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According to a recent study by the Computer & Communications Industry Association (CIAA) , the fair use doctrine in copyright law not only facilitates criticism, news reporting, teaching, scholarship and research, but fair use-related industries add $2.2 trillion dollars to the United States economy each year in the process. While some corporations see fair use as a thorn in the side,... Read More

In case you missed the story on our National ACLU blog, here is a great entry written by Marv Johnson, Legislative Counsel in our Washington Legislative Office about this week's stories about Verizon Wireless' attempts to censor messages on its text-message network. If you want to see what the Internet will look like in a few years without net neutrality, you need look no further than... Read More

In case you missed it on the National ACLU blog, check out this post by Noam Biale from the National Technology and Liberty Program. It discusses how companies that stand to profit significantly from a massive national ID and database system are trying to use their pull to convince Congress to fund this privacy and security nightmare. The federal Real ID Act doesn't have many friends ... Read More

A controversial new program to use spy satellites for domestic surveillance has been postponed due to concerns brought to the attention of Congress by the ACLU and other civil liberties groups. On September 6, Barry Steinhardt, the Director of the ACLU's Technology and Liberty Program, testified before Congress, asking for a moratorium on the domestic use of military spy satellites un... Read More

In case you missed it on the National ACLU blog, check out this post by Michael German, Policy Counsel on national security, immigration and privacy. He explains how some of the Director of National Intelligence's public statements in support of warrantless wiretaps distort reality, the issues, and the law. There's been a lot of confusion of late about just how vital the Protect Ameri... Read More

In case you missed it on our National ACLU blog, here is an entry written by the ACLU's Catherine Crump about the government's latest attempt to censor the Internet. As expected, the government is appealing the ACLU's March 2007 victory in the Child Online Protection Act (COPA) case. COPA is an Internet censorship law that makes it a crime to place content deemed "harmful to minors" o... Read More

The California Supreme Court has agreed today to review the case of two San Francisco 49er season ticket holders who are challenging the pat-down policy implemented by the 49ers. The couple say their right to privacy under the California Constitution was violated.

Legal documents in Sheehan v. San Francisco 49ers are available. 

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Last November we learned that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has been secretly compiling data on millions of innocent Americans. According to the Washington Post, the DHS has been using its Automated Targeting System (ATS) originally developed for cargo security to generate "terrorist" risk ratings on American travelers. This past August the DHS proposed a rule that would continue the c... Read More

Over the last week, Americans in places as far as upstate New York and as nearby as downtown San Francisco have noticed ads on billboards and taxi cabs for Google's new service, Google 411. Google 411allows users to call a 1-800 number to get local business information for no fee. Users can also connect to the requested number without a charge and can have the phone number sent as a t... Read More

State Senator Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto) announced today that Governor Schwarzenegger signed his Senate Bill 362, which would prohibit employers and others from forcing anyone to have a radio frequency identification (RFID) device implanted under their skin. The bill will go into effect on January 1, 2008.RFID "tags" are tiny chips with miniature antennae that can be embedded in almost anything. U... Read More