Not content to censor a book that combines literary criticism and fiction by including JRR Tolkien as a character, the Tolkien estate has shut down Adam Rakunas, who makes and gives away buttons that have the word Tolkien on them.

The professional descendants making millions off a long-dead writer have become a serious impediment to living, working writers -- and readers.

All 45 have been charged with treason - which can carry a sentence of life imprisonment or death - for, in essence, watching viral videos.

Gwisai and five others were brutally tortured during the next 72 hours, he testified Thursday at an initial hearing.

Under dictator Robert Mugabe, watching internet videos in Zimbabwe can be a capital offense, it would seem.

Mugabe is known as one of the most ruthless and vicious dictators in the world, and it appears he has managed to terrorize his own people sufficiently that the prospect of any sort of popular uprising is very remote.

Google has made a major change to its search algorithms in order to try to scrub more link farm results from appearing near the top of search results.

Results almost always contain at least one or two links to pages that have merely scraped content from other sites based on "hot" search terms likely to attract people from search engines.

The online payment provider PayPal has frozen the account of Courage to Resist, which in collaboration with the Bradley Manning Support Network is currently raising funds in support of U.S. Army Pfc. Bradley Manning.

"We've been in discussions with PayPal for weeks, and by their own admission there's no legal obligation for them to close down our account," noted Loraine Reitman of the Bradley Manning Support Network.

"They said they would not unrestrict our account unless we authorized PayPal to withdraw funds from our organization's checking account by default."

The source said the undercover agent carried a pistol in her undergarments when she put the body scanners to the test. The officer successfully made it through the airport's body scanners every time she tried, the source said.

The TSA insider who blew the whistle on the test also said that none of the TSA agents who failed to spot the gun on the scanned image were disciplined.

Four Americans who had been taken hostage by pirates aboard their yacht were shot fatally by their captors. That prompted a deadly U.S. response.

Earlier this month, the chief of the European Union's counterpiracy force warned that Somali pirates were engaging in "systemic torture" of hostages and had "shown a willingness to use violence much more quickly, and much more violence."

Last week a Swedish court held a file-sharing copyright infringement case of their own against a 26 year-old man. In 2010 he had been tracked by the IFPI sharing 44 music tracks on the Internet - 20 more than the 24 shared by Thomas-Rasset and 13 more than the 31 shared by Tenenbaum.

While Thomas-Rasset and Tenenbaum currently face damages of $62,500 and $2,177 per track respectively, the outcome for the Swedish 26 year-old is somewhat more realistic. Although the judge had originally requested an amount equivalent to around $45 per track, in the end that amount was reduced to just $7.

Discussions should focus on requiring that communication providers and Web sites have legally mandated procedures to divulge unencrypted data in their possession.

In response to lobbying from the FBI, a House committee in 1997 approved a bill that would have banned the manufacture, distribution, or import of any encryption product that did not include a back door for the federal government.

Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., said that the panel's members received a secret briefing last week from the FBI, but that the bureau should make its arguments in public. "It is critical that we discuss this issue in as public a matter as possible," he said.

A Senate proposal that has become known as the Internet "kill switch" bill was reintroduced this week, with a tweak its backers say eliminates the possibility of an Egypt-style disconnection happening in the United States.

But the revised wording continues to alarm civil liberties groups and other critics of the bill, who say the language would allow the government to shut down portions of the Internet or restrict access to certain Web sites or types of content.

Some of the companies and industry groups listed as supporting last June's version of the bill, before the protests in Egypt, the FBI's push on Internet wiretapping, and the Justice Department's campaign for Internet data retention, stopped short of endorsing the revised version.

The FBI pushed Thursday for more built-in backdoors for online communication, but beat a hasty retreat from its earlier proposal to require providers of encrypted communications services to include a backdoor for law enforcement wiretaps.

The FBI's further push for expanded powers to wiretap online communications in real time comes against the backdrop of revolutions in the Middle East that relied heavily on social media communication tools and as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called for worldwide internet freedom.