EFFector Vol. 14, No. 18 Aug 8, 2001 editor@eff.org
A Publication of the Electronic Frontier Foundation ISSN 1062-9424
EFFector Vol. 14, No. 18 Aug 8, 2001 editor@eff.org
A Publication of the Electronic Frontier Foundation ISSN 1062-9424
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Join the Electronic Frontier Foundation in celebration of the presentation of Professor Ed Felten's "Reading Between the Lines: Lessons from the SDMI Challenge" at the USENIX Security Symposium in Washington, DC, on August 15th, 2001! Come and meet Professor Felten, his research team, and legal team, and support EFF's legal battle to get this paper presented. We will be dining at the prestigious Red Sage restaurant after the panel discussion on SDMI/DMCA, which runs from 6:30-7pm ET, on the evening of August 15th.
Time's running out! There are only 10 spots left, so sign up early! Contact Contact Katie by e-mail at katie@eff.org or by phone at +1 415-436-9333 x104 to reserve a spot. The price of admission to the celebration with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Ed Felten, his research team, and the legal team is $250, which includes dinner and wine at the legendary Red Sage restaurant.
The Red Sage is just around the block from the JW Marriott Hotel. We will be gathering in the Continental room at 7:30pm, and dinner will begin at 8:00pm.
Come support the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) in defending our rights to think, speak, and share our ideas, thoughts, and needs using new technologies!
Dmitry Sklyarov, a Russian programmer & cryptographic researcher visiting the US for a conference was arrested in Las Vegas on charges of "trafficking in a product designed to circumvent copyright protection measures" in violation of the anticircumention provisions of the questionably-constitutional Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), for helping create software that decrypts the Adobe eBook format to bypass hampering restrictions that publishers may impose. On. Mon., Aug. 6, Dmitry was released on bail pending trial in Silicon Valley, must remain in California, and has a pre-trial hearing slated for Aug. 23, 2001.
Write to, call, fax and e-mail the US Attorney General's office, and if you have time that of several other Justice Department officials. You can use the sample letter and phone script below, and the contact information that follows it.
This is just a sample. It will be most effective if you send something similar but in your own words
Dear Attorney General Ashcroft:
I want to express my dismay and disappointment with the Justice Department that it arrested and plans to prosecute visiting Russian programmer Dmitry Sklyarov. This is a travesty of justice, all in the name of protecting software industry interests at the cost of basic civil liberties. This is fast becoming an international incident, with foreign academics dropping out of US-based research programs and conferences. Organized protests have been held around the country and in Moscow. This is a major embarassment for "the Home of the Free" and a grave injustice to an innocent foreign national.
Sklyarov and the company he works for did nothing wrong, and nothing illegal under US or Russian law. Pointing out security weaknesses in poorly designed systems is part and parcel of the computer security field. And helping people convert content from one format to another that they can use is not a crime. The complainant, Adobe, has even backed out of the case, leaving no alleged victim for the Dept. of Justice to defend in the first place.
The anticircumvention provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) being used against him were clearly never intended to censor software with substantial legitimate uses, or research, in this way, as you yourself pointed out in the Congressional record, as a Senator when the DMCA was being considered for passage.
The charges should be dropped immediately, and Dmitry should be allowed to return to his family in Russia where he belongs.
Sincerely,
[Your full name]
[Your address]
[Change "as you yourself" to "as Attorney General Ashcroft himself" in versions to be sent to Ashcroft deputies & others]
This too would be best recast in your own words.
I would like to address some comments to Attorney General Ashcroft.
I want to express my dismay and disappointment with the Justice Department that it arrested and plans to prosecute visiting Russian programmer Dmitry Sklyarov. The provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act being used against him were clearly never intended to censor research in this way. The charges should be dropped immediately, and Dmitry should be allowed to return to his family in Russia where he belongs.
Thank you.
[Probably the best approximation of the pronunciation of "Dmitry Sklyarov" that most English-speakers can muster will be "DiMEE-tree Skluh-YAH-roff", we're told, though it isn't exact.]
It is most effective to send postal letters, faxes, phone calls, and e-mail, in descending order, to the head of the DoJ, the Criminal Division deputy, the Deputy Assitant in charge of computer crimes, and the Northern District of California US Attorney, in descending order. If you have only a little time to spare, please at least fax A.G. Ashcroft. If you have more time to spare, please work your way down the list, sending letters, faxes and email, and calling, each government representative in turn (some of the numbers are the same, but you can call/fax and address your comments to each person separately). For e-mail, mention who it is addressed to in the subject line or in a salutation at the top of the message body. If you don't have writer's cramp yet, try sending letters-to-the-editor to your local (and even some national) papers and other media outlets (see last issue of EFFector for more information on how to do that.)
John Ashcroft
Attorney General
US Deptartment of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530-0001
Fax: +1 202-514-6113 (Computer Crime & Intellectual Property Section)
attn: AG Ashcroft
Phone: +1 202-514-2601 (Criminal Division)
"I would like to address some comments to Attorney General Ashcroft..."
E-mail: askdoj@usdoj.gov
attn: AG Ashcroft
Extras:
Michael Chertoff
Assistant Attorney General
Criminal Division
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530-0001
Fax: +1 202-514-6113 (Computer Crime & Intellectual Property Section)
attn: AAG Chertoff
Phone: +1 202-514-2601 (Criminal Division)
"I would like to address some comments to Assitant AG Chertoff..."
E-mail: askdoj@usdoj.gov
attn: AAG Chertoff
Mary Ellen Warlow
Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General
US Deptartment of Justice
Criminal Division
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530-0001
Fax: +1 202-514-6113 (Computer Crime & Intellectual Property Section)
attn: DAAG Warlow
Phone: +1 202-514-1026 (Computer Crime & Intellectual Property Section)
"I would like to address some comments to Deputy Assitant AG Warlow..."
E-mail: askdoj@usdoj.govBR> attn: DAAG Warlow
David Shapiro
Acting US Attorney / Criminal Chief
450 Golden Gate Ave., Box 36055,
San Francisco, CA 94102
Phone: +1 415-436-7200
"I would like to address some comments to US Attorney Shapiro..."
Fax: +1 415-436-7234
attn: US Atty. Shapiro
Please remember to be polite but firm. Ranting, swearing, incohesiveness
or lack of clear resolve will not make a good impression. Try to make
it brief (1-3 paragraphs written, or a few sentences spoken) and clear,
without getting into nitpicky details. "Super-activists" may also wish
to send similar communiques to the office of the President, the Speaker of the House,
the President Pro-Tempore of the Senate, and the Majority and
Minority leaders of both houses of Congress. See EFF's
"Contacting Congress and Other Government Representatives" Factsheet for more information:
If you are not a US resident, the US Department of Justice is unlikely to care about your opinion. It will be more effective for you to write to your country's equivalent of our Department of State (i.e., the branch that covers international diplomacy) and urge them to express their concerns to the US Dept. of State, and the US President (who ultimately controls the Justice Department). Ask your government to let our government know that prosecution of innocent foreign nationals under injust and questionably-valid laws is not going to go unnoticed anywhere, and can only harm trade and other relations.
For more information about the US v. Sklyarov Case see:
For yet more information on the DMCA see:
Frequently Asked Questions (and Answers) About the US v. Sklyarov Case:
For more information on the grassroots effort to free Dmitry Sklyarov, see:
http://www.freesklyarov.org/
To join the free-sklyarov mailing list, see:
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is the leading civil liberties
organization working to protect rights in the digital world. Founded in
1990, EFF actively encourages and challenges industry and government to
support free expression, privacy, and openness in the information
society. EFF is a member-supported organization and maintains one of the
most linked-to Web sites in the world:
http://www.eff.org
Will Doherty, EFF Online Activist / Press Relations
help-dmitry@eff.org
+1 415-436-9333 x111
Robin Gross, EFF Staff Attorney - Intellectual Property
robin@eff.org
+1 415-863-5459
- end -
Lee Tien, EFF Senior Staff Attorney,
tien@eff.org
+1 415-436-9333 x102
Lauren Gelman, EFF Public Policy Dir.
gelman@eff.org
+1 415-436-9333
San Francisco, CA - A California state court will hear oral argument this week in a case that may determine the legal standard California will apply to subpoenas requesting the identity of anonymous Internet speakers.
The case involves a subpoena issued by Pre-Paid Legal Services Inc. of Oklahoma (PPLS) requesting the identity of eight posters on Yahoo!'s "Pre-Paid" message board. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) represents two of the J. Does whose identities were subpoenaed, in a dispute between PPLS and another (known) party.
PPLS argues that it needs the Does' identities to determine whether they are subject to a voluntary injunction preventing former sales associates who work for a competitor from revealing PPLS's trade secrets. The messages cited by PPLS, however, indicate only that the eight Does were critical of the company and how it treats its associates. EFF will argue that revealing the identity of these speakers will give PPLS the opportunity to punish its critics for speaking out against it.
"Without proper safeguards on Doe subpoenas, a company can use a court as a detective agency to ferret out its critics," said EFF's Lee Tien. "We hope that the court will adopt a standard that protects anonymous speech against such subpoenas."
Tien will ask the court to apply a four part test adopted by the federal court in Doe v. 2TheMart.com, Inc., 140 F. Supp.2d 1088 (W.D. Wash., 2001) ("2TheMart") to determine whether a subpoena for the identity of non-party Internet speakers should be upheld. That test asks:
The 2TheMart decision was issued as a result of a motion to quash brought jointly by the EFF and the ACLU of Washington on behalf of a J. Doe whose identity had been subpoenaed by 2TheMart.com, Inc. "We were extremely pleased that the court set such a high standard for protecting the identity of anonymous online speakers in 2TheMart," said Lauren Gelman, EFF's director of public policy. "EFF will continue to defend the rights of J. Does to speak anonymously on the Internet until companies realize that they can no longer turn to the courts when they want to silence their critics."
The case will be heard on Friday, August 10th, at 9:00 AM, before the Honorable Neil Cabrinha in Department 18 of the Santa Clara County Superior Court.
The documents filed in the case (PPLS v. Sturtz) are available at:
http://www.eff.org/Legal/Cases/PrePaid_Legal_v_Sturtz/
More information on the 2TheMart case can be found at:
http://www.eff.org/Legal/Cases/2TheMart_case/
- end -
Robin Gross, EFF Staff Attorney - Intellectual Property,
robin@eff.org,
+1 415-436-9333 x112
Lee Tien, EFF Senior Staff Attorney,
tien@eff.org
+1 415-436-9333 x102
On August 7th, the California Sixth Appellate District issued an opinion denying Matthew Pavlovich's motion to dismiss the case against him for lack of personal jurisdiction over him.
Pavlovich, who was a college student in Indiana and now lives in Texas, claims postings made to the LiVID mailing list, which he ran from his home computer should not subject him to defending himself in California. LiVID is an open source development team working to build a DVD player compatible with the Linux operating system that could compete with the movie studios' monopoly on DVD players. In January 2000, a California judge issued an injunction banning dozens of individuals, including Pavlovich, from publishing DeCSS computer code.
Today, the court held that because Pavlovich knew the movie business was in California, publishing information that might have an effect on its profits was a sufficient connection to find Pavlovich within the court's purview.
This ruling magnifies the ability of Hollywood or other businesses to successfully sue anyone in the world who publishes information on the Internet which the movie studios claim could hurt their profits. Pavlovich is considering an appeal of the order to the California Supreme Court on Constitutional Due Process grounds.
Text of ruling:
- end -
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Stanton McCandlish, EFF Technical Director/Webmaster
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