EFF Files Amicus Brief in Seventh Circuit Supporting Warrant for Border Searches of Electronic Devices
EFF, joined by ACLU, filed an amicus brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit arguing that border agents need a probable cause warrant before searching personal electronic devices like cell phones and laptops.We filed our brief in a criminal case involving Donald Wanjiku, who, in...
EFF Sues to Invalidate FOSTA, an Unconstitutional Internet Censorship Law
We are asking a court to declare the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act of 2017 (“FOSTA”) unconstitutional and prevent it from being enforced. The law was written so poorly that it actually criminalizes a substantial amount of protected speech and, according to experts, actually hinders...
Victory! Supreme Court Says Fourth Amendment Applies to Cell Phone Tracking
The Supreme Court handed down a landmark opinion today in Carpenter v. United States, ruling 5-4 that the Fourth Amendment protects cell phone location information. In an opinion by Chief Justice Roberts, the Court recognized that location information, collected by cell providers like Sprint, AT&T, and Verizon, creates a...
While the Net Neutrality Fight Continues, AT&T and Verizon are Opening a New Attack on ISP Competition
In 1996, Congress passed the Telecommunications Act in order to inject competition into the telephone market and set the stage for a nascent commercial Internet. Last month, US Telecom, the trade association of AT&T and Verizon, filed a petition with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to repeal one of...
Federal Appeals Court Errs a Second Time on Device Privacy at the Border
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit got it wrong—again—ruling last week in U.S. v. Touset that border agents may forensically search, without any suspicion of wrongdoing, travelers’ electronic devices.The Eleventh Circuit ruled in March in U.S. v. Vergara that neither a warrant nor probable cause...
Distant Relatives Aren’t The Only Ones Looking for Your DNA on Genealogy Sites—Law Enforcement Is Looking, Too
A version of this article first appeared in the Daily Journal on May 22, 2018. When you share your DNA with a private genealogy database, it’s not only potential relatives searching for matches. The Golden State Killer case shows that law enforcement—and others—may be searching your DNA too,...
Victory in Alasaad for Our Digital Privacy at the Border
Government searches of cell phones, laptops, and other electronic devices without a warrant when we cross the U.S. border may violate the First and Fourth Amendments, according to a powerful ruling by a federal court last week in a civil rights lawsuit brought by EFF and the ACLU.It is...
Fourth Circuit Rules That Suspicionless Forensic Searches of Electronic Devices at the Border Are Unconstitutional
In a victory for privacy rights at the border, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit today ruled that forensic searches of electronic devices carried out by border agents without any suspicion that the traveler has committed a crime violate the U.S. Constitution.The ruling in U.S. v....
California Can Build Trust Between Police and Communities By Requiring Agencies to Publish Their Policies Online
If we as citizens are more informed of police policies and procedures, and we can easily access those materials online and study them, it’ll lead to greater accountability and better relations between our communities and the police departments that serve us. EFF supports a bill in the California legislature which...
‘Scraping’ Is Just Automated Access, and Everyone Does It
For tech lawyers, one of the hottest questions this year is: can companies use the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA)—an imprecise and outdated criminal anti-“hacking” statute intended to target computer break-ins—to block their competitors from accessing publicly available information on their websites? The answer to this question has wide-ranging...
