The European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS), Peter Hustinx, on Monday (22 February) issued a formal opinion concluding that the EU executive was endangering EU data protection rules and even internet users' fundamental rights by engaging in talks with the US, Canada, Japan and other powers on a new multilateral agreement to combat counterfeiting and piracy - the proposed Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (Acta).

The French anti-piracy outfit Trident Media Guard has been chosen by the entertainment industry to track and report illegal downloaders in France. The company, known globally for its pollution of BitTorrent and other file-sharing networks with fake data, will assist in the recently passed Hadopi three-strikes law. [...]

The Obama administration is seeking to reverse a federal appeals court decision that dramatically narrows the government’s search-and-seizure powers in the digital age. [...]

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ 9-2 decision offered Miranda-style guidelines to prosecutors and judges on how to protect Fourth Amendment privacy rights while conducting computer searches. [...]

Driven by increased crackdowns on BitTorrent sites such as The Pirate Bay, software pirates are fast-moving their warez to file-hosting Web sites.

Sites such as RapidShare, Megaupload, and Hotfile let anonymous users upload large files such as cracked software for free.

Hyperlinks to the software can then be distributed by pirates via Web sites, instant messages, or social media sites such as Twitter, said Vic DeMarines, vice president of products at anti-piracy software vendor V.I. Labs.

WHEN thousands of protestors took to the streets in Iran following this year's disputed presidential election, Twitter messages sent by activists let the world know about the brutal policing that followed. A few months earlier, campaigners in Moldova used Facebook to organise protests against the country's communist government, and elsewhere too the internet is playing an increasing role in political dissent.

It appears that Norway has decided that it's sick of passing laws designed to prop up obsolete industry business models at the expense of individual privacy. First, the country started telling ISPs to delete log files after just three weeks (making it pretty hard to identify individual filesharers), and now it's refused to renew the license given to the one law firm allowed to sniff IP addresses in trying to seek out unauthorized file sharing. [...]

http://techdirt.com/articles/20090623/1924305338.shtml

UOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - In the wake of France's imposition of its controversial three-strikes legislation aiming to crush internet piracy, the Dutch parliament has called on the government to also deal harshly with offenders. [...]

"Governments must realise that the cost of repression exceeds by far the benefits and most of the time harms civil liberties," Jeremie Zimmerman of La Quadrature du Net, an internet freedom pressure group, told EUobserver in reaction to the release of the report.

I have very divided feelings about these very divided French initiatives. On the one hand, I rather admire this bold attempt by a national government to defend and extend its national interests on the Internet. [...]

[...] On the other hand, check out the keen way that the French are also cyber-arming themselves for the eruption of utter anarchy. Not HADOPI, but the vastly more sinister LOPPSI. Yup, French cops sneaking into your laptop. [...]

In recent weeks, the chorus of calls for further "protections" for copyright owners has grown louder (see, for example, Mark Helprin's May 11 broadside in the Wall Street Journal against copyright critics: "Copyright Critics Rationalize Theft"). Yet these copyright apologists ignore how copyright owners overreach and hurt innovation. Representing more than 2,000 American technology companies, I see it differently - the rapid expansion of copyright laws threatens new and innovative products and services. [...]