Report: ICE and the Secret Service Conducted Illegal Surveillance of Cell Phones
The Department of Homeland Security’s Inspector General has released a troubling new report detailing how federal agencies like Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), and the Secret Service have conducted surveillance using cell-site simulators (CSS) without proper authorization and in violation of the law. Specifically,...
Coded Resistance, the Comic!
Win for Government Transparency and Immigrant Privacy Rights at Second Circuit
Intern Reema Moussa contributed to this blog post.As government agencies increasingly use digital tools to track citizens and immigrants, we need to use the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to make that surveillance transparent. But while the government opens its databases to public scrutiny, it must also protect individual privacy.Late...
Stupid Patent of the Month: Clocking In To Work—On an App
EFF Files Amicus Brief to Protect the Speech Rights of Immigrants and Immigrant Rights Advocates
This post was written by intern Devin Sullivan.Should it be a federal crime to encourage an undocumented immigrant to remain in the country? In a friend of the court brief filed today with the U.S. Supreme Court, we argue that such a prohibition is facially unconstitutional on First Amendment...
Fourth Circuit: Individuals Have a First Amendment Right to Livestream Their Own Traffic Stops
In a partial victory for police accountability, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit held that the First Amendment protects a passenger who livestreams the traffic stop of the car he is traveling in. EFF filed an amicus brief in Sharpe v. Winterville in 2021 in...
Podcast Episode: The Right to Imagine Your Own Future
Two Ways The U.S. Patent Office Could Do Better At Examination
The patent examination process is rife with problems. Too often, patent law supports applicants seeking unwarranted monopolies—not the public interest. That’s why we get things like Amazon’s patent on white-background photography. This is especially true when it comes to software and so-called “business methods,” a catchall term for patents...
Section 230 is On Trial. Here's What You Need to Know.
How We Fought For and Won Access to Records About Predictive Policing in General Escobedo, Mexico
What started with a simple public records request became a journey into the absurd depths of Mexican bureaucracy. But we emerged victorious, and learned a lot about how a city experimented with a dangerous surveillance tool. Filing public records requests for government information is a vital tool that EFF uses...
