Electronic Frontier Foundation Media Release
For Immediate Release: Monday, November 3, 2003
Electronic Frontier Foundation and Stanford Law Clinic Sue Electronic Voting Company
Student Publishers and ISP Aim to Stop Diebold's Abusive Copyright Claims
San Francisco - A nonprofit Internet Service Provider (ISP) and two Swarthmore College students are seeking a court
order on Election Day tomorrow to stop electronic voting machine manufacturer Diebold Systems, Inc., from issuing
specious legal threats. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the Center for Internet and Society Cyberlaw Clinic
at Stanford Law School are providing legal representation in this important case to prevent abusive copyright claims
from silencing public debate about voting, the very foundation of our democratic process.
Diebold has delivered dozens of cease-and-desist notices to website publishers and ISPs demanding that they take down
corporate documents revealing flaws in the company's electronic voting systems as well as difficulties with certifying
the systems for actual elections.
Swarthmore students Nelson Pavlosky and Luke Smith have published an email archive of the Diebold documents, which
contain descriptions of these flaws written by the company's own employees.
"Diebold's blanket cease-and-desist notices are a blatant abuse of copyright law," said EFF Staff Attorney Wendy
Seltzer. "Publication of the Diebold documents is clear fair use because of their importance to the public debate over
the accuracy of electronic voting machines."
Diebold threatened not only the ISPs of direct publishers of the corporate documents, but also the ISPs of those who
merely publish links to the documents. In one such instance, the ISP Online Policy Group (OPG) refused to comply with
Diebold's demand that it prohibit Independent Media Network (IndyMedia) from linking to Diebold documents. Neither
IndyMedia nor any other publisher hosted by OPG has yet published the Diebold documents directly.
"As an ISP committed to free speech, we are defending our users' right to link to information that's critical to the
debate on the reliability of electronic voting machines," said OPG's Colocation Director David Weekly. "This case is an
important step in defending free speech by helping protect small publishers and ISPs from frivolous legal threats by
large corporations."
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), passed by Congress in 1998, provides a "safe harbor" provision as an
incentive for ISPs to take down user-posted content when they receive cease-and-desist letters such as the ones sent by
Diebold. By removing the content, or forcing the user to do so, for a minimum of 10 days, an ISP can take itself out of
the middle of any copyright claim. As a result, few ISPs have tested whether they would face liability for such user
activity in a court of law. EFF has been exposing some of the ways that the safe harbor provision can be used to silence
legitimate online speech through the Chilling Effects Clearinghouse.
"Instead of paying lawyers to threaten its critics, Diebold should invest in creating electronic voting machines that
include voter-verified paper ballots and other security protections," said EFF Legal Director Cindy Cohn.
For this release: http://www.eff.org/Legal/ISP_liability/OPG_v_Diebold/20031103_eff_pr.php
Online Policy Group v. Diebold case archive: http://www.eff.org/Legal/ISP_liability/OPG_v_Diebold/
Cease-and-desist letter Diebold sent to OPG: http://www.eff.org/Legal/ISP_liability/cease_desist_letter.php
IndyMedia Web page subject to Diebold cease-and-desist letter: http://www.indybay.org/news/2003/09/1649419_comment.php
Security researchers discover huge flaws in e-voting system: http://www.eff.org/Activism/E-voting/20030723_eff_pr.php
Link to Chilling Effects on DMCA safe harbor provisions: http://www.chillingeffects.org/dmca512/
Media coverage of Diebold threats: http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,60927,00.html
About EFF:
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is the leading civil liberties organization working to protect rights in the digital
world. Founded in 1990, EFF actively encourages and challenges industry and government to support free expression and
privacy online. EFF is a member-supported organization and maintains one of the most linked-to websites in the world at http://www.eff.org/
About Center for Internet and Society Cyberlaw Clinic at Stanford Law School:
The Center for Internet and Society (CIS) is a public interest technology law and policy program at Stanford Law School
and a part of Law, Science and Technology Program at Stanford Law School. The CIS brings together scholars, academics,
legislators, students, programmers, security researchers, and scientists to study the interaction of new technologies
and the law and to examine how the synergy between the two can either promote or harm public goods like free speech,
privacy, public commons, diversity, and scientific inquiry. The CIS Cyberlaw Clinic gives Stanford Law School students
an opportunity to work with clients on cases and legal projects that involve questions of technology, law and the public
interest.
About OPG:
The Online Policy Group (OPG) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to online policy research, outreach, and action on
issues such as access, privacy, the digital divide, and digital defamation. The organization fulfills its motto of "One
Internet With Equal Access for All" through programs such as donation-based email, email list hosting, website hosting,
domain registrations, colocation services, technical consulting, educational training, and refurbished computer
donations. The California Community Colocation Project (CCCP) and QueerNet are OPG projects. OPG focuses on Internet
participants' civil liberties and human rights, like access, privacy, safety, and serving schools, libraries, disabled,
elderly, youth, women, and sexual, gender, and ethnic minorities. Find out more at http://www.onlinepolicy.org/
About IndyMedia:
IndyMedia is an international network working to build a decentralized, non-commercial media infrastructure to counter
an increasingly consolidated corporate media. IndyMedia collectives have spread rapidly since the WTO protests in
Seattle 1999, with IMC groups now working throughout North & South America, the Middle East, Europe, Africa, Asia and Oceania, accessible through http://www.indymedia.org/
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