Congress Needs To Clarify That Password Sharing Is Not a Federal Crime
The Internet has been on fire in recent months over two court decisions that threaten to criminalize password sharing. The law at the heart of the cases is the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), a 1986 statute meant to outlaw computer break-ins. Congress passed the CFAA after...
Copyright Office Sets Trap for Unwary Website Owners
Making Safe Harbors Expire Is Dangerous and Unnecessary
Under a new rule from the Copyright Office, website owners could be exposed to massive risk of copyright liability simply for neglecting to submit an online form on time. The rule could eliminate the safe harbor status that thousands of websites...
Recording Police Is Protected by the First Amendment, EFF Tells Court
Stupid Patent of the Month: Changing the Channel
On-Demand Cell Phone Searches Hurt Teenagers on Parole
Should law enforcement get an all access, long-term pass to a teenager’s cell phone, just because he or she had a run in with police? That question is in front of California’s highest court, and in an amicus brief filed earlier this month, EFF and the three California offices...
New Federal Guidelines For Computer Crime Law Do Nothing To Reign In Prosecutorial Overreach Under Notoriously Vague Statute
Should prosecutors have the ability to take advantage of unclear laws to bring charges for behavior far beyond the problem Congress was trying to address? We don’t think so. When not carefully limited, criminal laws give prosecutors too much power to go after innocent individuals for innocuous behavior, like ...
Stupid Patent of the Month: Changing the Channel
Is somebody really claiming to have invented a method for switching from watching one video to watching another?
This question comes from a lawyer at the New York Times, as an aside in an interesting article about the paper’s response to a defamation threat from...
Recording Police Is Protected by the First Amendment, EFF Tells Court
Philadelphia—In an era when bystander recordings of police shootings have shined a much-needed light on law enforcement activities—greatly contributing to public discussion about police use of force—it’s never been more important to establish that citizen journalists have a free speech right to record and share videos...
Five Halloween Costumes for Digital Rights Activists
Are you scrambling for a clever Halloween costume this weekend? We've got you covered. Here are five ideas for digital rights activists planning to trick-or-treat on Monday.
Facial Recognition Face Paint
Just this week we learned that facial recognition is far more prevalent among local and federal...
Why Did We Have to Wait a Year to Fix Our Cars?
Long-overdue rules protecting security research and vehicle repair have finally taken effect, as they should have done last year. Though the Copyright Office and the Librarian of Congress unlawfully and pointlessly delayed their implementation, for the next two years the public can take advantage of the freedom they...
