Featured FEN Organizations
February 5th, 2013
EFF Joins 24 US Civil Society Groups in Demanding a Baseline of Transparency in TPP Negotiations
With every coming round of negotiations over the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)—a trade agreement that carries intellectual property provisions that could have hugely harmful consequences for the Internet and our digital rights—the Office of the US Trade Representative has continually whittled away at any remaining opportunity for the public to have input into the drafting process. The TPP has been under negotiation for three years and the opaqueness has only worsened.
EFF has therefore joined a diverse coalition of civil society organizations and public stakeholders to send a letter to Barbara Weisel, the lead US trade negotiator for the TPP, to clearly outline our baseline demands for transparency and increased civil society engagement in these secretive backdoor meetings.
Our demands include that the schedule of the meetings be published well in advance to allow ample time for civil society representatives to organize travel and accomodations near the negotiation venue; that we be granted access to the venue itself (which we were denied in the last round in Auckland, New Zealand); and that a requirement be made to hold stakeholder presentations and tabling events at a time when official negotiations are not in session. These "stakeholder" events are ...
February 5th, 2013
Another Senator Blames Video Games for Violence
Senator Charles Grassley
Senator Lamar Alexander (R-KY) wasn’t the only senator to blame video games for gun violence last week. Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA) claimed during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing that “[there] are too many video games that celebrate the mass killing of innocent people — games that despite attempts at industry self-regulation find their way into the hands of children.”
The Hill reported on Grassley’s comments, during which Grassley mentioned Call of Duty: Modern Warfare specifically because Anders Behring Breivik, the Norway mass shooter, cited the game as a training tool. During his statement, Grassley asked, “Where is the artistic value in shooting innocent civilians?” He further stated that he shared Vice President Biden’s disbelief in manufacturer claims that video games do not have an impact on real world violence.
Scientific evidence does not support Grassley’s (or Vice President Biden’s) conclusion. The Washington Post‘s Max Fisher recently looked at the statistics related to gun violence in the countries with the highest rate of violent video game usage and found that the United States was a statistical outlier in a trend that actually shows a slight decrease in gun violence as per capita video game usage increases. ...
February 5th, 2013
Final settlement reached in Davis County
Cross-posted on the Freedom to Read Foundation Blog.
A final settlement was reached last week in the Davis County, Utah book removal case. In addition to returning the book In Our Mothers’ House unrestricted to school library shelves, the school district agreed not to remove or restrict access to any library books based on Utah’s ban on having “instructional materials” that contain “advocacy of homosexuality.”
In their blog post on the settlement, the ACLU gave a hat tip to FTRF:
“We received invaluable assistance from the Freedom to Read Foundation, which helped provide resources for challenging the restriction and identifying expert witnesses who could testify about how In Our Mothers’ House was well within the mainstream of children’s literature and that the school’s decision to restrict access to the book violated bedrock principles of school library science.”
Click here to read the full settlement.
Our congratulations to the plaintiffs, the ACLU, and to all those in the district whose First Amendment rights were in jeopardy.
February 5th, 2013
Speech Code of the Month: Wesleyan University
FIRE announces its Speech Code of the Month for February 2013: Wesleyan University.
Although Wesleyan is a private university, it claims to value free speech. Its Student Handbook states that (PDF) "Academic institutions exist for the transmission of knowledge, the pursuit of truth, the development of students, and the general well-being of society. Free inquiry and free expression are indispensable to the attainment of these goals." Moreover, the handbook also contains a statement (PDF) on the "Responsibility of the University to Its Members" which explicitly provides that
It is the responsibility of every member of the University to respect the rights and privileges of all others in the University as enumerated below.
1. Freedom of assembly, speech, belief, and the right of petition ....
The university's speech codes directly contradict these statements by placing substantial restrictions on students' expressive rights. Most notably, the same policy that obligates the university and its members to respect the right of free speech also requires "every member of the University" to refrain from
[A]ctions that may be harmful to the health or emotional stability of the individual or that degrade the individual or infringe upon his/her personal dignity.
This provision infringes on protected speech ...
February 5th, 2013
In the wake of social justice activist Aaron Swartz’s tragic death, Internet users around the country are taking a hard look at the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), the federal anti-hacking law. As we’ve noted, the CFAA has lots of problems. In this three-part series, we'll explain these problems in detail and why they need to be fixed. In part 1, we described the kinds of innocuous activites that are terms of service violations and therefor could be deemed criminal.
As Congress discusses Aaron's Law, it will debate how the law should treat users who work their way around technical measures aimed at identification, tracking, or preventing interoperability with other programs or services. Right now, the law is written in a way that treats those folks as criminals just the same as those who bypass access barriers in order to steal information or commit other malicious acts. The current draft of Aaron’s Law, posted on Reddit by Rep. Lofgren on February 1, goes part of the way to fixing this, but not all the way yet.
Of course, companies are free to use technological measures to serve their business purposes, such as efforts to try ...
February 5th, 2013
The Orphan Works Problem: Time to Fix It
Can Congress embrace and enact sensible copyright policy? Four years ago, for a brief shining moment, it seemed the answer might be yes, as various interested stakeholders rallied around long-overdue legislation that would have helped to fix the orphan works problem. Orphan works are those whose owner cannot be located. Consequently, those who would like to use and share these works may hesitate to do so out of fear that they could later be found liable for copyright infringement because they didn’t get permission. In 2008, a variety of interested parties managed to come up with a way to limit that liability. It wasn’t perfect, but it represented real progress.
Sadly, that effort collapsed, thanks in part to a vigorous FUD campaign. In the past several months, however, momentum started slowly building once again toward a solution. Last spring, scholars, librarians and activists gathered in Berkeley, California, to discuss possible solutions. Shortly thereafter, the Copyright Office asked the public to weigh in. Today, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Public Knowledge responded, as did many others.
Consider the following examples under the current system:
- A library has a vast archive of photos and music from the Depression Era. It would ...
February 4th, 2013
22 Activists Sentenced to Prison
A court in Vietnam on Monday sentenced 22 activists to jail terms ranging from 12 years to life in prison for “aiming to overthrow” the one-party communist government, according to rights groups and relatives of the accused who condemned the lengthy jail terms.
The verdict against the members of the little known group, Hoi Dong Cong Luat Cong An Bia Son, was delivered by a court in Phu Yen province following a five-day trial and marks the latest in a series of harsh punishments by the government as part of a crackdown on dissent.
The group, whose name translates as the Council for the Laws and Public Affairs of Bia Son (a provincial mountain), is led by 65-year-old Phan Van Thu and is considered a terrorist organization by Vietnamese authorities, who say it has several hundred members and branches in a number of central and southern provinces.
Nguyen Tan Xe, the father of defendant Nguyen Thai Binh, told RFA’s Vietnamese Service that his son and the other group members on trial had all received varying lengths of jail time.
“They handed out sentences to all of them,” Xe said. “One person was sentenced to life, while the others received [a ...
February 4th, 2013
NYC Lawmakers Threaten Brooklyn College Over Controversial Forum
The last few days have seen controversy brewing over a planned event at Brooklyn College. The planned February 7 event, titled "BDS Movement Against Israel" and co-sponsored by several student groups as well as Brooklyn College's political science department, is slated to feature Judith Butler and Omar Barghouti, two proponents of the push to boycott, divest from, and sanction Israel (hence the "BDS" shorthand).
Particularly controversial has been the political science department's co-sponsorship of the event—which some have criticized as constituting an official endorsement of the event and the views of its speakers by Brooklyn College. Political Science Chair Paisley Currah has released a clarifying statement promising that "We welcome—indeed encourage—requests to co-sponsor speakers and events from all student groups, departments, and programs." Currah further writes that "[e]ach and every request will be given equal consideration." The college, meanwhile, has firmly defended the department's academic freedom, with spokesperson Jeremy Thompson telling the New York Post that
As a university, we are committed to academic freedom and the free exchange of ideas. We don't tell student groups or academic departments what topics they can or cannot discuss.
(Glad to hear this positive attitude towards academic freedom, since that hasn't always ...
February 4th, 2013
CBLDF Signs Letter Protesting Video Game Ban in NJ Library
Last Friday, the National Coalition Against Censorship sent a letter to the Paterson Free Public Library in Paterson, New Jersey, to protest a new policy that bans the playing of certain video games, in particular first-person shooters, on library computers. CBLDF is one of the organizations that signed the letter, which argues that the video games are protected by the First Amendment and cannot therefor be censored by officials at the library.
The letter takes library officials to task for subscribing to the same unsupported views that led to video game bans in Massachusetts, a presidential recommendation and proposed bill mandating research on video games and violence, and the fallacious claim by one senator that video games are a “bigger problem” than guns. NCAC writes in their letter:
The library has not offered any sound justification for removing access to specific games. Instead, according to published reports, librarians are taking this action to “prevent our kids from learning these behaviors.’’ This assumes that viewers will simply imitate behaviors represented in fictional settings without any independent mental intermediation, a proposition that is palpably false and that the library implicitly rejects by offering access to all sorts of internet sites ...
February 4th, 2013
Rebooting Computer Crime Law Part 1: No Prison Time For Violating Terms of Service
In the wake of social justice activist Aaron Swartz’s tragic death, Internet users around the country are taking a hard look at the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), the federal anti-hacking law. As we’ve noted, the CFAA has lots of problems. In this three-part series, we'll explain these problems in detail and why they need to be fixed.
Here is the CFAA's greatest flaw: the law makes it illegal to access a computer without authorization or in a way that exceeds authorization, but doesn’t clearly explain what that means. This murkiness gives the government tons of leeway to be creative in bringing charges.
For example, overzealous prosecutors have gone so far as to argue that the CFAA criminalizes violations of private agreements like an employer’s computer use policy or a web site’s terms of service. Thankfully, some federal courts have recognized the absurdity of this argument, but Congress needs to fix the law to make it crystal clear. Vague laws are dangerous precisely because they give prosecutors and courts too much discretion to arbitrarily penalize normal, everyday behavior.
So, under the government’s theory, what innocuous activities could the CFAA criminalize? Here are a few things that could ...