Freedom Box: Freeing the Internet one Server at a time

Free software isn’t about free services or beer, it’s about intellectual reedom. As recent episodes such as censorship in China, the Egyptian government turning off the Internet, and Facebook’s constant spying, have shown, freedom and privacy on the Internet are under constant assault. Now Eben Moglen, law professor at Columbia University and renowned free software legal expert, has proposed a way to combine free software with the original peer-to-peer (P2P) design of the Internet to liberate users from the control of governments and big brother-like companies: Freedom Box — via redwolf.newsvine.com

File-Sharers Start Handing Over $1,000 Each in Bizarre Amnesty Program

Ten individuals have freely and bizarrely handed over $1,000 each to movie studio Liberty Media in piracy settlements, despite the company having absolutely no idea who they are or if they did anything wrong. Now Liberty have a new amnesty and are offering BitTorrent users the chance to hand themselves in or risk being involved in 36,000 upcoming lawsuits — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Lodger says she was held as sex slave

A US woman looking for a place to stay in New York City on classified site Craigslist made an agreement with a man living in Brooklyn: she’d cook and clean in exchange for free rent.

But when she arrived from Wisconsin this month, she was handcuffed to a radiator and made to be the man’s sex slave for eight days, she told police — via redwolf.newsvine.com

A ‘House’ actress’s chilling pro-choice ad

We see a woman clad in Mad Men-era finery, slowly walking from the camera down a long hallway. A voice familiar to fans of House narrates. Only decades ago, women suffered through horrifying back alley abortions, or they used dangerous methods when they had no other recourse. So when the Republican Party launched an all-out assault on women’s health, pushing bills to limit women’s access to vital services, we had to ask, she continues, as the image cuts between the woman opening a closet containing a single wire hanger and the distressed face of actress Lisa Edelstein: Why is the GOP trying to send women back to the back alley? — via supergerbil424.newsvine.com

WikiLeaks row intensifies as US makes ‘privacy’ move against Twitter

The US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, praised the role of social networks such as Twitter in promoting freedom – at the same time as the US government was in court seeking to invade the privacy of Twitter users.

Lawyers for civil rights organisations appeared before a judge in Alexandria, Virginia, battling against a US government order to disclose the details of private Twitter accounts in the WikiLeaks row, including that of the Icelandic MP Birgitta Jonsdottir, below.

The move against Twitter has turned into a constitutional clash over the protection of individual rights to privacy in the digital age — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Former FBI Agent Turned ACLU Attorney: Feds Routinely Spy on Citizens

The most disturbing thing we’ve uncovered is the scope of domestic intelligence activities taking place today. Domestic spying is now being done by a host of federal agencies (FBI, DOD, DHS, DNI) as well as state and local law enforcement and even private companies. Too often this spying targets political activity and religious practices. We’ve documented intelligence activities targeting or obstructing First Amendment-protected activity in 33 states and DC — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Neil Gaiman Loves Piracy: ‘It’s Advertising’

Bestselling author Neil Gaiman – author of awarded science fiction and fantasy short stories, novels, comic books and more – makes a case for piracy in a recent interview with ORG Zine.

Initially Gaiman got annoyed by people who put his stuff online for free, but later he realized that it’s actually the best promotion an author can get — via redwolf.newsvine.com