p2pnet - rss feed: Federal judge accelerates Diebold case
A federal judge has accelerated the schedule for a suit brought by an ISP and
two Swarthmore students to stop electronic voting machine manufacturer Diebold Systems from issuing further legal threats against ISPs.
Diebold threatened ISPs who host websites that publish or link to a Diebold email archive which highlights flaws in Diebold voting machines, as well as difficulties certifying the systems for actual elections, says a statement from the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) and Society Cyberlaw Clinic at Stanford Law School.
Now the two groups are representating the ISP, the Online Policy Group (OPG), and Swarthmore students Nelson Pavlosky and Luke Smith in what the EFF says is a case to prevent, "abusive copyright claims from silencing public debate about voting, the very foundation of our democratic process".
Judge Jeremy Fogel of the federal district court in San Jose will hear the OPG v. Diebold case (Case Number C-03-04913 JF) on November 17, 2003.
Diebold threatened not only the ISPs of direct publishers of the corporate documents, but also the ISPs of those who merely published links to the documents, says the EFF. OPG refused to comply with Diebold’s demand that it prohibit Independent Media Network (IndyMedia) from linking to Diebold documents.
"Instead of paying lawyers to threaten its critics, Diebold should invest in creating electronic voting machines that include voter-verified paper ballots and other security protections," says EFF legal director Cindy Cohn.
