In February 2008 EFF requested documents from the FBI related to its surveillance of Skype communications a common Voice-over-IP (VoIP) program. The request came after an article in Computerworld Magazine suggesting that German law enforcement had commissioned a private company to create "Skype-hacking Trojan." EFF sought to discover whether the FBI had a similar capability.

In August 2009 the FBI released three sets of documents outlining its Skype surveillance capabilities.