In our 615th issue:
Law Enforcement Demanded Cell Phone User Info Well Over 1.3 Million Times Last Year
Federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies have made over 1.3 million demands for user cell phone data in the last year, "seeking text messages, caller locations and other information." The New York Times called the new findings proof of "an explosion in cellphone surveillance" in the United States -- much of it done without a warrant. It's time for cell phone companies to start producing regular transparency reports about the data they hand to the government. And Congress should see this as a call-to-action to pass robust privacy legislation mandating warrants for cell phone subscriber, cell tower, and GPS data.Charles Carreon Drops Bogus Lawsuit Against The Oatmeal Creator
Attorney Charles Carreon dropped his bizarre lawsuit against The Oatmeal creator Matthew Inman, ending his legal campaign against Inman's humorous and creative public criticism of a frivolous cease and desist letter that Carreon wrote on behalf of his client Funny Junk. EFF and co-counsel Venkat Balasubramani represented Inman in the case, which was a typical SLAPP -- a strategic lawsuit against public participation.Top 10 Takedowns in Google's Copyright Transparency Report
When Google released its new Copyright Transparency Report on takedown requests of its search results, we got new insights into the massive number of complaints the search giant receives. We also saw that there are many requests that don't seem to meet the standard of a "good faith belief" of infringement. EFF compiled a list of the top 10 takedowns that stood out as misuses of the DMCA.EFF Updates
EFF has joined several national library associations in urging a federal court to find that the fair use doctrine permitted the creation of the valuable HathiTrust Digital Library (HDL). Although the case was filed long after the more famous Google Books lawsuit, Authors Guild v. HathiTrust presents a similar issue: whether digitization of books without granting full text access to the public is a legal fair use of copyrighted material.EFF's Defend Innovation campaign has elicited thousands of responses with varied viewpoints about software patents; some people think we go too far, while others believe we do not go far enough.
Despite Twitter's (and our) best efforts, it has been ordered to disclose to the government all of the information it has on an Occupy Wall Street protester. Twitter had stepped up to challenge the subpoena, and EFF submitted an amicus brief in support of their motion to quash.
We are partnering with MuckRock, an open government organization, to send out public records requests to every local law enforcement agency with a drone authorization from the FAA. The goal is to learn more about how drones are being used and to stop potential surveillance. In addition, MuckRock is offering its tools and inviting users to help write their own public records requests to police agencies in their town.
A controversial anti-privacy data retention mandate is notably absent from the child protection bill recently introduced by Rep. Lamar Smith. Smith had previously introduced H.R. 1981, which would have mandated that ISPs collect and maintain data on all Internet users not suspected of any crime.
Australian company Telstra admits to tracking mobile phone users; the ineffectiveness of a proposed European Union Data Protection regulation; an international take on Twitter's transparency report.
Bassel Khartabil, a longtime member of the open source software community and Creative Commons volunteer, has been detained in Syria since March 12, 2012, as part of a wave of arrests made in the Mazzeh district of Damascus.
EFF joined Knowledge Ecology International, Public Knowledge, and Public Citizen in a statement concerning a new copyright "3-step test" proposed in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations.
miniLinks
After fighting off a bogus lawsuit with EFF's help, The Oatmeal creator Matthew Inman published photos of over $200k raised for various charities.Rep. Darrell Issa, who helped lead the campaign against SOPA, recently signed the Declaration of Internet Freedom.
Yochai Benkler, Faculty Co-Director of Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Society, speaks in depth about the ripple effects of the net's activism against SOPA/PIPA.
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