Court Bans Whistle-Blower Site
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A California court has shut down the U.S. version of Wikileaks.org, where whistle-blowers anonymously post documents.
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A federal judged ruled that the Web site was not protected by the First Amendment because it incited criminal conduct.
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Apple has settled a lawsuit against a Web site that had divulged company secrets, but the site, ThinkSecret.com, will shut down as part of the agreement.
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Â· Secret report accuses senior commanders  Â· MoD backs ban on military personnel selling stories
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Keep our web sites free! Silicon Justice Is this the dawning of the age of the defamation take-down notice?â¦
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By Contra Costa Times, Walnut Creek, Calif.  Dec. 8--Cases such as Stephen Heller make whistle-blowers an endangered  species.
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U.S. law enforcement closed down the thriving criminal marketplace Shadowcrew.com last week, but left its database of forbidden knowledge open to the public.
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A U.S. court in Wyoming has ordered a Web-based information broker to stop selling telephone records without owners&#39; consent and to turn over nearly $200,000 in profits from the operation, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission announced Monday.AccuSearch, doing business as Abika.com, and owner Jay Patel used &quot;false pretenses, fraudulent statements, fraudulent or stolen documents or other misrepresentations&quot; to induce telecom carriers to disclose the confidential records, the FTC said in a news release.Judge William Downes of the U.S. District Court for the District of Wyoming ordered the company to stop selling telephone records in a Dec. 20 decision announced Monday. The judge also ordered the company, based in Cheyenne, Wyoming, to turn over information so that the FTC can notify the people whose telephone records were sold.Abika.com advertised that it could obtain the confidential phone records of any individual -- including details about outgoing and incoming calls -- and make that information available to customers for a fee, the FTC said in a May 2006 complaint. The FTC charged that the company&#39;s methods of obtaining phone records, including posing as a customer of a telecom carrier, violated the FTC Act, which bars unfair business practices.A representative of Abika.com didn&#39;t immediately respond to a request for comment. The company continues to sell such information&#160;as criminal, tax, mortgage, and driving records through its Web site.The defendants have appealed the order to the U.S. Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals.Downes found that the company&#39;s ways of obtaining phone records without consumers&#39; consent was &quot;necessarily accomplished through illegal means,&quot; and that defendants knew that the phone records were being obtained surreptitiously.The company&#39;s actions caused major problems to consumers, including serious health and safety risks experienced by some consumers from stalkers and abusers; economic harm associated with changing telephone carriers and upgrading security on their accounts; and a host of &quot;substantial and real&quot; emotional harms, the judge said.Consumers had no way to avoid these harms, he wrote. &quot;In fact, the evidence presented before the court indicates that confidential consumer phone records were sold through Abika.com despite considerable efforts by consumers to maintain the privacy of those records,&quot; the judge wrote.Finally, the court found no countervailing benefits to consumers or competition that could be derived from the defendants&#39; practice.Downes also rejected the defendants&#39; claimed immunity under the Communications Decency Act, a federal statute that confers immunity on interactive computer service providers for publishing information content provided by a third party. The judge found that the argument failed partly because the defendants participated in creating the content they sought to have immune from prosecution, the FTC said.
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A law firm in Colorado has been fined by federal court after a spam filter intercepted an important court notice.
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A court ordered access to YouTube's Web site blocked Wednesday after a prosecutor recommended the ban because of videos allegedly insulting the founder of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.
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A legal campaign against sites that help people share films online appears to have forced a popular site to close.
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By Peter Eisler  WASHINGTON -- The federal government is sanctioning agreements that cost whistle-blowers their jobs after they expose safety and security lapses at nuclear facilities and toxic waste sites, Labor Department records show.
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Â·  Documentary 'invasion' of teenager's privacy Â·  Court halts screening after official solicitor intervenes
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Offer of amends 'confusing' Every element of a process designed to avoid expensive defamation trials must be followed otherwise it cannot take effect, the High Court has ruled. The ruling may result in a case of internet message board libel going to court.â¦
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Wikileaks, the whistleblower site that recently leaked documents related to prisons in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, is taken offline by its U.S. host after posting documents that implicate a Cayman Islands bank in money laundering and tax evasion activities. Kim Zetter reports.
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A federal judge ruled Thursday that the government's warrantless wiretapping program is unconstitutional and ordered an immediate halt to it.
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A PC, PS2 and Xbox-based trivia game has been banned in the US after a teenager alleged that the title contains topless video pictures of her, used not only without her permission but filmed when she was a minor.