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German govt and intelligence agencies face penal charges for spying
Penal charges against the German government and US and UK secret services have been filed on 3 February 2014 by three German NGOs – the International League for Human Rights, Chaos Computer Club (CCC) and Digitalcourage. (Digitalcourage and CCC are EDRi members) The criminal complaint is about mass surveillance, illegal covert intelligence activities, violations of […]
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Hacktivists targeted by British spies
According to documents released by Snowden on NSA activities, a secret British division of GCHQ named Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group (JTRIG), meant to mount cyber attacks on Britain’s enemies, was targeting the hacktivists of Anonymous and LulzSec. The documents reveal that JTRIG launched a “denial of service” (DDOS) attack (dubbed Rolling Thinder) and other […]
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11 February 2014 – The Day We Fought Back Mass Surveillance
Yesterday, on 11 February 2014, digital rights organizations, civil-society groups, authors, and Internet users across six continents were protesting to demand an end to mass surveillance, in an event initiated and coordinated by EDRi member Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) – USA. Over 6 000 websites committed to stand with the organizers in this global day […]
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Civil Society Demands an End to Mass Surveillance on “The Day We Fight Back”
Today on the 11th February digital rights organizations, civil-society groups, authors, and Internet users across six continents are protesting to demand an end to mass surveillance. Last summer, NSA contractor Edward Snowden began releasing documents detailing the alarming intelligence gathering operations conducted by the US, British, and other partner nations. The revelations that mass surveillance […]
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Bad leadership could kill the open internet in Europe
Bad leadership by just one or two Members of the European Parliament is in danger of killing the open internet in Europe. The Industry Committee (ITRE), which is responsible for the current European Commission proposal on “net neutrality”, is one of the most expert committees in the European Parliament. It has repeatedly identified threats to […]
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We promise. What’s the point?
Maybe, after all of the noise about crazy ideas like “Clean IT” and ACTA, there won’t be any big digital rights files for the incoming European Parliament. Maybe we don’t need to worry about having parliamentarians who understand the internet and digital rights. Maybe there won’t be any relevant proposals anyway. Maybe we don’t need […]
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The promise of democracy – digital rights groups reprogram European elections
A project launched today will give voters an innovative new way to hold the European Parliament to account.However, nothing is for free – as a trade-off citizens must make a promise of their own – to vote in May’s European Parliament elections. The Wepromise.eu project proposes a “Charter of Digital Rights“. Candidates promise to uphold […]
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ECJ: Circumventing protection systems may be lawful in certain cases
In a judgement issued on 23 January 2014, the EU Court of Justice ruled that circumventing a protection system of a games console may be lawful under certain circumstances. The decision was taken in a case brought to the Milan District court by Nintendo against the Italian retailer PC Box Srl. Nintendo sued PC Box […]
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Passwords lost for 16 million email accounts
The German Federal Office for Online Security (BSI) revealed on 21 January 2014 that, according to information from law enforcement agencies and research institutions, the passwords and usernames for emails of approx 16 million users (in majority Germans) had been compromised. The theft was revealed in an analysis of illegal botnets. BSI said the computer […]
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UK government must justify its large-scale surveillance activities
The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) asks the UK government to justify how GCHQ’s practices comply with the right to privacy under Article 8 of the European Convention. The ECtHR’s action follows a case brought by Big Brother Watch, the EDRi member Open Rights Group, English PEN and the German Internet activist Constanze Kurz […]
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Spain court orders an ISP to disconnect a user for P2P file sharing
For the first time in Spain, a court has ruled that an ISP must disconnect one of its users for having shared P2P music files. In a case brought to the court by Promusicae, an association of Spanish music producers, against the Spanish ISP R Cable y Telecomunicaciones Galicia, the Barcelona Court of Appeals has […]
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Data protection package delayed after the Euro elections
The EU’s much discussed data protection package will not be adopted before the elections for the European Parliament which are due in May 2014. “They have elaborated a road map and now they need to deliver on it basically but I think the political agreement to get this done before the end of the year […]
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