Why Has San Francisco Allowed Comcast and AT&T to Dictate Its Broadband Future (Or Lack Thereof)?
American cities across the country face the same problem: major private Internet providers, facing little in the way of competition, refusing to invest and upgrade their networks to all residents. But not every city has gone through the trouble to analyze the problem, come up with a solution, and still...
San Francisco Takes a Historic Step Forward in the Fight for Privacy
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted today by 8-to-1 to make San Francisco the first major city in the United States to ban government use of face surveillance technology. This historic measure applies to all city departments. The Stop Secret Surveillance Ordinance also takes an important step toward...
Victory! EFF Wins National Security Letter Transparency Lawsuit
A federal district court in San Francisco has ruled strongly in favor of our Freedom of Information Act lawsuit seeking records of how and when the FBI lifts gag orders issued with National Security Letters (NSLs). These records will provide a window into the FBI’s use of a highly...
YouTube User Fights Unfair Takedown Campaign from UFC
San Francisco – The creator of popular post-fight commentary videos on YouTube is demanding an end to the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC)’s unfair practice of sending takedown notices based on bogus copyright claims. The creator, John MacKay, is represented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).MacKay operates the “Boxing Now”...
Courts to Government Officials: Stop Censoring on Social Media.
The Internet, and social media in particular, is uniquely designed to promote free expression, so much so that the Supreme Court has recognized social media as the “most important places” for speech and sharing viewpoints. Like most of us. government agencies and officials have created social media profiles and...
Don’t Let California’s Legislature Extend Broadband Monopolies for Comcast and AT&T
Californians have successfully pushed the state's legislature to restore two-thirds of the 2015 Open Internet Order through state laws. Stopping legislation from Assemblymember Lorena Gonzalez that's backed by AT&T and Comcast is the final piece to bringing back those critical protections to promote broadband choice. The California Assembly will soon...
Why Outlawing Cryptocurrency Purchases is a Terrible Idea
A member of the U.S. House of Representatives last week called for a bill outlawing Americans from making cryptocurrency purchases, aligning with anti-cryptocurrency policies and approaches in countries such as Iran and Egypt. There is no language for this potential bill or any explanation of whether such...
Social Media Councils: A Better Way Forward, Window Dressing, or Global Speech Police?
Social media platforms routinely make arbitrary and contradictory decisions about what speech to block or penalize. No one is happy with the status quo: not people who want more censorship, nor people who want less censorship, nor people who simply want platforms to make different choices so that already-marginalized groups...
EFF Supports Unnamed Company in Bringing an End to Endless NSL Gag Orders
EFF and ACLU filed an amicus brief last week in a case that may finally force the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to resolve one of the most serious problems with National Security Letters: NSL gag orders that have no fixed end date. Similar to subpoenas, NSLs are...
Consumer Data Privacy Advocates to Senate Committee: Here's How to Protect Consumers
Last week, the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science & Transportation held a hearing on Consumer Perspectives: Policy Principles for a Federal Data Privacy Framework. Unlike previous hearings this year that only featured tech industry panelists, this hearing featured a panel of consumer privacy advocates, including:Helen Dixon,...











