EFFector Volume 38, Issue 8

📁 How ICE Got My Data

Welcome to an all-new EFFector, your regular digest on everything digital rights from the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

In our 843rd issue: The fight to reform NSA surveillance, attempts to censor 3D printing, and the cost of Google's broken promise.

When you lose your rights online, you lose them in real life. Become an EFF member today!

Featured Story: Google Broke Its Promise to Me. Now ICE Has My Data.

In April 2025, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) sent Google an administrative subpoena requesting the data of Amandla Thomas-Johnson, a Ph.D. candidate studying in the U.S. on a student visa. The next month, Google gave Thomas-Johnson's information to ICE without giving him the chance to challenge the invalid subpoena, breaking a nearly decade-long promise to notify users before handing their data to law enforcement.

While ICE “requested” that Google not notify Thomas-Johnson, the request was not enforceable or mandated by a court. Last week, the Electronic Frontier Foundation sent complaints to the California and New York Attorneys General asking them to investigate Google for deceptive trade practices for breaking that promise. Below is Thomas-Johnson's account of his ordeal.

I thought my ordeal with U.S. immigration authorities was over a year ago, when I left the country, crossing into Canada at Niagara Falls.

By that point, the Trump administration had effectively turned federal power against international students like me. After I attended a pro-Palestine protest at Cornell University—for all of five minutes—the administration’s rhetoric about cracking down on students protesting what we saw as genocide forced me into hiding for three months. Federal agents came to my home looking for me. A friend was detained at an airport in Tampa and interrogated about my whereabouts.

I’m currently a Ph.D. student. Before that, I was a reporter. I’m a dual British and Trinadad and Tobago citizen. I have not been accused of any crime.

I believed that once I left U.S. territory, I had also left the reach of its authorities. I was wrong.

Weeks later, in Geneva, Switzerland, I received what looked like a routine email from Google. It informed me that the company had already handed over my account data to the Department of Homeland Security.

At first, I wasn’t alarmed. I had seen something similar before. An associate of mine, Momodou Taal, had received advance notice from Google and Facebook that his data had been requested. He was given advanced notice of the subpoenas, and law enforcement eventually withdrew them before the companies turned over his data.

I assumed I would be given the same opportunity. But the language in my email was different. It was final: “Google has received and responded to legal process from a law enforcement authority compelling the release of information related to your Google Account.”

Google had already disclosed my data without telling me. There was no opportunity to contest it.

READ MORE…

‌EFF Updates

🎧 NSA SPYING: After a dramatic, middle-of-the-night stand off in Congress last week, we have given extra time to fight for true reform of the mass spying program known as Section 702. Under Section 702's authority, the NSA sweeps up the emails, text messages, and other online communications of millions of innocent Americans. We now have just days to make it clear to Congress: 702 needs real reforms. Not blanket reauthorization. Not lip service. Real reform.

🤐 3D PRINTING CENSORSHIP: Lawmakers in New York and California are now trying to impose print-blocking censorware—software that surveils every print for forbidden designs—on all 3D printers sold in those states. Particularly concerning are the criminalization provisions in each proposal. New York's budget provisions would make possessing certain 3D-printer files a felony. California's bill would effectively criminalize the use of open-source 3D printer firmware. As we explain on our blog, these print-blocking efforts are not only technologically unfeasible, they will render all 3D printer users vulnerable to surveillance.

©️ PAYWALLING THE LAW: This month, another court ruled that copyright can’t be used to keep our laws behind a paywall. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit upheld a lower court’s ruling that it is fair use to copy and disseminate building codes that have been incorporated into federal and state law, even though those codes are developed by private parties who claim copyright in them. This is a good result that will expand the public’s access to the laws that bind us—something that’s more important than ever given recent assaults on the rule of law.

🔕 PUSH NOTIFICATION PRIVACY: A phone’s push notifications can contain a significant amount of information about you, your communications, and what you do throughout the day. Recently, we learned that law enforcement tools can unearth the text from deleted notifications, including those from secure messaging tools, like Signal. The good news is that you can mitigate some of this risk. Read our blog to learn what you can do.

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