[Omoyele Sowore is a Nigerian journalist and owner of the independent media outlet Saraha Reporters; shortly after the election of President Buhari, Sowore was arrested under the country's anti-cyberstalking laws for "causing insult, enmity, hatred and ill-will on the person of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria." He's still in jail, where he has been tortured. His case has attracted condemnation from US senators and solidarity from PEN. My EFF colleague Cindy Cohn, who met Sowore through her work on the Bowoto case, prosecuting Chevron for a mass murder in service to oil exploration, wrote a post, crossposted below, about how overbroad, sloppy harassment and stalking bills can be weaponized. -Cory]

EFF has long been concerned that—unless carefully drafted and limited—cyberstalking laws can be misused to criminalize political speech. In fact, earlier this year we celebrated a federal court decision in Washington State in the United States that tossed out an overbroad cyberstalking law. In the case, the law had been used to silence a protester who used strong language and persistence in criticizing a public official. EFF filed anamicus brief in that case where we cautioned that such laws could be easily misused and the court agreed with us. Read the rest

Positive stories about Latin American immigrants and the United States are difficult to come by right now. But at least Pedro X. Molina and his family have found a happy ending.

Molina is an award-winning political cartoonist, whose scathing satire has been syndicated all across the world. Originally from Nicaragua, Molina was on staff at the Confidencial when their offices were raided and ransacked by police in December 2018. Like most dictatorial leaders, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega was none-too-pleased with the Confidencial for doing such terrible things as, well, reporting the truth about his brutal and inhumane actions—you know, like ordering a violent police raid on journalists who dared to criticize him. Read the rest

Ben Watson is a reporter for Defenseone, a news site that covers "US defense and National Security" who formerly served in the US Army as a public affairs officer; last week, Watson returned to the USA after an assignment in Denmark, entering the country at Dulles Airport. Read the rest

NYT publisher calls Trump's anti-press rhetoric 'global threat'

After a massive trove of leaks revealed deep corruption in the Brazilian "anti-corruption" heroes who put the popular left-wing presidential candidate Lula in jail and paved the way for the election of the fascist strongman Jair Bolsonaro (a crisis that engulfed Sergio Moro, the judge who jailed Lula and went on to serve as Bolsonaro's public security minister), the Bolsonaro regime retaliated with a federal criminal investigation of Glenn Greenwald and The Intercept Brazil. Read the rest

The White House has suspended the press credentials of CNN's Jim Acosta after President Trump clashed with the reporter during today's batshit crazy press conference. Read the rest

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has announced a plan to bring down anti-leaker legislation that provides for 20 year prison sentences for whistelblowers who leak in order to prove government wrongdoing, and for the journalists who publish those leaks. Read the rest

Gawker was bankrupted by Peter Thiel, who secretly backed Hulk Hogan's lawsuit against the network of news, entertainment and gossip sites in an act of petty revenge. Read the rest

Techdirt, a fearless source of excellent technology news and commentary, is being sued for $15M by Shiva Ayyadurai, who claims to have invented email -- he is represented by Charles Harder, a key figure in the Gawker-killing legal campaign that Peter Thiel financed, and who is also representing Melania Trump in her $150m lawsuit against The Daily Mail. Read the rest

Gawker.com, the pioneering and controversial media blog, officially died yesterday. It was killed by billionaire Peter Thiel in his successful quest to bankrupt Gawker Media Group through a series of lawsuits he funded – most notably wrestler Hulk Hogan, who sued over the publication of a portion of his sex tape four years ago. Read the rest

The Trump Campaign showed its cowardice when it announced that journalists who asked tough questions of the candidate or reported negatively on the campaign would not be given press-credentials for future events, but when campaign security blocked a ticketed Washington Post reporter from attending Mike Pence inaugural vice-presidental rally in Milwaukee, a regular, law-abiding private citizen who bought a ticket and showed up like all the other attendees -- it reached a new low. Read the rest

Uruguay, Namibia, Samoa, Ghana, and South Africa all offer a greater "level of freedom of information” than the United States, according to Reporters Without Borders' 2016 World Press Freedom Index, released today. The U.S. is ranked at 41 out of 180 countries in the survey. Read the rest

They are sentenced to three years in prison, on charges widely believed to be politically motivated and otherwise baseless.

Reporters and press freedom advocates from around the world have signed on to support Netzpolitik and condemn the German government's outrageous investigation.

He's already served more than two years in prison on charges related to sources within the Anonymous hacktivist entity.

Freedom of Information Act requests from the Associated Press reveal that St Louis police requested the no-fly zone to prevent the press from getting overhead footage of the crackdown on demonstrations, and that the FAA was complicit in crafting an illegal ban that allowed commercial aircraft to land at the airport while still grounding the news-birds. Read the rest

Up until Obama's "most transparent administration", and throughout the entire history of the USA, national security leakers had received a total of 24 months of jail time. There are many more cases pending. Read the rest