Internet industry associations joined with Yahoo! in asking a federal court Tuesday to block a government attempt to access the contents of a Yahoo! email account without a search warrant based on probable cause.

The Department of Justice is seeking the emails as part of a case that is under seal, and the account holder has apparently not been notified of the request. Government investigators maintain that because the Yahoo! email has been accessed by the user, it is no longer in “electronic storage” under the Stored Communications Act (SCA) and therefore does not require a warrant, even though that same legal theory has been flatly rejected by the one Circuit Court to address it.

Yahoo! is challenging the government request before a federal magistrate judge in Denver, arguing that the SCA and Fourth Amendment require the government to get a search warrant before compelling Yahoo! to disclose the email. In an amicus brief filed in support of Yahoo! Tuesday, EFF says that the company is simply following the law and protecting the constitutional privacy rights of its customers.

“The government is trying to evade federal privacy law and the Constitution,” said EFF Senior Staff Attorney Kevin Bankston. “The Fourth Amendment protects these stored emails, just like it does our private papers. We all have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the contents of our email accounts, and the government should have to make a showing of probable cause to a judge before it rifles through our private communications.”

This email privacy case comes on the heels of the announcement of a broad coalition of technology companies, think tanks, academics, and privacy groups — including EFF — that is calling for amendments to clarify and strengthen federal privacy law to preserve traditional privacy rights in the face of rapidly changing technology. The Digital Due Process coalition’s recommendations would, among other things, clarify that the government must get a warrant before obtaining stored email messages, regardless of whether they are opened or unopened and regardless of their age.

“Americans trust Internet service providers and other technology companies to collect and store large amounts of personal information — more and more every day — and it’s time that Congress clarified and strengthened the law to better protect that data,” said EFF Civil Liberties Director Jennifer Granick. “Just as your postal letters and packages are private even though the carrier could open them, so your email and other information is protected even if it is stored on a third party’s server.”

Along with Google, other signers to the EFF brief are the Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT), the Center for Financial Privacy and Human Rights (CFPHR), the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), the Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA), the Distributed Computing Industry Association (DCIA), NetCoalition, the Progress & Freedom Foundation (PFF) and TRUSTe. Signers were represented by EFF, Professor Paul Ohm of the University of Colorado at Boulder and the Samuelson-Glushko Technology Law & Policy Clinic, and attorney Matthew M. Linton of the firm Kennedy Childs & Fogg, P.C., in Denver.

For the full amicus brief:
http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/inreusaorder18/AmiciBriefYahooEmails.p…

For more on this case:
http://www.eff.org/cases/re-application-united-states-america-order

For more on Digital Due Process:
http://www.digitaldueprocess.org

Contacts:

Kevin Bankston
Senior Staff Attorney
Electronic Frontier Foundation
[email protected]

Jennifer Stisa Granick
Civil Liberties Director
Electronic Frontier Foundation
[email protected]

New York – The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and other nonprofit groups asked a federal judge Monday to reject expansive copyright claims made in lawsuits pending against YouTube. The amicus brief argues that the plaintiffs in those lawsuits are pushing for legal rulings that would undermine federal law and throttle free speech and innovation on the Internet.

Viacom and a variety of class action plaintiffs are suing YouTube, claiming that the online video service is liable for copyright infringements committed by its users. YouTube has responded by arguing that its activities are shielded by the “safe harbor” provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which give legal protections to online service providers that host content on behalf of users.

Despite the DMCA, the plaintiffs have claimed that YouTube should be held responsible for infringements that occurred before May 2008, when the site voluntarily implemented content filtering technologies. In effect, the plaintiffs have urged the court to make content filtering mandatory for all online service providers that host content on behalf of users. In the amicus brief filed Monday, EFF — joined by the American Library Association, Association of College and Research Libraries, Association of Research Libraries, Center For Democracy and Technology, Computer and Communications Industry Association, Home Recording Rights Coalition, Internet Archive, Netcoalition, and Public Knowledge — argues that Viacom’s theory would rewrite federal law and thwart Congress’ goal of reducing the legal uncertainties facing companies trying to innovate on the Internet.

“This case is not just about YouTube,” said EFF Senior Staff Attorney Fred von Lohmann. “Nearly everyonline service that fosters free expression and commerce online — like the Internet Archive, Blogger, Facebook, eBay, Amazon, Flickr, and Scribd — depends on the very same DMCA safe harbors that YouTube is relying on here. Viacom is trying to undo the law that Congress designed to provide a modicum of legal certainty for those who build these innovative online services.”

The cases against YouTube are pending in federal court in the Southern District of New York. Additional briefs will be filed by the parties on April 30 and June 4. A hearing and decision will follow.

For the full amicus brief:
http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/viacom_v_youtube/YouTubeAmicusBriefFIN…

For more on this case:
http://www.eff.org/cases/viacom-v-youtube

Contact:

Fred von Lohmann
Senior Staff Attorney
Electronic Frontier Foundation
[email protected]

Atlanta – The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and attorney Bryan Vroon asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit today to reexamine a panel ruling that violated a whistleblower’s Fourth Amendment right to privacy in his email communications.

The whistleblower, Charles Rehberg, uncovered systematic mismanagement of funds at a Georgia public hospital. He alerted local politicians and others to the issue through a series of faxes. A local prosecutor in Dougherty County, Ken Hodges, conspired with the hospital and used a sham grand jury subpoena to obtain Mr. Rehberg’s personal email communications. The prosecutor then provided that information to private investigators for the hospital and indicted Mr. Rehberg for a burglary and assault that never actually occurred. All the criminal charges against Mr. Rehberg were eventually dismissed. Hodges is currently running for Attorney General of Georgia in the Democratic primary.

Mr. Rehberg filed a civil suit against the prosecutors and their investigator for their misconduct, but the appeals court erroneously ruled that he did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in his private email.

“Mr. Rehberg did the right thing and blew the whistle on financial mismanagement,” said EFF Civil Liberties Director Jennifer Granick. “In response, he was persecuted by local authorities and his constitutional rights were violated. It’s well established that individuals have a right to privacy in the content of their communications, electronic or otherwise. We’re asking the court to look at this again and follow the law.”

Also at issue in EFF’s request for rehearing is the panel’s decision to give immunity to county prosecutors and their investigators for manipulating and fabricating “evidence” and defaming Mr. Rehberg as a felon in comments to the press.

“The Supreme Court has ruled that prosecutors are not entitled to immunity when they fabricate evidence during the course of an investigation, knowingly defame an innocent man as a felon to the press, or collude with private parties to retaliate against a critic, as they did here,” said Mr. Vroon, who has represented Mr. Rehberg since the beginning of his lawsuit. “This case involves a gross misuse of power which damaged an innocent man who never committed a burglary or assault on anyone.”

For the full brief:
http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/rehberg_v_hodges/rehbergmotion.pdf

For more on this case:
http://www.eff.org/cases/rehberg-v-hodges

Contacts:

Jennifer Granick
Civil Liberties Director
Electronic Frontier Foundation
[email protected]

Bryan A. Vroon
Attorney
Law Offices of Bryan A. Vroon, LLC
[email protected]

EFF Senior Staff Attorney Fred von Lohmann was named the 2010 winner of the L. Ray Patterson Copyright Award today.

The American Library Association (ALA) Office for Information Technology Policy (OITP) and its Copyright Advisory Subcommittee issues the award to recognize work done in support of fair use and the public domain. The award is named after the late L. Ray Patterson, a copyright scholar and historian that left a lasting impression on the law of copyright, the public domain, and fair use.

Chair of the OITP Copyright Advisory Subcommittee Patrick Newell said, “Fred is a tireless advocate for openness of information and seeking the proper balance between intellectual property protection and the public interest in fair use, expression and innovation.”

An award reception honoring Fred will be held on June 25 during the ALA’s Annual Conference in Washington, D.C.

San Francisco – As part of a broad coalition of privacy groups, think tanks, technology companies, and academics, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) today issued recommendations for strengthening the federal privacy law that regulates government access to private phone and Internet communications and records, including cell phone location data.

The “Digital Due Process” coalition includes major Internet and telecommunications companies like Google, Microsoft, and AT&T as well as advocacy groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT). The coalition has joined together to preserve traditional privacy rights and clarify legal protections in the face of a rapidly changing technological landscape.

“The federal law protecting Internet and telephone users’ privacy was written nearly 25 years ago, which is eons ago in ‘Internet time,’” said EFF Senior Staff Attorney Kevin Bankston. “When it comes to privacy, EFF has had its disagreements with fellow Digital Due Process members such as Google and AT&T. But this diverse coalition of privacy advocates and Internet companies agree on at least one thing: the current electronic privacy laws are woefully outdated and must be updated to provide clear privacy protections that reflect the always-on, location-enabled, Web 2.0 world of the 21st century.”

The group’s four recommendations focus on how to update the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), a law originally passed in 1986 before the World Wide Web was invented and when the number of American cell phone users numbered in the tens of thousands rather than the hundreds of millions. The group recommends that the legal standards under which the government can obtain private communications and records be clarified and strengthened in order to:

* Better protect the privacy of communications and documents you store in the cloud

* Better protect you against secret tracking of your location through your cell phone or any other mobile device

* Better protect you against secret monitoring of when and with whom you communicate over the telephone or the Internet

* Better protect innocent Americans against government fishing expeditions through masses of communications data unrelated to a criminal suspect

“The recommendations of the Digital Due Process coalition are not an exclusive list of the reforms to ECPA that EFF would support, and in some cases EFF would urge even stronger protections than those urged by the group,” said Bankston. “However, EFF strongly agrees with its fellow Digital Due Process members that each of the coalition’s recommended changes would significantly strengthen the law and better protect privacy.”

A full description of the coalition and its recommendations is available at www.digitaldueprocess.org.

Contact:

Kevin Bankston
Senior Staff Attorney
Electronic Frontier Foundation
[email protected]

Philadelphia – On Monday, March 29, at 10 a.m., the Subcommittee on Crime and Drugs of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a public hearing in the Philadelphia federal courthouse on whether the federal electronic privacy laws need to be updated to better regulate secret video surveillance. Senior Staff Attorney Kevin Bankston of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) will testify.

Subcommittee Chairman Arlen Specter called the hearing in response to recent allegations that public schools in the Lower Merion School District in Pennsylvania have secretly used webcams on school-issued laptops to visually monitor students while they were in their homes. At Monday’s hearing, Bankston will urge Congress to update the federal wiretapping statute to protect against secret video surveillance in the same way it protects against secret eavesdropping on private conversations. Such a change to the law would clearly require the government to obtain a search warrant before engaging in secret video surveillance of private places and would protect against similar spying by non-government actors, such as stalkers, computer criminals, private schools, private employers and others.

“It doesn’t make sense that federal law regulates secret eavesdropping but doesn’t equally protect us from secret video surveillance, which can be even more invasive,” said Bankston. “Just as the federal wiretapping statute protects against electronic eavesdropping, it should also protect against secret video recording, whether in the home or in any other place where people have a reasonable expectation that they are not going to be photographed.”

WHO:
Kevin Bankston
Senior Staff Attorney, Electronic Frontier Foundation

WHAT:
“Video Laptop Surveillance: Does Title III Need to Be Updated?”
U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Crime and Drugs

WHEN:
10 a.m.
Monday, March 29

WHERE:
U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania
Courtroom 3B
601 Market Street
Philadelphia, PA 19106

For more on the hearing:
http://judiciary.senate.gov/hearings/hearing.cfm?id=4492

Contact:

Rebecca Jeschke
Media Relations Director
Electronic Frontier Foundation
[email protected]

Technology design can maximize or decimate our basic rights to free speech, privacy, property ownership, and creative thought. Earlier this month, EFF board members discussed these societal impacts in a panel at Carnegie Mellon: “Architecture is Policy.”

The rights and abilities that you have with a particular technology depends on how it’s built. That’s why EFF worked with concerned authors to intervene in the Google Books settlement. The way Google’s massive digital library/bookstore is built will affect how everyone uses digital books in the future. Other topics tackled by the panel in “Architecture is Policy” include the ad-hoc early days of the Internet, and the difficult privacy implications of mobile computing.

For those of you who could not be in Pittsburgh, the full video of the talk is up on EFF’s YouTube page and embedded below.

Washington, D.C. – The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) urged the United States Supreme Court today to ensure that modern communications methods such as text messages retain the constitutional privacy protections applied to earlier technologies.

In an amicus brief in City of Ontario v. Quon, EFF sided with a public employee who was allowed personal use of his work pager but then discovered that his employer had secretly obtained his communication records from his wireless provider. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruled that the city violated the Fourth Amendment, and the Supreme Court granted the city’s request to review that ruling.

“The Constitution fully safeguards the privacy of electronic communications sent over employer-provided equipment,” said EFF Civil Liberties Director Jennifer Granick. “Text messages, like phone calls or letters, are protected from warrantless law enforcement surveillance, even if sent from the workplace or through an outside service provider.”

This case comes to the Supreme Court as Americans are adopting smart phones in record numbers, making texting and on-the-fly emailing a part of everyday life for millions of people. Most employers allow and encourage some use of workplace equipment for personal communications, instead of forcing employees to carry around multiple devices. In its amicus brief, EFF urged the court not to disturb longstanding Fourth Amendment protections against warrantless law enforcement access to these electronic communications.

“The privacy questions in this case turn on the application of settled legal principles in new technological contexts,” said Andrew Pincus of Mayer Brown LLP and the Yale Supreme Court Clinic, who worked with EFF on the amicus brief. “The court should proceed cautiously, in order to preserve constitutional protections for Americans’ most private communications.”

“People are moving away from postal mail and landline phones to electronic and mobile communications, both at home and at the workplace,” added EFF’s Granick. “We should not be forced to leave our privacy behind.”

EFF was joined on this brief by the America Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), and Public Citizen.

For the full amicus brief:
http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/ontario_v_quon/EFFamicus.pdf

For more on this case:
http://www.eff.org/cases/city-ontario-v-quon

Contact:

Jennifer Stisa Granick
Civil Liberties Director
Electronic Frontier Foundation
[email protected]

Today, EFF Senior Counsel David Sobel testified in a congressional hearing on the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and the Obama administration. David’s testimony outlined the disconnect between the White House’s strong message on open government and the bureaucratic resistance to transparency in general.

The Obama administration marked a sea-change in official statements of policy about the FOIA, with the president directing agencies to have a “presumption of openness.” But while the president and other top officials have said the right things, government agencies are still withholding wide swaths of information, and government attorneys are reflexively defending the practice when we are forced to take our FOIA cases to court.

Obama’s Attorney General, Eric Holder, specifically told agencies that the Department of Justice would only defend FOIA denials under very narrow circumstances. However, EFF and other transparency groups have not noticed any substantial change. So we joined these other organizations in asking the DOJ to periodically publish a list of FOIA lawsuits it has declined to defend under Holder’s new guidelines. The DOJ rejected this suggestion, but in EFF’s testimony today, David urged lawmakers to request this information themselves and to make it publicly available.

This could be, of course, yet another example of how transparency forces accountability. Today’s hearing comes during Sunshine Week, the annual celebration of America’s open government laws and the better government that they help encourage. Just this week, the media widely reported the information EFF received on how law enforcement agencies use social networking sites to gather information in investigations. We are very proud of the breadth of information EFF’s FOIA work has brought to light — information that would have remained out of the public eye without the Freedom of Information Act and our litigation.

For FOIA to do the work the law is meant to do — foster transparency, force accountability, and fight needless secrecy — we need to keep fighting for honest disclosure. Read David’s full testimony for all of EFF’s suggestions to Congress. We hope lawmakers soon do good work on this important issue.

Worried about plans for California’s “smart grid”? We are too. Energy usage data, with new hyper-close monitoring provided by the “smart grid”, allows intimate reconstruction of your household activities — like when you wake up, when you come home, and when you go on vacation.

These concerns sparked our comments to the state’s Public Utilities Commission last week, calling on the agency to consider critical privacy questions as it rolls out its “smart meters” across California. Now there’s a chance for you to learn more and weigh in. This Friday, the California PUC is hosting a public hearing in San Francisco from 9:30 a.m to 4:30 p.m. at its headquarters at 505 Van Ness Ave. A panel on ensuring public privacy runs from 10:30 a.m. to noon. We hope to see you there.

Chicago – The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the Media Freedom and Information Access Practicum (MFIA) at Yale Law School filed a friend-of-the-court brief today urging the Illinois Court of Appeals to block the unmasking of an anonymous online critic of a local political candidate.

The critic, commenting on a story on the website of a suburban Chicago newspaper called the Daily Herald, engaged in a heated debate with other commenters. One turned out to be the son of the village trustee candidate in Buffalo Grove, Illinois, who was discussed in the article. The candidate, Lisa Stone, who eventually won her race, asked a state court to order the newspaper to release the critic’s name and address without appropriately showing that the statements directed towards her son were defamatory or otherwise illegal. Stone indicated that she may choose to subsequently file a lawsuit once she determines the critic’s identity through the pre-complaint procedure.

“Because of the enormous potential for abuse, the First Amendment requires litigants to demonstrate that they have a legitimate case before they can use the courts to unmask anonymous online critics,” said EFF Senior Staff Attorney Matt Zimmerman. “Insults are not enough, especially when the conversation takes place in the context of a political campaign.”

In November, a lower court granted Stone’s pre-lawsuit request for her critic’s identity, incorrectly arguing that a narrow disclosure to Stone would adequately protect the speaker’s First Amendment rights. The court stayed the disclosure requirement in light of the speaker’s appeal. In its amicus brief filed today, EFF and MFIA argue that this low standard for unmasking an anonymous speaker has a chilling effect on all manner of anonymous speech, political or otherwise.

“Lisa Stone is now a person of political power in the community. She does not have a blank check to pry into someone’s life just because he said something she didn’t like,” said Margot Kaminski, Yale Law student and co-founder of MFIA. “We hope the Court of Appeals will recognize the importance that anonymous speech plays in the free and robust political debate generated by newspapers online.”

For the full amicus brief:
http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/stone_v_paddock/Scanned%20Brief.pdf

Contact:

Matt Zimmerman
Senior Staff Attorney
Electronic Frontier Foundation
[email protected]

Washington, D.C. – On Thursday, March 18, at 2 p.m., members of the U.S. House of Representatives Oversight and Government Reform Committee will hold a public hearing on the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and the Obama administration compliance with transparency law. The hearing comes as transparency advocates celebrate Sunshine Week, the annual celebration of our nation’s open government laws that features numerous events measuring the progress made in combating official secrecy.

Senior Counsel David Sobel of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) will testify at Thursday’s hearing, urging the White House to fulfill its promises for open government. Despite President Obama’s order to government agencies last year to renew their commitment to FOIA, EFF and other organizations still see delays in releasing relevant documents, excuses for not releasing other records, and excessive redactions, among other needless secrecy.

In one case, for example, EFF has compared heavily redacted documents from the FBI released to us under FOIA with documents leaked from a whistleblower containing no redactions. We found that much of the blacked-out content concerns the FBI’s attempts to avoid court oversight of its inappropriate surveillance tactics through the use of generic and legally questionable “umbrella” authorizations. However, these umbrella authorizations had already been revealed to the public in a previous report by the Department of Justice’s Inspector General. You can see a revealing side-by-side comparison at http://www.eff.org/pages/sunshine2010.

WHO:
David Sobel
Senior Counsel, Electronic Frontier Foundation

WHAT:
“Administration of the Freedom of Information Act: Current Trends”
U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Subcommittee on Information Policy, Census, and National Archives

WHEN:
2 p.m.
Thursday, March 18

WHERE:
Rayburn House Office Building
Room 2154
Washington, D.C. 20515

For more on the hearing:
http://oversight.house.gov/index.php?option=com_jcalpro&Itemid=2&extmode…

For a side-by-side comparison of the FBI redactions:
http://www.eff.org/pages/sunshine2010

Contact:

Rebecca Jeschke
Media Relations Director
Electronic Frontier Foundation
[email protected]

Washington, D.C. – On Wednesday, March 17, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is hosting its final public roundtable on technology privacy challenges in Washington, D.C. Two experts from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) are taking part.

EFF Senior Staff Technologist Peter Eckersley and EFF Boardmember Edward W. Felten will discuss “Internet Architecture and Privacy” at the first panel of the day. Later panels will cover health information privacy and issues around other sensitive information, as well as lessons learned so far and future plans for privacy protection.

For more information on attending the roundtable including a full agenda, visit http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/workshops/privacyroundtables/index.shtml

WHAT:
FTC Roundtable “Internet Architecture and Privacy”

WHEN:
Wednesday, March 17
9:15 a.m.

WHERE:
FTC Conference Center
601 New Jersey Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20001

For more information on the roundtable:
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/workshops/privacyroundtables/index.shtml

Contact:

Rebecca Jeschke
Media Relations Director
Electronic Frontier Foundation
[email protected]

San Francisco – The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed a friend-of-the-court brief today urging a federal court judge to block two criminal statutes that unconstitutionally limit the free expression of millions of adults who use the Internet and other electronic forms of communication, bringing the threat of criminal sanctions for private, lawful speech.

At issue are provisions of federal law that require anyone who produces a visual depiction of sexually explicit expression to maintain extensive records — including copies of drivers’ licenses, the dates and times images were taken, and all URLs where images were posted — and often force public disclosure of a creator’s home address. Even more troubling, the regulations allow law enforcement warrantless entry into homes or offices in order to inspect the records that are supposed to be kept. While these statutes regulate the commercial pornography industry, they also likely apply to a staggering number of Americans who create and share images of themselves over social networks, online dating services, personal erotic websites, and text messaging.

“The plain language of the statute subjects ordinary Americans, who are using emerging communications technologies at an ever-increasing rate, to onerous record-keeping and inspection requirements for lawful speech. They could face up to five years in prison if they don’t follow the statutory requirements to the letter,” said EFF Senior Staff Attorney Matt Zimmerman. “Speakers who engage in private, expressive activity protected by the First Amendment should not be at risk of criminal sanctions for violating an overbroad statute that they likely know nothing about.”

A coalition of artists, producers, distributors, and educators filed suit against the provisions last year, arguing that the law censored their artistic and educational work. In its amicus brief in support of the coalition filed today, EFF asked the judge to throw out the record-keeping regulations as an unconstitutional chill on adult free expression in the digital age.

“Digital cameras, camcorders, and the Internet make it easy to create and share lawful adult material in a wide variety of ways. Thousands of ordinary Americans are doing just that, only to find themselves subject to these record-keeping and inspection requirements,” said EFF Civil Liberties Director Jennifer Granick. “This just doesn’t square with the Constitution.”

For the full amicus brief:
http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/fsc_v_holder/EFF%20Amicus%20Brief.pdf

For more on Free Speech Coalition v. Holder:
http://www.eff.org/cases/free-speech-coalition-v-holder

Contacts:

Matt Zimmerman
Senior Staff Attorney
Electronic Frontier Foundation
[email protected]

Jennifer Stisa Granick
Civil Liberties Director
Electronic Frontier Foundation
[email protected]

San Francisco – The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) submitted a petition signed by more than 7000 people to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) today demanding that the agency close a loophole for copyright enforcement in its proposed regulations for network neutrality.

The petition is part of EFF’s reply comments in the FCC’s net neutrality rulemaking. The FCC’s proposed rules generally prohibit ISPs from discriminating or blocking lawful content, but include a loophole for ‘reasonable network management’ by ISPs. The proposed rules then define ‘reasonable network management” to include measures taken by ISPs to block unlawful content or transmissions. This exception would effectively permit ISPs to violate net neutrality rules and block lawful activities in the name of copyright enforcement.

“We can’t afford to let lawful speech become collateral damage in Hollywood’s war on copyright infringement,” said EFF Senior Staff Attorney Fred von Lohmann. “Net neutrality regulations should not excuse ISPs that interfere with lawful content just because they claim they were acting as copyright cops.”

EFF’s original comments to the FCC, submitted in January, also question whether the FCC has the legal authority or political independence necessary to properly regulate the Internet. Additionally, EFF has called on the FCC to protect the interests of individuals who offer open WiFi Internet access to their neighbors or local communities.

“Before the ink is dry on net neutrality regulations, we already see corporate lobbyists and ‘public decency’ advocates pushing for loopholes,” said EFF Civil Liberties Director Jennifer Granick. “A loophole like this could swallow network neutrality, with ISPs claiming copyright enforcement as a pretext for all sorts of discriminatory behavior.”

For EFF’s full reply comments to the FCC:
http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/nn/EFF%20NN%20reply%20comments2b.pdf

For more on net neutrality:
http://www.eff.org/issues/net-neutrality

Contacts:

Jennifer Stisa Granick
Civil Liberties Director
Electronic Frontier Foundation
[email protected]

Fred von Lohmann
Senior Staff Attorney
Electronic Frontier Foundation
[email protected]

San Francisco – Twelve years after the passage of the controversial Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), the law continues to stymie fair use, free speech, scientific research, and legitimate competition. A new report from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) collects reported examples of abuses of the DMCA and the ongoing harm the law continues to inflict on consumers, scientists, and small businesses.

The U.S. Copyright Office is currently mulling proposed exemptions to the DMCA’s ban on “circumventing” digital rights management (DRM) and “other technical protection measures” used to restrict access to copyrighted works. The Copyright Office is empowered to grant exemptions to the law every three years to mitigate the harms that DRM otherwise would impose on legitimate, non-infringing uses of copyrighted materials.

The triennial Copyright Office rulemaking, however, has not been enough to prevent abuses of the DMCA. EFF’s report details the numerous harms stemming from the DMCA’s ban on circumventing DRM, including Apple’s attempts to lock down the iPhone and force users into its App Store. Also new in this year’s report is the account of hobbyists threatened by Texas Instruments for blogging about potential modifications to the company’s programmable graphing calculators as well as the story behind the legal attacks on Real DVD and other products that create innovative new ways for consumers to enjoy DVD content they have legitimately purchased.

“The DMCA’s ban on tampering with digital locks on content is a dangerous anachronism, a holdover from a time when people thought DRM could solve all of Hollywood’s problems,” said EFF Senior Staff Attorney Fred von Lohmann. “The DMCA’s ban on bypassing DRM has failed to stem digital copyright infringement, but it has unfortunately been repurposed as a cudgel to threaten legitimate research and competitors.”

Among the DMCA exemption requests currently before the Copyright Office are three from EFF. One asks for an exemption for amateur creators who use excerpts from DVDs in order to create new, noncommercial remix videos. Another would explicitly exempt cell phone “jailbreaking,” allowing iPhones and other handsets to run applications from any source. EFF’s third proposal asks for a renewal of an exemption previously granted for unlocking cells phones so they can be used with any mobile carrier. A final decision on these and other requests is expected from the Copyright Office within the next few weeks.

For “Unintended Consequences: Twelve Years Under the DMCA”:
http://www.eff.org/wp/unintended-consequences-under-dmca

For more on EFF’s exemption requests:
http://www.eff.org/cases/2009-dmca-rulemaking

Contact:

Fred von Lohmann
Senior Staff Attorney
Electronic Frontier Foundation
[email protected]

Pittsburgh – On Monday, March 8, at 4 p.m., board members of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) will discuss the societal impact of technology design in a panel at Carnegie Mellon University.

Technology design can maximize or decimate our basic rights to free speech, privacy, property ownership, and creative thought. The panel will discuss some good and bad design decisions through the years and the ramifications of those decisions.

Monday’s panel is free and open to the public.

WHAT:
Architecture Is Policy: The Legal and Social Impact of Technical Design Decisions

WHEN:
4 p.m.
Monday, March 8

WHERE:
Newell-Simon Hall, Room 3305
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA 15213

WHO:
Ed Felten (Professor of Computer Science and Public Affairs and Director of the Center for Information Technology Policy, Princeton University)
Dave Farber (Distinguished Career Professor of Computer Science and Public Policy in the School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University)
Lorrie Cranor (Associate Professor of Computer Science and of Engineering and Public Policy, Director of the CyLab Usable Privacy and Security Laboratory [CUPS], Carnegie Mellon University)
John Buckman (EFF Board Chair, Serial Entrepreneur)
Cindy Cohn (EFF Legal Director, Moderator)

Contact:

Rebecca Jeschke
Media Relations Director
Electronic Frontier Foundation
[email protected]

San Francisco – What questions should consumers ask before buying a digital book or reader? Today the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) published “Digital Books and Your Rights,” a checklist for readers considering buying into the digital book marketplace.

Over the last few months, the universe of digital books has expanded dramatically, with products like Amazon’s Kindle, Google Books, Internet Archive’s Text Archive, Barnes and Noble’s Nook, and Apple’s upcoming iPad poised to revolutionize reading. But while this digital books revolution could make books more accessible than ever before, there are lingering questions about the future of reader privacy, consumers’ rights, and potential censorship.

EFF’s checklist outlines eight categories of questions readers should ask as they evaluate new digital book products and services, including:

*Does the service protect your privacy by limiting tracking of you and your reading?

*When you pay for a book, do you own the book, or do you just rent or license it?

*Is the service censorship resistant?

“As these new services roll out, we need to know if they will respect or hamper the traditional rights and expectations of readers. Physical books have many natural protections for readers, and other protections have been created over time by libraries and bookstores,” said EFF Senior Staff Attorney Corynne McSherry. “These questions will help book lovers decide what they want their digital book future to look like and then vote with their feet to get to that future.”

As other ebook readers and reader services develop, a federal judge is considering final approval of a settlement that would pave the way for a huge expansion of Google Books, giving Google the green light to scan and digitize millions of books and allow users to search for and read those books online. Unfortunately, Google’s system monitors what books users search for, how much of the books they read, and how long they spend on various pages, and Google refuses to require a warrant before providing that information to the government. EFF Legal Director Cindy Cohn will appear before the court at a hearing in New York on February 18, representing a coalition of authors including Michael Chabon, Jonathan Lethem, and many others concerned about reader privacy.

“Our coalition is asking the court to ensure that Google’s huge new digital library/bookstore maintains the strong protections for reader privacy that traditional libraries and bookstores have fought for and largely won,” said Cohn.

For more information on next week’s hearing, email [email protected].

For the full report “Digital Books and Your Rights”:
https://www.eff.org/wp/digital-books-and-your-rights

For more on digital books:
http://www.eff.org/issues/digital-books

Contacts:

Corynne McSherry
Senior Staff Attorney
Electronic Frontier Foundation
[email protected]

Cindy Cohn
Legal Director
Electronic Frontier Foundation
[email protected]