For many years, major U.S. entertainment companies have been trying to gain the power to make websites disappear from the Internet at their say-so. The Internet blacklist bills SOPA and PIPA were part of that strategy, along with the Department of Homeland Security’s project of seizing websites that someone accused...
As we’ve noted, our support for the current version of USA Freedom that is moving through the Senate and the House is conditional on amendments that improve the bill. While we hope to see such amendments, we also know that they may not be possible, since Judiciary Committee leaders...
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....
Nascimento worked as a cashier at the deli counter of a convenience store which had a lottery terminal. The store allowed employees to sell and validate lottery tickets for paying customers but prohibited them from purchasing lottery tickets for themselves or validating their own tickets. Nascimento was caught printing lottery...
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...
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...
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,...
Join EFF at the 10th Annual Maker Faire Bay Area! The event spans three days this year, from Friday to Sunday. Part science fair, part county fair, and part something entirely new, Maker Faire is an all-ages gathering of tech enthusiasts,...
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...
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit inACLU 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...
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 anopinion in...
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...
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...
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...
