Archive for the 'Politics' category

The Internet Archive, a project to create a digital library of the web for posterity, successfully fought a secret government Patriot Act order for records about one of its patrons and won the right to make the order public, civil liberties groups announced Wednesday morning.

On November 26, 2007, the FBI served a controversial National Security Letter .pdf on the Internet Archive’s founder Brewster Kahle, asking for records about one of the library’s registered users, asking for the user’s name, address and activity on the site.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Internet Archive’s lawyers, fought the NSL, challenging its constitutionality in a December 14 complaint .pdf to a federal court in San Francisco. The FBI agreed on April 21 to withdraw the letter and unseal the court case, making some of the documents available to the public.

Filed under Truth, People who get it, Net Censorship, Public vs. Private, Privacy, Surveillance, Domestic Espionage, Eavesdropping, Constitutionality, Digital Rights, Politics, Internet Archive, Wayback Machine on May 8th, 2008 | 6 comments »

CCIA Asks House To Oppose Telecom Immunity

by T. Colin Dodd

CCIA Asks House To Oppose Telecom Immunity

Washington, D.C. — The Computer & Communications Industry Association sent a letter to House members Friday asking them not to support retroactive immunity for major telecommunications companies as part of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act legislation.

Click here to see the letter[PDF]

For some background on this story, and what telecom immunity for warrentless wiretapping has to do with national security, the Electronic Frontier Foundation has a good rundown here.

Filed under Truth, Democratizing Content, The Law, Privacy, Surveillance, Domestic Espionage, Eavesdropping, Constitutionality, Digital Rights, Politics on March 3rd, 2008 | No comments »