More news from Iowa

It appears that, with protests and embarassing publicity mounting by the day, federal prosecutors have withdrawn their subpoenas for information about protesters and activists who attended a legal conference at Drake University recently, as well as the gag order that prohibited university personnel from discussing it. (More here and here.)

This is a Good Thing. However, it makes one wonder how many other such investigations are still proceeding under cover of similar gag orders. This incident seems to have appeared on the public radar largely because the National Lawyers' Guild, one of the left-wing activist groups being investigated, was not covered by the gag order. How much ya wanna bet that federal prosecutors won't make that mistake again?

Note that, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education, "[S]ince the deliberations of a grand jury are secret, the investigation of the meeting may not yet be over."

The so-called "PATRIOT" Act that makes such things possible is an abomination, and we can't afford to rely on leaky gag orders and relatively well-funded protester organizations like the ACLU to contest every potential abusive purpose to which it will be put. Not every person or group subjected to such treatment will have access to free legal counsel or hordes of conveniently-located college-student protesters. The thing needs to be killed dead.

Meanwhile, with the aid of the Electronic Frontier Foundation , "OPG and the Swarthmore students are seeking compensation from Diebold for misuse of copyright law, as well as a court order stating that those who publish or link to the archive--and ISPs who provide Internet connectivity to them--have not violated copyright law." (EFF press release here.)

Diebold, like the federal prosecutors in Iowa, dropped its demands after public reaction to them became too embarrassing. So why pursue a moot point?

It's become a fairly common tactic for corporations and prosecutors to use the overreaching provisions of the misnamed "PATRIOT" Act, the DMCA, et al, to make intimidating demands and accusations, and then back off (thus avoiding a hostile judicial ruling and the resulting legal precedent) if the targets are able to muster a legal defense or if their actions arouse too much public outrage. But, of course, most people don't have a building full of lawyers on retainer just waiting for them to be sued, and white knights like the EFF and the ACLU, can't be everywhere all the time. I hope that the EFF and its clients are able to get a definitive legal ruling against Diebold's misuse of the DMCA in this case, thus establishing a precedent for reducing the scope of its potential abuses. It will be at best an incremental reduction of the harm, but if Congress is too ignorant or corrupt to repeal the DMCA entirely, an incremental approach is the only way to go.