Congressional Hearing Wednesday: EFF Will Urge Lawmakers to Protect Important Internet Free Speech Law
Washington, D.C. – On Wednesday, Oct. 16, Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) Legal Director Corynne McSherry will testify at a congressional hearing in support of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA)—one of the most important laws protecting Internet speech.CDA 230 shields online platforms from liability for content posted...
Hearing Thursday: EFF’s Rainey Reitman Will Urge California Lawmakers to Balance Needs of Consumers In Developing Cryptocurrency Regulations
Whittier, California—On Thursday, Oct. 17, at 10 am, EFF Chief Program Officer Rainey Reitman will urge California lawmakers to prioritize consumer choice and privacy in developing cryptocurrency regulations.Reitman will testify at a hearing convened by the California Assembly Committee on Banking and Finance. The session, Virtual Currency Businesses: The Market...
Today: Tell Congress Not to Pass Another Bad Copyright Law
Today, Congress is back in session after a two-week break. Now that they’re back, we’re asking you to take a few minutes to call and tell them not to pass the Copyright Alternative in Small-Claims Enforcement (CASE) Act. The CASE Act would create an obscure board inside the U.S. Copyright...
One Weird Law That Interferes With Security Research, Remix Culture, and Even Car Repair
How can a single, ill-conceived law wreak havoc in so many ways? It prevents you from making remix videos. It blocks computer security research. It keeps those with print disabilities from reading ebooks. It makes it illegal to repair people's cars. It makes it harder to...
Secret Court Rules That the FBI’s “Backdoor Searches” of Americans Violated the Fourth Amendment
But the Court Misses the Larger Problem: Section 702’s Mass Surveillance is Inherently UnconstitutionalEFF has long maintained that it is impossible to conduct mass surveillance and still protect the privacy and constitutional rights of innocent Americans, much less the human rights of innocent people around the world.This week, we were...
The Strange Case of Ellen DeGeneres, George W. Bush, and a Very Bad Takedown
It’s legitimately amazing that famous people and companies keep doing this. They keep using the DMCA to take down criticism, which always makes them look even worse than they did when the criticism was allowed to be seen. Does no one in Hollywood know about the Streisand Effect?Comedian and...
EFF to Court: Parody Book Combining Dr. Seuss and Star Trek Themes Is Fair Use
San Francisco—The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) urged a federal appeals court today to rule that the creators of a parody book called “Oh The Places You’ll Boldly Go!”—a mash-up of Dr. Seuss and Star Trek themes—didn’t infringe copyrights in the Dr. Seuss classic “Oh The Places You’ll Go!”The illustrated, crowdsourced...
China’s Global Reach: Surveillance and Censorship Beyond the Great Firewall
Those outside the People’s Republic of China (PRC) are accustomed to thinking of the Internet censorship practices of the Chinese state as primarily domestic, enacted through the so-called "Great Firewall"—a system of surveillance and blocking technology that prevents Chinese citizens from viewing websites outside the country. The Chinese government’s justification...
Twitter "Unintentionally" Used Your Phone Number for Targeted Advertising
Stop us if you’ve heard this before: you give a tech company your personal information in order to use two-factor authentication, and later find out that they were using that security information for targeted advertising.That’s exactly what Twitter fessed up to yesterday in an understated...
Victory! California Governor Signs A.B. 1215
California’s Governor Gavin Newsom has officially signed a bill that puts a moratorium on law enforcement’s use of face recognition for three years.Under Assemblymember Phil Ting’s bill, A.B. 1215, police departments and law enforcement agencies across the state of California will have until January 1, 2020 to end any existing...
