Documents Borne by Winds of Free Speech

DOCUMENTS BORNE BY WINDS OF FREE SPEECH
[SOURCE: New York Times 1/15, AUTHOR: Tom Zeller]
A showdown is scheduled for a federal courtroom in Brooklyn rthis week, where words like “First Amendment” and “freedom of speech” and “prior restraint” are likely to mix seamlessly with references to “BitTorrent” and “Wiki.” It is a messy plot that pits Eli Lilly, the pharmaceutical giant at the center of several articles in The New York Times suggesting that the company tried to hide or play down the health risks of its leading antipsychotic drug, Zyprexa, and lawyers representing various individuals, organizations and Web sites -- all arguing that their online speech has been gagged. The case has attracted the attention of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the venerable digital rights group based in San Francisco, and one of its lawyers, Fred von Lohmann, who is now representing an anonymous Internet user caught up in the legal fracas. “One of the core missions of the foundation’s 16-year history has been to establish that when you go online, you take with you all the same civil rights with you had with you in prior media,” said Mr. von Lohmann. “But of course, you need to fight for that principle.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/15/technology/15link.html
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