Congratulations to Telecomix alumnus Asher Wolf, who was awarded the 2014 Print/Online Award for Journalism along with Oliver Laughland and Paul Farrell at the Amnesty International Australia Media Awards on 21 October 2014! ~~~~~====::) ~~~~~====::) ~~~~~====::)

Last week, the addictively simple social networking site Twitter announced that it would be adding the capability to selectively censor tweets based upon where the viewer appears to be sourcing from. Like most websites, when handed a properly acquired takedown notice they're pretty snappy about making certain things disappear (note that some of the taken down posts are reprinted in the takedown notices) but this is, as they say, a whole 'nother smoke. This change of policy means that if you post something that the government of a different country doesn't like (like this), they can request that Twitter make …

For several years now, the website Wikileaks (mirrored across the global Net as well as a couple of darknets) has been the first place to go if you wanted to learn about anything shady going on. Founded as a clearinghouse for whistleblowers and do-gooders by Sunshine Press, they make it their business to archive and disseminate sensitive documents that were leaked because they provide proof of dastardly goings-on in the world, from illegal search and seizure to confidential e-mails about screwed up policies and procedures to hit lists of thorns in the collective side of the powers that be. A …

A major precedent has been set in net.law following Apple losing its lawsuit against Apple Insider and O'grady's Power Page. In those lawsuits, Apple sued to uncover the identities of the people who leaked information about an audio playback device that Apple was going to release at some point (I think it was supposed to be the iPod Nano - I don't follow Apple news), and stated that amateur news sites and writers are not covered by the laws that protect professional journalists. The court, however, decided that there is no reliable test that can be used to distinguish legitimate …