John Gideon, Information Manager for Voters Unite, reports back from Day 1 of the two-day HR 550 lobbying blitz with (mostly) encouraging signs. And also, a few reminders that the merits of legislation alone rarely determines the final outcome.
Staffers for Representative Jim Leach (R-IA) rebuffed efforts...

How much impact can citizen lobbyists have on the legislative process? Plenty, says Warren Stewart, Director of Legislative Issues and Policy for Vote Trust USA, who generously, breathlessly, called to share his thoughts in his three free minutes between lobbying meetings.
"I've been genuinely impressed by the quality...

Feel like your democracy is a bit opaque these days? Beginning tomorrow, EFF will help shed a little light in two interconnected ways. On Thursday and Friday, June 9th and 10th, EFF will provide a series of weblog reports of a two-day lobbying effort by a coalition of activist groups...

Apple fans who don't like digital rights managment (DRM) have been fretting about Apple's announcement Monday that it will move from the "PowerPC" to the Intel architecture. The Intel hardware platform is seen as more DRM-laden because of Intel's high-profile involvement in various DRM initiatives (something it's quite ...

Judge Marilyn Patel issued a ruling (PDF) Wednesday that settles an important question in the ongoing Napster (yes, Napster) case -- whether under the law, simply offering copyrighted material to others (say, by listing it in an index) means you're distributing it.
The record label lawyers, as ...

The Senate Intelligence Committee failed yesterday to reach agreement on the stealth PATRIOT expansion bill that would give the FBI expanded power to dig through the private records of people who aren't accused of any wrongdoing. The New York Times has the scoop (reg. req.), including a choice...

Lots of people were watching television at EFF's offices Saturday -- not on television sets, but on high-definition personal video recorders (PVRs) they built themselves. EFF hosted the DTV build-in to celebrate our courtroom victory over the FCC's Broadcast Flag.

As the Chicago Tribune put it:
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