Experience the Iranian Internet in central London
Runa from the Tor Project sez, "What is the Iranian Internet? How does it feel to be censored? Filtered? Under constant surveillance? Unsure? Restricted? Oppressed? On Wednesday September 26, Small...
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Canadian mint claims copyright over pictures of pennies
The Canadian mint sent a legal threat to a folk-singer called Dave Gunning, objecting to his use of photos of pennies in the liner notes on his latest CD, No More Pennies, which eulogizes the Canadian...
View ArticleThin-skinned, plagiarizing Philippines Senator criminalizes "libel" with last...
Philippines Senator Vicente Sotto III has been embroiled in a series of plagiarism scandals -- most recently, he gave a speech including phrases from a Robert Kennedy, Jr address, without credit or...
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Greek Pastafarian arrested for "Cyber Crimes"
A reader writes, "On September 24, Greece's Cyber Crimes division arrested a 27 year old man on charges of blasphemy, for his website that mocks a well-known Greek monk Elder Paisios, using the name...
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Ai Weiwei guest-edits the New Statesman, which pirates itself to evade the...
Helen from the UK newspaper the New Statesman writes, Today, the New Statesman is publishing an issue of the magazine guest-edited by the Chinese rebel artist Ai Weiwei. In the issue, Ai interviews...
View ArticleVillage Voice sues Yelp over "Best of $CITY" trademark
The Village Voice received an improbable trademark over the use of "BEST OF" in connection with lists of the best things on offer in various cities, and now they're suing Yelp for creating their own...
View ArticleBritain's free press cringes in anticipation of coming regulation; plutocrats...
Writing in The Spectator, Kirsty Walker describes the chilling effect the UK's Leveson Inquiry (which is investigating illegal phone/email interception and systematic harassment by UK papers,...
View ArticleAnti-Westboro Baptist Church petition smashes White House records
The Huffington Post claims that this petitions.whitehouse.gov petition, calling for the classification of the Westboro Baptist Church as a "hate group," is now the most popular White House petition of...
View ArticleACLU guide to running an online business that respects privacy & free speech
Danielle from the ACLU sez, "The ACLU has just released a new guide for tech companies on why they should and how they can better protect user privacy and free speech. The guide features dozens of...
View ArticlePublisher launches $3,000,000 suit against academic librarian who criticized...
An academic librarian at McMaster University wrote that "The Edwin Mellen Press was a poor publisher with a weak list of low-quality books, scarcely edited, cheaply produced, but at exorbitant...
View ArticleMore on the impact of UK press regulation on blogs, websites, tweeters, and...
Further to yesterday's post about the way that the UK's new press regulation will affect bloggers, tweeters, tumblrers, facebookers, et al., Lisa O'Carroll at the Guardian points out that anyone who...
View ArticleCanadian government muzzles librarians and archivists, creates snitch line to...
Canada's Conservative government has issued new regulations to librarians and archvists governing their free speech in public forums and online media. According to the Harper government, public...
View ArticleNZ Press Council finds against statement saying "Homeopathic remedies have...
Juha sez, "Amazingly enough, New Zealand's North and South magazine has lost in the NZ Press Council, after a homeopath filed a complaint against an article that stated: 'Homeopathic remedies have...
View ArticleDanish "Gangnam Style" mayors threatened with copyright lawsuit by Universal
Four mayors of Danish towns have been targeted by Universal Music and threatened with lawsuits unless they pay the media giant $42,000 within 24 hours -- because they made a Gangnam Style parody and...
View ArticleWhy lie?
Here's an excerpt from Judge Alex Kozinski's opinion in US v Xavier Alvarez (PDF), in which the judge describes some of the reasons that people lie: Saints may always tell the truth, but for mortals...
View ArticleUN makes the connection between surveillance and free speech
Frank La Rue, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression and Opinion, has tabled a report (PDF) to the UN Human Rights Council that makes a connection between surveillance and free...
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Apple's mobile devices have a secret list of "sensitive" words that don't...
The Daily Beast investigated the autocomplete on Apple Ios devices (Iphones, Ipads, etc), and discovered that there was a long list of "sensitive" words that the devices have in their dictionary but...
View ArticleCritic of AIDS denialist needs help with Texas defamation lawsuit
Clark Baker, an "AIDS denialist" who plays hardball with his critics -- for example, calling a critic's elderly mother and saying that, as an ex-police-officer, it is his opinion that her son was a...
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NSA-loving, Internet-hating Rep Mike Rogers' staffers say criticism is...
Rep Mike Rogers (R-MI) is a former FBI spook turned Congressman. In addition to being an authoritarian creep (he was one of CISPA's co-sponsors) who hates Internet users (he dismissed CISPA's millions...
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David Cameron vows vengeance on the Guardian for Snowden leaks
UK Prime Minister David Cameron has vowed to punish the Guardian for publishing leaks about the campaigns of lawless, reckless spying by GCHQ and the NSA. He's asked Parliament to find a legal rubric...
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