[DMCA-Activists] EFF: Independent Testing of E-voting, More

[Seth Johnson]

> http://www.eff.org/effector/17/42.php


EFFector       Vol. 17, No. 42       November 19, 2004 
A Publication of the Electronic Frontier Foundation     ISSN
1062-9424 

In the 313th Issue of EFFector:
Action Alert: Call for Independent Testing of E-voting Machines! 
EFF Fights for Justice at WIPO 
Public Interest Groups Support ISP in Protecting User Privacy 
EFF Continues Push for Access to Secret Court Order in Indymedia
Seizure 
EFF Urges FCC Not to Mandate Surveillance Regime on the Internet 
Anti-spam Measures Block Free Speech 
Nitke v. Ashcroft Trial Highlights Difficulty of Applying
"Community Standards" to Online Speech 
EFF Seeks Detail-Oriented, Can-do Intake Coordinator 
MiniLinks (11): "Music Is Not a Loaf of Bread" 
Administrivia 

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Action Alert: Call for Independent Testing of E-voting Machines! 

On November 2, voting machines in many states - both "red" and
"blue" - had problems that led thousands of citizens to call a
national voter protection hotline. EFF and the Verified Voting
Foundation (VVF) were at the other end of the line, and we are
very worried about what we heard. In several states, voters who
chose one presidential candidate were presented with confirmation
screens that listed another candidate's name. In others, machines
crashed and were rebooted repeatedly, but nobody knows whether
votes were lost. And the list goes on. 

There is no way to ensure that these problems are fixed until
these machines are independently tested. But we need your help to
do it. Election officials are already trying to sweep these
problems under the rug. EFF has written eight detailed letters to
the counties where these problems were most pronounced, and now
it's time to turn up the public pressure. Add your voice to our
petition, and when 10,000 people have signed it, we will deliver
a copy to each of our target counties. 

The election may be over, but it's not too late to make a
difference for our democracy. Take a stand for election
intregrity today! 


http://www.eff.org/e-vote/petition

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EFF Fights for Justice at WIPO 

"Pseudo Copyright" for Broadcasters Will Harm the Global Public
Interest 

Geneva - This week, the World Intellectual Property Organization
(WIPO) held a committee meeting to debate the merits of its
proposed "Treaty on the Protection of Broadcasting
Organizations." EFF was there to urge delegates to reject aspects
of the treaty that would impoverish the public domain and thwart
innovation. 

As part of this effort, EFF European Affairs Coordinator Cory
Doctorow presented a letter to the committee on behalf of 20
technology companies and organizations that oppose including new
webcasters' rights in the treaty. 

"This coalition shatters the illusion that there is a technology
consensus on this issue," said Doctorow. 

The new pseudo-copyright for broadcasters would harm the public
in a number of ways, including curtailing the ability to archive
news footage or re-use broadcast material that is in the public
domain. EFF joined several other non-government organizations
(NGOs) in proposing an alternative draft of the treaty - one that
targets the problem of signal theft rather than adds new rights. 

Doctorow also spoke about how digital rights management (DRM)
technologies hinder technological progress. The proposed treaty
would add DRM provisions for broadcasters similar to those the
much-criticized US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) gives
to copyright holders. 

In October, WIPO made a positive move by adopting a "development
agenda" proposed by a number of developing countries and NGOs.
This agenda makes explicit the organization's responsibility for
considering the social and economic impact of its decisions.
Doctorow urged the organization to apply the public-interest
principles outlined in the agenda to its consideration of DRM. 

Finally, Doctorow "live-blogged" the meeting at EFF's Deep Links
weblog, bringing what was once insider-only information before
the public eye. For the original breaking news item:
http://www.eff.org/news/archives/2004_11.php#002114

Letter from 20 technology companies:
http://www.eff.org/IP/WIPO/?f=20041117_open_letter.html

EFF's statement on the DRM provisions in the treaty:
http://www.eff.org/IP/WIPO/20041113_TPM_SCCR.pdf

WIPO's proposed "Treaty on the Protection of Broadcasting
Organizations":
http://www.eff.org/cgi/tiny?urlID=326
(WIPO) 

NGO alternative draft of the treaty:
http://www.eff.org/cgi/tiny?urlID=322
(CPTech; PDF) 

EFF's Deep Links weblog:
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks

------------------------------------------------------

Public Interest Groups Support ISP in Protecting User Privacy,
Due Process Rights 

Georgia - EFF, Public Citizen, the ACLU, and ACLU Georgia filed a
friend-of-the-court brief this week supporting Cox
Communications, Inc.'s efforts to protect the rights of its
customers. Cox moved to quash a subpoena from several record
companies seeking the identities of unnamed Cox subscribers. Cox
does not provide Internet service in Georgia, where 100 "Does"
were sued. 

The amicus brief points out that it is unfair to force people
living outside of Georgia to come to Georgia to defend their
rights and also that it is unfair for the record companies to
indiscriminately lump together 100 people in the same lawsuit
simply for convenience. 

"Cox is taking an important step to protect the privacy of its
customers," said EFF Staff Attorney Wendy Seltzer. "It's a basic
matter of due process that Internet users should not have to seek
counsel across the country in order to protect their right to
anonymous speech." 

EFF, Public Citizen, and the ACLU have joined in several briefs
in similar cases arguing that due process must not be given short
shrift in the record industry's lawsuit campaign against file
sharing. 

The motion picture industry has begun to file copycat suits
across the country that are similarly flawed. 

For this release:
http://www.eff.org/news/archives/2004_11.php#002105

Amicus brief in Arista Records, Inc. v. Does 1-100
http://www.eff.org/cgi/tiny?urlID=328
(EFF; PDF) 

------------------------------------------------------

EFF Continues Push for Access to Secret Court Order in Indymedia
Seizure 

Government Claims Need for Secrecy, Rebuffs Call for Open Access 

San Antonio, TX - EFF this week filed a reply brief in a federal
court in Texas supporting its motion to unseal a secret court
order. That order had led to the seizure of two servers hosting
several websites and radio feeds belonging to Indymedia, a global
collective of Independent Media Centers (IMCs) and thousands of
journalists. 

EFF filed its reply after the United States Attorney's Office in
San Antonio, Texas, filed an opposition brief urging the federal
court to refuse EFF's request to unseal. The opposition brief
argued that secrecy was required to protect "an ongoing criminal
terrorist investigation" and that the confidentiality provisions
of a Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT) trumped the rights of
Indymedia in this case. 

This marks the first time that the federal government has
formally admitted to the secret order's existence. In its reply
brief, EFF reminded the government that treaties are limited by
the Bill of Rights, including the First Amendment right of access
to court proceedings. 

While the government has so far refused to identify the foreign
country that initiated the request, language quoted in the
government brief matches a US MLAT treaty with Italy. Morena
Plazzi, a deputy public prosecutor in Bologna, admitted that she
requested server logs from Indymedia, but denied requesting a
seizure. Rackspace Managed Hosting, which housed the servers in
its UK office, has refused to speak, citing a government gag
order. 

"There are serious questions about whether the government or
Rackspace overreached in responding to Italy's request," said
Kurt Opsahl, EFF Staff Attorney. "The public needs to see the
order so we can understand what went wrong and take steps to
prevent this unconstitutional silencing of protected speech from
happening again." 

For the full press release:
http://www.eff.org/news/archives/2004_11.php#002103

For EFF's reply brief:
http://www.eff.org/cgi/tiny?urlID=323
(EFF; PDF) 

For background on the Indymedia seizure:
http://www.eff.org/Censorship/Indymedia/

------------------------------------------------------

EFF Urges FCC Not to Mandate Surveillance Regime on the Internet 

EFF filed comments last week with the Federal Communications
Commission (FCC) objecting to the Commission's plan to expand the
reach of a law that forces communications service providers to
build surveillance backdoors into their networks. 

Passed in 1994, the Communications Assistance to Law Enforcement
Act (CALEA) forced telephone companies to redesign their network
architectures to make wiretapping easier. It expressly did not
regulate data traveling over the Internet. But earlier this year,
law enforcement agencies petitioned the FCC to expand CALEA's
reach to cover broadband providers so that it would be easier to
tap Internet "phone calls" via Voice over Internet Protocol
(VoIP) applications such as Vonage, as well as to listen to
Internet "conversations" taking place via instant messaging (IM)
programs like AOL Instant Messenger (AIM). 

"Law enforcement already has the legal and technological means to
access communications on the Internet," said EFF Staff Attorney
Kurt Opsahl. "Expanding CALEA to cover broadband communication is
not only unnecessary, it will retard innovation while depriving
people of their privacy and security on the Internet." 

For the full press release:
http://www.eff.org/news/archives/2004_11.php#002100

For EFF's comments in the FCC proceeding:
http://www.eff.org/cgi/tiny?urlID=324
(EFF; PDF) 

More about CALEA:
http://www.eff.org/Privacy/Surveillance/CALEA/

------------------------------------------------------

Anti-spam Measures Block Free Speech 

EFF White Paper Reports on Collateral Damage to Free Expression
in the Fight Against Spam 

San Francisco, CA - EFF last week released a white paper
describing the effects of anti-spam technologies on free speech.
"Noncommercial Email Lists: Collateral Damage in the Fight
Against Spam" focuses on how groups running noncommercial email
lists are being harmed by anti-spam techniques. The paper grew
out of EFF's efforts to help MoveOn.org and other groups deliver
email messages in the face of barriers that are aimed at stopping
spam but that also stop wanted messages. 

"When tools designed to prevent unwanted email also prevent
wanted email from being delivered, or when anti-spam tools favor
well-funded speakers over others, something fundamental to the
health of Internet communication has been broken," write
co-authors Cindy Cohn and Annalee Newitz in the introduction. 

The paper goes on to explain how anti-spam technologies, such as
blocklists, server-side filtering, bonded sender programs, and
email authentication schemes like Sender-ID and DomainKeys, are
often misused. It also provides Internet Service Providers (ISPs)
and other companies, groups, or individuals that handle email
with "best practices" recommendations to keep legitimate email
from being trashed. 

For the full press release:
http://www.eff.org/news/archives/2004_11.php#002097

EFF white paper: "Noncommercial Email Lists: Collateral Damage in
the Fight Against Spam":
http://www.eff.org/wp/SpamCollateralDamage.pdf

------------------------------------------------------

Nitke v. Ashcroft Trial Highlights Difficulty of Applying
"Community Standards" to Online Speech 

New York-based erotic photographer Barbara Nitke's challenge
(www.BarbaraNitke.com) to the obscenity provisions of the
Communications Decency Act (CDA) went to trial in Federal court
in Manhattan at the end of October. EFF filed two
friend-of-the-court briefs in the case - one to argue that the
challenge should be heard, and the other to warn the court that
the government-coerced use of "geolocation" technology to comply
with the law runs headlong into a wall of Supreme Court cases
protecting the right to speak and read anonymously. 

While the landmark 1997 Supreme Court case of Reno v. ACLU struck
down the CDA's indecency provisions, in her lawsuit Nitke argues
that the law's surviving obscenity provisions are likely to chill
a substantial amount of protected speech and are therefore
overbroad. 

The key legal conundrum is how the Internet fits with the
"contemporary community standards" prong of the 1973 Miller v.
California test for deciding what is and isn't obscene. Such
communities are defined by geography - the point was to avoid
judging speech in Manhattan by the standards of Tupelo, and vice
versa - but websites don't have geographical boundaries. The
obvious danger is that speech on the Internet will be judged by
the standards of the least tolerant community. 

EFF submitted our first amicus brief supporting Nitke in 2002,
when the government tried to get her case dismissed. The court -
a special three-judge panel for the Southern District of New York
(SDNY) - unanimously agreed with Nitke and EFF that the
plaintiffs there must be given an opportunity to prove that the
CDA is overbroad. 

Last month, the case came to trial to resolve a number of
disputed factual matters. The two-day trial featured testimony by
expert witnesses including UK security expert Ben Laurie and EFF
Pioneer Award Winner Seth Finkelstein, both of whom testified
that trying to determine the true physical locations of Internet
users is both difficult and costly. 

EFF Staff Technologist Seth Schoen attended the trial. 

"The government suggested that Nitke censor her website using
geolocation technology to avoid 'sending' controversial material
to jurisdictions thought to be conservative," reports Schoen.
"But the experts showed that this kind of self-censorship is not
practical for Barbara Nitke and other people like her." 

The government responded by arguing that it's possible to find
out where at least some website visitors reside - whether by
using admittedly unreliable technical means or by requiring web
users to submit registration postcards through the US mail before
gaining access to a controversial site. 

"The government did not try to rebut most of the testimony given
by Ms. Nitke and the other witnesses for the plaintiffs," adds
Schoen. "Instead, it mostly fell back on legal arguments. The
government admitted that the CDA may burden and intimidate
speakers, but it said these burdens were allowed by earlier
Supreme Court precedent." 

At the request of the plaintiffs and the court, EFF submitted,
post-trial, our second amicus brief in the case. We argue that
the CDA is unconstitutionally overbroad and the government's
speculative suggestions of visitor-and location-identification
schemes will not cure that overbreadth; indeed, such schemes
unconstitutionally abridge the right to read anonymously. 

Nitke is represented pro bono by First Amendment attorney John
Wirenius of the New York State United Teachers (NYUT), a labor
union. The National Coalition for Sexual Freedom (NCSF) is a
co-plaintiff in the declaratory judgment action. 

EFF post-trial amicus brief:
http://www.eff.org/cgi/tiny?urlID=329
(EFF; PDF) 

Nitke v. Ashcroft case archive:
http://www.eff.org/legal/cases/Nitke_v_Ashcroft/

NCSF press release on the trial, annotated with links by expert
witness Seth Finkelstein:
http://sethf.com/nitke/cda-trial.php

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EFF Seeks Detail-Oriented, Can-do Intake Coordinator 

EFF is seeking a full-time Intake Coordinator to start
immediately. Environment is fast-paced, work is cutting edge,
staff is hardworking yet laid back and friendly. Job
responsibilities include answering the telephones, answering
general email, doing legal case intake, filing, data entry,
helping with membership mailings, and all-around organizational
support. Ease with using computers and the Internet is essential.
Familiarity with (and, preferably, passion for) Internet civil
liberties issues is also required. 

Salary at nonprofit scale and includes benefits package. This is
a new position. 

To apply, send a cover letter and your resume to address@hidden We
request that you send these materials in a non-proprietary
format, such as an ASCII text file. No phone calls please! 

------------------------------------------------------

miniLinks 

miniLinks features noteworthy news items from around the
Internet.

Poland Pulls Support for EU Patent Directive
According to the Polish government, the current draft is too
mushy on the patentability of software programs; it wants a
bright line that bans the practice:
http://news.com.com/2100-1012_3-5456995.html

Hollywood Drops Dime on Hundreds of P2P Users
The studios were evidently wowed by the *increase* in file
sharing after the RIAA's lawsuits; they've begun to try to
emulate that success:
http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,65730,00.html

"Music Is Not a Loaf of Bread"
Jeff Tweedy, frontman of the amazing, future-friendly band Wilco,
talks to Xeni Jardin about digital music:
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,65688,00.html

Microsoft Keeps Cracked Xboxes Off Net
And Halo 2 fans in the hardware-hacking community are bereft:
http://www.eff.org/cgi/tiny?urlID=330
(AP) 

Bad Copyright Law: Jumping on the Omnibus
Congress is considering an enormous patchwork copyright bill that
combines a number of the year's most offensive proposals,
including increased jail time for copyright infringement:
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,65704,00.html
Public Knowledge action alert to oppose the bill:
http://www.publicknowledge.org/action/IPPA2391

Perfect 10 Loses Tussle with Credit Card Giants
The adult entertainment company sued major credit card companies
because they processed transactions for sites that offered
unauthorized copies of Perfect 10's naughty pictures:
http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1100535339538

The Economist on Patent Reform
Very nice piece on the problems with the modern patent system:
http://economist.com/opinion/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3376181

Prescibing RFIDs
The tiny chips will soon be included in those extra-large
druggist's bottles, and they're well on the way into other
consumer goods:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/15/health/15drug.html
(Registration unfortunately required.) 

Wal-Mart Special: 460 Terabytes of Customer Data
That's enough data to fill both of the Internets:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/14/business/yourmoney/14wal.html
(Registration unfortunately required.) 

Lexmark Makes Spyware?
The printer manufacturer seems to be installing monitoring
software on users' computers:
http://www.engadget.com/entry/3508496627337139/

Diebold Pays $2.6 Million in Settlement
For misleading California counties into purchasing shoddy
equipment:
http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,65674,00.html

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