EFF to Court: Broadband Privacy Law Passes First Amendment Muster
When it comes to surveillance of our online lives, Internet service providers (ISPs) are some of the worst offenders. Last year, the state of Maine passed a law targeted at the harms ISPs do to their customers when they use and sell their personal information. Now that law is...
How Big Tech Monopolies Distort Our Public Discourse
Long before the pandemic crisis, there was widespread concern over the impact that tech was having on the quality of our discourse, from disinformation campaigns to influence campaigns to polarization.It's true that the way we talk to each other and about the world has changed, both in form (thanks to...
Two Federal COVID-19 Privacy Bills: A Good Start and a Misstep
COVID-19, and containment efforts that rely on personal data, are shining a spotlight on a longstanding problem: our nation’s lack of sufficient laws to protect data privacy. Two bills before Congress attempt to solve this problem as to COVID-19 data. One is a good start that needs improvements. The other...
Nominations Open for 2020 Barlows!
Nominations are Now Open for the 2020 Barlows
to be Presented at the Pioneer Award Ceremony
Update 7/1/20: Nominations for 2020 are now closed.
A Plan to Pay Artists, Encourage Competition, and Promote Free Expression
Update/Correction, May 27 2020, 2PM Pacific. An earlier version of this article contained the phrase "the the online music industry is currently generating more revenues than the music industry did at the height of the CD bubble"; this has been corrected to read "the online music industry is currently...
The House Is Voting on Section 215, Again. The Bill Still Needs More Reform
Later this week, the House of Representatives is once again voting on whether or not to extend the authorities in Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act—a surveillance law with a rich history of government overreach and abuse, along with two other PATRIOT Act provisions, and possibly, an amendment.Congress considered...
Hearing Tuesday: EFF Urges California Lawmakers to Pass Fiber Broadband for All Bill To Ensure Full Internet Access For Everyone During the Pandemic and Beyond
Sacramento, California—On Tuesday, May 26, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) will ask California senators to approve a measure that will transition the state’s outdated communications network to fiber, bringing affordable high-speed broadband service, essential during the pandemic and beyond, to all residents.EFF Senior Legislative Counsel Ernesto Falcon will testify Tuesday...
EFF to Appeals Court: Reverse Legal Gotchas on Ordinary Internet Activities
In the Internet age, copyright decisions can have enormous consequences for all kinds of activities, because almost everything we do on the Internet involves making copies. And when courts make a mistake, they may create all sorts of unexpected legal risks. As we explained to the Eleventh Circuit yesterday, a...
EFF to UN Expert on Racial Discrimination: Mass Border Surveillance Hurts Vulnerable Communities
EFF submitted a letter to the United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance to testify to the negative impacts of mass surveillance on vulnerable communities at the U.S. border. The Special Rapporteur called for submissions on “Race, Borders, and...
International Proposals for Warrantless Location Surveillance To Fight COVID-19
Time and again, governments have used crises to expand their power, and often their intrusion into citizens’ lives. The COVID-19 pandemic has seen this pattern play out on a huge scale. From deploying drones or ankle monitors to enforce quarantine orders to proposals to use face recognition...
