DEEP DIVE: CBP’s Social Media Surveillance Poses Risks to Free Speech and Privacy Rights
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and one of its component agencies, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), released a Privacy Impact Assessment [.pdf] on CBP’s practice of monitoring social media to enhance the agency’s “situational awareness.” As we’ve argued in relation to other government social media surveillance...
Social Media Councils: A Better Way Forward, Window Dressing, or Global Speech Police?
Social media platforms routinely make arbitrary and contradictory decisions about what speech to block or penalize. No one is happy with the status quo: not people who want more censorship, nor people who want less censorship, nor people who simply want platforms to make different choices so that already-marginalized groups...
Platform Liability Doesn’t – And Shouldn’t - Depend on Content Moderation Practices
In April 2018, House Republicans held a hearing on the “Filtering Practices of Social Media Platforms” that focused on misguided claims that Internet platforms like Google, Twitter, and Facebook actively discriminate against conservative political viewpoints. Now, a year later, Senator Ted Cruz is poised to take the Senate...
What’s the Emergency? Keeping International Requests for Law Enforcement Access Secure and Safe for Internet Users
Law enforcement access to data is in the middle of a profound shake-up across the globe. States are pushing to get quicker, deeper, and more invasive access to personal data stored on the global Internet, and are looking to water down the international safeguards around privacy and due...
EFF to State Department: Respect Freedom of Speech of Chinese Students
EFF joined a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo opposing a proposal to deploy stronger vetting procedures against Chinese students intending to study in the United States because the procedures would threaten the free speech interests of both Chinese students and their American associates.Reuters reported that the...
The EU's Proposal to Curb the "Dissemination of Terrorist Content" Will Have a Chilling Effect on Speech
Governments around the world are grappling with the threat of terrorism, but their efforts aimed at curbing the dissemination of terrorist content online all too often result in censorship. Over the past five years, we’ve seen a number of governments—from the US Congress to that of France and...
Give Up the Ghost: A Backdoor by Another Name
This article was first published on Just Security.Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), the UK’s counterpart to the National Security Agency (NSA), has fired the latest shot in the crypto wars. In a post to Lawfare titled Principles for a More Informed Exceptional...
Patent Progress and Its Discontents: 2018 in Review
In 2018, technologists and users continued to be plagued by abstract, ridiculous software patents. The good news is there are more ways than ever before to fight back against those patents—some of them pretty effective.Unfortunately, patent trolls and abusive patent owners are working overtime to knock down those recent improvements,...
EFF to U.S. Department of Commerce: Protect Consumer Data Privacy
On Friday, November 9, 2018, EFF submitted a letter in response to the U.S. Department of Commerce's request for comment on "Developing the Administration's Approach to Consumer Privacy," urging the agency to consider any future policy proposals in a users' rights framework. We emphasized five concrete recommendations for any...
Election Security Remains Just as Vulnerable as in 2016
The ability to vote for local, state, and federal representatives is the cornerstone of democracy in America. With mid-term congressional elections looming in early November, many voices have raised concerns that the voting infrastructure used by states across the Union might be suspect, unreliable, or potentially vulnerable to attacks. As...
