Lawsuit Questions FCC's Authority to Mandate Copy Protection on All Hardware That Receives Digital TV Signals Washington, DC - When the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) broadcast flag mandate goes into effect next year, it will be unlawful to sell devices that can tune in digital television without imposing copy protection...

Geneva - The United Nation's (UN) World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) has adopted a "development agenda" that acknowledges the need for balance in worldwide policy on trademark, copyright, and patents. In the past, WIPO has been roundly resistant to attempts to balance the interests of copyright holders, who make up...

Contract and Copyright Trump Fair Use and Competition in BnetD Case St. Louis - Fair use was dealt a harsh blow today in a Federal Court decision that held that programmers are not allowed to create free software designed to work with commercial products. At issue in the case...

San Francisco, CA - Last week, House Republicans circulated draft legislation that contains provisions from the never-introduced "Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003," otherwise known as "PATRIOT II." The draft legislation is meant to implement intelligence reforms recommended by the 9/11 Commission Final Report. But its reach goes far...

Washington, DC - The federal government on Tuesday announced plans to order all airlines to turn over the personal records of every air passenger who traveled domestically in June 2004, for use in testing the Transportation Security Administration's latest passenger-profiling scheme, "Secure Flight." The TSA's previous plans for a profiling...

Consumer and Public Interest Groups Seek to Narrow and Invalidate Ambiguous Patents that Harm Society Washington, DC - Consumers Union, the publisher of Consumer Reports magazine, and two public interest organizations, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and Public Knowledge, filed a friend-of-the-court brief today with the US Court of...

Electronic Frontier Foundation Supports BBC's "Creative Archive" London, UK -- The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) provided written testimony on Saturday to the UK government committee evaluating the charter renewal for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). The testimony supports the BBC's request to build the "Creative Archive," a groundbreaking project that...

Law "Blacked Out" More than a Million Legitimate Websites The Federal District Court in Philadelphia ruled today that a state law requiring Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to block access to websites that allegedly host child pornography violates the First Amendment. In order to comply with the law, ISPs had...

The Washington Post reports that the House Judiciary Committee has marked up and reported H.R. 4077, the Piracy Deterrence and Education Act (PDEA). The measure is now ready for a vote by the entire House of Representatives. The Senate has taken no action on any companion bill. The PDEA...

Court Rules Copyright Law Cannot Be Used to Stifle Competition for Garage Door Openers Washington, DC - A federal appeals court in Washington, DC, yesterday upheld a lower court ruling that allows the marketing of "universal" remote controls for garage door openers, an important decision that helps pave the...

EFF Protests Anti-Privacy Ruling in Appeal to the Ninth Circuit California - US citizens may no longer have the right to travel without being searched. So says the District Court for the Northern District of California, which recently dismissed a case that questioned whether it is constitutional for airport security...

Agrees to Postpone Closed Voting Examiner Meetings in Face of ACLU Lawsuit Austin, TX - The Texas Secretary of State today agreed to indefinitely postpone a meeting of the state's voting examiners following the filing of a lawsuit by the ACLU of Texas and a Texas voter. The Electronic Frontier...

California - In a ruling the Electronic Frontier Foundation hailed as a step forward, the United States District Court for the Northern District of California ruled today that Visa and several other credit card companies would not be held liable for the copyright infringements of its business customers...

EFF and National Voter Rights Organizations Support Appeal to State's Highest Court Maryland - Lawyers representing eight Maryland citizens today filed a petition with the state supreme court seeking to decertify or fix Diebold voting machines that computer security experts have deemed insecure. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), working with...

Lawsuit Remedy Should Permit Secure, Accessible Voting Systems Akron, OH - Organizations focused on election integrity today asked a federal judge to choose secure electronic voting machines with voter-verified paper audit trails as the remedy for a lawsuit challenging the use of punch card and certain kinds of optical scan...

Dept. of Homeland Security Puts Stake in the Heart of Passenger Profiling System Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said yesterday that development of CAPPS II - the government's controversial airline passenger surveillance program – will not continue. As reported by USA Today: Asked Wednesday whether the program could be considered...

One Year Before the Broadcast Flag Locks Up DTV Signals, EFF Announces Plans for a "Build Your Own DTV" Cookbook San Francisco - One year from today, on July 1, 2005, an FCC regulation known as the Broadcast Flag will lock up your digital television signals. But EFF's "DTV...

The First Circuit Court of Appeals dealt a grave blow to the privacy of Internet communications with its decision today in the case of U.S. v. Councilman. The court held that it was not a violation of criminal wiretap laws for the provider of an email service to monitor...

EFF Attorneys Play Devil's Advocates, Post Mock Inducement Complaint against Apple San Francisco - With Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and his colleagues pushing hard to bring the Inducing Infringement of Copyright Act ("Induce Act") to the full Senate for a vote, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is already dreading the...

Industry, Academic, Public Interest Groups Support Bill To Improve Consumer Rights and Protect Technological Innovation A broad group of organizations and companies representing diverse sectors of the U.S. economy has come together to form a new organization, the Personal Technology Freedom Coalition. With members ranging from the telephone industry to...

Based on arguments made by civil liberties group the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and attorney Albert Zakarian for defendant Mike Treworgy, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals today ruled that DirecTV cannot sue individuals for "mere possession" of technology that is capable of intercepting DirecTV's satellite signal. "We're glad...

Idaho Student Acquitted of Terrorism Charges In a victory for the First Amendment rights of Internet users, jurors returned a verdict today acquitting University of Idaho graduate student Sami Omar Al-Hussayen of terrorism charges. Hussayen had been charged in federal court with providing "material support" to terrorists in the form...

EFF Backs California Senate Bill Protecting Anonymous Speech Online San Francisco and Berkeley, CA - Your employer just laid off 300 of your colleagues without notice and without severance pay. So you go online and post an angry, anonymous comment about it on a Yahoo! message board. Although you could...

EFF Urges Court to Find USA PATRIOT Act Powers Unconstitutional San Francisco -- The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) yesterday filed a friend-of-the court brief supporting the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in a suit challenging the constitutionality of National Security Letters (NSLs). Authorized by the USA PATRIOT Act and...