In our 610th issue:

• UPDATES
• MINILINKS
• ANNOUNCEMENTS

Will the Government Be Reading This? Call Your Senator to Stop Dangerous Cybersecurity Proposals

CISPA was rammed through the House of Representatives without regard for civil liberties, but the campaign to stop shortsighted cybersecurity legislation is not over yet. We've got another chance to stop these bills in the Senate and prevent the government from sacrificing online civil liberties in the name of "cybersecurity." EFF, Demand Progress, Fight for the Future, and Free Press are joining forces to oppose these bad laws. Can you help us out? Use our online tool to call your Senators and tell them to oppose dangerously vague cybersecurity legislation and support privacy protective amendments. Call now.

Apple's Crystal Prison and the Future of Open Platforms

Two weeks ago, Steve Wozniak made a public call for Apple to open its platforms for those who wish to tinker, tweak and innovate with their internals. Wozniak is right. While Apple's products have many virtues, they are marred by an ugly set of restrictions on what users and programmers can do with them. Apple's recent products, especially their mobile iOS devices, are like beautiful crystal prisons, with a wide range of restrictions imposed by the OS, the hardware, and Apple's contracts with carriers as well as contracts with developers.

TV Networks Say You're Breaking The Law When You Skip Commercials

Television networks are having a busy month trying to stamp out new TV-watching technology. EFF and Public Knowledge have filed an amicus brief supporting Aereo, a New York startup under fire from the networks for bringing local broadcast TV to the Internet. And now the same networks have told a court that skipping a commercial while watching a recorded show is illegal, suing Dish Network over its digital video recorder with automatic commercial-skipping.

EFF Updates

Reality TV Star's Lawsuit Flouts Laws Protecting Internet Speech

EFF has asked a judge today to block a reality TV star's attempts to censor critical comments about her company on a popular online fashion blog. Corri McFadden, star of the VH1 show "House of Consignment," filed suit against Purseblog.com in a California federal court after accusations about McFadden's company, eDrop-Off appeared in the comments of the blog. But California has strong legal protections against lawsuits filed to chill participation in publicly significant discussions, and now McFadden is asking the court in California to let her dismiss the lawsuit without any penalty so that she can pursue it in a state with more favorable law.

Megaupload User Asks Court for Files Back. Again.

EFF's client, Kyle Goodwin, asked the court to return the legal files he lost when Megaupload was seized last January. Since then, we've been to court, both for a hearing and a mediation, and nothing has changed. The government has failed to help third parties like Kyle get access to their data, so we have no choice but to go back to court.

Google Releases New Copyright Transparency Report

Google has expanded its transparency reports program by releasing a detailed report of content removal requests from copyright holders. The new copyright report joins its semi-annual government takedown transparency report, and covers more than 95% of the copyright takedown requests it has received for Search results since July 2011. We hope this is just the beginning: Google should extend the program to their other properties like YouTube and Blogger, and other online service providers should follow suit.

Supreme Court to Federal Circuit: Fix Ultramerical Decision

The Supreme Court said in Mayo v. Prometheus that there could be no valid patent from adding nothing novel to an otherwise unpatentable idea. At the time, we commented that this ruling should likewise apply to software patents, so that merely adding a "conventional step" to an otherwise abstract idea would not make that abstract idea patentable -- which is exactly what happened in the Ultramercial v. Hulu case. The Supreme Court has now told the Federal Circuit to reconsider its Ultramerical ruling in light of Mayo, which sounds a lot like an endorsement that Mayo's limitations on patentable subject matter should extend to software, too.

Sorry We're Not Sorry: Interview with Lino Bocchini of Falha de S. Paulo

Lino and Mario Bocchini, creators of the Brazilian parody website Falha de Sao Paulo, are currently appealing a court order that froze their domain two years ago. In September 2010, Brazilian newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo filed a lawsuit against the Falha seeking financial compensation for mimicking their layout and copy-editing, and also for "moral damages" to its reputation as a news organization. While the financial indemnities were dropped, Falha's domain remains frozen for unauthorized use of Folha's intellectual property.

This Week In Transparency

This week in transparency, the ACLU loses a FOIA case asking for torture evidence; the government watchdog group Judicial Watch revealed that Obama administration officials gave a filmmaker exclusive access to details about the classified Osama bin Laden raid while publicly warning other government officials that they would face investigation if they did the same; and a group of journalists have joined WikiLeaks and their counsel in suing the federal government over the extreme secrecy in the trial of Bradley Manning.

miniLinks

Privacy is Awesome

Fight for the Future's latest campaign creates a handy guide to meeting with your Senators to oppose the cybersecurity legislation.

The many uses (and privacy dangers) of US police drones

A cartoon in the Sunday New York Times shows some of the privacy-invasive uses of domestic drones.

Another blow to ACTA in the EU: Dutch parliament votes against signing or ratifying it

A majority of the Dutch parliament has voted for three resolutions in the fight against ACTA. Bits of Freedom, a Dutch civil liberties organization, has translated these resolutions into English.

Administrivia

ISSN 1062-9424

EFFector is a publication of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
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Editor: Parker Higgins, Activist
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