Two new websites recently launched that give the public unprecedented access to government documents acquired through the federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and other public disclosure, or "sunshine," laws: GovernmentDocs.org and GovernmentAttic.org.

We've finally finished building the interface for our Legal Threats Database, and I am excited to announce its public launch. If you would like to read our news release, you can find it here.

The database, which is funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, contains legal threats from 35 states and 9 countries, and it is growing daily. These threats range from copyright infringement lawsuits filed against bloggers to cease and desist letters claiming defamation sent to MySpace users.

Users of the interactive database can input new threat entries, comment on existing threats, and search the database in a number of ways, including by location, legal claim, publication medium, and content type. We've already been receiving a lot of interest in the database and expect that it will be useful to a wide range of people. As Sam Bayard noted yesterday, the database already contains a fascinating array of lawsuits, as well as more informal threats like cease-and-desist letters and emails.

We can't create this database alone, however, so we need your help to keep the information accurate and up to date. If you've been threatened with legal action as a result of your online activities or know of someone who has, please let us know by using our contact form or by entering the information directly into the database through our easy to use threat entry form.

The database is the product of a tremendous amount of work by CMLP staff and students, especially Sam Bayard, Jillian Button, Daniel Ostrach, David Russcol, Matt Sanchez, Daniel Ungar, and Stefani Wittenauer. Our website designer, Chris Wells from Redfin Solutions, has worked tirelessly on getting all of the functionality operating properly. A big public thank you to everyone who helped!

Reports are emerging from Pakistan that President Pervez Musharraf has shutdown independent news media within Pakistan and limited access to the Internet. Musharraf appears to be using, at least in part, Pakistan's press licensing laws to effectuate this clampdown.

On Wednesday, a federal jury in Maryland handed down a $10.9 million verdict against the Westboro Baptist Church, a fundamentalist Christian church in Kansas that publishes a website at www.godhatesfags.com, on which it disseminates its rabidly anti-homosexual views. Among other things, the church advocates the view that God kills U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan as punishment for America's tolerance of homosexuality and for the presence of gays in the U.S. military.

Yesterday, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and a group of public interest groups dedicated to protecting free speech, including the Center for Social Media at American University and the Berkman Center for Internet & Society, published a report entitled "Fair Use Principles for User Generated Video

The OpenNet Initiative is reporting that four opposition news sites in Kazakhstan have been recently blocked, including www.kub.kz, www.zonakz.net, www.geo.kz, and www.inkar.info.

On Tuesday, October 23, Justice Marcy Friedman of the New York Supreme Court dismissed a lawsuit seeking discovery from Google (dba Blogger) regarding the identities of the anonymous operator of the blog "Orthomom" and an anonymous commenter to the blog. The court's opinion is potentially important because it addresses the difficult question of what standard a court should apply when deciding whether to unmask an anonymous defendant in a defamation action.

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger refused to sign a bill, S.B.

If it's fall, these must be cease-and-desists for Black Friday ads. This year, they seem to be coming earlier than ever, as Wal-Mart sends pre-notifications against future posting. I put my analysis into a Chilling Effects Weather Report