We now have the first decision from a court of appeals on the NSA’s mass surveillance program involving bulk collection of telephone records under Section 215 of the Patriot Act, and it’s a doozy. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit issued an opinion in...

Did you just buy a shiny new smartphone loaded with the newest and greatest features to have conversations throughout the day, wherever you are? While your phone’s capabilities are distinctly modern, a new decision in United States v. Davis allowing police to get without a warrant records of...

For years, with seemingly little to no oversight, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) has been monitoring vast amounts of non-military U.S. Internet traffic and communications, looking for evidence of criminal activity. Last year, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit correctly held this “extraordinary” and illegal surveillance...

There are some very disturbing videos circulating the Internet right now, depicting the deaths of unarmed civilians at the hands of trained, armed men. Many of these videos even show individuals being shot in the back, or as they try to flee.
These are videos of police officers in...

When does an online fantasy cross the line into criminal conspiracy? That’s the issue the Second Circuit Court of Appeals is currently weighing in United States v. Gilberto Valle, the so-called “cannibal cop” case. EFF filed an amicus brief in support of Valle today, arguing that finding...

Ugly facts often make bad law. But it's important to not let opinions about the specific defendants that appear in court influence how the law will be applied to millions of other individuals. That’s why today, EFF filed an amicus brief urging the Second Circuit Court of Appeals to...

Think mass surveillance is just the wheelhouse of agencies like the NSA? Think again. One of the biggest concerns to come from the revelations about the NSA’s bulk collection of the phone records of millions of innocent Americans was that law enforcement agencies might be doing the same thing. It...

DNA can reveal an extraordinary amount of private information about you, including familial relationships, medical history, predisposition for disease, and possibly even behavioral tendencies and sexual orientation. While DNA testing in a criminal context has some benefits—such as supporting innocence claims—the mass, suspicionless collection, testing, and...

We've long worried about the government's use of IMSI catchers or cell site simulators. Commonly known as a "Stingray" after a specific device manufactured by the Harris Corporation, IMSI catchers masquerade as a legitimate cell phone tower, tricking phones nearby to connect to the device...

Microsoft has been battling with the federal government over the Department of Justice's high profile attempt to get access to emails stored abroad in Ireland for the better part of 2014. The US government has claimed a US warrant is sufficient to get emails even when stored in another country,...