Related Content: NSA Spying
On May 20, 2013, a young government contractor with an EFF sticker on his laptop disembarked a plane in Hong Kong carrying with him evidence confirming, among other things, that the United States government had been conducting mass surveillance on a global scale. What came next were weeks of disclosures—and...
The U.S. Intelligence Community (IC) has released its Annual Statistical Transparency Report disclosing the use of national security surveillance laws for the year 2021—and to no one’s surprise it documents the wide-ranging overreach of intelligence agencies and the continued misuse of surveillance authorities to spy on millions of Americans....
The Central Intelligence Agency has been collecting American’s private data without any oversight or even the minimal legal safeguards that apply to the NSA and FBI, an unconstitutional affront to our civil liberties. According to a declassified report released yesterday by the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB), the...
The twentieth anniversary of the attacks of September 11, 2021 are a good time to reflect on the world we’ve built since then. Those attacks caused incalculable heartbreak, anger and fear. But by now it is clear that far too many things that were put into place in the immediate...
The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) has concluded its six-year investigation into Executive Order 12333, one of the most sprawling and influential authorities that enables the U.S. government’s mass surveillance programs. The result is a bland, short summary of a classified report, as well as a justified,...
As someone once said, “the Founders did not fight a revolution to gain the right to government agency protocols.” Well it was not just someone, it was Chief Justice John Roberts. He flatly rejected the government’s claim that agency protocols could solve the Fourth Amendment violations created by police...
EFF takes on fights for the long run, and some of our longest running legal fights are focused on bringing the National Security Agency within the rule of law, and batting back the arguments that the state secrets privilege should insulate the government from accountability for spying. EFF started these...
On March 15, 2020, Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act—a surveillance law with a rich history of government overreach and abuse—expired due to its sunset clause. Along with two other PATRIOT Act provisions, Section 215 lapsed after lawmakers failed to reach an agreement on a broader set of reforms...
Below is a message from whistleblower Edward Snowden. His revelations about secret surveillance programs opened the world’s eyes to a new level of government misconduct, and reinvigorated EFF’s continuing work in the courts and with lawmakers to end unlawful mass spying.EFF is grateful to Ed for his support in...
On January 14 and 15, 2020, the German Federal Constitutional Court will be holding a hearing to reevaluate the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) Act, which gives the BND agency (similar to the National Security Agency in the United States) broad surveillance authority. The hearing comes after a coalition of media and activist...
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