The Electronic Frontier Foundation is frequently described as the ACLU of the Internet, looking out for the little guy in the face of digital snooping and other bad, Big Brotherish behavior.

But EFF senior staff attorney Fred von Lohman had a cameo appearance of a very different nature in this week’s federal court ruling smacking LimeWire for copyright infringement. The order, issued Wednesday, granted summary judgment to 13 RIAA-represented record labels who in 2006 sued LimeWire for copyright infringement and related infractions.

On page 14 of the 59-page order, U.S. District Judge Kimba Wood suggests that von Lohman advised LimeWire COO/CTO Greg Bildson and others to destroy potentially embarrassing evidence.

Referring to LimeWire’s founding chairman, Mark Gorton, Wood writes:

“Gorton states that another attorney, Federick [sic] Von Lohman, gave LW, including Bildson, confidential legal advice regarding the need to establish a document retention program to purge incriminating information about LimeWire users’ activities.”

Reached by telephone Thursday afternoon, von Lohman said he hadn’t yet read Wood’s order.

But, he added: “To the extent that the second half of that sentence suggests that I advised LimeWire to do anything unethical or would violate their obligations, I would take issue with that.”

via The Purge Urge: When Does a Document Retention Chat Cross the Line? – Law Blog – WSJ.

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