Intellectual Property Law

Two things

By Susan Crawford

Briefly:  Reuters suggests there’s a report coming soon supporting unlicensed use of the white spaces.

Second:  Tomorrow there will be Freedom Not Fear demonstrations throughout Europe.

From the web site:

On the 11th of October 2008, human and civil rights organizations from all over the world are planning protests in their capitals.

This world-wide campaign seeks to raise awareness for the need of greater freedom and democracy in Europe. We organize a protest against the security and intelligence apparatus of states, which contravene human rights by means of surveillance, data retention and biometric databases.

The retention of citizen’s electronic communication violates fundamental human rights, such as the right to privacy. It prevents confidential communication between priests and confessors, journalists and their sources, doctors and their patients, lawyers and their clients.

And it does not increase the success of criminal investigations.

Instead it can be used to reveal political, business, and private communication and thus endangers the work of political, direct aid as well as refugee support groups.

Someday there will be demonstrations in the streets in the US about surveillance, and EPIC and EFF (among other groups) are already supporting FNF.

Full post as published by Susan Crawford Blog on October 10, 2008 (boomark / email).