EFF Awards 11/10/22 Welcome to the 2022 EFF Awards! [Standing by to begin] HANNAH: Everyone, we are about to begin the ceremony. If you could please find your seats we are gonna begin in just a few minutes. Welcome to the 2022 EFF Awards! AARON: Folks, we'll be starting in a few minutes. Grab a last drink. The bar will be closed during the program. Will reopen at the end. So, stick around. But yeah, please come in, take your seats. HANNAH: If everybody could please find their seats, the ceremony is about to begin in just a few moments. Please find your seats now. >> Hey, everyone -- this is our last and final seating call. If anyone could please find your seats. If everyone could get to their seats, thank you so much and enjoy! everyone please finds your seats. [Away from main microphone/captioner unable to hear speaker] AARON: Hello, everyone. I hope everyone is having a nice evening. As I mentioned, we are actually live streaming tonight's event. This is our first time doing this. So, yeah. Wish us luck because we're about to... Go live! Right... now? [ Applause ] Go live. There we go. Hello, and welcome to the EFF Awards. I'm Aaron Jue, EFF's director of member engagement. It's nice to see all of your faces here. We're here to celebrate the movement for digital privacy and expression. Before we start, I wanted to thank our responses I, that's Dropbox, Electric Capital, No Starch Press, Ridder, Costa, Johnstone LLP and Ron Reed. And, yes, please. Yes. I also want to thank the 33,000 EFF members around the world who make this program and all of our work possible every day. Thank you to them. Let's give them a round of applause. [ Applause ] So, I've got a couple of notes of housekeeping before we get started in earnest. Please silence your mobile devices if you have not done so. Yes. And for those of us watching this online, you're welcome to congratulate our honorees via Twitch chat, EFF.org/livestream. If you're in the room and just want to get on Twitch and talk about this event, you can do that right now. And -- my friend, Christian will be in chat keeping you all company. So, also, if you're an EFF privacy badger user at our livestream page, make sure to give Twitch chat permission by shifting the slider on the image. Thanks for doing your job. So, we take your comfort and safety very seriously. You can find our Code of Conduct at EFF.org/eventexpectations. If you have questions or need assistance tonight, you can get in touch with one of our designated event monitors, Lee Walker. Hello, Lee. Thank you, Lee. There, and Rebecca, hello, Rebecca, thank you so much. [ Applause ] If you need anything, feel free to reach out to them or any of the EFF staff. Wearing a name tag. For those of us joining remotely, you can drop a note in chat or send a message to events@EFF.org if you have any questions. So, this is a very special night for EFF. We haven't gathered like this since 2019. A lot has changed, as we all know, and it's hard to know what's on the horizon. But honestly, I'm touched to see so many people here in support of digital privacy and free expression. So, thank you so much for being here. That deserves a -- it does. So, to start off our ceremony, I would like to introduce Cindy Cohn, our executive director since 2016. Prior to that, she was our legal director. At that time, she was going over computer hacking, e-books, NSA, literally everything in between. It's a crazy amount of stuff to write about. She's received so many accolades including the Vanguard award from the intellectual properties section of the California State Bar, named one of the 50 most influential women lawyers in America by the Law journal, and top 50 people in tech. Isn't it awesome having people like in on our side? [ Applause ] Please give a warm welcome to Cindy Cohn. CINDY: I didn't know he was going to do that. Hi, everybody. Good evening, I am proud to be here as the executive director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Thank you all for coming out. I'm overjoyed to see your faces in-person and warmly welcome the people who visit with us on the livestream. This has been an important celebration of the many victories and heroic moments in the digital rights community for the last 30 years. And tonight, we are lifting up some very special honorees this year. This year is even more special, we are here in-person. We have the best of both worlds. EFF wasn't able to livestream this event for many years, so, we're doing both. Thank you! As I said, EFF has gathered people together to recognize the leaders on the electronic frontier for 30 years now. It's a long time. And the Internet owes an eternal debt of gratitude to the dazzling constellation passed honorees. Some of who are with us here tonight. Thank you for coming back out again. We've honored cryptography pioneers, Mark Hellman, he di Lamar, we honored our friend, technologist and advocate, Aaron, Cyberpunk author William Gibson, privacy-protected peers of the our friends, and the whistle blower Chelsea Manning. Just to name a few. You saw some of the pictures from past awards. Tonight we're making a few phase in these annual celebrations. We started with a Pioneer Award, that made sense for some of the things that happened online. Regardless of what it felt like in the 1990s, it really no longer fits -- thank you. The Internet is no longer anything like a new place. The born digital generation is now in its 40s. There's no longer a line between digital rights and, well, rights. If there ever was. And the people who need those rights are much more numerous, much more diverse, and facing the kinds of problems that exist in a more mature environment than we were facing in the 1990s. There's a lot of ways in which that wasn't the best metaphor and we're letting it go. The digital world is now plainly -- still a place where we can dream and develop and try on new ideas. But it's also a place where we are increasingly surveilled, silenced, and disempowered and where people of color and those who are already marginalized suffer the most. We aren't just pioneers anymore. We are technology creators and users building a digital future together and faces down powerful forces of repression, both corporate and governmental. So, we knew we needed a refresh and it raised a couple questions. First, should we be celebrating the people who -- who help us -- advance online. That's easy, yes. Of course we should always. But we decided to shift the focus from who people are to what they've done. And to more clearly center and name the benefits that they have given to all the rest of us. So, you will hear that a person was awarded for something and not merely for being a person. The second thing, you know, should we step back from the problems of our time at all right now? It's a very dark time for many in our world. And expressing, recognized kind of the blossoms that we see out there in the world. I think and the answer to that again is absolutely. But maybe better recognized that no flower blooms alone. EFF has long given the awards to groups of people. But I think the EFF Awards, it's easier to do that and it doesn't feel like the exception, it feels more like the rule. So, these insights and others are how we arrived at calling this the EFF Awards celebration. Where we celebrate people, but also what they do and where we continue to make space for winners who are not individuals, but instead are communities, organizations, and other group efforts. So, this year I very happily that our awards are Alaa Abd El-Fattah, winning the EFF Awards for Democratic Reform Advocacy. The Digital Defense Fund is winning the EFF Awards for Civil Rights Technology. And Kyle Wiens who is winning the EFF Awards for Right to Repair Advocacy. [ Applause ] Now, we're all here and we all support EFF because we know that our choices will determine whether technology continues to reinforce old world dynamics that trample the powerless, or if tech will support freedom, justice, and innovation for all the people of the world. And we're here tonight because we're putting our armer down on the freedom side. If you'll indulge me a bit, I do want to brag a bit, talk a bit, about some of the work we have done since last year's Pioneer Awards. First, EFF long-railed against online tracking mechanisms, the predatory around them and we have launched deep dives into those harms and released the results of a years long investigation into a company, a company that buys application data from hundreds of millions of US devices and maps them for the police, often without a warrant. The team uncovered at least 18 local, state, and federal law enforcement clients. The investigation has yielded a tremendous amount of media coverage and led congressional members to ask the commission to investigate these data annual practices. Your information shouldn't be for sale. And cops shouldn't be able to use data brokers to sidestep our privacy laws. [ Applause ] We also recognize the privacy and security issues that we have long-advocated for were going to be given a new urgency when the US Supreme Court overturned protections for reproductive rights. In partnership with groups on the front lines, we went to work adapting our digital security guidelines for people seeking, offering, or helping abortion services. We pushed companies and policymakers both in the private and the public sectors to enact changes to support user safety and privacy. And we celebrated when California heeded the calls from a broad network of local rights advocates and passed two bills to protect users of digital services. That fight is not over. None of our fights are over. But we jumped into the fray and we have seen at least some good change as a result. And last, but not least, we and many other advocates have continues to work to preserve online, under challenging as much ass. As John Gilmore said, the Internet censorship is damaged, and routes around then. But it's not an automatic process. Threats continue to arise in government actors and law enforcement and poorly written bills and information on the web. And there's the inconsistent and sometimes down right terrible moderating by the social media. One of which might be leading a bunch of new folks to join federated world. We'll see. Protecting our freedom online will always be a work in progress and we're thankful for everyone. Those are just three examples. I wanted to share with you a little scissor reel that we just put together. EFFs in the news. Because I thought you might enjoy taking a peek at it. [Captioned video] [ Applause ] CINDY: Great. Each one much us has the power to inspire others in our own ways. That is precisely why we are so proud to celebrate tonight's award winners. Together we are the community that can and must create a better digital world than the one we have today. And I know we can do it. Thank you. [ Applause ] So, before we present this evening's awards, I wanted to take a moment to honor two members of the EFF family that we lost to cancer this last year. Elliot Harmon and Peter Eckersley. Elliot and Peter were in the activism and public interest technology work that was so deeply important to the digital rights world and both taken from us way too soon. And we are still mourning them. To share a few insights and memories of Peter and Elliot, please welcome EFF activism director, Gennie Gebhart and one of our technologist fellows, Yan Zhu. [ Applause ] GENNIE: Elliot and Peter each effected more positive change in their years than most of us could hope for in twice that time. YAN: However, none of the accomplishments were in a vacuum. We want to show the amazing things that they brought to the community so others are inspired to pick up the torch. GENNIE: Once wrote, we win with words. And in the years since we've lost him, this mentor and boss and colleague and a friend. Those words are still really hard to find. So, for the next few minutes, I'm gonna pull myself together and I'll try to let Elliot's formidable accomplishments just speak for themselves. First, I want to start with Elliot's deepest commitment, that was open access to knowledge and culture and scholarly research. He brought this to everything he did. And one of the first time I got to work with him was on the Stand with Diego Campaign. A student, Diego Gomez was facing jail time for sharing an academic article online. Something that's apparently illegal. And Elliot's work on that campaign, it ensured that it was a flash point in the process. And Elliot's work ultimately contributed to Diego's successful acquittal. He was one of the first huge victories that I was present for and got to work for in EFF. Such a thrill. Later, Elliot led the EFF strategy against SESTA/FOSTA, it was Section 230, building coalitions beyond the civil rights groups. Explaining the stakes to folk who is might not have considered an acronym and some numbers important to them and their communities before. And throughout, Elliot masterfully distilled all the jargon and all the legal complexities into a clear value that all of us in this room can identify with. How the Internet enables the voices to have a voice. And the choices that we have to make as a community to ensure that value perseveres. And finally, in one of the last campaigns that Elliot ran for EFF and perhaps my favorite thing I ever got to work with him on, Elliot coordinated EFF's largest ever advocacy effort and probably the largest effort mobilization of the nonprofit sector in our save.org campaign. He rallied 871 nonprofits and tense of thousands of individual petition signers around our safe.org campaign. We had repeats, like joining in to prevent a private equity firm from purchasing the dot org domain. And I will never forget the thrill of opening my laptop every morning and seeing dozens more campaign sign-ons roll in. And I also won't forget how quickly that thrill turned to dread. How many people were signing up for this? We didn't think this was going to be that big. Can we fit on the logos on one page? How is that gonna work? Is it gonna scroll forever? There was an all hands on moment for the activism team. I see some in the face that were on the with Elliot at that time. And Elliot led us towards what was ultimately a victory with his signature compassion and determination and humor and humility. Elliot approached all of these campaigns not as fights for EFF to win. He did have a habit of winning. But these were to him an opportunity to affect real people's lives through our work. And more than anything else, that is what I'm so grateful to carry with me from Elliot's example. Thanks. [ Applause ] YAN: All right. So, first let me say that in the true spirit of Peter Eckersley, I procrastinated writing this speech until the last possible minute. [ Laughter ] And as a result, there were many moments in the course where I was about to text Peter and ask for his thoughts. And it just felt so natural to ask him for advice knowing that he would listen, think about the problem, and say something incredibly brilliant. It hurts to realize that he'll -- he's not here with us here tonight after all these years. And he'll never share his wisdom with us again. Pending advanced in cryo preservation technology. When I started working at EFF a decade ago, Peter had already been here for years as the head of technology projects. But he soon became more than just my boss. He was a mentor to myself and many others. Some with us tonight. Not just in technology, but in the finer details of how to have a rich and fulfilling life. Case in point. One full, bright, January morning, 2014. Peter and I writing the Cal train to San Francisco. A stranger sat down next to us and learned we were working on EFF. And his eyes lit up and said, that's so cool. But you guys defeated SOFA and FIFA just a few years ago. You have won, right? And Peter laughed and he explained that it's not quite like that. He said, imagine this. You are the hero in a comic book and every time you defeat your nemesis, a new one appears. This has to happen and over and over again and it has to work that way because we live inside a comic book. And the deed of life is the cyberpunk, Peter is a magical wizard who appears, and lights the path forward, step-by-step. He was a visionary in the truest sense of the world because we saw what needed to be done to save the Internet, and he just started doing it. Let me give just one example. In 2010, he noticed that Facebook, our favorite website, didn't automatically upgrade. He made a browser extension, HTTPS Everywhere that automates the upgrade. And HTTPS back then was the exception rather than the rule because it cost money to get a TLS certificate. He had this impossible version, what if we partnered with the certificate authority and gave out free certificates that could be automatically deployed and renewed without any user interaction. He thought this was change everything and finally get us to encryption on the Internet. He turned out to be spectacularly right in that time that few thought it would work. Now they have issued TLS certificates to websites and those not supported by HTTPS. We could spend hours talking about the projects, SSL servers, so on and so forth. But suffice it to say, it's undeniable. He changed the face of the Internet for the better. From the bottom of our hearts, we thank you for all he has done and will do our best to carry his life forward. [ Applause ] GENNIE: And in closing, one thing I'll remember so vividly about Elliot and Peter both, how they sounded. Each filling the room with a distinctive voice and a booming laugh and a very deliberate way of stringing words together to tell a story and to invite an ally to join the fight. And the fights that Elliot and Peter won for the Internet will continue to affect people's lives for the better. And the people who had the privilege of working with them, including so many of us here tonight, we also have the privilege of carrying forward the vision of the freer, more open, more secure, more vibrant Internet that they knew was possible. Thank you all. [ Applause ] AARON: Thank you, Gennie and Yan, wonderful tribute. Peter and Elliot were part of the EFF family. That was important to us. We really needed this moment to talk about them and reflect on them. You know? But, you know, the two of them were also dedicated to the Digital Rights movement. And I think that's a thing that I'll take away from this. So, even if you didn't know them personally, I think you should know that our digital world is better off for having had them in it. And, you know, wherever you guys are, thank you so much. And it's also to remember that, you know, we don't do this work alone. Each of us can contribute to a future that embraces creativity, diverse ideas, and the privacy to explore them on your own terms. Tonight's honorees exemplify that digital freedom in extraordinary ways top present the first EFF award of the evening, a leader in EFF's international work for many years, director of strategy for EFF also, now an EFF special adviser, please welcome Mr. Danny O'Brien. [ Applause ] DANNY: So, now I'm no longer at EFF. I feel that I can reveal some of the secrets that run the organization. I see the lawyer -- yes. Okay. I thought you guys would support whistle blowing. Okay. So, the tricks and stories that you probably have reverse engineered, probably do. And the first secret is to always try and personalize the issue that's in the story. In many ways, what you're seeing here is an exercise in that. That, of course, there's another side to that. That all stories, all issues are made up of people. People like Peter and Elliot and the other people that I can almost see out there. Dan and Erin. And most of all for this particular moment, Alaa. So, Alaa was someone who has always been intricately connected not only to the issues, but also the institution of the EFF. He was a big EFF supporter. And many of us count him as someone we've met as a friend. Okay. Another big secret that I can reveal is that -- and actually this isn't -- this is something that I reverse engineered myself over there as I was pacing around, as I was prying to explain the technique that we use at EFF. Which is particularly in the international space, which we notice that people can often see things in black and white in other places. We would often do this thing of pointing out an issue that was happening in another country. Say China. We talk about the kind of level of surveillance that was going on in China. And people, because China is a long way away. And you don't know much about China. So, people would see, that kind of mass surveillance by a large state institution is appalling and a sign of authoritarianism. And then we would sort of pan the camera across to the United States or a little bit closer to the audience we were talking to and pointed out the connections. The same tools of corporate and state surveillance. And like personification, like personalizing the story, that hit something else. Of course, those things were happening in those places. And even though there's a capability to see some things better at a long distance, see things far away in more detail in some ways and clearer than close up, again, something that we've used in the movement of time as well. Where we pointed out a utopia and then -- or a dystopia and panned back to the present day. Those things are real in a lot of very strong ways. We are walking towards a dystopia or are working towards a utopia making those individual decisions right now. And those things are really happening in other places to people who are as real as you and I. In Alaa's case, what's interesting is that Alaa had that ability and still does to see what was going on a short distance too. For those of you who don't know, Alaa was a pivotal figure in the fight against the Mubarak regime in what was the Arab Spring. He was a figure in the square and one of the engines that connected those protests to the wider world through his constant blogging, writing, and Internet communication. What makes Alaa not unique, but I think significant as an illustration of the power of activism. If conscientiously and carefully pursued. Is that Alaa went on from that point of view and that moment not to lead a government or to participate in the next stages, but to protest those as well. There was a time when we used to joke that Alaa was someone who had successfully been imprisoned by not one dictator of Egypt, but two. And then three. And now four. He was one of the first people to protest after the Tahrir protests had deposed Mubarak against the military dictatorship that followed that. Following one of the worst massacres of Coptic Christians in that country that followed that shift in power. Alaa was one of the first people to speak out in public against that massacre and against the saviors of the revolution that he had originally participated in. When they in turn were replaced by the Islamic Brotherhood, Alaa also protested them. Following a series of equally terrible crackdowns on civil liberties and human rights in Egypt. And when, in turn, that whole group was deposed and replaced by another junta, Alaa was on the front lines protesting the even more devastating arrests and tortures, murders, and imprisonments of what is now over 20,000 political prisoners. Alaa has been in jail now on and off for most of the last decade. He is currently not only on hunger strike, he's been on hunger strike for 220 days. He is now on water strike. He is probably one of the leading figures in the campaign to free himself and all political prisoners in Egypt. In a few days, President Biden will be meeting with the Egyptian government and we are told will be lobbying hard for Alaa's freedom. My own country that Alaa is also a dual citizen of. He is similarly protesting his imprisonment. One of the other secrets of -- of EFF is how we choose these awards. And we choose these awards very secretly. I'm not gonna reveal the strange machinations and papal smoke that appears. But I will reveal one thing, we often talk about, is this the moment? And that's because many of the award winners past and present appeared every year, we always consider them. And so, we always ask, is this the time? Is this the moment to pick this year to award the person who represents this issue? I would love to say that this is Alaa's year because he's free. It is Alaa's year because he is not. He is in the dying moments of a protest. And as his sister told the press this week, really this is the last hope for his freedom. There's -- whoa! This is a book that I highly recommend and I'm just gonna read from it. It's always terrifying when somebody comes and has like five of these on it. I want to assure you, I'm not going to read the entire chapter. It will be relatively quick. But I wanted to read this particular point. Alaa was for the freedom of Egyptian people and the technology and systems that EFF has fought for. And he writes in a letter from prison in 2017 his path. It's called a portrait of the activist outside his prison. We came of age with the second intifada. We took our first real steps out into the world as bombs fell on Baghdad. All around us, fellow Arabs cried, over our dead bodies. Northern allies shouted, not in our name. Southern comrades sung, in another world it's possible. We understood then the world we knew was guying and we were not alone. Press releases from NGOs, official statements, it was never enough. Sought out our predecessor, learned from them, taught them. We refused their legacy, but respected their experiences. We understood that information technology was the key to shaping the real world. And understood how exposed we were to global monopolies, so adopted free and open source software for achieving independence, and as a crucial tool for the economy and ending subjugation. We started a campaign, touring universities, student lecturing. We organized conferences and training programs. Technology localization became our top priority. We worked on the Arabization of terminology, translated user interfaces. We designed fonts, built software, and built websites. We connected bloggers across the Arab world and encouraged writers, researchers and Translators to share access to their creative outputs in their archives. Working to support Arab online content, it wasn't long before we came up against censorship, prosecution, accusations of hearsay and we joined those with freedom of opinion, expression, belief, press and academic freedom. Built online networks and political movements, set up IT labs and technology clubs in Cairo's neighborhoods. We extended the Internet to Egypt's countryside. We were invited to share those experiences in Sub-Saharan Africa. And worked to establish online activity. This economic, cultural, and social rights. We engage with reality. We tried to change it, influence it and shape it. We were one of the weaker parties present, but we were present. When the world noticed us and the stories started to interest journalists, we insisted on our narratives rather than those being imposed upon us. We were not surprised by the revolution. We sorted it. We were not surprised by the protest moments in Europe and the US. Did we not protest together against the war in Iraq? And we shared struggles with the communities of comrades from every continent. But then we lost. Then everything lost its meaning. That's not the note to end with Alaa. Alaa would frequently quote in his Tweets, the old Antonio Gramsci quotation, I believe quoted from someone else, we can have a pessimism of the intellect, but we need a optimism of the will. Right now Alaa is surviving entirely on the optimism of that will. I would urge all of you after this to join with the Free Alaa movement and help support the freedom of Egyptian political protesters, prisoners and Alaa, our friend. One of the persons who was most close to Alaa during all of this time is Jillian York. My colleague at EFF. Jillian couldn't be here. But she's sent this message to you and to Alaa. >> Hello, congratulations to tonight's award winners. I wish I could be there this evening to celebrate. And -- -- tonight -- [inaudible] -- we hope that -- and I'm meeting with an instructor who -- shining intellect and his way of [inaudible]. He was critical -- he genuinely helped me. And they fought so hard. Alaa is activism, and he was so much more than that. -- most of all, a brother, a father, and an incredibly good friend. Our friendship, like all relationships, is [inaudible] -- but from the time -- you taught me so much. Long before -- and our many conversations and -- to see it was different in all the ways. He taught me to be fearless in my activism. To not [inaudible] -- Alaa deserves to be free. And it is my hope that the recognition will help secure this for him. Congratulations. And may you soon be free. Thank you. [ Applause ] DANNY: So, I didn't want to end on quite the note that perhaps this could end on. Alaa is alive. And Alaa will be free. But I also wanted to make one final connection. The chronology that you heard from his book, which I agree with Jillian is an amazing book. You should buy it. One of the things that comes out of that chronology is that Alaa is 40 years old. He has a particular generational moment that I think rings true for many, many of us here. But one of the things that's changing our experience from being pioneers to something a little more long-term is that this is a -- possibly a fight that will take many generations. I just want to leave you with one more. Promise you, it's short. No one has flashed the 30 seconds yet. Gonna take advantage of that. To point -- thank you. [ Laughter ] To point to what it means to create a generational movement. Alaa comes from a generation of activists who fought many years ago for freedom in Egypt and elsewhere. And when his father died, he spoke at the funeral to what it meant to be in a family of activists. His father was a lawyer. He would talk to us too about the history of the law. And he would talk to us just kids, teenagers taking our first steps in protest movements. And it was important for him to talk to us, even if we weren't going to specialize in law, important that we understood how the law was developed. And what the law could be like. What justice could be like. Most people who came in frequent contact with him, whether they were family or defendants or activists on the street or in student movement who is invited him to talk at their events, they all developed a certain sensitivity and understanding of the constitution of the law that allowed them to form groups, assist lawyers and relieve them some of the burdens of their work and to engage in the processes of legislation. One of the other secrets of EFF is that it's not just the lawyers or the digital revolution that people who make connections and make friends and change the world. But also, EFF inspires people to take careful aim at what they can change in the world. And not to lose hope even in the darkest times. So, I'm very, very proud to hand this award from EFF to Alaa when he's free. Thank you. [ Applause ] AARON: Thank you very much, Danny. And certainly, everyone's hearts are with Alaa right now. I wish him well. So, I would like to introduce our next presenter who is an artist, activist, and member of The Hacktivist Collective. Please welcome EFF staff technologist, Daly Barnett. [ Applause ] DALY: Hi. So, I'm gonna keep this brief. I'm here to introduce Digital Defense Fund. It's a great honor. Digital Defense Fund provides digital security advice for the abortion access movement. But I'll let Kate Bertash who is going to accept the award on behalf of DDF to go into more detail about that work. But regardless, I am so glad that we get to give DDF their flowers. Because it's... well, it's a bummer, obviously, that their work is so prescient right now. But, I guess, maybe it's a testament to their intuition and their ability to recognize things that need to be done. So, thank you. And I guess a little bit more insight. I have been working at EFF for about 3 years, a little bit more. And if there's one thing that I've learned in that time, it's that we at EFF exist in a network. Right? We rely on the insights and the efforts of others to do what we have to do. And DDF has honestly made our work easier. They've made our work better. And they've guided us in avoiding would be mistakes. So, for that, I'm very grateful. Thank you. They make us better. And so, the least we can do is to give them this award. So, thank you, DDF. [ Applause ] KATE: Great. Thank you so much. From my team and from myself. I want to foremost thank the abortion organizations and activists that are out there right now on the ground doing work. They're doing sleepless nights, brutal financial scarcity, death threats and expanding legal dangers to ensure the hypothetical right to privacy, enshrined an abortion is kept. This award is for them. They honestly taught us how to do the job, understand the digital threats and protect our collective rights. They are and have been and will remain to me and to the rest of my team, the guiding star for this work. I would love also to thank EFF and all the other collaborators and co-conspirators in peer movements. We owe it to our trans rights colleagues, sex worker rights and all those who made sure we were in the room together before we understood how connected digital privacy rights and abortion rights are together. The very night that the Dobbs decision came down, I received about a thousand signal chats and calls that we were not in this by ourselves. Over the last 5 years, worked with the abortion access movement to work on digital threat models, responds to all of these many legislative changes, to make the stakes together and learn to become the team that the community needed. Today we provide a comprehensive suite of completely free services, digital security evaluations, trainings, tech service provider referrals, management, community build software support, and grants and collaborations for -- I'm getting tongue tied with so many things. So, increasingly with the encouragement of organizations like EFF, we are taking on tech platform accountability projects. We ensure we are documenting what the movement is experiencing in trying to engage and navigate tech companies not releasing patient's access to care. Ensure the experiences get back actually directly to the corporations of those who hold the digital commons themselves. And get the advocacy orgs to help us do something about it. The first few months after Roe is overturned, we can see how necessary this collaborative work has been together. For the years before the fall of Roe, I don't know if you know this, I certainly didn't before getting this job, that Google searches and text messages have already been used as evidence in abortion prosecutions. And now companies like Meta turn over DMs of users to charge them with the crime of seeking an abortion. Many are seeking to outlaw the sharing of abortion information online. A state AG sent a subpoena for posting a billboard. And tech companies for have years censored abortion information off their platforms using the automated systems. They gladly take money from the highest bidder to direct users into fake clinic honey traps that harvest and re-sell their information. We find ourselves as abortion advocates in the struggle for what Internet freedom means and the very real consequences for our freedoms in the physical world. It's through these experiences of abortion seekers and those who support them that we affirm the inextricable link between our bodily autonomy rights and digital privacy rights. We have seen time and again that the advocate for the -- to restrict and criminalization of our physical bodies. In this way, our digital rights are tied to all freedoms, online and off line, as Cindy said. And the stakes are high for our work together. The only reason I'm here right now accepting this award, and we are all dealing with what we are facing for the road ahead is because 5 years ago someone took a big chance on us. They give us financial resources and an unbelievable amount of trust to address these problems. With that time and money, we were not only able to fill in the technical and operational security gaps, we were able to build a community and the true sense in the digital space. We were able to affirm to the abortion access that the Internet belongs to you too. I need people already doing the same digital rights work who deserve that same opportunity and trust and resources and freedom to identify and address the specific civil liberty problems their movement experiences. I want to see my peers that work for trans rights, sex worker rights, voting rights, immigration rights, and so many more spaces to receive the same support we have been given take on an unprecedented expanse of authoritarianism and the surveillance state. [ Applause ] This work has never been more critical and never more a matter of life and death as we heard unfortunately just a few moments ago. With threats that rattle the very foundations of our democracy and democracies abroad. We at DDF have been never more red to ensure the and support other new voices. And we welcome technologists and experts into all of our initiatives, including the techies for justice community, which launched. Check that out on our website. As all of you ensure that we are not alone, we are actually also really, really here to ensure that we're doing the same for all of those who are going to join the work in the next few years and as we heard, generations to come. So, in a time when so much of the work to alleviate suffering and human rights feels invisible, you have given us the gift of knowing we are seen. We are able to declare loudly that we will never comply in advance. Because you have our backs. And I hope you'll continue to work with us to ensure that there will be more people standing where I'm standing right now because you saw them and helped back them up too. And in exchange, we will continue to do our part. We will ensure that this award is a promise kept to all of us and our fundamental human freedoms. From myself and my entire team, thank you so, so much. [ Applause ] AARON: Thank you so much. That's never been a more important or weirder time to be doing the work that you do. Thank you so much for being here. So, I would like to introduce our third and final presenter of the evening. She is a long-time consumer technology reporter -- she was a long-time consumer technology reporter at The Washington Post. We just got the journalist spirit still. She is one of our resident experts on the mechanics of American state legislation. She is EFF senior legislative activist, Hayley Tsukayama. Please welcome. [ Applause ] HAYLEY: Good evening. My name is Hayley Tsukayama and I am senior legislative activist at EFF. It is my honor to introduce Kyle Wiens, for the award for Right to Repair Advocacy. A leading evangelist in the US and internationally for the right to repair. Being able to fix, tinker with and choose who you trust with your own devices plays a part in how people control their data, security, their stuff, and helps the planet in the process. Right to repair is having a moment, legislation percolating at the state and federal level. Notched a series of successes after years and years of work that Kyle and an instrumental part of. In Colorado, allowing wheelchair owners access to parts and manuals needed to repair their own chairs. And -- excuse, a little advocacy, a right to repair bill on the New York governor's desk right now that Kyle and the repair coalition shepherded through a difficult legislature. It's one signature away from making history. That wouldn't have happened if Kyle didn't notice the right to repair years ago. Since it was founded, yes, in a dorm resume, iFixit helped millions take advantage and when advocating for change, it is how it affects the person personally. Kyle is a master at this. He knows how every day people seek out information to fix their stuff and worked to contribute this enormous consumer resource to the world. Kyle has had a long relationship with EFF, having worked with the organization for about a decade. Manufacturers claim a lot of repair information such as manuals and even diagnostic codes is copyrights and tried to use that copyright to force buyers to come back any time they need to fix their stuff. And things are worse with the proliferation of smart TVs, cars, wheelchairs, and so on. The software that makes those things smart is usually locked up with digital rights software. Breaking that DRM can be illegal even if you're trying to do something that's otherwise fine. That's parts what have makes Kyle's work important and a little bit risky. I think should we have a lawsuit, I know some folks that are ready and waiting for that day. I first connected with Kyle in my past life as a technology reporter and archived search suggest we first spoke about the iPhone 5 and the proprietary screws in 2012. Since then, it's moved from interviewing Kyle to learn the work from him. He's an ideal tech policy advocate. I have seen him move with ease between the technical aspects and the issues. He's at countless meetings with staffers, parliamentarians and others helping them see the benefits of repair. At the same time, he never forgets the center of right to repair work: Actual people. He excels at helping people tell their own stories and brings more people into the fold. Such as farmers tired of waiting for John Deere to fix their tractors, crops rotting in the fields because they can't harvest them. He worked with the public research group, hacker groups, security researchers and many others. Right to repair is up against some big enemies. But the perseverance of the movement is paying off. Kyle will tell you this is the result of a lot of team work. He wrote a lovely post on iFixit about the award, spreading it out to those he works with in the coalition. With five paragraphs of the 7 calling out the contributions of other tells use about his personality and why he's a strong and effective leader. It's my privilege to make sure he gets at least some of the spotlight for himself tonight. Please join me in applauding Kyle Wiens and his work for the EFF award. [ Applause ] KYLE: Hey, this is pretty cool. I'm thrilled to be here. I feel like very much this is one of those we stand on the shoulders of giants kind of thing. I remember I was in seventh grade. Sitting in science class. Reading Slashdot, because that's what you do. And reading a post EFF wrote about the passage of the digital copyright act and what a catastrophe Section 1201 was. And I don't know if anyone in this room wrote that post. I have no idea who wrote that. I should go back to Internet Archive and see. And I remember actually printing it out, I was so pissed off. What it takes to piss off a seventh grader. Kind of now all along that I would have some kind of, you know, role in fighting for digital rights. Didn't exactly know what that would be. So, you know, majored in computer science, went to Cal Poly and was -- knew that I wanted to develop software tools to be able to have an impact on the world somehow. But I adopt know what. And two months into this, I dropped my laptop on the power plug. Stood on one foot and the moon was aligned correctly, I could get the power to charge. Okay, I can take this apart and fix it myself. I didn't have the money to buy a new laptop. I got stuck. I did what all of you would do, how do I fix this? Where is the service manual? And I you that the service manual existed because I had seen it at the Apple repair shops, but I couldn't find it. I don't know about you, but for me, if information isn't on the Internet, it doesn't exist. This was a cognitive dissonance, frustrating. And went through the repair and did research, sure enough, it had been on the Internet, and someone sent a take down request. This is where Corynne gets excited, this was the entry of Kyle into the world of copyright. So, fantastic. So, the easy way to get around Apple's copyright law on this was just to write my own. We took it apart, again, took pictures along the way. Put the manual online and you think about all the things in the world, how exciting is a repair manual. We got 30,000 hits the first day, all the Mac websites picked it up, it was history. We took apart every Apple product and Apple the first company in history that had free open source service manuals online for every product they make. Because we did it for them. Or if you're Apple's perspective, we did it to them. [ Laughter ] And probably a lot of Mac users around the world have taken advantage of that. Right now we help about 8 million people a month learn how to fix things. Which is really cool. But where do you go from there? We expanded, writing manuals for many and more things. But what is the impact? Where does this leave the world? Where does repair fit into the broader scope of software freedom, hardware autonomy and access to tinker with, and understanding things. Fighting for the right to repair is not just about can I fix the thing that I have and the pickle that I'm in, but what does the world of technology look like? What do we want the shape of the technosphere to be? Do we want to have access from the top to the lowest level to have control of the things in our lives? The fact that we can't fix a thing is the first part of the submerged iceberg of the freedom taken away from us by the technology that was supposed to free us. Diving in farther, make an open repair manual for everything. Made a Wiki, thousands of people around the world contributing. Now it's up to 80,000 repair guides for about 30,000 devices. But we realized very quickly that it was not possible for the community to keep up with the pace that the manufacturers are operating at. That's the same tragedy we have in the open source software world. I don't care how fast we type, we can't type as fast as everyone being paid to write software. The amount of closed software in the world is dwarfing the amount of free software in the world. Which is a sad thing. How can we work to open up the hardware that is being created by people paid to create closed ecosystems? We had to change the rules of the game, it was around 2010, 2011, we had to fundamentally shift the laws, the rules of the game that all of these companies were playing in. Because the default was, systems are locked down. Farmers can't fix their things. College kids can't fix their laptops. And if the introduction of computer chips into ordinary things was the wedge that they were using to lock down repairs, repairs are just gonna be the beginning and all of the rest of our freedom of what we can do our hardware was going to be next. So, I said, how can we put a -- so, stop this now? How can we start -- how can we stop the beginning of the end of autonomy of all of our things? So, that was around the time that the US Copyright Office did something kind of stupid. And they decided -- AT&T and TracFone had gone to them and said, hey, you know those phones that people are unlocking because you gave them an exemption to unlock the phones, that's hurting our ability to sell pre-paid phones at 7-eleven, would you please stop? Yeah, sure. The US became the only country in the world where it was illegal to unlock a cell phone and move it from one cell phone carrier to another. A lot of folks, spearheaded by EFF, got involved, there was a White House petition and I jumped on board. We got -- I thought it was the second-most signatures of any we the people petition that President Obama ran. The most popular was the deport Justin Beiber back to Canada. Which I think we can all agree would be a good idea. Also, a good idea maybe -- it maybe if we could unlock our phones. So, President Obama said, sure. And then we banded together with a whole bunch of folks here and went to Congress and spent a year fighting this. Let's fight something easy that everyone can agree. We picked a more mainstream issue than right to repair. We won, President Obama signed the bill, unlocking the phones are legal. And the Copyright Office agrees that unlocking phones is a good thing. [ Applause ] So, since then, every three years we go back to the Copyright Office and we ask for a little bit more. And so, one year I was chatting with some folks. What if we apply on behalf of farmers? Wouldn't it be nice if farmers could jailbreak their tractors, do repairs on their tractors. We did this. Got a bunch of farmers. We actually went to Santa Maria, California, interviewed a whole bunch of farmers in Spanish. And we recorded the Spanish interviews of them talking about how they can't fix their tractors. And sent them out in Spanish in California about how they couldn't fix their tractors. It was super-cool. The Copyright Office had a public submission form. It was like, submit all these different fields. And one of them was select the class, class 1 through 27. No human was going to be able to figure out this form. We said, that's fine. We're technology people, we'll make our own form. We set up a different form on our own website, we collected, we got 60,000 signatures or something like that. We got people to write individual notes. Then we needed a way to submit it to the Copyright Office. We just wrote a script that went to the website one by one, submit the forms. So, we got a call from the Copyright Office. And they said, please stop your script. What we didn't know is that this form was actually a Perl script that took the contents of the form submission, stepped it into a Word document, attached it to an email and emailed it to the Copyright Office. We took down the Library of Congress' email server. So, like, please stop DDos'ing us, you can give us an Excel file. Sure. These are the things that you learn along the way of activism. So, we have successfully, within the Copyright Office framework, expanded significantly. Every 3 years. We got rights to repair just about everything. There's a few things that we don't have yet. But we got a lot done. [ Applause ] The catch is: You have to whittle your own tool to fix the thing. I can't sell you the tool. Nobody can sell you the tool. You can't go on eBay and buy the tool. You have to whittle your own tool. We're working on a Federal bill to fix that. We are also at the state level working on legislation, if you sell a complex technology, you have to make parts and tools available. We have been waging that battle for years, we have bills introduced in 44 different states. This year, 25 states, including California introduced bills. And we lost in 22 of those states. But we won in Colorado. Our first one ever. [ Applause ] And we are so close in New York it's ridiculous. We managed to pass almost unanimously the New York Senate and the House, despite having $10 trillion of market cap registered to lobby against our bill. And this is the fear -- this is why this is so important that we capture this moment. I'm afraid -- what happens when there's $100 trillion in market cap on the other side? How much money is so much that we will never have these freedoms again? If we don't capture this moment in time, if we don't get this done now, we will run out of this opportunity and we will be trapped in a world where we have manufactured control, where none of us have autonomy over our devices. I am incredibly honored and appreciative. We are so close, Governor Hochul could sign this tomorrow, and we could have the first worldwide right to repair bill. So, close. And we couldn't have done it without all of you in our incredible community. Thank you so much. This is an absolute honor. [ Applause ] AARON: Congratulations to all of our honorees tonight. Alaa, DDF, Kyle. You know, I love how diverse yet important all three of our honorees are this year. I think it's really, really cool. Everyone is doing something that is so deeply important and touching to digital rights for people around the world. And they're all so different. I just think that's awesome. Thank you -- thank you, guys, so much. [ Applause ] So, all of you really, again, you're an inspiration in the fight for a brighter future. Especially in times of darkness. And, you know, that's a responsibility that all of us share. It's wonderful seeing all of you setting the stage for the next generation of digital rights supporters in the world. And this community thanks you. Thank you so much. Another round of applause. Just... [ Applause ] So, now before we go tonight, I want to one more time thank our sponsors, Dropbox, Electric Capital, No Starch Press. Thanks to EFF member who is support our work and make all of this possible. I invite you to support the cause, I invite you to go to EFF.org and sign up. And for those in the room, I invite you to stay for refreshments and catch up with the dynamic technologists, activists, lawyers and just cool people in the room. Stick around. And for those of you joining through cyber space, thank you very much and we'll see you next time. Thank you. Good night.