This blog post was co-written by EFF intern Haley Amster.EFF filed an amicus brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit urging the court to hold that under the First Amendment public schools may not punish students for their off-campus speech, including posting to social...

Last week, we raised the alarm about an empty privacy bill moving fast through the Virginia legislature. The bill, SB 1392, is supported by Microsoft and Amazon, and would set a dangerous standard for state privacy bills. Take ActionVirginia: Speak Up for Real PrivacyThe bill has passed through...

Design is incredibly important to how people use and choose products, but design patents are not. They provide exclusive rights only to ornamental product features, which by definition are not useful or artistic; for those that are, utility patent and copyright protection exist instead. As we’ve said before, we...

EFF has been tracking the Turkish government’s crackdown on tech platforms and its continuing efforts to force them to comply with draconian rules on content control and access to users’ data. As of now, the Turkish government has now managed to coerce Facebook, YouTube, and ...

Indonesia is the latest government to propose a legal framework to coerce social media platforms, apps, and other online service providers to accept local jurisdiction over their content and users’ data policies and practices. And in many ways, its proposal is the most invasive of human rights. This rush of...

Along with other civil liberties organizations and activists, EFF has long warned that Amazon Ring and other networked home surveillance devices could be used to monitor political activity and protests. Now we have documented proof that our fears were founded. According to emails obtained by EFF, the LAPD sent requests...

A very weak consumer data privacy bill is sailing through the Virginia legislature with backing from Microsoft and Amazon, which have both testified in support of the bill. The bill, SB 1392 and its companion HB 2307, are based on a Washington privacy law backed by tech giants...

Patents generate profits for private companies, but their power comes from the government, and in this country, the government’s power comes from the people. That means the rights patents confer, regardless of who exercises them, are fundamentally public in nature.Patent owners have no right to keep their patents rights secret....

The prosecution of Julian Assange for charges related to his publications of government documents on the whistleblower website Wikileaks poses a grave threat to press freedom, EFF, Freedom of the Press Foundation and other human rights organizations argue. In an open letter published today, we call on President Biden’s...