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January 31st, 2013
“Banned”: An Impressive Claymation Video About Book Censorship
Matthew Dunbar’s short film is one of our 2012 Youth Free Expression Project Film Contest semifinalists.
Like what you see? “Like” this video on YouTube and it could become our 2012 People’s Choice Award Winner!
January 31st, 2013
Pics: TOSBack Hackathon Going on Now at Campus Party Brazil
Recentemente, EFF está trabalhando com TOS;DR para hospedar uma hackathon na Campus Party Brasil, no Centro de Convenções do Parque Anhembi em São Paulo, Brasil. Novidades sobre o conteúdo, inscrição e agenda estão disponíveis no site oficial do evento. Abaixo algumas fotos do evento.
Você está na Campus Party Brasil? Então mande um e-mail para o Pedro Markun pedro@markun.com.br para participar de nossa hackathon.
Nossa hackathon foi desenvolvida para melhorar o TOSBack, o software livre que automaticamente monitora os termos de uso dos sites mais populares. Você pode participar submetendo novas regras (veja o guia em Português aqui) ou ajudando no re-design.
Quero agradecer especialmente ao Pedro Markun (@Markun), Guilherme Otero (@GuiOtero), Cecilia Tanaka (@Cecilia_Tanaka), Jimm Stout (@JimmStout) e Hugo Roy @HugoRoyD) por tornar esse evento possível e um sucesso.
January 31st, 2013
Bye-Bye 30 Rock, A Show that Was Censored And Wouldn’t Shut Up About It
In honor of tonight’s series finale of “30 Rock,” a great show that had the balls to poke fun at NBC censors, everyone should play their “Censor It” game. The game shows lines from scripts and asks you, playing the Censor, whether such offensive and prurient material should make it on the air.
After that, why not sit down and watch/re-watch the episode “Standards and Practices” from Season 6, where Kenneth is promoted to head of the aforementioned department and Live Bleeps Tracy Jordan. Just a taste:
January 31st, 2013
NCAC Defends Video Games in Massachusetts
(Source: Kotaku)
In the wake of the Newtown shootings and after receiving a complaint from one set of parents, the state of Massachusetts removed arcade games that use light-guns from state-managed rest stops along the Massachusetts Turnpike. In response, the National Coalition Against Censorship wrote a letter to Richard Davey, Secreary and CEO of the Massachusetts Department of Transportation, defending the games as constitutionally protected creative expression.
NCAC — a coalition of which CBLDF is a part and a frequent partner in our work defending comics and books — argues that the removal of the games opens the door to future acts of censorship, writing:
There is no legitimate state interest that could be asserted to justify removing specific games to appease the sensibilities of certain motorists. Moreover, by caving to the demands of one passer-by, the Department will inevitably invite others to register complaints about material they deem inappropriate. It is not a stretch to imagine someone demanding a ban on certain DVDs, magazines, or books.
The entirety of NCAC’s letter appears below. The removal of the games in Massachusetts is yet another example of how video games have been scapegoated as the cause of violent behavior, in ...
January 31st, 2013
Yesterday the National Coalition Against Censorship sent a letter to Richard Davey, Secretary and C.E.O. of the Massachusetts Department of Transportation, questioning the Department’s decision to remove a number of video games in rest areas along the Massachusetts Turnpike. Video games featuring a plastic “light gun” used to shoot onscreen game elements were removed from a number of rest areas after a visitor at one rest stop complained the games were “inappropriate.”
In the letter, NCAC Executive Director Joan Bertin noted that the Supreme Court has ruled that video games are protected speech under the First Amendment. Bertin called the state’s action to remove games because of an individual’s objection to content “constitutionally problematic.”
The letter went on to point out the precarious position the Department had put itself in by caving to demands for censorship. If the state is willing to remove video games from a public area because of a complaint, what else will it remove?
“Those who do not wish to play video games at rest-stops do not have to, just as those who do not wish to read a particular book or magazine do not have to.” Bertin wrote in the letter. “However, they do ...
The Thomas Jefferson Center For the Protection of Free Expression
January 31st, 2013
EFF Beefs Up Legal Team with Two New Staff Attorneys
EFF is pleased to welcome our newest staff attorney, Daniel Nazer. He joins our intellectual property team thanks to a generous donation from Mark Cuban, and will focus on an area of increasing importance in our digital world: patent reform.
As we’ve seen with patent controversy after patent controversy over the last year, software patents and their egregious misuse are hurting both technology innovators and technology users. EFF’s work in this area is wide-ranging, from our Defend Innovation project, to our Patent Busting Project, to our long-standing involvement in patent litigation. Daniel will bring key skills to our work, previously serving as a Residential Fellow at Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society. He also practiced at Keker & Van Nest, LLP, where he represented technology clients in patent and antitrust litigation. Additionally, Daniel is the author of The Tragicomedy of the Surfer’s Commons and Conflict and Solidarity: The Legacy of Jeff D. We are so glad that Daniel has joined EFF in this important fight to fix the software patent system.
Also joining EFF recently is Staff Attorney Nate Cardozo. But if it seems like Nate is an old hand here, that’s because ...
January 30th, 2013
Surveillance Camp III: Expansion of the Security Industry in Latin America
This is the third in a series of posts mapping global surveillance challenges discussed at EFF’s Surveillance Camp in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Recently, we wrote about how companies throughout the world increasingly face political and legal pressures to assist governments in their surveillance efforts and the many ways in which the private sector is increasingly playing a role in state surveillance. In December 2012, EFF's Surveillance and Human Rights Camp in Brazil built upon this discussion and focused a spotlight on the privatization of public security, states funding surveillance initiatives, and the lack of quantifiable research on security markets in Latin America. Here is what we learned:
Many countries, especially in Central and South America, have witnessed the privatization of public security functions. This is particularly true of those countries with a history of internal wars and military regimes, and later democratization. In these contexts, state security operations have sometimes been funded by governments (both international and national) and delegated to private sector companies.
Global studies researcher Otto Aragueta has argued persuasively that in Guatemala, “the transition to democracy produced a formal institutional reform of the security sector, which, in turn, allowed former military personnel to maintain informal mechanisms ...
January 30th, 2013
VIDEO: When it Comes to Reading Books, Teens Can Speak For Themselves
Often the books we find the most affecting, the most informative are the ones others want to ban or keep us from reading. Alexis Opper’s statement of youth power is one of our 2012 Youth Free Expression Project Film Contest semifinalists.
Like what you see? “Like” this video on YouTube and it could become our 2012 People’s Choice Award Winner!
January 30th, 2013
Fears of New Crackdown on Monks
Fourteen senior Tibetan monks have been detained and sent for “political reeducation” to a monastery in Tibet’s Nagchu prefecture, sources said, amid fears of a new crackdown on Tibetan religious leaders.
They were summoned by Chinese officials for a “meeting” on Jan. 14, and were taken into custody after leaving their monasteries, with their whereabouts at first unknown.
The monks—who come from the Sera, Drepung, and Ganden monasteries and the Jokhang Temple in the Tibet Autonomous Region’s (TAR) capital Lhasa—are being held in Nagchu’s Penkar monastery, a Swiss-based Tibetan named Sonam told RFA’s Tibetan Service on Wednesday, citing sources with contacts in Tibet.
“The Chinese authorities called the monk leaders of the monasteries to attend a special meeting, and when they left their respective monasteries they were detained and taken away,” he said, adding, “The monks of the three monasteries and the Tsuklakhang [Jokhang] are very worried.”
“They fear this may be a repetition of the crackdown on the monk leaders [of the Lhasa-area protests] of 2008, and they are concerned about the possible intentions of the Chinese authorities.”
Daily religious activities in the Lhasa-area monasteries have been “adversely affected,” Sonam said.
Sonam identified the detained monks as Khenpo [Abbot] ...
January 30th, 2013
Newspaper Thefts: A Pernicious Form of Mob Censorship
As part of Free Press Week, we have already taken a look on The Torch at universities' use of the threat of denial of funding to censor student journalists. Today, we look at another, and perhaps even more distressing, common issue that student newspapers and media outlets face: students silencing their fellow students by engaging in newspaper theft.
A problem that we have to write about all too often here at FIRE, newspaper theft is a particularly pernicious form of brute censorship on campus. It's mob censorship at its finest (or, more accurately, its coarsest), and it is yet another manifestation of college students having "unlearned liberty" over the years. While we shouldn't have to point this out, disagreeing with the viewpoint of a newspaper article, being offended by a student editorial, or feeling discomfort at the discussion of a topic does not give students the right to censor someone else's expression.
No one informed Vanessa Snow of this basic principle back in 2009. Ms. Snow, a student government official at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst (UMass Amherst), stole copies of the campus newspaper The Minuteman out of the hands of a student intending to distribute them. She ...