On Wednesday, the EU will vote on whether to accept two controversial proposals in the new Copyright Directive; one of these clauses, Article 13, has the potential to allow anyone, anywhere in the world, to effect mass, rolling waves of censorship across the Internet.The way things stand today, companies...

Among the many bills awaiting the signature—or veto—of Governor Jerry Brown is AB 3131, a measure that would ensure transparency about police militarization across the State of California. While we are disappointed in recent legislative amendments that weakened the original bill, we remain eager to see it signed...

The European Copyright Directive vote is in three days and it will be a doozy: what was once a largely uncontroversial grab bag of fixes to copyright is now a political firestorm, thanks to the actions of Axel Voss, the German MEP who changed the Directive at the last minute,...

When the San Diego police targeted black children for DNA collection without their parents' knowledge in 2016, it highlighted a critical loophole in California law. The California State Legislature recently passed a new bill, A.B. 1584, to ensure that law enforcement cannot stop-and-swab youth without either judicial approval...

The Justice Department’s announcement yesterday that it will meet with states to discuss whether social media companies are "intentionally" stifling free speech represents a potentially dangerous new step in the wrong direction. Instead of focusing on making social media accountable and transparent, the Justice Department’s effort seems aimed at...

UPDATE September 14, 2018: This blog has been updated at the bottom to include information about two Senators’ reactions to the NSA’s call detail record deletion.In late June, the NSA announced a magic trick—hundreds of millions of collected call records would disappear. Its lovely assistant? Straight from the agency’s statement:...