EFFector Vol. 21, No. 10 March 20, 2008 editor@eff.org A Publication of the Electronic Frontier Foundation ISSN 1062-9424 In the 463rd Issue of EFFector: * Action Alert: Talk Back to the House About Telecom Immunity! * EFF Celebrates Sunshine Week * EFF Urges Court to Rule National Security Letters Unconstitutional * FISA News and Updates * Three Strikes, Three Countries: France, Japan and Sweden * Wanted: Prior Art to Bust Firepond/Polaris Patent * Thanks for Making the EFF Pioneer Awards a Success! * miniLinks (9): FISA Attacks Fail to Sway CT Representative * Administrivia For more information on EFF activities & alerts: http://www.eff.org/ Make a donation and become an EFF member today! http://eff.org/support/ Tell a friend about EFF: http://action.eff.org/site/Ecard?ecard_id=1061 effector: n, Computer Sci. A device for producing a desired change. : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : * Action Alert: Talk Back to the House About Telecom Immunity! Last week, House Democrats succeeded in passing a bill that rejects telecom immunity! Take action and remind them where you stand: http://www.stopthespying.org/CA/8 Lawmakers opposed to immunity stood strong against blatant fear-mongering, tricky procedural jujitsu, and veto threats to pass a bill that allows existing court cases like EFF's case against AT&T to continue. We told them not to let the telecoms off the hook and many of them listened. But some offices continued to press for a bill that grants amnesty to lawbreaking telecoms. Find out where your Representative stands, and take action. * Support them for their courage if they stood up for your privacy. * Scold them if they voted to let the phone companies off the hook. http://www.stopthespying.org/CA/8 : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : * EFF Celebrates Sunshine Week The principles of open government are promoted and celebrated each year during Sunshine Week -- observed this year March 16-22. The weeklong initiative is built around National Freedom of Information Day, which is celebrated on James Madison's birthday. Madison is regarded as "the father of freedom of information" based upon his observation that "a people who mean to be their own Governors must arm themselves with the power knowledge gives." EFF is proud to be a part of the open government community and, through our aggressive use of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), we strive to promote the disclosure of government information concerning technology policies. Through our FOIA Litigation for Accountable Government (FLAG) Project, we have initiated numerous FOIA requests and lawsuits on topics ranging from FBI surveillance technology to Pentagon efforts to censor military bloggers. EFF aims to make important information available to members of Congress, to the news media and -- by posting all the material we obtain on our website -- to the public at-large. Consider celebrating Sunshine Week by taking a look at some of our FOIA efforts and the interesting facts they have uncovered! For more on EFF's FLAG Project: http://www.eff.org/issues/foia For more on EFF and Sunshine Week: http://www.eff.org/sunshine For this complete post by EFF Senior Counsel David Sobel: http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/03/eff-celebrates-sunshine-week : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : * EFF Urges Court to Rule National Security Letters Unconstitutional Secrecy Surrounding Demands for Private Records Enables Widespread Misuse San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) along with the National Security Archive urged a federal appeals court to strike down the National Security Letter (NSL) provision of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. The federal surveillance law, as expanded by the PATRIOT Act, allows the FBI to use NSLs to get private records about people's communications without any court approval, as long as it claims the information could be relevant to a terrorism or espionage investigation. The FBI also has broad discretion to place recipients of NSLs under indefinite gag orders, barring them from saying anything about the demands. A federal judge has already found that the NSL statute is unconstitutional, but the government appealed the ruling. In an amicus brief filed Wednesday, EFF and the National Security Archive argue that the excessive secrecy surrounding the use of NSLs undermines government accountability and enables widespread misuse of authority. "The Justice Department's internal watchdog has documented the FBI's systematic, Bureau-wide misuse of NSLs," said EFF Staff Attorney Marcia Hofmann. "NSL gag orders aren't just an unconstitutional restriction on free speech -- they also allow problems like these to fester and grow." This week is national Sunshine Week, a non-partisan initiative to celebrate the principles of open government. Both EFF and the National Security Archive work to uncover information on government matters of public interest, as openness proves to be a check against government abuses. "The FBI's ability to issue gag orders without meaningful judicial oversight means there is no check on overreaching by the FBI," said National Security Archive Staff Counsel Kristin Adair. "This kind of secrecy does not make us safer. It simply allows the government to cover up abuses and mistakes." For the full amicus brief: http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/doe_v_ashcroft/doevmukaseyamicus031908.pdf For more on Sunshine Week: http://www.eff.org/sunshine For more on EFF's work on NSL misuse: http://www.eff.org/issues/foia/07656JDB For this release: http://www.eff.org/press/archives/2008/03/20 : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : * FISA News and Updates Last week, the House stood up for the rule of law by passing a FISA update bill without telecom immunity! There were quite a few moments of eloquence on the House floor: http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/03/house-passes-bill-no-immunity-phone-companies Political writer Julian Sanchez gives a short, but thorough history of politically motivated abuse of domestic spying, demonstrating the close relationship between maintaining rigorous laws against widespread surveillance and retaining freedom of speech: http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/03/how-surveillance-hurts-free-speech Representative Michele Bachmann's op-ed in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune echoed a number of faulty examples used to shore up support for broadening spying and granting telecom immunity -- EFF Senior Staff Attorney Kurt Opsahl debunks these claims here: http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/03/rep-michele-bachmann-misleads Finally, AT&T Whistleblower Mark Klein was recently interviewed by PBS NOW in a segment that thoroughly covers the evidence of illegal spying at the AT&T facility in San Francisco and the numerous battles being waged over government spying power: http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/03/t-whistleblower-immunity-telecoms : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : * Three Strikes, Three Countries: France, Japan and Sweden The music and movie industries have been making a concerted attempt to introduce a "three strikes" rule for Net users in many countries simultaneously -- pressuring ISPs to throw their customers offline, possibly permanently, if the rightsholders report that they have been infringing. The response by national ISPs and governments has varied: in the same week as Japanese ISPs declared they would voluntarily follow such a scheme, Sweden's Ministers for Justice and Culture came out strongly against shutting down subscribers in their country. The furthest ahead in its plans is France. The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) lobbied for France's "Olivennes Report," an agreement brokered last year between the ISPs, rightsholders and the French government to enforce such a system. Denis Olivennes, the author of the report, is also the director of FNAC, France's largest record shop chain. The Swedish government, in rejecting "three strikes", noted that shutting down an Internet subscription was "a wide-reaching measure that could have serious repercussions in society". That's the kind of wider policy consideration that France and Japan needs to consider. This is more than a fight between the entertainment and broadband industries: this is about infrastructure, and citizen's access and freedoms online. But right now, some countries seem to be falling over themselves to discover its disadvantages -- without any true investigation into what will happen to their citizens or their networks if they do. For this complete post by EFF International Outreach Coordinator Danny O'Brien: http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/03/three-strikes-three-countries : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : * Wanted: Prior Art to Bust Firepond/Polaris Patent The Patent Busting Project fights back against bogus patents by filing requests for reexamination against the worst offenders. EFF has successfully pushed the Patent and Trademark Office to reexamine four of the ten patents on our Most Wanted list, and now we need your help to bust another. A company called Polaris has a patent on a method for telling whether or not an incoming message (e.g., an email) is a simple, standard request that can be answered automatically, and, if so, for answering it. To bust this overly broad patent, we need to find prior art that describes a product made before 1997 in this way. We anticipate that a lot of useful prior art will lie in the area of helpdesk or customer service automation or in server software. Consider specifically: * Helpdesk automation systems that automatically respond to user queries, or * Systems that help customer service operatives identify solutions to user problems by means of both rule and case databases. Where to send information on prior art: priorart@eff.org http://w2.eff.org/patent/wanted/contribute.php?p=firepond For a more detailed description of the Firepond/Polaris patent: http://w2.eff.org/patent/wanted/firepond/firepond-polaris-prior-art.pdf For this complete post by EFF Intellectual Property Fellow Emily Berger: http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/03/wanted-prior-art-bust-firepond-polaris-patent : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : * Thanks for Making the EFF Pioneer Awards a Success! Earlier this month, EFF celebrated the work of an open source advocate, a Canadian copyfighter, and an AT&T whistleblower at this year's Pioneer Awards fundraiser in San Diego! Congratulations to award winners Mitchell Baker and the Mozilla Foundation, Michael Geist, and Mark Klein for leading the way on the electronic frontier! The event was made possible with the generous support of platinum sponsor TCHO, "a new chocolate company for a new generation of chocolate enthusiasts." Founded by Wired co-founder Louis Rossetto and legendary chocolatier and former technologist Timothy Childs, TCHO aims to produce obsessively good dark chocolate, where Silicon Valley start-up meets San Francisco food culture. TCHO held a "beta sampling" between "A" and "B" flavors, and "B" won by a landslide. TCHO will incorporate sampling results into future chocolate releases. Emily Richards, president of MP3tunes, won the business card drawing for the night. EFF would also like to thank the O'Reilly ETech organizers for providing space and assistance; and our bronze sponsors MOG, Three Rings, Barracuda Networks, and Atomic PR. Kudos also to keynote speaker Michael Robertson. Finally, many thanks are due to the 2008 Pioneer Awards judging panel, which reviewed the many nominations and decided on the final winners: Kim Alexander (President and founder, California Voter Foundation), Esther Dyson (Internet court jester and blogger, Release 0.9; founding chairman of ICANN; former chairman of EFF), Mitch Kapor (President, Kapor Enterprises; co-founder and former chairman EFF), Drazen Pantic (Co-director, Location One), Barbara Simons (IBM Research [Retired] and former president ACM), James Tyre, (Co-founder, The Censorware Project; EFF policy fellow) and Jimmy Wales, (Founder, Wikipedia; co-founder, Wikia; chair emeritus of the Wikimedia Foundation). : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : * miniLinks The week's noteworthy news, compressed. ~ FISA Attacks Fail to Sway CT Representative Rep. Joe Courtney has a good video explaining why he opposes telecom immunity, despite being attacked on the issue. http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=4557 ~ Republican Opposes Telecom Immunity A Republican candidate in North Carolina says he wants telephone companies held accountable. http://www.blueridgenow.com/article/20080318/NEWS/803180329 ~ Facebook Expands Privacy Features Facebook is making some privacy improvements -- but some changes are just theatre. http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/03/facebook-expand.html ~ Craigslist Not Liable for Postings A Circuit Court has ruled that Craigslist cannot be held liable for discriminatory housing ads posted on its site. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23672479/ ~ Fingerprinting Foreign Visitors Airlines are objecting to a government plan would require them to collect fingerprints of each visitor to the United States. http://www.usatoday.com/travel/flights/2008-03-16-fingerprints_N.htm ~ Google Book Search Gets Better Library users can now use Google Book Search's new API to get a preview of books in the catalog. http://booksearch.blogspot.com/2008/03/preview-books-anywhere-with-new-google.html ~ Hollywood Gets Into Spying Game MPAA chairman says he wants to work with ISPs to police networks and fight copyright infringement. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/art-brodsky/movie-spies-are-fun-mov_b_91788.html ~ Indie Labels Bypassing iTunes Independent record labels are going straight to the consumer, opening their own stores with high-quality audio and hard-to-find tracks. http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080317-indie-labels-bypass-itunes-give-digital-sales-a-shot.html ~ "All You Can Eat" iTunes? Apple is considering giving customers access to the entire iTunes library for a premium. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/03/20/BU8TVMMS4.DTL : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : * Administrivia EFFector is published by: The Electronic Frontier Foundation 454 Shotwell Street San Francisco CA 94110-1914 USA +1 415 436 9333 (voice) +1 415 436 9993 (fax) http://www.eff.org/ Editor: Richard Esguerra, EFF Activist richard@eff.org Membership & donation queries: membership@eff.org General EFF, legal, policy, or online resources queries: information@eff.org Reproduction of this publication in electronic media is encouraged. Signed articles do not necessarily represent the views of EFF. To reproduce signed articles individually, please contact the authors for their express permission. Press releases and EFF announcements & articles may be reproduced individually at will. Current and back issues of EFFector are available via the Web at: http://www.eff.org/effector/
