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Interview:
Lee Tien, Senior Staff Attorney, Electronic Frontier
Foundation: 25th July
2003
In
keeping with Media Man Australia's tradition of tackling
any subject, we explore the world of consumer rights
in an online environment.
Mr.
Lee Tien speaks at length about consumer rights and
how the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is working
to protect the rights of consumers who use technologies
like the Internet and the World Wide Web.
It
is a safe assumption that some organisations and government
agencies would prefer that you did not know the information
shared in this discussion.
Lee
in his role at the EFF specializes in privacy, free
speech & freedom of information.
This
is Greg Tingle reporting for Media Man Australia.
We're speaking with Lee Tien from the Electronic Frontier
Foundation. Welcome to the program Lee.
Thank
you.
Thank
you. So in this interesting world we live in, with
websites gone berserk, the EFF has been developed.
What in fact does the EFF do Lee?
Well,
we are a non profit, public interest organisation
based in San Francisco, and we are just generally
devoted to protecting the individual rights... We
started out in the area of computer hacking, computer
crime, free speech and privacy. In the last few years
I guess beginning in 1999 we really became to get
into the area of intellectual property, copyright,
the Copyright Act, because we began to get concerned
about the way our public cultural was being appropriated
by from content producers, the recording industry
and this was being built into hardware and software
that everyone was not going to be able to understand.
We are just in a number of different areas whether
it be censorship or intellectual, surveillance...
I
see, so what was the general public and companies
doing before yourselves came along and legal issues
and so on began to be encountered?
....
Listen
Here
Editors
note: Perhaps the most interesting, if not fascinating,
aspects of legal issues facing the modern world today.
This interview will be transcribed in its entirety
as time permits. In the meantime, the official EEF
website is a wealth of information.
Links:
Electronic
Frontier Foundation official website
Electronic
Frontiers Australia
Media
Man Australia interviews Derick Wilding, Communications
Law Centre - 18th July 2003
Media
Man Australia interviews Jayne Hitchcock, Cybercrime
expert - 23rd June 2003
File-sharers
fight legal moves - BBC News - 28th July 2003
Fur
to fly over file sharing - Sydney Morning Herald -
29th July 2003
File-sharers
can find out if they are being targeted by the US
record industry via a website created by civil liberty
activists.
The
Electronic Frontier Foundation, (EFF), has set up
an online database which allows people to check if
a subpoena has been issued for them by the Recording
Industry Association of America, (RIAA).
"We
hope that EFF's subpoena database will give people
some peace of mind and the information they need to
challenge these subpoenas and protect their privacy."
(Senior lawyer, Fred Von Lohmann)
"The
recording industry continues its futile crusade to
sue thousands of the more than 60 million people who
use file-sharing software in the US". (Senior
lawyer, Fred Von Lohmann)
Together
with the US Internet
Industry Association, the EFF has established
a website called subpoenadefense.org
which has details of lawyers and other valuable legal
resources.
About
the EFF (courtesy of the Electronic Frontier Foundation
website):
If
America's founding fathers had anticipated the digital
frontier, there would be a clause in the Constitution
protecting your rights online, as well.
Instead,
a modern group of freedom fighters was necessary to
extend the original vision into the digital world.
That's
where the Electronic Frontier Foundation comes in.
Just
as Patriots fought for liberty and freedom, we fight
measures that threaten basic human rights. Only the
dominion we defend is the vast wealth of digital information,
innovation, and technology that resides online.
The
Electronic Frontier Foundation is comprised of passionate
people — lawyers, volunteers, and visionaries
— working in the trenches, battling to protect
your rights and the rights of web surfers everywhere.
The dedicated people of EFF challenge legislation
that threatens to put a price on what is invaluable;
to control what must remain boundless.
Electronic
Frontier Foundation: Because being able to share ideas
and information is the reason the Web was created
in the first place!
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