EFF, ACLU Ask California Supreme Court to Order Release of Los Angeles License Plate Reader Data
San Francisco—The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the ACLU Foundation of Southern California (ACLU SoCal) are urging California’s highest court to rule that license plate data, collected indiscriminately on millions of drivers by police across the state, are not investigative records and should be made available to the public.
EFF...
The Zone 9 Bloggers are Free: but Ethiopia Still Thinks Digital Security is Terrorism
The last of the Zone 9 Bloggers are finally free from jail, after nearly 18 months of detention for simply speaking out online. All the bloggers were acquitted of terrorism charges by the Ethiopian courts; one blogger, Befeqadu Hailu was found guilty of a single charge of "inciting violence" as...
Wednesday Hearing in NSA Spying Case
Pasadena, CA - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) will urge an appeals court Wednesday to reject the government’s attempts to block an appeal in Jewel v. NSA, EFF’s long-running lawsuit battling unconstitutional mass surveillance of Internet and phone communications. The hearing is set for 2:00 pm on October 28 before...
Closing the Loopholes in Europe's Net Neutrality Compromise
Since our last update on the upcoming net neutrality regulation in the European Union, a further compromise proposal has been developed, which heads to a vote in the European Parliament on Tuesday next week. On its face, the draft regulation appears to hit all the most important points, including...
Apple's EULA Gives It License to Invade Your Privacy, Government Claims
Update (mere hours later): Apple filed a reply to this brief that matches our position that the government has overreached. Here's the relevant part:
The fact that Apple’s devices include software, and that such software comes with licensing requirements, does not change anything. See Reply at 13-15....
EFF To California Supreme Court: Warrantless Searches of California’s Controlled Substance Prescription Database Threaten Patient Privacy
San Francisco—The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is urging the California Supreme Court to rule that law enforcement agents need a warrant to search records revealing which Californians were prescribed controlled substances to treat conditions such as anxiety, pain, attention disorders, and insomnia.
In an amicus brief filed...
Surveillance Trade Show in Mexico Raises Concerns About Latin America's Unenforced Privacy Protections
The Intelligence Support System (ISS) World Latin America Trade Show, hosted in Mexico City during October 20 to 22, where secret surveillance systems and equipment vendors gather to meet and sell their products to governments, escalates concerns surrounding increased and unchecked use of surveillance technology in Latin America.
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Suing Newspapers for Rightfully Seeking Records Isn’t Cool, K.J.
The mayor of Sacramento, former basketball star Kevin Johnson, is currently suing the city’s alt weekly to stop reporters from obtaining emails that may, or may not, reveal improprieties in his office. The case represents an intersection of two key issues for EFF: transparency and freedom of the press....
Senators Probe Copyright’s Impact on Software-Enabled Devices
Senators Grassley and Leahy, the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Committee on the Judiciary, have published a letter to the Copyright Office asking it to analyze the impact of copyright law on “software-enabled devices” (such as cars, phones, drones, appliances, and many more products with embedded computer systems). This...
Open Access Is a Human Rights Issue
A BBC article has been making the rounds this week about #icanhazpdf, a “secret codeword” that people use to access research papers from limited-access journals. The idea is simple: when researchers—or, for that matter, curious readers—find a reference to an article that they can’t access, they post a...
