Bad News From the EU: High Court Blesses Global Takedown Order
The European Union seems to have fallen in love with the idea of requiring service providers to edit the Internet, with predictable consequences for speech. Until recently, there was reason to hope those consequences could be contained. For example, the EU’s highest court recently ruled that the EU’s ...
EFF to First Circuit: First Amendment Protects Right to Secretly Audio Record Police
The First Amendment protects the public’s right to use electronic devices to secretly audio record police officers performing their official duties in public. This is according to an amicus brief EFF filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. The case, Martin v. Rollins, was brought...
Facebook Shouldn't Give Politicians More Power Than Ordinary Users
Amidst escalating rhetoric about alleged "anti-conservative bias" on social media, Facebook has doubled down on its policies exempting (some) politicians from its ordinary fact-checking and from its hate speech rules. Facebook's policies amplify the harm that hateful politicians can do and are not necessary to advance its stated goal...
A Race to the Bottom of Privacy Protection: The US-UK Deal Would Trample Cross Border Privacy Safeguards
UPDATE: The UK has now released the text of the UK-US Cloud Act agreement, and an explanatory memorandum available here. Last year, we warned that the passage of the Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data (CLOUD) Act would weaken global privacy standards, opening up the possibility of more...
The Open Letter from the Governments of US, UK, and Australia to Facebook is An All-Out Attack on Encryption
Top law enforcement officials in the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia told Facebook today that they want backdoor access to all encrypted messages sent on all its platforms. In an open letter, these governments called on Mark Zuckerberg to stop Facebook’s plan to introduce end-to-end encryption on...
Victory! EFF Wins Access to License Plate Reader Data to Study How Law Enforcement Uses the Privacy Invasive Technology
San Francisco—Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Southern California (ACLU SoCal) have reached an agreement with Los Angeles law enforcement agencies under which the police and sheriff’s departments will turn over license plate data they indiscriminately collected on millions of law-abiding drivers in Southern...
Coders' Rights Are At Risk in Brazil, and the Harms Could Affect Everyone
A bill pending in the Brazilian Senate (PLS 272/2016) amends the current anti-terrorism law to make it a “terrorist act” to interfere with, sabotage or damage computer systems or databases in order to hinder their operation for a political or ideological motivation. Publicly praising such actions, or other...
Adversarial Interoperability
“Interoperability” is the act of making a new product or service work with an existing product or service: modern civilization depends on the standards and practices that allow you to put any dish into a dishwasher or any USB charger into any car’s cigarette lighter.But interoperability is just the ante....
Privacy Allies File Amicus Briefs in Support of EFF’s Jewel v. NSA Case
Organizations raising concerns about mass surveillance, secrecy, and the Fourth Amendment, among other issues, have filed amicus briefs in support of EFF’s Jewel v. NSA case, currently pending in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The Court of Appeals is set to review the District Court’s decision, which dismissed...
D.C. Circuit Offers Bad News, Good News on Net Neutrality: FCC Repeal Upheld, But States Can Fill the Gap
Users, advocates, and service providers have been waiting for months to find out whether an appellate court will bless the Federal Communications Commission’s effort to repeal net neutrality protections, and whether the FCC can simultaneously force the states to follow suit. The answer: yes, and no. Bound by its interpretation...
