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FBI opened a file on George Carlin for telling "bad taste" Hoover jokes
Michael from Muckrock writes, "After George Carlin satirized FBI and J. Edgar Hoover in a bit "considered to be in very poor taste" (but which was incredibly tame by Carlin standards), the Bureau took...
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Student suspended for tweeting two words will get to sue his school, police...
Rogers, MN honor student Reid Sagehorn was suspended after he tweeted two words, using his own device, on his own time, off school property. An anonymous website called "Roger Confessions" poked fun...
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The End of the Internet Dream: the speech that won Black Hat (and Defcon)
"The End of the Internet Dream," cyberlawyer Jennifer Granick's keynote at Black Hat, was all anyone could talk about at this year's Defcon -- Black Hat being the grown-up, buttoned-down,...
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Fight censorship with the new Humble Bundle full of Gaiman rarities
More than a dozen rare and unpublished Neil Gaiman titles are available DRM-free on a name-your-price basis at Humble Bundle this week, with proceeds to benefit the brilliant Comic Book Legal Defense...
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Library offers Tor nodes; DHS tells them to stop
John writes, "After a library created a Tor node on its network, the DHS and local police contacted them to ask them to stop. For now they have; their Board of Trustees will vote soon on whether to...
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For the first time ever, a judge has invalidated a secret Patriot Act warrant
Calyx is a privacy-oriented ISP. In 2004, the FBI brought its owner, Nicholas Merrill, a National Security Letter -- one of the USA Patriot Act's secret search warrants, which comes with a gag order...
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Free speech versus "compelled attention"
Yesterday's story about a woman who made her Twitter account private because of harassment from men sparked a lot of discussion about how blocking and free speech interact with each other. Here's my...
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Hundreds of Canadian artists call for repeal of surveillance law
Bill C-51 is a sweeping, radical mass-surveillance bill proposed by the current Canadian Tory government, which will be fighting an election next month. (more…)
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Publicity Rights could give celebrities a veto over creative works
EFF, the Organization for Transformative Works, and the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund have filed a brief [PDF] in a Supreme Court case over "publicity rights" -- the right of famous people to veto the...
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Congressional hearings are bad news for gag orders banning online reviews
Last week's Senate Commerce Committee hearings invited testimony on the Consumer Review Freedom Act, which would ban the increasingly widespread practice of inserting "non-disparagement" clauses in...
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Google steps up to defend fair use, will fund Youtubers' legal defenses
After years of missteps, blunders and disasters in which Youtube users have been censored through spurious copyright claims or had their accounts deleted altogether, Google has announced an amazing,...
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"Je Suis Charlie," but your free speech is terrorism
It's been a year since the horrific Charlie Hebdo attack and the subsequent outpouring of defense of free speech from all quarters -- the insistence that free societies demand tolerance of viewpoints,...
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John Oliver on Apple vs FBI and the new crypto wars
John Oliver continues to deliver the best comedy tech analysis in the business, with an epic rant/explainer that delves into Apple vs FBI and the new crypto wars with scathing wit and deep, technical...
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Kickstarting a history of women and free speech in comics from CBLDF
Charles from the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund sez, "CBLDF is kickstarting She Changed Comics, a history of how women changed free expression in comics!" (more…)
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German chancellor allows prosecution of satirist who insulted Turkish president
A German satirist faces court action after insulting Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan on television. Chancellor Angela Merkel, in granting Turkey's request to allow the prosecution of Jan...
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Campus cop orders students to scribble over penis on a "free speech ball"
https://youtu.be/HyF-11_QUOc A University of Delaware police officer forced a student to scribble over a drawing of a penis inscribed on a gigantic "free speech" beach ball because it doesn't "open up...
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German politician arrested in Berlin for insulting Turkish president
Bruno Kramm, leader of Berlin's branch of the German Pirate Party, was arrested Saturday for insulting Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Kramm was detained while conducting a "literary...
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Billy Corgan upset that "the wrong racial epithet" could destroy his career
Billy Corgan, of the Smashing Pumpkins, laments the fact he can't say a certain word without becoming unpopular, which is the result of social justice groups shutting down free speech. "It's pretty...
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Salt Lake City apartment complex threatens tenants with eviction if they...
The landlords at City Park Apartments stuck memos on their tenants' doors last week, outlining a "Facebook addendum" requiring tenants to Friend the building on Facebook or lose their lease. (more…)
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Snowden publicly condemns Russia's proposed surveillance law
Edward Snowden has taken to Twitter to condemn Russia's proposed "Yarovaya law," which provides prison sentences of 7 years for writing favorably about "extremism" on the Internet, criminalizes...
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