Berkeley’s Long Haul Infoshop finally has its computers back, but its legal battle with UC Berkeley is far from settled.

Jennifer Granick, Civil Liberties Director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) in San Francisco, said she has asked the campus police to delete all the information they seized during an Aug. 27 raid at the Infoshop.

On Tuesday, January 29, at 9:30 a.m, members of the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee will hold a public hearing on reform of the state secrets privilege, which the Executive Branch has often used in recent years to hinder judicial inquiry into controversial anti-terrorism policies such as the CIA's rendition program and the NSA's warrantless wiretapping program.

Senior Staff Attorney Kevin Bankston of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) will appear at Tuesday's hearing to explain how the Administration has abused the privilege by seeking dismissal of all lawsuits concerning the NSA program -- including EFF's lawsuit against AT&T for assisting with the NSA -- based on blanket assertions of secrecy. Bankston will urge the committee to pass legislation to reform the privilege and clear the way for such lawsuits to proceed in court fairly and securely. Such reform is the most appropriate response to phone companies like AT&T that are lobbying Congress for retroactive amnesty, based on the claim that the government's assertion of the state secrets privilege prevents them from defending themselves.

Despite the ongoing controversy surrounding the Bush administration's claims that executive power alone allows it to engage in warrantless domestic surveillance that public officials and legal experts across the political spectrum have said violates the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and the U.S. Constitution, only one question on the issue has been asked of any presidential candidate of either party during the numerous debates over the past year.

One of the issues surrounding the debate over Bush's warrantless surveillance concerns the telecommunication firms that assisted the NSA program. On May 11, 2006, USA Today reported that the NSA "has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth." Following additional reporting on the issue, several organizations filed lawsuits against the telecommunications companies alleging violations of the U.S. Constitution, FISA, and other state and federal laws. In a class-action lawsuit against AT&T, the Electronic Frontier Foundation alleged that the company is "collaborating with the NSA in a massive warrantless surveillance program that illegally tracks the domestic and foreign communications and communication records of millions of Americans."

When college kids make mashups of Hollywood movies, do they violate the law? Not necessarily, according to a study Peter Jaszi and I completed at American University. In fact, those funny little videos you watch when you’re supposed to be working—if you’ve missed “Dramatic Chipmunk,” the best five seconds on the Internet ever (Yes, Google it now)—are important harbingers of a more participatory media culture. Defending the rights of their creators to use copyrighted material without permission may be defending the future of media for political and social action, as well.

Content providers worried about piracy and theft, like NBC Universal and Viacom, are working out deals with online video providers like Veoh and MySpace, for specialized filters and software to identify copyrighted material. These filters will “take down” videos that are copies of copyrighted material. The trouble is, nobody has figured out how to protect online videos that use copyrighted material under fair use. As Fred von Lohmann, a lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, says, it’s like going tuna fishing without a dolphin-safe net.

The woman linked to the suicide of a 13-year-old girl who was tormented through MySpace could be charged with fraud after the case sparked worldwide outrage.

A federal grand jury in Los Angeles has subpoenaed the MySpace records of Lori Drew, the Missouri woman who created a false account on the social networking website to communicate with her daughter's friend, sources told The Los Angeles Times.

f Ms Drew is charged with defrauding MySpace by creating a fake profile, the case could have serious implications for internet privacy.

"The right to speak freely online is hugely important. Whistle-blowers create pseudonyms," an attorney for legal advocacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation told the Times.

The controversy surrounding a fake MySpace account that allegedly drove 13-year-old Megan Meier to commit suicide in October 2006 is raising new questions about the use of pseudonyms and false identities on social networking sites.

Kurt Opsahl, senior staff attorney for the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation), said that there is a long history of anonymous speech in the United States, stretching all the way back to the Federalist Papers in 1787. Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay wrote the Federalist Papers under the pseudonym "Publius" to advocate ratification of the United States Constitution, which was in danger of being rejected by New York state.

"If a prosecutor can maintain a case against a citizen who is merely using a pseudonym online, without more, it can have a chilling effect on free speech," Opsahl argued. "People can and should be responsible for their online actions, but one should address the actions, not the pseudonym."

Apple, Inc. settled a lawsuit out of court on Dec. 20 against Nicholas M. Ciarelli ’08 over leaks about its product plans on Ciarelli’s Web site, “Think Secret.”

The lawsuit ended a drawn-out effort by Apple to better control its product launches by targeting sites that published product information prior to official releases, as Think Secret has done on numerous occasions.

“[Although] the court never ruled on that motion, I think that if the case had gone to court, Think Secret would have won,” said Kurt Opsahl, a senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Apple, Inc. settled a lawsuit out of court on Dec. 20 against Nicholas M. Ciarelli ’08 over leaks about its product plans on Ciarelli’s Web site, “Think Secret.”

The lawsuit ended a drawn-out effort by Apple to better control its product launches by targeting sites that published product information prior to official releases, as Think Secret has done on numerous occasions.

“[Although] the court never ruled on that motion, I think that if the case had gone to court, Think Secret would have won,” said Kurt Opsahl, a senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

One might argue that China and the Internet are both like high-speed trains. Both are growing at an extremely rapid pace, and both are apparently unstoppable global economic forces that are reshaping the economic landscape. Unfortunately, one might also argue that they are on a collision course.

The intense world scrutiny could help "cast a spotlight" on China's policies, Danny O'Brien, international outreach coordinator for the Electronic Frontier Foundation , told the E-Commerce Times. On the other hand, "my fear is that it will also lead to more careful and secret repression, now that there's such strong pressure on the Chinese authorities to look 'cleaner than clean.'"

Visitors to ThinkSecret.com, a well-known site which publishes rumours and gossip about forthcoming Apple products, found an intriguing notice on the front page last Thursday.
'Apple and ThinkSecret have settled their lawsuit, reaching an agreement that results in a positive solution for both sides,' it announced. 'As part of the confidential settlement, no sources were revealed and ThinkSecret will no longer be published. Nick Ciarelli, ThinkSecret's publisher, said: "I'm pleased to have reached this amicable settlement, and will now be able to move forward with my college studies and broader journalistic pursuits."'

AppleInsider and O'Grady's PowerPage fought back - with legal assistance from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) - arguing that the first amendment to the US Constitution protected them from being compelled to disclose their sources, a provision originally designed to protect journalists. Apple won at the first hurdle, but lost on appeal.

'The motion,' says Kurt Opsahl of the EFF, 'stopped Apple's lawsuit in its tracks and raised the prospect that Apple would have had to pay ThinkSecret substantial sums for its legal fees... While the court has never ruled, we believe the motion was meritorious, and Apple was looking at an embarrassing and expensive loss.'