https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20191026/11401143265/this-week-techdirt-history-october-20th-26th.shtml

This week in 2014, scrutiny was ramping up on former NSA boss Keith Alexander from all directions, while evidence continued to emerge further linking the NSA's SIGINT director to private contractors. Rep. Mike Rogers was calling for Ed Snowden to be charged with murder, and a former agency official was saying anyone who "justified" Snowden's leaks shouldn't be allowed to work for the government. We learned more about the CIA's spying on the Senate, while Congress was not so easily giving in to the FBI's demands about ending encryption, and amidst all this... more research showed mass surveillance doesn't work.

This week in 2009, the copyright lobby was bumping up against proposed anti-spam laws because they might interfere with their DRM and spyware practices, copyright holders were going to war with univeristy photocopy shops, and the US Chamber of Commerce began its DMCA-fight with prank group The Yes Men. We learned that Shepard Fairey made some bad decisions in his copyright fight with the AP over his famous Obama poster, but also wondered whether anyone could trust the AP's own reporting on the subject. And we saw trademark shenanigans from both the usual suspects (Monster Energy) and some more surprising ones (The Sex Pistols).