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The Electronic Frontier Foundation is backing startup Aereo, which is embroiled in court with broadcasters and television networks over copyright issues.

The digital rights group urged a federal appeals court on Friday to throw out the case, which is designed to shut down Aereo's streaming services. Aereo offers consumers the means to stream broadcast television, sent through the Internet to a customer's devices via tiny antennas currently hosted on a Brooklyn rooftop. Each "rabbit ear" is assigned to an individual user, who can then choose which signals should be transmitted to mobile devices.

Broadcasters and television … Read more

The U.S. Copyright Office published its new set of rules on whether people can jailbreak smartphones, tablets, and gaming consoles today; it also outlined the guidelines on DVD copying.

Overwhelmingly, its conclusions were that besides smartphones, all of the above remain illegal.

Every three years the Copyright Office takes requests from digital rights proponents and opponents to re-examine the laws under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act that dictate whether people can unlock or jailbreak their varied devices. Today, in a lengthy document (PDF), the government listed all of the changes it made.

The key developments are that people cannot … Read more

The long-standing warrantless spying case ended at the hands of the Supreme Court today. After six years of working its way up through the courts, the Electronic Frontier Foundation's lawsuit against the National Security Agency -- which aimed to hold telecom companies liable for allowing government eavesdropping on U.S. residents -- was terminated.

The Supreme Court declined to review a lower court ruling on the case today, closing the door on further appeals. Its decision did not address the merits of the case.

Hepting v. AT&T was a class-action suit filed by the American Civil Liberties … Read more

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is seizing domains and taking down URLs in the name of copyright infringement, but its tactics are worrying certain members of Congress.

In a letter (pdf) sent last week to Attorney General Eric Holder and Secretary Janet Napolitano, three members of the House Judiciary Committee aired their unease.

"We are concerned about your Departments' seizure of domain names under Operation In Our Sites, launched in November 2010," the letter said. "Our concern centers on your Department's methods, and the process given, when seizing the domain names of websites whose … Read more

As the Syrian civil war continues to escalate, pro-government forces are allegedly carrying out a cyberwar against local dissidents.

Syrian activists, journalists, and government opposition groups are under a barrage of targeted malware attacks, according to the watchdog group Electronic Frontier Foundation. What this malware does is deceptively install surveillance software into a computer under the guise of protecting the computer from viruses. Its name is AntiHacker.

Once the malware is installed in the computer, with promises to "Auto-Protect & Auto-Detect & Security & Quick scan and analysing [sic]," it actually begins to spy on the user. Using … Read more

Three consumer rights groups filed a friend of the court brief today arguing that allowing the government access to an individual's Twitter account information would chill free speech.

The brief filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and Public Citizen comes three weeks after Twitter filed its own challenge to an order from a New York State court requiring it to hand over data on one of its users who was arrested for disorderly conduct during an Occupy Wall Street protest last year.

The District Attorney's Office in New York wants Twitter to turn … Read more

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has ripped Apple and told it to open its platforms for those folks that just have to tinker. The Apple jab, which started with Steve Wozniak, will draw headlines, but the EFF also pitched a mobile computing bill of rights.

Calling for giving people the liberty to tinker with their mobile possessions, the EFF called Apple's iOS devices, whose usage terms come with a wide array of restrictions, "beautiful crystal prisons."

Hell will freeze over before Apple dumps its usage rules. After all, it's pretty clear from the sales figures that Apple'… Read more

SAN FRANCISCO--A senior U.S. House of Representatives aide said at an event held this evening at CNET's headquarters that he was astonished by the recent groundswell of opposition to a cybersecurity bill expected to be voted on next week.

"I'm really astounded to keep hearing this drumbeat that it's vague," Jamil Jaffer, senior counsel to the House Intelligence Committee, said during a roundtable on the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, or CISPA (PDF), moderated by CNET chief political correspondent Declan McCullagh and organized by Hackers and Founders.

Jaffer said that CISPA's critics … Read more

A 32-hour standoff between a French SWAT team and 23-year-old Mohamed Merah -- who was wanted for killing three French paratroopers, three Jewish schoolchildren, and a rabbi -- ended today with a dramatic firefight and the death of Merah who claimed to be affiliated with al-Qaeda, according to the Associated Press.

Shortly after the confrontation, Reuters reports, French President Nicolas Sarkozy announced he was making it illegal for citizens to visit Web sites that encourage terrorism or hate crimes.

"From now on, any person who habitually consults Web sites that advocate terrorism or that call for hatred and violence … Read more