Update: A community of devs interested in public policy started an petition in support of our court case. This is a case filed on behalf of AoIR researchers and against the CFAA/US Government. It is very sweet of them to make this petition. If you agree, you may want to sign it. Context below. Best, Christian On Fri, Jul 1, 2016 at 3:25 PM, Christian Sandvig < christian.sandvig@umich.edu> wrote:

Dear AIR colleagues,

On Wednesday I joined other Internet researchers and filed a lawsuit against the US Government to protect the legal right to conduct online research. The case was just called "key to the future of social science." I thought this issue might be of interest to some of you. If so, please feel free to read and share the details below. Note that I filed this lawsuit as a private citizen and it does not involve my university.

Yours sincerely, Christian

-- http://www.niftyc.org

Why I am Suing the Government (or: I write scripts, bots, and scrapers that collect online data) https://socialmediacollective.org/2016/07/01/why-i-am-suing-the-government/

Most of What You Do Online Is Illegal. Let's End the Absurdity. by Christian Sandvig and Karrie Karahalios *The Guardian *(Op-Ed)

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/30/cfaa-online-law-illega...

Legal Complaint: Sandvig v. Lynch https://www.aclu.org/legal-document/sandvig-v-lynch-complaint

Researchers Sue The Government Over Computer Hacking Law

https://www.wired.com/2016/06/researchers-sue-government-computer-hacking-la...

When Should Hacking Be Legal? A Group of Academics and Journalists Say a Federal Computer-Fraud Law Criminalizes Their Work

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/07/when-should-hacking-be...