Free Speech Advocates File Brief Supporting 'The Dirty' Defamation Appeal

Cincinatti, Ohio - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and a coalition of free speech advocates filed an amicus brief supporting thedirty.com's appeal of a defamation ruling that contradicts protections for website operators contained in Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA). In the brief, filed in the US Court...

EFF Attorney to Testify Before Senate Commerce Committee on Thursday

Washington, DC - Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) attorney Julie Samuels will testify on how patent trolls harm start-ups and consumers through deceptive demand letters and legal threats at a US Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation hearing on Thursday, Nov. 7.
Samuels, who is the Mark Cuban Chair...

EFF Files 22 Firsthand Accounts of How NSA Surveillance Chilled the Right to Association

San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has provided a federal judge with testimony from 22 separate advocacy organizations detailing how the National Security Agency's (NSA) mass telephone records collection program has impeded the groups' work, discouraged their members and reduced the numbers of people seeking their help via...

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...

EFF Files Challenge With Patent Office Against Troll's Podcasting Patent

San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) today filed a formal challenge to the so-called "podcasting patent" used by a patent troll to shake down podcasters big and small for licensing fees. The petition for inter partes review, presented today to the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), is...

Thirteen Principles Against Unchecked Surveillance Launched at United Nations

Geneva - At the 24th Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council on Friday, six major privacy NGOs, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), warned nations of the urgent need comply with international human rights law to protect their citizens from the dangers posed by mass digital surveillance.The groups...

Five More Organizations Join EFF Lawsuit Against NSA Surveillance

San Francisco - Five new groups—including civil-rights lawyers, medical-privacy advocates and Jewish social-justice activists—have joined a lawsuit filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) against the National Security Agency (NSA) over the unconstitutional collection of bulk telephone call records. With today's amended complaint, EFF now represents 22 entities in alleging...

Late Digital Rights Activist, International Access to Knowledge Advocate, and NSA Spying Journalists Win EFF Pioneer Awards

San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is pleased to announce the distinguished winners of the 2013 Pioneer Awards: late digital rights activist Aaron Swartz, international access to knowledge advocate James Love, and Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras – the journalists behind the blockbuster stories detailing extensive spying by...

Judge Grants Preliminary Injunction to Protect Free Speech after EFF Challenge

Newark, NJ - A New Jersey federal district court judge granted motions for a preliminary injunction today, blocking the enforcement of a dangerous state law that would put online service providers at risk by, among other things, creating liability based on "indirect" publication of content by speech platforms.
The...

Huge Global Coalition Stands Against Unchecked Surveillance

San Francisco - More than 100 organizations from across the globe – including Privacy International, Access, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) – are taking a stand against unchecked communications surveillance, calling for the governments around the world to follow international human rights law and curtail pervasive spying.
The...

Trolling Effects: New Web Resource Launched to Shine Light on Patent Trolls

San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and a coalition of organizations and law schools today launched the newest tool in the fight against patent trolls: Trolling Effects (trollingeffects.org). The online resource aims to unite and empower would-be victims of patent trolls through a crowdsourced database of...

Unitarian Church, Gun Groups Join EFF to Sue NSA Over Illegal Surveillance

San Francisco - Nineteen organizations including Unitarian church groups, gun ownership advocates, and a broad coalition of membership and political advocacy organizations filed suit against the National Security Agency (NSA) today for violating their First Amendment right of association by illegally collecting their call records. The coalition is represented by...

Public.Resource.org Prevails in Free Speech Case Over Publishing Safety Standards

In a victory for free speech and open government, the Sheet Metal and Air Conditioning Contractors Association (SMACNA) has conceded that it will no longer use trumped up copyright claims to try to stop Public.Resource.Org (Public Resource) from publishing safety standards that have been incorporated into law. Thanks to ...

Federal Judge Allows EFF's NSA Mass Spying Case to Proceed

San Francisco - A federal judge today rejected the U.S. government's latest attempt to dismiss the Electronic Frontier Foundation's (EFF's) long-running challenge to the government's illegal dragnet surveillance programs. Today's ruling means the allegations at the heart of the Jewel case move forward under the supervision of a public federal...

Renowned Security Expert Bruce Schneier Joins EFF Board of Directors

San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is honored to announce the newest member of its Board of Directors: renowned security expert Bruce Schneier.
Schneier is widely acclaimed for his criticism and commentary on everything from network security to national security. His insight is particularly important as we...

Internet Archive Sues to Stop Dangerous New Jersey Law Putting Online Service Providers at Risk

Newark, NJ - The Internet Archive has filed a new legal challenge against a New Jersey state law that aims to make online service providers criminally liable for providing access to third parties' materials, conflicting directly with federal law and threatening the free flow of information on the Internet. A...

EFF Throttles Notorious Patent Used to Threaten Public Transit Systems

San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has throttled a notorious patent used to wrongfully demand payment from cities and other municipalities that use tracking systems to tell transit passengers if their buses and trains are on time.
The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has drastically...

EFF Urges Appeals Court to Affirm Libraries' Right to Digitize Books

San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) urged an appeals court today to affirm that the fair use doctrine protects the creation of an invaluable digital library.
For the past eight years, major university libraries have collaborated with Google to digitize their collections. One result has been the...

Computer Scientists Urge Court to Block Copyright Claims in Oracle v. Google API Fight

San Francisco - Dozens of computer scientists urged an appeals court today to block the copyright claims over application programming interfaces (APIs) in the Oracle v. Google court battle, arguing that APIs that are open are critical to innovation and interoperability in computers and computer systems.
The Electronic Frontier...

EFF and ACLU Sue LA Law-Enforcement Agencies Over License-Plate Reader Records

San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California (ACLU-SC) today jointly filed suit against two Los Angeles-area law-enforcement agencies over their failure to produce records related to the use of automatic license plate readers (ALPRs).
Mounted on squad cars and...

US Drone Test Sites Must Include Stronger Privacy Protections

San Francisco - The Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA's) proposed privacy requirements for domestic drone test sites are not robust enough to protect the public, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) argues in its official comments filed with the agency this week. EFF Staff Attorney Jennifer Lynch outlines five key recommendations to...

National Security Letters Are Unconstitutional, Federal Judge Rules

San Francisco - A federal district court judge in San Francisco has ruled that National Security Letter (NSL) provisions in federal law violate the Constitution. The decision came in a lawsuit challenging a NSL on behalf of an unnamed telecommunications company represented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).
In...

Fifteen Years of DMCA Abuse

San Francisco - Fifteen years after Congress passed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and just as legislators and the public are debating the law's dangerous impact on consumers who want to unlock their cell phones, the evidence of much broader negative effects continues to mount. In its latest update to...

EFF to Supreme Court: Blanket DNA Collection Violates Fourth Amendment

San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) urged the Supreme Court Friday to block DNA collection from everyone arrested for a crime, arguing that law enforcement must get a warrant before forcing people to give samples of their genetic material.
EFF's amicus brief was filed Friday in Maryland...

EFF Urges Court to Protect Transformative Uses and Permit News Search Engine

San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) urged a federal judge today to protect fair use of news coverage and reject the Associated Press' (AP's) dangerously narrow view of what is "transformative" in a copyright court battle over a news-tracking service.
In Associated Press v. Meltwater, AP claims...

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