San Francisco Police Accessed Business District Camera Network to Spy on Protestors
The San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) conducted mass surveillance of protesters at the end of May and in early June using a downtown business district's camera network, according to new records obtained by EFF. The records show that SFPD received real-time live access to hundreds of cameras as well as...
EFF to Court: Trump Appointee’s Removal of Open Technology Fund Leadership Is Unlawful
San Francisco—The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) today joined a group of 17 leading U.S.-based Internet freedom organizations in telling a federal appeals court that Trump administration appointee Michael Pack has no legal authority to purge leadership at the Open Technology Fund (OTF), a private, independent nonprofit that helps hundreds...
EFF Joins HOPE 2020
EFF staff members will present some of our latest work at 2600 Magazine's biennial Hackers on Planet Earth (HOPE) conference beginning this weekend. HOPE is a diverse hacker event that has drawn thousands of tinkerers, security researchers, activists, artists, and makers since 1994. In a departure from the infamous...
EFF and 45 Human Rights and Civil Liberties Groups Condemn Federal Law Enforcement Actions Against Protesters in Portland
EFF joined dozens of other groups in a letter condemning the behavior of federal law enforcement agencies in Portland, Oregon. Despite the wishes of local government officials, the federal government deployed law enforcement, including U.S. Marshals and Customs and Border Protection officers, to Portland. The federal government officially explained these...
EFF Welcomes Cybersecurity Expert Tarah Wheeler to Advisory Board
Cybersecurity policy expert. Security researcher. Women in tech advocate. Entrepreneur. Tarah Wheeler’s expertise and experience encompasses the most pressing issues in tech, and we’re honored to announce that she is joining EFF’s advisory board. She will be helping us with our work on information security, data privacy, building diverse...
The PACT Act’s Attempt to Help Internet Users Hold Platforms Accountable Will End Up Hurting Online Speakers
Recently, nearly every week brings a new effort to undercut or overhaul a key U.S. law—47 U.S.C. § 230 (“Section 230”)—that protects online services and allows Internet users to express themselves. Many of these proposals jeopardize users’ free speech and privacy, while others are thinly-veiled attacks against online services...
Appeals Court Decision Fails to Protect Privacy of Cryptocurrency Exchange Users
Financial records contain a trove of sensitive information about people’s personal lives, beliefs, and affiliations—which is why law enforcement should be required to get a warrant in order to obtain financial transaction data. Courts and lawmakers have gotten this wrong in the context of traditional banks—and a June 30 ruling...
After This Week’s Hack, It Is Past Time for Twitter to End-to-End Encrypt Direct Messages
Earlier this week, chaos reigned supreme on Twitter as high-profile public figures—from Elon Musk to Jeff Bezos to President Barack Obama—started tweeting links to the same bitcoin scam.Twitter’s public statement and reporting from Motherboard suggest attackers gained access to an internal admin tool at the company, and...
The American Federal Definition of Broadband Is Both Useless and Harmful
Definitions matter. Especially when those definitions come from the federal government. In the case of “broadband,” the definition set by the federal government creates our standard of Internet living. Depressingly, the American government’s definition means ISPs get away with offering very poor levels of “broadband.”The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is...
EU Court Again Rules That NSA Spying Makes U.S. Companies Inadequate for Privacy
The European Union’s highest court today made clear—once again—that the US government’s mass surveillance programs are incompatible with the privacy rights of EU citizens. The judgment was made in the latest case involving Austrian privacy advocate and EFF Pioneer Award winner Max Schrems. It invalidated the “Privacy Shield,”...










