Testing the limits in Arkansas

[O]n Christmas Eve, a federal judge struck down a law that put booksellers and librarians at risk of imprisonment if they provided minors with “harmful” material. That includes themes about race and being LGBTQ. The Judge wrote that the law tried to deputize “librarians and booksellers as the agents of censorship” and that if their decision were made in the shadow of “fear of jail time, it is likely they will shelve only books fit for young children and segregate or discard the rest.”

Holly Dickson, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas, called the law “an attempt to ‘thought police,’” and said the Judge’s decision was a “victory over totalitarianism” and “a testament to the courage of librarians, booksellers and readers who refused to bow to intimidation.” Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders said, “Schools and libraries shouldn’t put obscene material in front of our kids.”

It’s likely we will see an appeal to the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals from the state as early as this week.

  Joyce Vance

Enemies of the Internet

Watchdog group Reporters Without Borders released its annual report on which countries restrict access to the internet through censorship and surveillance this week. Repeat offenders China and North Korea made the list again this year, but the democracies of America and Britain joined the ranks thanks to the National Security Agency and the Government Security Headquarters’ activities, respectively. Another democratic newcomer to the group? India, for its Centre for Development of Telematics.

[...]

The report’s authors slammed America’s “highly secretive” NSA, which they said has “come to symbolize the abuses by the world’s intelligence agencies.”

[...]

The report dubbed the United Kingdom the “world champion of surveillance” thanks to British eavesdropping agency Government Communications Headquarters.

  Salon

Damn! We’re not even number one in surveillance.

Enemies of the Internet report

Inching Through the Courts (Updated)

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, or FISC, ruled Wednesday that it has no objection to the release of a 2011 opinion of the court, which found that some of the National Security Agency’s surveillance programs under the FISA Amendments Act, were unconstitutional.

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On Friday, the Department of Justice, or DoJ, had argued that the court’s opinion must remain secret and its release of the opinion would contradict the FISC's own rules on disclosure of classified documents, according to NBC News.

[...]

The nation’s most secretive court, as it has been called in the media, said that the 86-page classified opinion can be made public if a district court orders it.

[...]

[The] NSA’s PRISM program, which has sparked public outrage over Internet users’ privacy rights, is based on the same sections that the FISC found was circumvented by the security agency.

[...]

EFF attorney Mark Rumold welcomed the court’s ruling and said it is the first victory for a non-governmental party in the FISC.

"It's important to know that while this is a victory, it is a pretty modest one," he said. "It's the FISC realizing that the Department (of Justice) was making crazy arguments, and they quickly got rid of it. Now we have to go right back to the district court."

  IBTimes

Oh, and Greenwald says he’s working on further stories – implied to be related to the information provided him by Snowden.

UPDATE:

 

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