Online Privacy Topic of Working Journalists Seminar Series

Oct. 30, 2012--When we talk on the phone or conduct business on the Internet, there is always someone between us and the person or organization we're talking to. It could be a phone company, an ISP, a credit card company, a bank, or other entity. It knows what we do and has control over our communication online. Can privacy exist in such an environment? What are the dangers to society when big companies have access to our private conversations and business transactions? 

These important questions will be addressed by Lee Tien, a senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), when he speaks at UW-River Falls as part of the Working Journalist Seminar Series at 7 p.m. on Nov. 8 in the Riverview Ballroom in the University Center. The event is free and open to the public. 

Tien specializes in free speech law, including how free speech is related to intellectual property law and privacy law. Before joining EFF, a non-profit, member-supported public interest organization dedicated to protecting privacy and free speech on the Internet, Lee was a sole practitioner specializing in Freedom of Information (FOIA) litigation. Tien received his undergraduate degree in psychology from Stanford University. After working as a news reporter at the Tacoma News Tribune for a year, he attended law school at Boalt Hall, University of California at Berkeley. 

The event is co-sponsored by the UW-River Falls Department of Journalism and the UW-River Falls American Democracy Project. 

For more information, visit www.uwrf.edu/JOUR/Events/Working.cfm, call 715-425-3169 or email patricia.berg@uwrf.edu.