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Deeplinks Blog by Jamie Williams | May 13, 2015

EFF Urges Oregon Supreme Court To Review Troubling Computer Crime Decision

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: violating a computer use restriction is not a crime. That’s why today EFF filed an amicus brief urging the Oregon Supreme Court to review a troubling opinion by the Oregon Court of Appeals in State v....

Deeplinks Blog by Mark Jaycox | May 13, 2015

In Landslide Vote, House Overwhelmingly Passes USA Freedom Act without Amendments

Is this the year Congress passes a bill to limit NSA spying? The House of Representatives certainly hopes so. But just how strong that reform will be remains to be seen.
Minutes ago, the House of Representatives passed the USA Freedom Act overwhelmingly with 338 yes votes and 88...

Deeplinks Blog by rainey Reitman | May 12, 2015

Rules Committee Sends USA Freedom Act to the House for a Vote, But Blocks Any and All Amendments on the Floor

The House Rules Committee isn’t interested in any amendments, privacy-protective or otherwise, to the NSA reform package.

After years of wrangling over bill text and amendments, the USA Freedom Act passed out of the Rules Committee with a lengthy hearing today. Next the bill will...

Deeplinks Blog by Maira Sutton | May 12, 2015

Major Win as U.S. Senate Blocks TPP Fast Track Bill

Opponents of sprawling and secretive international agreements won a significant victory today when U.S. Senators voted to block the advancement of its Fast Track trade bill. The legislation would have allowed massive undemocratic trade deals like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the...

Deeplinks Blog by Dia Kayyali | May 12, 2015

Countdown to the Expiration of Section 215 of the Patriot Act

UPDATE (5/17/15): Last week, NSA defenders introduced a new bill to try to extend mass surveillance under the Patriot Act. We've created a new embeddable banner to stop this bill. Please insert this new code onto the homepage of your website after the <body> tag and before the </body> tag,...

Deeplinks Blog by Mark Rumold | May 12, 2015

The NSA’s Call Record Program, a 9/11 Hijacker, and the Failure of Bulk Collection

Before 9/11, there was an individual by the name of Khalid al-Mihdhar, who came to be one of the principal hijackers. He was being tracked by the intelligence agencies in the Far East. They lost track of him. At the same time, the intelligence agencies had identified an al-Qaeda safehouse...

Deeplinks Blog by David Greene | May 11, 2015

ACLU v. Clapper and the Congress: How The Second Circuit’s Decision Affects the Legislative Landscape

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in ACLU v. Clapper has determined that the NSA’s telephone records program went far beyond what Congress authorized when it passed Section 215 of the Patriot Act in 2001. The...

Deeplinks Blog by Andrew Crocker | May 9, 2015

EFF Case Analysis: Appeals Court Rules NSA Phone Records Dragnet is Illegal

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...

Deeplinks Blog by Karen Gullo | May 8, 2015

When Is a Justice Department Rule Not a Rule? Report From Twitter's Transparency Fight

When is a government rule not a rule? Making that question difficult, when it should be simple, seems to be the government’s leading strategy in a hearing this week in Twitter Inc.’s lawsuit challenging the government’s squelching of its transparency report. Twitter wants to provide a closer look...

Deeplinks Blog by Dave Maass | May 8, 2015

JPay Will No Longer Claim Ownership Over Inmate-Family Correspondence

Inmates and their families won't have to give up the intellectual property rights to their communications when they use JPay's email and video visitation services, the company announced in an email to EFF today.
EFF had written about an unfair clause in JPay's terms of service that...

Deeplinks Blog by Daniel Nazer | May 8, 2015

EFF Asks Patent Office to Focus On Protecting Public from Bad Patents

This week, together with Public Knowledge and Engine, EFF submitted written comments to the Patent Office regarding its Patent Quality Initiative. We urge the Patent Office to ensure that this program actually reduces the number of invalid patents being issued. Its quality efforts should serve the...

Deeplinks Blog by Cindy Cohn, Hanni Fakhoury | May 7, 2015

With Third Party Records, Privacy Doesn’t Require Secrecy

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...

Deeplinks Blog by Jamie Williams | May 7, 2015

EFF Urges Appeals Court to Shut Down Attempt to Use Copyright to Censor

Copyright law is frequently misused as a tool to censor unwanted online criticism. And often, this misuse does not make it into court. But one such case has recently made its way up to the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals. And yesterday, EFF filed a “friend of the court”...

Deeplinks Blog by Maira Sutton | May 7, 2015

UN Experts Say TPP and Fast Track Threaten Human Rights

Prominent experts at the United Nations have now indicated that secretive trade agreements such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) undermine human rights around the world, both because of the secretive, corporate-dominated process, and due to the substantive content of the provisions that arise out of these opaque negotiations.Last week...

Deeplinks Blog by Dave Maass | May 6, 2015

Virginia Governor Signs Warrant Requirement for Drones, Rejects License Plate Reader Limits

With broad and near-unanimous bipartisan support, the Virginia General Assembly passed a series of bills this year to defend the public’s right to privacy from new mass surveillance technologies.
To his credit, Gov. Terry McAuliffe almost immediately signed a bill to require law enforcement to obtain a warrant before...

Our Work

Our Work

EFF Urges Oregon Supreme Court To Review Troubling Computer Crime Decision

In Landslide Vote, House Overwhelmingly Passes USA Freedom Act without Amendments

Rules Committee Sends USA Freedom Act to the House for a Vote, But Blocks Any and All Amendments on the Floor

Major Win as U.S. Senate Blocks TPP Fast Track Bill

Countdown to the Expiration of Section 215 of the Patriot Act

The NSA’s Call Record Program, a 9/11 Hijacker, and the Failure of Bulk Collection

ACLU v. Clapper and the Congress: How The Second Circuit’s Decision Affects the Legislative Landscape

EFF Case Analysis: Appeals Court Rules NSA Phone Records Dragnet is Illegal

When Is a Justice Department Rule Not a Rule? Report From Twitter's Transparency Fight

JPay Will No Longer Claim Ownership Over Inmate-Family Correspondence

EFF Asks Patent Office to Focus On Protecting Public from Bad Patents

With Third Party Records, Privacy Doesn’t Require Secrecy

EFF Urges Appeals Court to Shut Down Attempt to Use Copyright to Censor

UN Experts Say TPP and Fast Track Threaten Human Rights

Virginia Governor Signs Warrant Requirement for Drones, Rejects License Plate Reader Limits

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