Why The Innovation Act is Good For Startups and Small Business
We have praised the Innovation Act of 2013, introduced this week by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) and co-sponsored by a bipartisan coalition, as the best patent troll-killing bill yet. We support the bill because it offers a host of fixes to the growing...
A Case Study in Closed Access
One of the core messages of Open Access Week is that the inability to readily access the important research we help fund is an issue that affects us all—and is one with outrageous practical consequences. Limits on researchers' ability to read and share their works slow scientific progress and...
A Deeper Dive Into Yahoo and Facebook's Transparency Reports
Ever since Google issued its first transparency report in early 2010, EFF has called on other companies to follow suit and disclose statistics about the number of government requests for user data, whether the request they receive is an official demand (such as a warrant) or an unofficial...
EFF Has Lavabit’s Back in Contempt of Court Appeal
San Francisco - Federal law enforcement officers compromised the backbone of the Internet and violated the Fourth Amendment when they demanded private encryption keys from the email provider Lavabit, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) argues in a brief submitted Thursday afternoon to the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth...
Another Reason to Hate TPP: It Gives Big Content New Tools to Undermine Sane Digital Rights Policies
In previous posts we've covered many of the ways the copyright provisions in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a massive trade deal between 12 Pacific countries, could undermine users' rights. But those are just the tip of the iceberg. What may really sink the Titanic is a...
Third Circuit Agrees With EFF: Warrant Required to Track a Car With GPS
You might think that if the US Supreme Court's ruling that a GPS device was a "search," the inevitable conclusion is that police would need a warrant to install a GPS device on a car. After all, warrantless searches are per se unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment (except...
EFF Asks Supreme Court To Strike Down Vague and Ambiguous Patents
Today EFF, together with Public Knowledge, filed an amicus brief in Nautilus v. Biosig Instruments. This case deals with a key problem with the patent system: the flood of vague and ambiguous patents. The petitioner is asking the Court to take the case and restore the Patent...
NSA Spying in Congress: Stop the Intelligence Committee and What to Watch For in Upcoming Bills
The Intelligence Committee Bills Must be Stopped
Many of NSA reform bills going through Congress are encouraging, but the most important priority for those who want to stop the spying is to stop the bill by the Intelligence Committees of the House and Senate. The Chairs of each...
EFF Brief Argues Police Need Search Warrant to Read Text Messages
As text messages become a universal method for personal communication across the country, courts are struggling with applying quill-era Fourth Amendment principles to the modern form of communication. A new amicus brief we filed in a case before the Rhode Island Supreme Court explains that no...
New PSA Featuring Rep. John Conyers and Actor Maggie Gyllenhaal Warns Against NSA Surveillance
US Rep. John Conyers Jr., “Pentagon Papers” whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg and actor Maggie Gyllenhaal join a chorus of prominent voices calling for an end to mass suspicionless surveillance by the National Security Agency (NSA) in a new short video released by the StopWatching.us coalition. Directed by Brian Knappenberger (We...
