EFFector Vol. 22, No. 05 Friday 20, 2009 editor@eff.org A Publication of the Electronic Frontier Foundation ISSN 1062-9424 : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : In our 500th issue: Since EFF was founded in 1990, we've seen digital technologies become increasingly central to our lives as citizens, consumers, creators, innovators and social beings. And over those nearly 19 years, EFF has been at the forefront of the fight to ensure that these new tools are used to enhance and extend our freedoms, rather than to restrict them. And for the past 18 years we have kept our members and supporters informed of our work with an electronic newsletter delivered directly to their inbox every week or two -- a novel idea in 1990. The first issue of EFFector was sent out on December 10, 1990. Today, we have just delivered the 500th issue to the inboxes of over 43,000 people. Here are some highlights of our work that have been covered in EFFector: * May 1, 1991: EFF filed a complaint in Steve Jackson Games v. U.S. Secret Service, claiming digital communications require the same safeguards against unreasonable search and seizures as other communications. * April 16, 1993: EFF published criticism of the Clipper Chip proposal, a government plan to force communications technology providers to build government surveillance backdoors in their products. * December 19, 1996: EFF convinced a federal district court that software is speech in Bernstein v. DOJ. * July 17, 1998: EFF announced defeat of the government's Data Encryption Standard (DES) in less than three days using relatively simple equipment and engineering. * January 20, 2000: EFF defended publishers of 2600 Magazine, which the MPAA had sued for distributing and linking to software that helps consumers make back-ups of their DVDs. * June 6, 2001: EFF brought suit in Felten v. RIAA, asserting security researcher Ed Felten's right to present a paper describing flaws in a proposed music watermarking technology at a conference. * June 6, 2002: In Newmark v. Turner Broadcasting Service, EFF filed suit against the entertainment industry in defense of customers' right to use a digital VCR for saving shows and skipping commercials. * June 30, 2003: EFF launched a campaign to oppose RIAA attempts to shut down P2P networks and sue music fans. * September 30, 2004: EFF brought the first successful suit against abusive online copyright claims in Online Policy Group v. Diebold. * June 27, 2005: The Supreme Court in MGM v. Grokster rejected an attempt to hold developers of devices with multiple uses automatically liable for infringing actions of their users. * January 31, 2006: EFF sued AT&T for helping the National Security Agency spy on millions of ordinary Americans in Hepting v. AT&T. * May 26, 2006: EFF successfully defended the right of online journalists to require their ISPs to protect the confidentiality of their sources in Apple v. Does. * June 16, 2007: EFF's FOIA project secured the release of documents concerning the FBI's use of National Security Letters. Revelations from the documents were cited during the Senate investigations that led to the resignation of then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. * September 18, 2008: EFF filed suit directly against the NSA in Jewel v. NSA, seeking to stop the illegal warrantless wiretapping program. Thank you, EFFector readers, for being with us every step of the way! : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : EFF Updates * Facebook Battle Ends in Major Victory for Users Facebook users have prevailed in a victory that reflects the power of social networking as a tool for change. http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/02/facebook-battle-ends-major-victory-users * New Zealand Goes All Black Against Three Strikes Thousands are turning their sites and their icons black to mourn the coming enforcement of the provision. http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/02/new-zealand-goes-all-black-against-three-strikes * Apple Responds to EFF by Claiming that iPhone Jailbreaking is Illegal Jailbreaking an iPhone constitutes copyright infringement and a DMCA violation, says Apple in comments filed in opposition to EFF's proposed exception for jailbreaking filed with the Copyright Office as part of the 2009 DMCA triennial rulemaking. http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/02/apple-says-jailbreaking-illegal * Do New Obama Policies Affect Bush Era Cases? According to the Justice Department, it's a bad idea for the court to wait to see whether the new administration's open government guidelines will have any impact on EFF's FOIA requests. http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/02/dazed-and-confused * RAM, Litigation, and Battlestar Galactica In an amicus brief filed in the appellate proceedings, EFF and others urged the Ninth Circuit to overturn the district court's conclusion that data held solely in RAM is subject to discovery. http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/02/ram-litigation-and-battlestar-galactica * Another iPhone App Banned: South Park Apple argued that restricting the iPhone to run only software from the iTunes App Store is great for application creators. Apparently, they didn't mean the creators of South Park. http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/02/south-park-iphone-app-denied * Majority Want Investigations on Warrantless Wiretapping A new USA Today/Gallup poll finds that a clear majority of Americans favor at least some kind of investigation into whether Bush administration officials and policies violated the law. http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/02/poll-majority-want-investigations-warrantless-wire : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : miniLinks ~ As Data Collecting Grows, Privacy Erodes Third party data collection is growing, making real privacy more and more elusive. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/16/technology/16link.html ~ NSA Offers Billions for Skype Hack The NSA has a bundle of cash for anyone that can design software that will allow eavesdropping on Skype communications. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/12/nsa_offers_billions_for_skype_pwnage/ ~ YouTube Tests Download and CC Licensing Under a new plan, creators could allow others to download and remix their work on Creative Commons licenses. http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/12757 : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : Announcements * Come See EFF at SCaLE and eTech! The 7th Annual Southern California Linux Expo will be February 20-22, 2009, at the Los Angeles Airport Westin Hotel. EFF will have a booth on the expo floor, which is open on the 21st and 22nd. Stop by to say hello, and update your membership! EFF will also be at the O'Reilly Emerging Technologies Conference in San Diego, California. Please visit our booth and grab some EFF swag during exhibit hours. We look forward to seeing you! Use code et09sed40 to get a 40% discount on registration for eTech! For more information on SCaLE: http://scale7x.socallinuxexpo.org/ For more information on eTech: http://en.oreilly.com/et2009/public/content/home : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : Administrivia EFFector is published by: The Electronic Frontier Foundation http://www.eff.org/about Editor: Sara Bassett, Membership Services Assistant sara@eff.org Membership & donation queries: membership@eff.org General EFF, legal, policy, or online resources queries: information@eff.org Back issues of EFFector are available at: http://www.eff.org/effector/
