Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich - has posted excerpts from controversial Diebold documents on his House.gov website, with commentary on Diebold's position regarding other posters and his intention to investigate and to introduce legislation appropriate to the situation. Thanks to Donna Wentworth at Copyfight for the pointer to this. (Read more ... )
Rep. Kucinich says, at the posting linked to above, that "Diebold has been using coercive legal claims to intimidate internet service providers and even universities to shut down websites with links to its memos and remove the memo content. Under copyright laws, however, universities are exempt, and posting links to the memos is not considered a violation of the law. By abusing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, Diebold has intimidated numerous internet service providers to comply with its requests. The damage is two-fold: 1) limiting the public’s information about the security of its voting machines, and 2) expanding corporate control over our most free medium of expression, the Internet.
EFF's Cindy Cohn, Counsel to OPG, has written a letter to Judge Fogel stating that Diebold has sent cease and desist letters to San Francisco Indymedia, an alternative media source that has posted excerpts of the controversial material. According to Ms. Cohn's letter, "Diebold claims that Indymedia's hosting of excerpts from the e-mail archives, as part of a story discussing the 'gems' available in the archive, also violates its copyrights."
The facts in this matter are developing in ways like that involving the Brown & Williamson tobacco documents back in 1993-1994. Privileged documents were taken from B&W by one of their paralegals, then released to national media and to Rep. Henry Waxman, then Chair of the House Subcommittee on Health and the Environment. At the time, Rep. Waxman was conducting hearings about health effects of tobacco and manipulation of nicotine levels.
At the time B&W found about the release, they had a pending civil suit in Kentucky against Williams, their former paralegal. In that Kentucky court, they obtained a subpoena for Rep. Waxman to provide them with all copies of the B&W documents he had received, and to submit to a deposition. Rep. Waxman's response was to remove the case to D.C., where the District Court quashed the subpoena as in conflict with the Speech and Debate clause of the United States Constitution.
The resulting opinion of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia is illuminating on the Speech and Debate clause and the scope of its immunities, as well as the removal of the Williams case to the District. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Company v. Williams 62 F.3d 408 (D.C. Cir 1995).
Question: Can we expect Diebold to send Congressman Kucinich a cease and desist letter, with a takedown notice to the ISP hosting House.gov? I'd like to be a fly on the wall when those arrive.
Posted by dougsimpson at November 19, 2003 05:43 PM | TrackBack