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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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