court

NSA secretly vacuumed up Verizon phone records

The National Security Agency is vacuuming up records of millions of phone calls made inside the United States, a top secret court order reveals.

A top secret order that was released this afternoon requires Verizon to hand over to the NSA "on an ongoing daily basis" information about all domestic and overseas calls -- "including local telephone calls."

The FBI obtained the secret order, which was disclosed by The Guardian newspaper, from the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which meets behind closed doors and whose proceedings rarely become public. It was signed by FISC Judge Roger … Read more

Yahoo lucks out; Mexican court chucks $2.75B damages award

A Mexican court ruled last November that Yahoo and Yahoo Mexico had to shell out a whopping $2.75 billion in a lawsuit over a yellow pages listing service's lost profits. On Thursday, Mexico's Superior Court of Justice reduced that number to a mere $172,500 in damages.

This is likely welcome news to the tech company. Damages of $2.75 billion is a huge portion of the company's revenue -- in Yahoo's most recently reported quarter, it only generated $1.07 billion in revenue.

The lawsuit was originally filed by the Worldwide Directories and Ideas … Read more

LulzSec case in U.K. brings sentences for 4 men

LONDON -- Four members of the LulzSec hacking group were sentenced in court Thursday after pleading guilty to various computer hacking-related charges.

Ryan Ackroyd, 26; Jake Davis, 20; and Mustafa al-Bassam, 18, were all sentenced together with Ryan Cleary, 21, over a two-day hearing at Southwark Crown Court, London.

Each member of the LulzSec hacktivist group admitted to various hacking charges, including taking down corporate and government Web sites between February and September 2011.

Presiding Judge Deborah Taylor sentenced Ackroyd to 30 months -- serving half -- and Davis 24 months in a Young Offenders institution, serving at least 12 … Read more

Boston judge limits access to Aaron Swartz court records

A federal judge has rejected attempts by the estate of the late Aaron Swartz to disclose confidential court documents that could have revealed key details about MIT's role in his prosecution.

U.S. District Judge Nathaniel Gorton in Boston ruled today that the possibility of violence aimed at MIT officials -- some have reportedly received threats, and the campus was locked down in February after a gunman hoax -- outweighed the public's right to access court records that would have identified which professors, university attorneys, or staff members were involved.

"The estate's interest in disclosing the … Read more

Nokia backs Apple in legal skirmish against Samsung

Apple has finally found an ally in its fight for a sales ban of Samsung phones.

On Monday, Nokia filed a brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington backing Apple in its bid for a permanent injunction of certain Samsung phones, Reuters reported yesterday.

Though the brief itself was sealed, a summary from Nokia said that the court was wrong to deny Apple's request.

Nokia attorney Keith Broyles argued that U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose, Calif., made a mistake when she said that Apple must show a "… Read more

Supreme Court throws out NSA surveillance case

In a narrow, 5-4 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a lawsuit challenging a secretive National Security Agency surveillance program.

A majority of the justices ruled (PDF) that the lawsuit, brought by human rights advocates and journalists who believed their electronic communications sent abroad would be intercepted, was "too speculative" to proceed based on fears of "hypothetical future harm."

The plaintiffs, which included Amnesty International and The Nation magazine, had argued that the 2008 amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act -- giving the government virtually unregulated authority to perform bulk surveillance on the international … Read more

Judge orders Apple, Samsung to trim 2014 patent spat

A U.S. District judge today told Apple and Samsung that they need to whittle down a case against one another before it heads to trial early next year.

Judge Lucy Koh, who presided over the major U.S. trial between the two companies last year, told both sides that they need to trim down the number of accused products and patent claims in the upcoming case.

"You've already been litigating this thing for a year; you must know something about what's your best case," Koh reportedly told lawyers from both sides.

The ruling, which was … Read more

French court to Twitter: Hand over names of racist tweeters

Twitter must hand over the identities of users in France who post racist tweets, a French court ruled today.

According to AFP, the court's ruling stemmed from a test case "that pitted the right to free speech against laws banning hate speech," and answered a petition made in October by the French Union of Jewish Students (UEJF), which had claimed that many anti-Semitic tweets had violated the law in the European country.

The UEJF had demanded that Twitter do a better job of policing obviously anti-Semitic tweets.

Twitter said today in a statement that "we are … Read more

Jammie Thomas asks Supreme Court to take file-sharing case

Acting on her promise, Jammie Thomas-Rasset has finally fought her music uploading case all the way to the Supreme Court. Her lawyers announced today that they have filed an official petition asking the Supreme Court to review her long-running case, which has moved up through the courts over the past five years.

In 2007, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) accused Thomas-Rasset of copyright infringement for sharing 1,700 copyrighted songs -- the equivalent of 150 CDs. But the RIAA whittled down the number to 24. A jury heard the evidence against her and rendered a $222,000 verdict.… Read more

Ouch! Yahoo ordered to pay $2.7B in Mexican lawsuit

A Mexican court walloped Yahoo with a huge judgment today, ordering it to pay $2.7 billion to a couple companies accusing it of breaching contract related to a yellow pages listings service.

Details are pretty scarce about the initial complaint. Yahoo's press release noted that Worldwide Directories S.A. de C.V. and Ideas Interactivas, S.A. de C.V. claimed breach of contract, breach of promise, and lost profits arising from contracts related to a yellow pages listings service.

Yahoo, meanwhile, said it believes the claims are without merit. It plans to vigorously pursue all appeals.

We'… Read more