The Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority is expected to request in court today for an extension of the temporary restraining order that the three MIT students received after attempting to release a series of potentially harmful information about MBTA’s systems.

The decision to proceed with these actions is considered a waste of time by many and also a direct breach of the students’ free speech rights, as all the information ended up all over the Internet despite the agency’s efforts.

The whole incident began last week, during the Defcon hacker conference in Las Vegas, where the three MIT students, Alessandro Chiesa, R.J. Ryan, and Zack Anderson announced their upcoming presentation about several security flaws in the Charlie-Ticket and the CharlieCard systems which enabled them to offer numerous free subway rides to people over the Internet. Even though the MBTA managed to stop the presentation from happening, the students’ slides containing all the information were included in the event’s preview CD which was distributed to all interested people a few days before the conference’s start.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is providing the legal defense for the students, bringing several good points into the discussions. "The temporary restraining order (TRO) as initially granted restricted the students from providing true, publicly known, legally acquired information about the MBTA's CharlieCards and CharlieTickets in violation of the First Amendment," the EFF said in a legal brief. "The current TRO as the MBTA suggests that it be modified still restricts the students from providing true, legally acquired information about these cards This restriction also violates the First Amendment."