This week, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and several other organizations released documents from a FOIA lawsuit that expose the concerted efforts of the FBI and DHS to build a massive database of personal and biometric information. This database, called “Next Generation Identification”...

This week saw two disappointing decisions by two major American companies, Microsoft and Cisco, that appear to be choosing to become little tech helpers to China's repressive regime rather than choosing to be a force for good. For Cisco, it's more of the same. For Microsoft, it's a...

A coalition of content industry players and ISPs today announced an anticipated collaborative effort to “curb online content theft,” described in more detail on a dedicated website for the initiative. The PR materials put out by the group are more telling for what they don’t say than what...

With protests raging throughout the country, the Syrian government is responding with deadly force. Citizens seeking freedom are relying on digital tools to organize and communicate -- so much so that the government temporarily shut off Internet access. The parallels to the Iranian uprising in 2009 are striking, and they...

Jobseekers be wary: the hard-won privacy rights granted to you by federal and state law might not follow you into the digital space.
For forty years, individuals in the United States applying for jobs have held certain protections under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). For example, in many...

EFF has called on companies to stand with their users when the government comes looking for data. (If you haven’t done so, sign the petition urging companies to provide better transparency and privacy.) This article will provide a more detailed look at the last of the four elements required...

Yesterday we reported that EFF and the other civil society members of the Civil Society Information Society Advisory Committee to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (CSISAC) had declined to endorse a draft Communique on Internet policy-making principles produced by the OECD. Since then, the OECD and...

Sherman Frederick is the former CEO of Stephens Media, former publisher of the Las Vegas Review Journal, and one of Righthaven’s biggest cheerleaders. When the litigation campaign of Stephens Media's copyright enforcer Righthaven first got underway, Frederick famously wrote “So, I'm asking you nicely once again—don't steal our...

Efforts to harness law enforcement resources in the service of copyright enforcement continue apace. Last Thursday, the so-called "illegal streaming” bill passed the Senate Judiciary Committee (although that's still some way away from becoming law). The bill would increase criminal copyright penalties to allow jail time of...

Starting next month, the vast majority of Australia’s Internet users will find their access censored, following a decision by the country’s two largest providers--Telstra and Optus--as well as two smaller ISPs (itExtreme and Webshield), to voluntarily block more than 500 websites from view.
The decision from the two...