ORDINANCE AMENDING OAKLAND MUNICIPAL CODE CHAPTER 9.64, WHICH REGULATES THE CITY’S ACQUISITION AND USE OF SURVEILLANCE TECHNOLOGY, BY (A):
(1) CLARIFYING EXISTING DEFINITIONS AND ADDING NEW ONES;
(2) CLARIFYING WHEN CITY STAFF MUST NOTIFY THE PRIVACY ADVISORY COMMISSION AND/OR SEEK CITY COUNCIL APPROVAL IN REGARDS TO THE ACQUISITION OF SURVEILLANCE TECHNOLOGY;
(3) PROHIBITING THE CITY’S USE OF BIOMETRIC SURVEILLANCE TECHNOLOGY AND PREDICTIVE POLICING TECHNOLOGY; AND
(B) ADOPTING CALIFORNIA ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY ACT EXEMPTION FINDINGS

Dozens of organizations calling on the new Biden FCC to ban digital redlining as part of the reclassification of broadband into a Title II common carrier service.

Order Granting Peremptory Writ of Mandate

53 organizations, elected officials, non-profits, and businesses have endorsed SB 4, Broadband for All, as of December 9, 2020.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is the leading nonprofit organization defending civil liberties in the digital world. Founded in 1990, EFF champions user privacy, free expression, and innovation through impact litigation, policy analysis, grassroots activism, and technology development. We work to ensure that rights, freedoms, and innovation are enhanced and protected as our use of technology grows.

While we hope to work with the incoming Biden Administration on a wide range of policies that affect digital rights in the coming years, we focus this memo on the policies that need your immediate attention and ask that you change course on the previous policies and practices discussed below.

If you have any questions or wish to discuss any of these topics further, please contact EFF’s Legislative Counsel Ernesto Falcon at ernesto@eff.org or EFF’s Director of Federal Affairs India McKinney at india@eff.org.

Thank you.

Read EFF’s commentary.

These slides are associated with the November 2020 video, "How to Observe Police Surveillance at Protests" (slides). 

This XSLX file represents the raw data informing the California State Auditor's February 2020 report on the use of automated license plate readers. The document was obtained by EFF through a California Public Records Act request and has not been altered. 

For more information visit: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/02/california-auditor-releases-damning-report-about-law-enforcements-use-automated

EFF submits the following recommendations to the California Public Utilities Commission on Governor Newsoms Executive Order N-73-20 (digital divide)

SFPD Surveillance Coalition Letter 

EFF letter to California League of Cities

Read EFF’s commentary.

Coalition letter supporting a ban on governement use of Face Surveillance in Portland, OR.

Notice and Takedown Mechanisms:
Risks for Freedom of Expression Online
Statement of Corynne McSherry, Ph.D.
Legal Director
Electronic Frontier Foundation
September 7, 2020

EFF and the SB 1130 Coalition opposing AB 570 unless it was amended to only finance 21st century ready networks.

In a rushed process without meaningful consultation or debate, Mexico's Congress has adopted a new copyright law modeled on the U.S. system, without taking any account of the well-publicized, widely acknowledged problems with American copyright law. The new law was passed as part of a package of legal reforms accompanying the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), Donald Trump's 2020 successor to 1989's North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

However, Mexico's implementation of this Made-in-America copyright system imposes far more restrictions than either the USMCA demands or that Canada or the USA have imposed on themselves. This new copyright regime places undue burdens on Mexican firms and the Mexican people, conferring a permanent trade advantage on the richer, more developed nations of the USA and Canada, while undermining the fundamental rights of Mexicans guaranteed by the Mexican Constitution and the American Convention on Human Rights.

The opposition that sprang up after the swift passage of the new Mexican copyright law faces many barriers, but among the most serious ones is a disinformation campaign that (predictably) characterizes the claims about U.S. copyright law as "fake news". The EFF has more experience with the defects of U.S. copyright law than anyone, and in the sections below we will use it to explain in detail how Mexico's copyright law repeats and magnifies the errors that American lawmakers committed in 1998.

This white paper aggregates all of EFF's analysis and commentary on the new law, including a detailed legal analysis by EFF Senior Staff Attorney Kit Walsh.

EFF letter explaining why it is bad policy for the state to finance the construction of 25/3 broadband networks as policy as opposed to investing in fiber infrastructure.

Letter regarding discretionary denials of IPR to House Judiciary Committee