EFF to represent defendants in Apple lawsuit

Looks like Dan Gillmor is *almost* getting his wish. The Electronic Frontier Foundation will be legally representing AppleInsider and PowerPage in one of the (many!) recent Apple lawsuits, although ThinkSecret will not be represented by the EFF. The lawsuit in question is the suit surrounding the leak of information regarding the Asteroid audio interface.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is a nonprofit group focused on protecting digital rights. Their involvement in the two sites’ case stems from a desire to “protect their right to keep confidential the identities of the people who supplied them with the information… Bloggers break the news, just like journalists do. They must be able to promise confidentiality in order to maintain the free flow of information.”

The complaint against ThinkSecret is slightly different than the case against the other two plaintiffs, as the site did not actually print the rumours, but merely posted a link to the rumours of the Asteroid audio interface on message boards not owned by ThinkSecret. Note that this lawsuit is unrelated to the recent lawsuit against ThinkSecret regarding information about the headless iMac.