EFF Patent Project Gets Half-Million-Dollar Boost from Mark Cuban and 'Notch'

San Francisco - America's broken patent system needs major reform to protect innovators and the public. Today, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is announcing a major new boost to its patent work: a half-million dollars in funding from entrepreneur Mark Cuban and game developer Markus "Notch" Persson.
"The current...

Washington State Drops Defense of Unconstitutional Sex Trafficking Law

San Francisco - Today, Washington state officials announced that they have dropped their defense of a law aimed at combatting online sex trafficking ads by targeting Internet service providers, conceding that the statute was unconstitutional and violated federal law. After a challenge by the Internet Archive and Backpage.com, a permanent...

ACLU and EFF Challenge Free Speech Restrictions in California's Proposition 35

San Francisco - Today the ACLU of Northern California (ACLU-NC) and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed a federal class-action lawsuit to block implementation of unconstitutional provisions of Proposition 35 – a ballot measure passed by California voters Tuesday that restricts the legal and constitutionally protected speech of all registered...

TV Networks Use Bogus Infringement Claims in Fight to Shut Down Streaming Service

New York - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) urged a federal appeals court Friday not to shut down Aereo, a startup that lets customers send local broadcast television to Internet-connected devices, arguing that consumers have the right to watch free broadcast TV with the technology of their choice.
Broadcasters...

EFF Wins Renewal of Smartphone Jailbreaking Rights Plus New Legal Protections for Video Remixing

San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) won renewal of critical exemptions to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) in a ruling published today, including the upholding of jailbreaking rights for smartphones as well as new and expanded legal protections for video remixing.
"The DMCA creates a cloud...

Megaupload User Seeks to Unseal Documents Relating to Data Seizure

Alexandria, VA - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), on behalf of its client Kyle Goodwin, asked a federal court yesterday to unseal warrant-related documents surrounding the loss of access to Mr. Goodwin's data after the government shut down Megaupload.com. Goodwin used Megaupload's cloud-based storage system for his small business reporting...

EFF and ERI Fight to Quash Speech-Chilling Subpoenas from Chevron

San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and EarthRights International (ERI) asked judges in California and New York today to quash subpoenas issued by Chevron Corporation to three email providers demanding identifying information about the users of more than 100 email accounts, including environmental activists, journalists, and attorneys. The...

EFF Challenges Tracking-Services Patent Used to Threaten Cities Across the U.S.

San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is challenging a dangerous patent used to wrongfully demand payment from cities and other municipalities that employ public tracking systems to tell transit passengers if their bus or train is on time.
Today, EFF with the help of the Samuelson Law,...

EFF Sues for Answers About Illegal Government Email and Phone Call Surveillance

Washington, D.C. - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) sued the Department of Justice (DOJ) today, demanding answers about illegal email and telephone call surveillance at the National Security Agency (NSA).
The FISA Amendments Act (FAA) of 2008 gave the NSA expansive power to spy on Americans' international email and...

Hardware Hacker, Anti-ACTA Activist, and Groundbreaking Anonymity Group Win EFF Pioneer Awards

San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is pleased to announce the distinguished winners of its 2012 Pioneer Awards: hardware hacker Andrew (bunnie) Huang, anti-ACTA activist Jérémie Zimmermann, and the Tor Project – the organization behind the groundbreaking anonymity tool Tor.
The award ceremony will be held the...

Government Faces New Warrantless Surveillance Battle After Losing Landmark GPS Tracking Case

San Francisco - A federal district court is poised to determine whether the government can use cell phone data obtained without a warrant to establish an individual's location. In an amicus brief filed Monday, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT) argue that this...

Google Book Search Case Threatens Librarians' Access to Information

San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed an amicus brief today urging a federal court to find that the fair use doctrine shelters Google's Book Search "snippet" project from copyright infringement claims from the Authors Guild. EFF was joined by three associations representing over 100,000 libraries, the Association...

Judge Grants Internet Archive's Motion and Blocks Enforcement of New Washington Statute

Seattle - Today, a federal district court judge granted a motion by the Internet Archive to block enforcement of an overbroad Washington state anti-sex trafficking statute that could make online service providers criminally liable for providing access to third parties' offensive materials.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is representing...

EFF to Testify at Senate Hearing on Risks of Facial Recognition Technology

Washington, D.C. - Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) Staff Attorney Jennifer Lynch will testify this week at a Senate hearing on facial recognition technology and the privacy and civil liberties risks associated with rapidly growing biometric databases. The hearing is set for Wednesday, July 18, at 2:30 p.m.
Facial recognition...

Charles Carreon Drops Bogus Lawsuit Against The Oatmeal Creator

San Francisco - Attorney Charles Carreon dropped his bizarre lawsuit against The Oatmeal creator Matthew Inman today, ending his strange legal campaign against Inman's humorous and creative public criticism of a frivolous cease and desist letter that Carreon wrote on behalf of his client Funny Junk.
The Electronic Frontier...

Three NSA Whistleblowers Back EFF's Lawsuit Over Government's Massive Spying Program

San Francisco - Three whistleblowers – all former employees of the National Security Agency (NSA) – have come forward to give evidence in the Electronic Frontier Foundation's (EFF's) lawsuit against the government's illegal mass surveillance program, Jewel v. NSA.
In a motion filed today, the three former intelligence analysts...

EFF Will Represent The Oatmeal Creator in Fight Against Bizarre Lawsuit Targeting Critical Online Speech

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is joining with attorney Venkat Balasubramani of the law firm Focal PLLC to represent The Oatmeal creator Matthew Inman in a bizarre lawsuit targeting the online comic strip’s fundraising campaign in support of the American Cancer Society and the National Wildlife Federation.
“I have...

EFF Launches New Patent Reform Project to Defend Innovation

San Francisco - Patents are supposed to foster innovation, but modern software patents have been weaponized against inventors. Today the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is launching "Defend Innovation," a new patent reform project to promote seven fixes for America's patent system.
"The software patent system is broken. Patents are...

Porn Troll Wants Wi-Fi Providers to Pay for Others' Illegal Downloads

San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) urged a federal judge today to reject a porn troll's ploy to make a Wi-Fi provider responsible for the purported copyright infringement of another user.
Liberty Media Holdings (LMH) is suing two roommates in New York, alleging the illegal downloading of...

From Fingerprints to DNA: Biometric Data Collection in U.S. Immigrant Communities and Beyond

San Francisco - Today the Immigration Policy Center (IPC) and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) release "From Fingerprints to DNA: Biometric Data Collection in U.S. Immigrant Communities and Beyond." The paper outlines the current state of U.S. government collection of biometric information and the problems that could arise from these...

EFF to Testify at Hearings on Expanding DMCA Exemptions for Jailbreaking and Video Remixing

Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles - Experts from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) will testify at public hearings held by the U.S. Copyright Office this month, urging officials to renew and expand the critical exemptions to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) that the Copyright Office granted in 2009 in...

EFF Urges Appeals Court to Protect Forums Allowing Users to Speak Online

San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is urging a federal appeals court to block an attempt by disgruntled businesses to make an end-run around the federal law that protects Yelp and other online forums from liability for their users' reviews. In a friend-of-the-court brief filed with the U.S....

Time for Technology Companies to Stand Up for Human Rights

San Francisco - It's time for technology companies that sell surveillance and filtering equipment to step up and ensure they aren't helping governments in committing human rights violations. In a white paper released today entitled "Human Rights and Technology Sales," EFF outlines how corporations can avoid assisting repressive regimes.
...

Radical Library/Publisher and Prison Support Group Settle Lawsuit with FBI and UC-Berkeley Police over Improper Raid

Berkeley, CA - Two radical groups have settled their lawsuits over an armed, over-broad police raid after the law enforcement agencies agreed to delete improperly seized computer data and pay $100,000 in damages and attorney's fees. Moreover, the University of California-Berkeley Police Department (UCBPD) acknowledged that at the time of...

Appeals Court Rules That Violating Corporate Policy Is Not a Computer Crime

San Francisco - A federal appeals court today rejected a dangerous interpretation of the federal anti-hacking law, dismissing charges that would have criminalized any employee's use of a company's computers in violation of corporate policy.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed an amicus brief in this case, U.S. v....

SEC Overreaches with Investigation Into Speakers' Identities

San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) urged a federal appeals court Wednesday to block administrative subpoenas from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that would reveal the identities of three pseudonymous Gmail users without meeting the legal standards for identifying anonymous speakers.
In an amicus brief filed...

PayPal Announces New Speech-Friendly Policy for Online Book Sales

San Francisco - Payment service provider PayPal has announced a new speech-friendly policy for online book sales, reversing plans to shut off payment processing to publishers of certain forms of erotic literature.
"Free speech in the 21st Century depends on a chain of electronic service providers, and financial services...

New 'HTTPS Everywhere' Version Warns Users About Web Security Holes

San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) launched the 2.0 version of HTTPS Everywhere for the Firefox browser today, including an important new update that warns users about web security holes.
The "Decentralized SSL Observatory" is an optional feature that detects encryption weaknesses and notifies users when they...

Pages

Subscribe to EFF Press Releases