Internet Lawyer Blog

PEMBROKE PINES, Fla. -- A student who set up a Facebook page to complain about her teacher - and was later suspended - had every right to do so under the First Amendment, a federal magistrate has ruled.

The ruling not only allows Katherine "Katie" Evans' suit against the principal to move forward, it could set a precedent in cases involving speech and social networking on the Internet, experts say.

The courts are in the early stages of exploring the limits of free speech within social networking, said Howard Simon, the executive director of the Florida ACLU, which filed the suit on Evans' behalf.

"It's one of the main things that we wanted to establish in this case, that the First Amendment has a life in the social networking technology as it applies to the Internet and other forms of communication," Simon said.

In 2007, Evans, then a senior at Pembroke Pines Charter High School, created a Facebook page where she vented about "the worst teacher I've ever met."

But instead of other students expressing their dislike of the teacher, most defended the teacher and attacked Evans.

A couple days later, Evans took the page down.

But after Principal Peter Bayer found out about it, he bumped Evan from her Advanced Placement classes, putting her in classes with less prestige, and suspended her for three days.

In late 2008, Evans filed suit against the principal, asking that the suspension be ruled unconstitutional and reversed, that the documents be removed from her file at the school and that she receive reimbursement for attorney fees.

Evans, an honors student, was concerned that the suspension would tarnish her academic record and hurt her chances in graduate school and her career.

Bayer tried to get the case dismissed and asked for immunity against paying damages.

In a ruling on Friday, Magistrate Judge Barry Garber declined Bayer's request to toss the case and said the principal could be forced to pay up if Evans, now 19 and a journalism student at the University of Florida, is victorious.

"Evans' speech falls under the wide umbrella of protected speech," Garber wrote. "It was an opinion of a student about a teacher, that was published off-campus, did not cause any disruption on-campus, and was not lewd, vulgar, threatening, or advocating illegal or dangerous behavior."

The judge also noted that the principal suspended Evans two months after she had taken the page down.

"In short, the potential spark of disruption had sputtered out, and all that remained was the opportunity to punish," Garber wrote.

The judge dismissed the student's request to force Bayer to purge the records of her suspension, but gave her the opportunity to amend her complaint and make the demand of the right parties.

Bayer could not be reached for comment Monday. Pembroke Pines City Manager Charlie Dodge, who oversees the city's charter school system, declined to comment on the lawsuit.

Matthew D. Bavaro, who filed the suit with the American Civil Liberties Union on Evans' behalf, said the case helps clarify when schools can punish students for speech that doesn't take place at school.

"These days, things are done on the Internet. Socialization is done on the Internet," he said. "So the law needs to adapt and we need precedent on how courts are going to apply First Amendment principles for off-campus speech."

He said he believes the ruling "seems like a pretty strong signal" of where the case will go.

While the suit is far from resolved, legal experts say it is an important case.

"I think there has been too great a tendency in recent years for public school officials to sort of reach beyond the classroom, reach beyond the school campus very often to try to regulate or punish free speech by students in the name of protecting order," said Sam Terilli, a media law and ethics professor at the University of Miami. "While we can all understand that, post-Columbine, there are limits."

But Terilli added: "If a student is using or any other medium to threaten or even imply threats of violence, that's a different matter."

By Hannah Sampson at Miami Herald Writer

See: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/florida/AP/story/1482481.html

A type of "driver's license" for the Internet. Yeah. That's what Craig Mundie, Microsoft's chief research and strategy officer, proposed this week at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

It's not as ominous as it sounds since Mundie was suggesting a simple solution for the complex world of cybercrime, and his analogy was a "driver's license" for the Internet.

I wasn't in Davos, so I'll let Time magazine's Barbara Kiviat explain it better:

What Mundie is proposing is to impose authentication. He draws an analogy to automobile use. If you want to drive a car, you have to have a license (not to mention an inspection, insurance, etc). If you do something bad with that car, like break a law, there is the chance that you will lose your license and be prevented from driving in the future. In other words, there is a legal and social process for imposing discipline. Mundie imagines three tiers of Internet ID: one for people, one for machines and one for programs (which often act as proxies for the other two).

Now, there are, of course, a number of obstacles to making such a scheme be reality. Even here in the mountains of Switzerland I can hear the worldwide scream go up: "But we're entitled to anonymity on the Internet!" Really? Are you? Why do you think that?

Mundie pointed out that in the physical world we are implicitly comfortable with the notion that there are certain places we're not allowed to go without identifying ourselves. Are you allowed to walk down the street with no one knowing who you are? Absolutely. Are you allowed to walk into a bank vault and still not give your name? Hardly.

Story by: http://blog.seattlepi.com/microsoft/archives/193602.asp

See also: http://curiouscapitalist.blogs.time.com/2010/01/30/drivers-licenses-for-the-internet/

WASHINGTON - Internet search firm Google Inc. is finalizing a deal that would let the U.S. National Security Agency help it investigate a corporate espionage attack that may have originated in China, the Washington Post reported yesterday.

The aim of the investigation is to better defend Google, the world's largest Internet search company, and its users from future attacks, the Post said, citing anonymous sources with knowledge of the arrangement.

The sources said Google's alliance with the NSA -- the intelligence agency is the world's most powerful electronic surveillance organization -- would be aimed at letting them share critical information without violating Google's policies or laws that protect the privacy of online communications.

"NSA is not able to comment on specific relationships we may or may not have with U.S. companies," the agency said in a statement.

As a general matter, "NSA works with a broad range of commercial partners and research associates" on security solutions for the U.S. Defense Department and other customers and on " cutting-edge technologies that will secure the information systems of tomorrow," the statement said.

Under the arrangement, the NSA would not be viewing user searches or email accounts, the Post said. Google also would not be sharing proprietary data with the NSA, the newspaper's sources said.

See http://www.montrealgazette.com/business/fp/Google+share+cyber+attack+data/2524035/story.html

-(c) Copyright National Post

The ongoing conflict between Google and China escalated earlier this month as Google announced it had discovered that the hacking of its servers had originated from the Chinese government.

The hacking code used was traced to China's territory, but not to the Chinese government, which, not surprisingly, denies any connection to the attack. How Google came to the conclusion that the hack had come from the Chinese government has yet to be disclosed.

China currently has the most Internet users of any country in the world. JP Morgan and Chase estimates that Google will make roughly six hundred million dollars in the Chinese market in 2010. Withdrawing from China would clearly be a poor business decision.

Google's argument for withdrawal is that the Chinese government allegedly hacked into its servers to steal information from human rights activists. Whoever initiated the hack broke into Google's mail servers and retrieved important documents using a Trojan virus.

This is somewhat ironic, since it only means that someone on the outside managed to accomplish what Google algorithms already do with all of the mail that passes through its servers.

Google has never been a leader when it comes to Internet privacy rights.

For example, individual user's search histories stay in Google's servers for up to two years.

Also, Gmail contains an algorithm that scans all mail, purportedly in order to improve the relevance of the advertisements displayed.

In addition, Google StreetView images were all compiled without even so much as asking for a waiver from anyone who inadvertently became a permanent feature within an image.

Most recently, Google Books has been widely criticized for disregarding the property rights and wishes of authors whose books it samples. The French government has publicly denounced Google for its reluctance to respect patents.

President Sarkozy has gone so far as to decry Google Books as an attack on French culture and has proposed that measures be taken against the Internet giant, including a tax that targets Google's profits.

Admittedly, Google's embarrassing security breach is nothing on the scale of AOL's accidental disclosure of thousands of users' search histories in 2006. In that case, what was intended to be company research wound up as CNN Money 57th dumbest moment in business.

But the potential remains for Google's centrally located and extensive stores of user information to eclipse even that scandal.

Google's questionable privacy policies have often been deemed controversial, and even prompted a parody video from The Onion titled Google Opt Out Feature Lets Users Protect Privacy by Moving to Remote Village.

Back to the current dispute, it must be remembered that Google is a business. It is not an activist organization; it is not an ethical forum; it is not a China think tank. Other businesses, especially those who have not been hit, are not going to follow Google out of China with six hundred million dollars of profits suddenly lying on the table.

The threat to pack up and leave if China does not let Google present an uncensored web is clearly a principled stand without any principled ground to stand on. The most pragmatic stand Google could make would be to stand down.

Yes, Gmail hacks are a problem, whether or not they come from the Chinese government. But Google's own policies are a larger and ever-present threat to the same ideal of privacy.

Google could change its policies to protect privacy better internally, which would give its objection to Chinese meddling much more weight. Until that happens, however, the biggest threat to privacy for Google users is Google itself.

Story by: James Santucci, Staff Writer

See also: http://www.utulsa.edu/collegian/article.asp?article=4427

The state's high court said today that sexually explicit instant messages used by a Beverly man to arrange a sexual encounter with someone he thought was a 13-year-old girl are not illegal under current state law.

The Supreme Judicial Court reversed the conviction of Matt H. Zubiel, who in 2006 used IMs to chat not with a teenager but with Plymouth County Deputy Sheriff Melissa Marino, who was searching the Internet for child predators.

In 2007, Zubiel was convicted in Plymouth Superior Court of attempted dissemination of materials harmful to a minor and was sentenced to one year in jail.

In its unanimous ruling, the SJC said the text of the state law used against Zubiel contains a list of prohibited items ,— mostly visual materials like photographs ,— but does not include typewritten words.

The law also includes "handwritten materials'' as a type of evidence that can be used to prosecute people like Zubiel. But, writing for the majority, Justice Francis X. Spina concluded the Legislature must rewrite the law to include 21st-century forms of communication before any more prosecutions take place.

"While proscribing the activity in this case would be consistent with a legislative intent to protect children from sexual abuse and exploitation, the definitions ,AeP do not do so,'' Spina wrote.

"If the Legislature wishes to include instant messaging or other electronically transmitted text in the definition of [the law] it is for the Legislature, not the court, to do so,'' Spina wrote.

Spina also wrote, "We conclude that the online conversations in this case, as they were not written with pen or pencil, cannot be considered 'handwritten' materials.''

In a telephone interview, Plymouth County District Attorney Timothy J. Cruz, whose office prosecuted Zubiel, said "obviously we're disappointed" by the ruling.

Cruz also serves as president of the Massachusetts District Attorneys Association. "If that's [the SJC's] position, there needs to be some legislative changes to the definition of what `matter' is. Our kids are living in a different worlds than the one we did when we were growing up.

By Jonathan Saltzman and John R. Ellement, Globe Staff

See also: http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2010/02/instant_message.html

China's police are working with the country's highest investigative organ and the Supreme People's Court to release a judicial interpretation on hacking crimes, according to the People's Daily, the official paper of the Communist Party, citing a Chinese police representative. The report gave no details, but such documents are used to direct lower-level Chinese courts on how to apply laws.

The move would be the latest of China's efforts to strengthen laws against cybercrime, which have come alongside a growing number of reported arrests and court sentences for hacking in the country in the last year.

The report comes after Google last month drew global attention to hacking in China by saying it had been hit by cyberattacks from the country. Google cited the attacks, which resulted in the loss of intellectual property, as one reason it plans to stop censoring its China-based search engine, even if the move forces it to shut down its China offices.

China's national political advisory body has also called for changes to a law on online information safety and other measures intended to reduce cybercrime, according to the state-run China News Service.

China late last year released a tort law that touches on privacy issues and requires Internet service providers to take action when an individual is using the network to violate someone's civil rights. The providers should take steps including deletion and blocking when they receive a complaint about infringement of a victim's rights, according to the law.

Chinese media saw the law partly as a move against China's "human flesh searches," in which a mass of Internet users dig up and post online information about a victim, sometimes after stealing the information. Such searches are often directed against people seen to have committed an immoral act such as cheating on a spouse.

Earlier last year , China passed its first regulations protecting the public from cyber data theft. It later issued a set of regulations that called for measures by the country's telecom network operators and other bodies to fight problems including botnets and false information used to register domain names.

China has often been blamed for cyberattacks worldwide, though it is difficult to trace hacking activity within the country and attackers in other countries could also launch attacks from a Chinese IP (Internet Protocol) address.

Crimes like data theft through computer malware and attacks meant to paralyze a victim's servers are also a problem in China itself. One cyberattack last year ended up taking down Internet access for several hours in certain Chinese provinces.

Story by: Owen Fletcher, IDG News Service

More on http://www.pcworld.com/article/188302/china_works_to_toughen_hacking_laws.html

Twitter reset passwords for an unknown number of users on Tuesday whose accounts appeared to have been compromised via phishing.

"As part of Twitter's ongoing security efforts, we reset passwords for a small number of accounts that we believe may have been compromised offsite," the company said in a statement.

Some Twitter users apparently "used their Twitter username and password to sign up for an untrusted third-party application which then posted Tweets to their account," a spokeswoman said.

"While we're still investigating and ensuring that the appropriate parties are notified, we do believe that the steps we've taken should ensure user safety," the statement said. "We'll continue to provide updates as warranted at @safety and @spam."

Users who want information on what to do if their accounts have been compromised can visit http://twitter.zendesk.com/forums/10713/entries/31796 and learn how to use Twitter safely.

Story by: Elinor Mills

Date: February 2, 2010

See: http://news.cnet.com/8301-27080_3-10445898-245.html for more information

PITTSBURGH (AP) - A federal appeals court has revived part of a western Pennsylvania couple's lawsuit against Internet search engine Google Inc.

But the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling says Aaron and Christine Boring will have to prove the pictures of their home on Google's "Street View" actually hurt them to collect more than $1 from a federal court jury.

A federal magistrate last year threw out the lawsuit saying the Pittsburgh-area couple couldn't prove the pictures actually harmed them.

The appeals court let most of that ruling stand, but says the couple may have a valid claim that Google trespassed to get the pictures.

Google attorneys say the pictures are similar to those on a county tax Web site and says it removes photos upon request if homeowners object.

See Pittsburgh Tribune-Review at http://pghtrib.com

2010-01-29

15:47:05 GMT