The American Civil Liberties Union has appealed U.S. District Court Judge Edward Harrington’s order barring distribution of a program that allows owners of CyberPatrol filtering software to determine the sites it blocks. The ACLU lawyers are acting on behalf of three U.S. Web site operators who posted duplicate copies of the original “cphack” utility developed by codebreakers in Canada and Sweden.
“What these guys were posting was not copyright-protected material,” ACLU Boston attorney Sarah Wunsch told CNet online news service April 5. “We don’t believe the judge has authority to issue a restraining order at all.”
Senior ACLU staff attorney Chris Hansen said that “The legal issue here is whether a Boston court has jurisdiction over the entire Internet, and our answer to that is a resounding ‘no.’” Hansen added that the ACLU has also asked Harrington to stay his order while the appeal goes forward.
Posted April 10, 2000.