Hello advocacy advisers,
The Wikimedia Foundation was recently approached about joining advocacy campaign opposing an amendmenthttp://www.scribd.com/doc/132249133/House-Judiciary-Committee-discussion-draftto the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act ("CFAA"). Following our guidelines on policy and political affiliationshttp://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Legal_and_Community_Advocacy/Foundation_Policy_and_Political_Affiliations_Guideline, I would like to ask your for guidance on how/whether we should participate.
CFAA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Fraud_and_Abuse_Act is a federal law concerning fraud and related activity, including "exceeding authorized access" to certain computer systems. The law has received much criticism after the prosecution of Aaron Swartz.
According to the Center for Democracy and Technologyhttps://www.cdt.org/blogs/0204cdt-joins-bipartisan-coalition-oppose-dramatic-expansion-computer-crime-law, instead of fixing the problems with the current law, the amendment "would push the law in the exact wrong direction, dramatically heightening penalties while giving the government and civil litigants more latitude to prosecute or sue average Internet users who happen to violate a Web site’s terms of service or an employer’s computer use policy." A diverse set of experts signed a letter opposing the billhttps://www.cdt.org/files/pdfs/LetterOpposingCFAADraft_final-1.pdfearlier this week. Attached is a packet of information on the CFAA, and additional analysis is available below.
While the amendment is examined by the Judiciary Committee, a number of websites are joining in a "week of action" starting April 8 to oppose this amendment: http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2013/04/01
As valued and interested members of the Wikimedia community, we would like to hear your advice: Do you recommend that we participate in the "week of action" about the proposed amendment to the CFAA? If so, how would you recommend participating? E.g., should we prepare a blog post, our own public statement, or join another organization's statement?
Your feedback and guidance is much appreciated.
*Additional analysis*
* Electronic Frontier Foundation: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/04/diverse-group-organizations-and-expert... * Orin Kerr: http://www.volokh.com/category/computer-fraud-and-abuse-act/ * Tech Dirt: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130324/14342822435/rather-than-fix-cfaa-... * Erik Goldman: http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericgoldman/2013/03/28/the-computer-fraud-and-ab...
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On 04/04/13 05:16 PM, Stephen LaPorte wrote:
Hello advocacy advisers,
The Wikimedia Foundation was recently approached about joining advocacy campaign opposing an amendmenthttp://www.scribd.com/doc/132249133/House-Judiciary-Committee-discussion-draftto
the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act ("CFAA"). Following our guidelines
on policy and political affiliationshttp://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Legal_and_Community_Advocacy/Foundation_Policy_and_Political_Affiliations_Guideline,
I would like to ask your for guidance on how/whether we should participate.
The amendment seems to make a bad law worse, and seems to make TOS into federal law, among many other legal issues.
The problem is more how we should participate, rather than whether. Is the advocacy campaign proposing specific actions, or leaving it to the imaginations of supporters?
Amgine
On Fri, Apr 5, 2013 at 7:25 PM, Amgine amgine@wikimedians.ca wrote:
The problem is more how we should participate, rather than whether. Is the advocacy campaign proposing specific actions, or leaving it to the imaginations of supporters?
Here is a page that others may use next week: http://www.fixthecfaa.com/
-- Stephen LaPorte Legal Counsel Wikimedia Foundation
*For legal reasons, I may only serve as an attorney for the Wikimedia Foundation. This means I may not give legal advice to or serve as a lawyer for community members, volunteers, or staff members in their personal capacity.*
On Fri, Apr 5, 2013 at 12:45 PM, Stephen LaPorte slaporte@wikimedia.org wrote:
On Fri, Apr 5, 2013 at 7:25 PM, Amgine amgine@wikimedians.ca wrote:
The problem is more how we should participate, rather than whether. Is the advocacy campaign proposing specific actions, or leaving it to the imaginations of supporters?
Here is a page that others may use next week: http://www.fixthecfaa.com/
Is that an answer to Amgine's question?
The proposed amendments would open editors to felony charges involving decades of possible jail time for using published web sources to which they have legitimate access if a prosecutor decides that such use on Foundation projects isn't explicitly allowed by the site's terms of service. This is far worse for the editor community than simply having to remove URLs on request as SOPA or PIPA would have required if they had passed, and would likely expose even project readers to the same criminal liability for clicking on links to sources without terms explicitly allowing such use.
The Foundation Policy and Political Association Guideline explicitly contemplates the use of banner space to promote a political cause. If this CFAA amendment proposal doesn't rise to the level justifying such an action, then what would?
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I would definitely be in favour of including this widget in the banner for United Staters, as a 100% of banners addition during the week of the campaign. I would also hope Wikipedians would currently be working on an explanation of what this amendment would mean for Wikipedian contributors, which should also be advertised on an ongoing basis to logged in users until this amendment either passes or fails.
Amgine
On 05/04/13 11:45 AM, Stephen LaPorte wrote:
On Fri, Apr 5, 2013 at 7:25 PM, Amgine amgine@wikimedians.ca wrote:
The problem is more how we should participate, rather than whether. Is the advocacy campaign proposing specific actions, or leaving it to the imaginations of supporters?
Here is a page that others may use next week: http://www.fixthecfaa.com/
Stephen,
We are now mid-way through the "week of action" you were asking about.
What are the opinions of the General Counsel, CFA, Head of Technology, and Executive Director on participating?
Will there be an RfC?
On Fri, Apr 5, 2013 at 5:17 PM, Amgine amgine@wikimedians.ca wrote:
I would definitely be in favour of including this widget in the banner for United Staters, as a 100% of banners addition during the week of the campaign. I would also hope Wikipedians would currently be working on an explanation of what this amendment would mean for Wikipedian contributors, which should also be advertised on an ongoing basis to logged in users until this amendment either passes or fails.
Amgine
On 05/04/13 11:45 AM, Stephen LaPorte wrote:
On Fri, Apr 5, 2013 at 7:25 PM, Amgine amgine@wikimedians.ca wrote:
The problem is more how we should participate, rather than whether. Is the advocacy campaign proposing specific actions, or leaving it to the imaginations of supporters?
Here is a page that others may use next week: http://www.fixthecfaa.com/
publicpolicy@lists.wikimedia.org