To Protect our Democracy, We Need to Protect Anonymous Low-Cost Online Political Speech
As Congress and the Federal Elections Commission explore ways to counter foreign influence in U.S. elections through greater campaign finance disclosures, EFF has filed comments reminding policy makers of the danger of going too far. While the FEC’s goals are understandable, it must take care not to undermine...
A Lump of Coal in the Internet’s Stocking: FCC Poised to Gut Net Neutrality Rules
In a new proposal issued last week, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) set out a plan to eliminate net neutrality protections, ignoring the voices of millions of Internet users who weighed in to support those protections. The new rule would reclassify high-speed broadband as an “information service” rather...
CBP Reveals How Agents Implement New Policy Not to Access Cloud Content
President Trump’s nominee to be Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Kevin McAleenan, revealed during his confirmation process how the agency implements its new policy not to access cloud content during border searches of digital devices.
In response to written questions for the record submitted...
DRM's Dead Canary: How We Just Lost the Web, What We Learned from It, and What We Need to Do Next
EFF has been fighting against DRM and the laws behind it for a decade and a half, intervening in the US Broadcast Flag, the UN Broadcasting Treaty, the European DVB CPCM standard, the W3C EME standard and many other skirmishes, battles and even wars over the...
EFF at Cyberspace Events in Delhi: Protecting the Public Core of the Internet
Last week EFF attended the Global Conference on Cyberspace (GCCS) in New Delhi, India, as one of a small handful of nonprofit organizations invited to participate. This was the fifth in a series of conferences sometimes called the London Process, after the first event that was held in London...
European Law Claims to Protect Consumers… By Blocking the Web
Last week the European Parliament passed a new Consumer Protection Regulation [PDF] that allows national consumer authorities to order ISPs, web hosts and domain registries to block or delete websites... all without a court order. The websites targeted are those that allegedly infringe European consumer law. But European consumer...
NSA Internet Surveillance Under Section 702 Violates the First Amendment
The First Amendment is too often overlooked in discussions of the National Security Agency’s vast surveillance authorities. But as Congress considers whether to reauthorize Section 702 of FISA this winter, we must remember that it’s not just our Fourth Amendment rights to privacy that are in the crosshairs, but...
The Senate’s Liberty Act Helps Close the “Backdoor”
Take the language of one NSA surveillance reauthorization bill and add a few strong reform proposals from another, and what do you get? A bill that helps protect Americans from the warrantless search of the content of their emails, text messages, and digital communications.
On November 17, Senators Patrick...
Today—and Every Day—We Fight to Defend the Open Internet
Today, we heard from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) about its plans to devastate Network Neutrality. Instead of responding to the millions of Americans who want to protect the free and open Internet, the FCC instead is ceding to the demands of a handful of massive ISPs, like Comcast,...
Treasury Department Concludes Fraud Investigation into ComputerCOP 'Internet Safety' Software
Three years ago, EFF exposed how hundreds of law enforcement agencies were putting families at risk by distributing free ComputerCOP “Internet safety” software that actually transmitted keystrokes unencrypted to a third-party server. Our report also raised serious questions about whether the company was deceiving government agencies by circulating a...
