Ready to Pay $30,000 for Sharing a Photo Online? The House of Representatives Thinks You Are
Tomorrow the House of Representatives has scheduled to vote on what appears to be an unconstitutional copyright bill that carries with it life altering penalties. The bill would slap $30,000 fines on Internet users who share a copyrighted work they don’t own online.Take ActionNow is the time...
EFF Urges Congress Not to Dismantle Section 230
The Keys to a Healthy Internet Are User Empowerment and Competition, Not CensorshipThe House Energy and Commerce Committee held a legislative hearing today over what to do with one of the most important Internet laws, Section 230. Members of Congress and the testifying panelists discussed many of the...
Senate Antitrust Hearing Explores Big Tech’s Merger Mania
The Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition and Consumer Rights held a hearing last week to explore the competitive impacts of big tech companies’ massive string of mergers with smaller companies in the last handful of years. Before the Senate committee were experts in venture capital spending, the Federal...
The Key to Safety Online Is User Empowerment, Not Censorship
The Senate Judiciary Committee recently held a hearing on “Protecting Digital Innocence.” The hearing covered a range of problems facing young people on the Internet today, with a focus on harmful content and privacy-invasive data practices by tech companies. While children do face problems online, some committee members seemed...
Thank Laws Supported By AT&T and Comcast for California’s Broadband Monopoly Problem
If you, like a great many Californians, have shopped for high-speed broadband options (in excess of 100 mbps) and found that you always ended up with Comcast, it is because the state’s legislature has failed to promote broadband competition for more than ten years. That reality has resulted in...
Life-Altering Copyright Lawsuits Could Come to Regular Internet Users Under a New Law Moving in the Senate
The Senate Judiciary Committee intends to vote on the CASE Act, legislation that would create a brand new quasi-court for copyright infringement claims. We have expressed numerous concerns with the legislation, and serious problems inherent with the bill have not been remedied by Congress before moving it forward. In...
Sen. Hawley’s “Bias” Bill Would Let the Government Decide Who Speaks
Despite its name, Sen. Josh Hawley’s Ending Support for Internet Censorship Act (PDF) would make the Internet less safe for free expression, not more. It would violate the First Amendment by allowing a government agency to strip platforms of legal protection based on their decisions to host or remove...
The Lofgren-Amash Amendment Would Check Warrantless Surveillance
The NSA has used Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act to justify collecting and storing millions of Americans’ online communications. Now, the House of Representatives has a chance to pull the plug on funding for Section 702 unless the government agrees to limit the reach of that program.The...
Senator Wyden Leads on Securing Elections Before 2020
Sen. Ron Wyden’s new proposal to protect the integrity of U.S. elections, the Protecting American Votes and Elections (PAVE) Act of 2019, takes a much needed step forward by requiring a return to paper ballots.The bill forcefully addresses a grave threat to American democracy—outdated election technologies used in...
Don’t Let California’s Legislature Extend Broadband Monopolies for Comcast and AT&T
Californians have successfully pushed the state's legislature to restore two-thirds of the 2015 Open Internet Order through state laws. Stopping legislation from Assemblymember Lorena Gonzalez that's backed by AT&T and Comcast is the final piece to bringing back those critical protections to promote broadband choice. The California Assembly will soon...