When a celebrity speaks about a cause of significant importance a lot of us listen. When that celebrity has the ability to make a real impact on that cause, we listen even more closely. And so is the case as it relates to U2's Bono, a respected human rights advocate...

This week, four Google executives defend themselves in Italian court against charges of criminal defamation and privacy violations associated with a video posted by a user on Google Video. Italian prosecutors are seeking jail time for the executives, blatantly ignoring established liability safe harbors for ISPs and content...

There is no shortage of sad stories involving the loss of one's dignity, job, or significant other, thanks to some embarrassing picture, bit of information, or errant one-liner cluelessly tossed into the fast moving bitstream of some social media network. When we hear these stories, we cluck at such oversight,...

The nation's electrical "grid" is getting smarter, maybe too smart. The transition to the "Smart Grid" holds great promise for consumers, such as lowered energy costs, increased use of "green" technology and improved security from malicious hacking and outages. But this reward also carries new risks for consumer privacy.

There...

There is something fundamentally wrong in the debate on how to control online privacy when Internet users don't even know what they don't know.  Case in point.  Earlier this year a survey showed that most Internet users believe that the mere presence of the words "privacy policy" on a website...

Yesterday, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted to reauthorize three expiring provisions in the USA PATRIOT Act. While the bill they passed strengthened civil liberties in several small ways, the Committee failed to make any meaningful improvements to the Patriot provisions that are most prone to abuse. Disturbingly, Obama Administration officials...

U.S. law enforcement appears to be reading from a playbook perfected in the streets of Tehran. In the wake of protests last week at the G20 meeting in Pittsburgh, the police arrested a self-professed anarchist for using the social-networking site Twitter to coordinate communications among G20 summit protesters,...

Lately it seems that any policy put forward by the Administration is immediately suspected of carrying some kind of hidden agenda. When President Obama asked supporters of health care reform to forward emails to him, which made outlandish claims about the pending bills, the wing nuts were out in force,...

The current debate over a "national" ID standard has touched off a fierce debate in the civil liberties community. While such a dustup can be normal, even healthy, the outcome of this one could have serious implications for Americans' privacy.

At the heart of the controversy is the recently...

Chinese Internet users won an important victory this week when the Chinese government indefinitely delayed implementation of the widely condemned "Green Dam" filtering mandate. In a face-saving move, China, noting that "some manufacturers have said the workload is too large, the time too short and that they are not fully...

Yesterday on CNN's morning show, Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal continued his full-frontal jihad against Craigslist by proclaiming that Internet-based content doesn't have the same First Amendment protections as do print publications. He could not be more wrong.

Blumenthal, along with more than 40 other state AGs, has dogged Craigslist...

Cyberspace could well become the biggest battleground of the 21st Century. It's not surprising then that the first "Internet President" has chosen to expend a good bit of intellectual capital and personal political currency to make securing the critical infrastructure that depend on the Internet and other digital networks a...

Throughout this financial crisis, Americans have heard from economists of nearly every persuasion that a sustained effort must be made to promote the flow of capital into our national and global economy. This was the rationale for the recently-passed stimulus package, which through an infusion of dollars is intended to...

The latest indictment of the Demon Internet comes in the form of the so-called "Craigslist Killer" who allegedly trolled the online community's adult-services listings to find his victims. Sadly, a young woman is dead and others victimized at the hands of a clearly psychotic individual. However, if tradition holds, this...

Imagine it's 1953 and a steel strike threatens to shut down defense plants crucial to President Truman's prosecution of the Korean War. Faced with a national emergency, Truman seizes the steel plants, claiming an inherent power to act. The Supreme Court disagrees, limiting the President's power to seize private property...

One of President Obama's first official acts in office was taking the power of the presidential pen and shredding the cloak of secrecy the Bush Administration used to bury important government information. "Openness prevails," the Obama memo on transparency and open government promised when it came to deciding whether or...

In a little noticed action in late January, the Supreme Court put an end to the government's quixotic and wasteful ten-year effort to impose censorship on the Internet via a piece of misguided legislation dubbed, "The Children's Online Protection Act," or "COPA." The law placed severe restrictions on a...

On his first day in office President Obama unleashed the hounds, freeing the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) from the restrictive bounds placed on its use by the Bush Administration and fulfilling a campaign promise with single stroke of his pen.

The first item my organization suggested to the...

The Internet is at a crossroads. Down one path lies a future where digital technology enhances constitutional freedoms, spurs innovations in expression and entrepreneurship, and fulfills its ultimate promise of connecting and empowering the world. Down the other? A future where the Internet is turned against users, where government spying...

The Internet is at a crossroads. Down one path lies a future where digital technology enhances constitutional freedoms; spurs innovations in expression and entrepreneurship; and fulfills its ultimate promise of connecting and empowering the world. Down the other? A future where the Internet is turned against users; where government spying...