When governments and companies assemble on an international level to discuss "Internet freedom," EFF's policy experts go on alert. All too frequently, government-level discussions about Internet freedom turn into opportunities to discuss tangential issues, many of which have negative implications on online freedom: laws and policies promoting censorship and surveillance...

Earlier this month the FBI, DEA and the Department of Justice Criminal Division responded to our FOIA litigation for records related to the Department of Justice’s controversial efforts to push Congress to expand the Communications Assistance to Law Enforcement Act (CALEA).CALEA currently requires telecommunications and broadband...

As we've noted before, many trademark owners are none too happy when political activists use their marks as part of a larger statement about the owners' business or political practices. Sometimes, that unhappiness takes the form of improper legal threats and even lawsuits designed to silence critical speech....

EFF has been monitoring the Council of Europe (CoE) and its Internet policymaking process to ensure that they live up to their human rights commitments. A few weeks ago, we submitted detailed comments to the CoE’s Expert Committee on New Media’s draft recommendation and guidelines for social networking...

EFF recently received documents from the FBI that reveal details about the depth of the agency's electronic surveillance capabilities and call into question the FBI's controversial effort to push Congress to expand the Communications Assistance to Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) for greater access to communications data....

Like so many others, we were stunned to learn that law professor, cartoonist, copyfighter and digital rights stalwart Professor Keith Aoki passed away earlier this week. Keith, who started at the University of Oregon then moved to U.C. Davis, was a longtime friend to EFF and one of...

Last Friday, the federal district court in Nevada held that the non-profit organization Center for Intercultural Organizing’s posting of a copyrighted news article was a non-infringing fair use. The well-reasoned opinion sets a powerful precedent for fair use and against copyright trolling.
The newspaper article at issue...

When Keith Cowing made an innocuous post about a meeting of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology on his long-running science policy blog, Space Ref, he didn’t imagine that it would trigger a phone call from the White House. But that is exactly what happened,...

Last Friday, the Chief Judge of the federal court in Nevada, which is overseeing more than 200 Righthaven copyright cases, dismissed Righthaven's meritless claim to seize its victim's domain names. In each case so far, Righthaven contended that the mere hosting of any infringing material means that the entire...

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