The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has asked an Illinois Circuit Court judge to quash subpoenas aimed at outing opponents of a controversial city project. In December, local residents filed a lawsuit in state court against the city of Chicago and local developers, challenging the legality of a development project in the city’s Uptown neighborhood. In…
Tag: free speech
Free speech trumps privacy at funerals, for now
Missouri’s attempt to block members of Westboro Baptist Church, a gay-hating fundamentalist church, from protesting at military funerals in on hold. Members of the Kansas-based church picket funerals of veterans killed during the war, where they often hold up signs claiming that the soldier’s death is God’s punishment for homosexuality. Their activities are not just…
Free Speech vs. Surveillance in the Digital Age
Tools of mass communication that were once the province of governments and corporations now fit in your pocket. Cell phones can capture video and send it wirelessly to the Internet. People can send eyewitness accounts, photos and videos, with a few keystrokes, to thousands or even millions via social networking sites. As these technologies have…
AP Issues Strict Facebook, Twitter Guidelines to Staff
The Associated Press is adopting a stringent social-networking policy for its employees, informing them to police their Facebook profiles “to make sure material posted by others doesn’t violate AP standards.” The policy (.pdf) comes weeks after an AP reporter was reprimanded for posting a comment to his own Facebook profile criticizing the Sacramento-based newspaper chain…