We all know that the NSA uses word games to hide and downplay its activities. Words like "collect," "conversations," "communications," and even "surveillance" have suffered tortured definitions that create confusion rather than clarity.
There’s another one to watch: "targeted" v. "mass" surveillance.
Since 2008, the NSA has...

UPDATE: The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) approved CBP's proposal to collect the social media handles of visitors from Visa Waiver Countries in December 2016. The question is on the online ESTA form and looks like this:U.S. border control agents want to gather Facebook and Twitter identities...

There has been significant activity relating to cases and patent infringement claims made by Shipping & Transit, LLC, formerly known as ArrivalStar. Shipping & Transit, who we’ve written about on numerous occasions, is currently one of the most prolific patent trolls in the country. Lex...

For the second year in a row, EFF and a coalition of virtual currency and consumer protection organizations have beaten back a California bill that would have created untenable burdens for the emerging cryptocurrency community.
This week, the author of A.B. 1326, Assemblymember Matt Dababneh withdrew the bill...

When universities invent, those inventions should benefit everyone. Unfortunately, they sometimes end up in the hands of patent trolls—companies that serve no purpose but to amass patents and demand money from others. When a university sells patents to trolls, it undermines the university’s purpose as a driver of innovation....

Join us as we tweet at Gov. Jerry Brown that he must sign A.B. 2298 to protect the privacy and civil liberties of hundreds of thousands of Californians who have been caught up in the state's flawed CalGang gang affiliation database.
CalGang is...

A new federal government policy will result in the government releasing more of the software that it creates under free and open source software licenses. That’s great news, but doesn’t go far enough in its goals or in enabling public oversight.
A few months ago, we wrote about...