U.S. Congress members introduced a bill yesterday to “fast track” trade agreements, including the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) through Congress. If passed, lawmakers would only have a small window of time to conduct hearings over binding trade provisions and give an up-or-down vote on ratification without any ability to...

Somali rebel group (and US-designated terrorist organization) Al Shabaab has reportedly banned the use of the Internet through mobile handsets and fiber optic cables throughout Somalia, giving telecommunications companies 15 days to comply with the order.
Connectivity in Somalia is low, but growing: fiber optics were introduced to...

While 2013 was a banner year in the fight against secret surveillance law, the fight in 2014 got off to an unfortunate start. Last Friday, in a case brought by EFF, a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C. ruled (pdf) that the Department of Justice could...

A rare opportunity to change the path of copyright in Europe has emerged, but there's not much time to take advantage of it. The European Commission (EC) has opened up for public comment copyright policy across the European Union for the first time in 15 years. This means that, for...

Much of the debate over modern surveillance—including the NSA mass spying controversy—has centered around whether people can reasonably expect that records about their telephone and Internet activity can remain private when those records belong to someone else: the service providers. Courts have disagreed on whether the 1979 Supreme...

As the year draws to a close, EFF is looking back at the major trends influencing digital rights in 2013 and discussing where we are in the fight for free expression, innovation, fair use, and privacy. Click here to read other blog posts in this series.
2013 has...