The mainstream press (here, here) reports that the Saudi Arabian authorities have detained Fouad Ahmad Al-Farhan, a popular Saudi blogger whose blog has been a platform for criticism of government corruption and advocacy for political reform.

TechCrunch is reporting that Apple and Think Secret have settled their longstanding trade secrets dispute. Here's the kicker: under the terms of the agreement, Think Secret will cease operations. Think Secret issued a statement:

This weekend I came accross a recent case, In re Subpoena Issued Pursuant to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to: 43SB.COM, LLC, 2007 WL 4335441 (D. Idaho Dec. 7, 2007).

Boston Now reports that Peter Lowney, a political activist from Newton, Massachusetts, was convicted last week of violating the Massachusetts wiretapping statute (Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 272, § 99) and sentenced to six months probation and fined $500. The criminal case arose out of Lowney's concealed videotaping of a Boston University police sergeant during a political protest in 2006.

The Fair Use Project of Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society announced Tuesday that it is joining as co-counsel to defend RDR Books in the copyright infringement lawsuit filed in federal court in New York by Warner Brothers and J.K. Rowling in October 2007.

Last week, a California state court dismissed Rachel Neuwirth's libel claim against Washington-state blogger Richard Silverstein and university professor Joel Beinin pursuant to California's anti-SLAPP statute (Cal. Code Civ. Proc. § 425.16).

An Arizona appellate court handed down an important decision yesterday in Mobilisa, Inc. v. Doe, 1 CA-CV 06-521 (Ariz. Ct. App. Nov. 27, 2007), a case involving the thorny legal question of what standard should govern requests for discovery of the identity of an anonymous Internet speaker whose speech allegedly violated a plaintiff's rights.

On October 26, 2007, the New School of Orlando sued Sonjia McSween, the parent of a former student, in Florida state court, asserting claims of libel, slander, and tortious interference with business relations.

Following up on my earlier post about the $10.9 million jury verdict against Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church, I wanted to point our readers in the direction of some excellent commentary on the topic by Eugene Volokh at the Volokh Conspiracy.

Tomorrow we officially launch our Legal Threats Database, a catalog of the growing number of lawsuits, cease-and-desist letters, and other legal challenges faced by those engaging in online speech. As many of our readers are no doubt aware, the individual threat entries have been available for some time, but starting tomorrow users will be able to view the entire database and search the entries using a number of fields, including location, legal claim, publication medium, and content type.