What EFF is working on
EFF guy mostly talking
What do you think the biggest issue we are working on?
--net neutrality --privacy ?
yes: privacy
21 years ago , started w/ threats from gover
1) IP property 2) freedom of speech 3) privacy (mostly gov / tending to consumer) 4) accounability freedom of information stuff
Now election year: a bad year for civil liberties , politicians appeal to public worst instincts.
child porn, --bad legislation / regulation
prefers impact litigation
sued AT&T , NSA for warrently
lots of anti patent trolls
dubious patent , export money to avoid nausence lawsuit rules stacked in favor people with copyrights/ patents
we
bills: protect IP / sofa
make it harder for websites to have impringing content up
domain names of pirates
<missed some stuff>
Common Carrier laws, are shields for libel/slander but not intellectual property stuff.
Saying "you are hosting pirated content" is a way to put pressure on intermediaries for content.
WikiLeaks pressured through pressure on payment ( paypal?) intermediaries.
For privacy, free speech suppression put pressure on intermediaries to stop speech.
For last 6-9 months, anti-child porn push for data retention. Being forced to keep data / transaction records / logs.
Right now no laws requiring ISPs to keep data. Right now EFF advises people like IndyMedia not to keep access logs. If you have logs, you can be subpoenaed (sp?).
New law (Lamar Smith Texas data retention) requires more data retention.
EFF counter law, digital due process law. (Allies, ACLU, Google)
=EFF ask groups for help
Want help on more science fictionish stuff.
Hacker and CS professor clients, provide skills peek in future.
Want
=third rail economy guy
tracks groups of companies that are publicly traded?
Immigration private companies.
EFF guy
cisco sells equipment to china to survil them
Interested in who is in selling stuff to warlords to spy on their on their people.
Your (third rail) company
question
What legal arguments are you using against smart meters?
answer
privacy law in bad shape. When your data is sent to intermediaries, your 4th amendment right is gone.
Even though your accountant/bank owes you privacy.
When you dial a number, you give up privacy.
precident, shitty options with lawsuit area. So working on legislation, / regulation with PUC (public utility commissions)
Focus on Smart Meters is advice to commissions. Put good practices out there, only gather data needed to manager energy.
question
Why is it in technology, there is this focus on intermeadaries?
answer
Actually, even not in tech focus on intermediaries.
Elephants & mice. Big companies have to play along because they can't hid.
Goverment is more afraid about mice, they can hide and there are a lot.
Thing about tech is that back when there was only AT&T easier for gov to manage. Now with tech, you (small guy) put out an app with a million users and they don't know who you are.
Skype makes the governemtn crazy.
There isn't anything abnout skype that couldn't be done by a very small number of people.
The goverment wants to clamp down to control.
A lot of folks in high levels don't understand tech. Don't understand issues, don't understand how things could work or not work.
Law enforcement is smarter. In 1996, FBI has been in constant communication with industry. They are very competent and they do a good job of bullshiting whitehouse & congress.
If you hear about things that might fit into what we do,
Peter Akersly (sp?) pde@eff.org
I am just a lawyer, I'm useless without a briefing.
question
interest in public information .
Science Fiction powerful form of media.
Is there public information generating?
There is almost no place you can go in urban landscape w/o a camera on you?
Answer
We are a law firm. We appear in front of judges regularly so we have to be more _____ in our public presense.
We have gobs of docs about wire taps on our website. Not very organized. Put stuff to catch public eye.
( missed some stuff )
Industry says people don't care about privacy but that is because people don't understand what they are doing