Victory! Court Rules That DMCA Does Not Override First Amendment’s Anonymous Speech Protections
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/06/victory-court-rules-dmca-does-not-override-first-amendments-anonymous-speech
June 21, 2022, 11:29 PM
Copyright law cannot be used as a shortcut around the First Amendment’s strong protections for anonymous internet users, a federal trial court ruled on Tuesday.
The decision by a judge in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California confirms that copyright holders issuing subpoenas under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act must still meet the Constitution’s test before identifying anonymous speakers.
The case is an effort to unmask an anonymous Twitter user (@Cal...
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When “Jawboning” Creates Private Liability
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/06/when-jawboning-creates-private-liability
June 21, 2022, 8:55 PM
A (Very) Narrow Path to Holding Social Media Companies Legally Liable for Collaborating with Government in Content Moderation
For the last several years we have seen numerous arguments that social media platforms are "state actors" that “must carry” all user speech. According to this argument, they are legally required to publish all user speech and treat it equally. Under U.S. law, this is almost always incorrect. The First Amendment generally requires only governments to honor free speech ...
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Pass the "My Body, My Data" Act
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/06/pass-my-body-my-data-act
June 21, 2022, 5:37 PM
EFF supports Rep. Sara Jacobs’ “My Body, My Data" Act, which will protect the privacy and safety of people seeking reproductive health care.
Privacy fears should never stand in the way of healthcare. That's why this common-sense bill will require businesses and non-governmental organizations to act responsibly with personal information concerning reproductive health care. Specifically, it restricts them from collecting, using, retaining, or disclosing reproductive health information that isn...
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Daycare Apps Are Dangerously Insecure
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/06/daycare-apps-are-dangerously-insecure
June 21, 2022, 5:10 PM
Last year, several parents at EFF enrolled kids into daycare and were instantly told to download an application for managing their children’s care. Daycare and preschool applications frequently include notifications of feedings, diaper changes, pictures, activities, and which guardian picked-up/dropped-off the child—potentially useful features for overcoming separation anxiety of newly enrolled children and their anxious parents. Working at a privacy-oriented organization as we do, we asked ...
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EFF Warns Another Court About the Dangers of Broad Site-Blocking Orders
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/06/eff-warns-another-court-about-dangers-broad-site-blocking-orders
June 17, 2022, 7:25 PM
A copyright holder can’t use a court order against the owner of an infringing website to conscript every intermediary service on the internet into helping make that website disappear, EFF and the Computer & Communications Industry Association argued in an amicus brief.
The brief, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, defends Cloudflare, a San Francisco-based global cloud services provider.
United King Film Distribution - a movie, television, sports and ne...
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Copyright "Small Claims" Quasi-Court Opens. Here's Why Many Defendants Will Opt Out.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/06/copyright-small-claims-quasi-court-opens-heres-why-many-defendants-will-opt-out
June 17, 2022, 6:22 PM
A new quasi-court for copyright, with nationwide reach, began accepting cases this week. The “Copyright Claims Board” or “CCB,” housed within the Copyright Office in Washington DC, will rule on private copyright infringement lawsuits from around the country and award damages of up to $30,000 per case. Though it’s billed as an “efficient and user-friendly” alternative to federal litigation, the CCB is likely to disadvantage many people who are accused of copyright infringement, espe...
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Our Digital Lives Rest on a Robust, Flexible, and Stable Fair Use Regime
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/06/our-digital-lives-rest-robust-flexible-and-stable-fair-use-regime
June 17, 2022, 5:19 PM
Much of what we do online involves reproducing copyrightable material, changing it, and/or making new works. Technically, pretty much every original tweet is copyrightable. And the vast majority of memes are based on copyrighted works. Your funny edits, mashups, and photoshopped jokes manipulate copyrighted works into new ones. Effective communication has always included a shared reference pool to make points clearly understood. And now we do that online.
In other words, as the digital world has...
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Facebook Says Apple is Too Powerful. They're Right.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/06/facebook-says-apple-too-powerful-theyre-right
June 16, 2022, 6:22 AM
In December, 2020, Apple did something insanely great. They changed how iOS, their mobile operating system, handled users’ privacy preferences, so that owners of iPhones and other iOS devices could indicate that they don’t want to be tracked by any of the apps on their devices. If they did, Apple would block those apps from harvesting users’ data.
This made Facebook really, really mad.
As far as Apple -and Facebook, and Google, and other large tech companies - are concerned, we’re entitl...
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Stop This California Bill that Bans Affordable Broadband Rules
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/06/stop-california-bill-bans-affordable-broadband-rules
June 15, 2022, 11:49 PM
Update, June 16: In response to pressure from advocates, A.B. 2749's bans on affordability have been removed from the bill.
The California Senate Energy, Utilities, and Communications Committee will soon be the first to consider new and terrible amendments to Assemblymember Quirk-Silva’s A.B. 2749—which is backed by AT&T and other telecommunications interests. The legislation would prohibit the state from implementing affordable broadband rules for broadband companies receiving state su...
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Victory! New York’s Vaccine Privacy Bill Heads to Governor’s Desk
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/06/victory-new-yorks-vaccine-privacy-bill-heads-governors-desk
June 14, 2022, 10:20 PM
In a win for medical privacy in the Empire State, the New York Legislature has passed a pivotal bill that protects people’s private immunity information like COVID-19 vaccine status from being used to track their movements and be used against them in unauthorized ways. The Electronic Frontier Foundation advocated for the bill, now headed to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s desk to be signed into law. 
A. 7326/S. 6541 protects the confidentiality of medical immunity information by limiting what...
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Senator Declares Amazon Ring's Audio Surveillance Capabilities "Threaten the Public"
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/06/senator-declares-concern-about-amazon-rings-audio-surveillance-capabilities
June 14, 2022, 10:16 PM
Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey, a long-time critic of Amazon’s surveillance doorbell camera, Ring, has released a letter of concern and inquiry concerning the device’s audio capabilities. This is partially in response to a recent study conducted by Consumer Reports that found that once the device’s motion sensor has been triggered, it can record conversation-level audio from up to 25-feet away.
This has disturbing implications for people who walk, bike, or even drive by dozens of these ...
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EFF Urges Congress to Strengthen the American Data Privacy and Protection Act
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/06/eff-urges-congress-strengthen-american-data-privacy-and-protection-act
June 14, 2022, 5:11 PM
EFF has long been in the business of searching for ways to guarantee digital privacy. That made essential that, ahead of a hearing titled “Protecting America's Consumers: Bipartisan Legislation to Strengthen Data Privacy and Security,” we send a letter to the House Energy and Commerce Committee on the draft text of a bill called “The American Data Privacy and Protection Act.”
American consumers need a strong federal privacy law. EFF appreciates the Committee highlighting the national con...
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How the Federal Government Buys Our Cell Phone Location Data
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/06/how-federal-government-buys-our-cell-phone-location-data
June 13, 2022, 10:45 PM
Over the past few years, data brokers and federal military, intelligence, and law enforcement agencies have formed a vast, secretive partnership to surveil the movements of millions of people. Many of the mobile apps on our cell phones track our movements with great precision and frequency. Data brokers harvest our location data from the app developers, and then sell it to these agencies. Once in government hands, the data is used by the military to spy on people overseas, by ICE to monitor peop...
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EFF’s Flagship Jewel v. NSA Dragnet Spying Case Rejected by the Supreme Court
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/06/effs-flagship-jewel-v-nsa-dragnet-spying-case-rejected-supreme-court
June 13, 2022, 7:43 PM
We all deserve the right to have a private conversation online. That's why EFF has taken on government surveillance for the past 30-plus years. One of our longest-running efforts has been to stop the National Security Agency’s (NSA) surveillance that sweeps up tens—if not hundreds—of millions of innocent people in its dragnet. Our work will continue.
But today the U.S. Supreme Court slammed the courthouse door on our flagship NSA surveillance lawsuit, Jewel v. NSA, effectively validating t...
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Platform Liability Trends Around the Globe: Moving Forward
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/05/platform-liability-trends-around-globe-conclusions-and-recommendations-moving
June 8, 2022, 6:41 PM
This is the final installment in a four-part blog series surveying global intermediary liability laws.  You can read additional posts here: 
Platform Liability Trends Around the Globe: From Safe Harbors to Increased Responsibility
Platform Liability Trends Around the Globe: Taxonomy and Tools of Intermediary Liability
Platform Liability Trends Around the Globe: Recent Noteworthy Developments
As this blog series has sought to show, increased attention on issues like hate speech, online haras...
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Mandatory Student Spyware Is Creating a Perfect Storm of Human Rights Abuses
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/06/mandatory-student-spyware-creating-perfect-storm-human-rights-abuses
June 8, 2022, 5:49 PM
Spyware apps were foisted on students at the height of the Covid-19 lockdowns. Today, long after most students have returned to in-person learning, those apps are still proliferating, and enabling an ever-expanding range of human rights abuses. In a recent Center for Democracy and Technology report, 81 percent of teachers said their schools use some form of this "student monitoring" spyware. Yet many of the spyware companies supplying these apps seem neither prepared nor concerned about the ha...
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The EU's New Message-Scanning Regulation Must Be Stopped
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/06/eus-new-message-scanning-regulation-must-be-stopped
June 8, 2022, 3:04 PM
The executive body of the European Union is pushing forward with a proposal that will endanger privacy and security for us all.  When this proposal was made public by the EU Commission last month, we said it was a terrible idea. Today, we’re joining together with more than 70 organizations in Europe and around the world to explain how dangerous this proposed law will be. 
The Commission’s proposal would compel a broad range of technology companies to scan and analyze their users’ message...
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Your Resistance Pauses Axon’s Dangerous Drone Tasers
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/06/your-resistance-pauses-axons-dangerous-drone-tasers
June 7, 2022, 9:48 PM
After recent horrific mass shootings, police vendor Axon announced plans to develop a supposed solution: a remotely controlled drone armed with a taser. In response to this announcement, and in light of objections from Axon’s Ethics Board, EFF called on those concerned to voice their criticism and ask tough questions at the Axon CEO’s Reddit AMA about the project. Now, Axon has halted the project and a majority of its Ethics Board has resigned.
You can read the entire AMA with Axon’s CEO ...
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When DRM Comes For Your Wheelchair
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/06/when-drm-comes-your-wheelchair
June 7, 2022, 4:46 PM
Why EFF Supports Colorado’s Right to Repair Wheelchairs Law
Wheelchairs Break
Three million Americans rely on wheelchairs, which makes wheelchairs a key driver of the $50 billion Durable Medical Equipment industry. Many people depend on wheelchairs to help with the basic necessities of life: getting around the house, going to work, shopping, and spending time with families. This is especially true of powered wheelchairs, which integrate sophisticated computers that allow wheelchairs to respond...
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Speech-Related Offenses Should be Excluded from the Proposed UN Cybercrime Treaty
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/06/speech-related-offenses-should-be-excluded-proposed-un-cybercrime-treaty
June 6, 2022, 8:10 PM
Governments should protect people against cybercrime, and they should equally respect and protect people's human rights. However, across the world, governments routinely abuse cybercrime laws to crack down on human rights by criminalizing speech. Governments claim they must do so to combat disinformation, “religious, ethnic or sectarian hatred,” “rehabilitation of nazism,” or “the distribution of false information,” among other harms. But in practice they use these laws to suppress c...
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EFF to Inter-American Court of Human Rights: Colombia’s Surveillance of Human Rights-Defending Lawyers Group Violated International Law
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/06/eff-inter-american-court-human-rights-colombias-surveillance-human-rights
June 3, 2022, 4:57 PM
EFF, Article 19, Fundación Karisma, and Privacy International, represented by Berkeley Law’s International Human Rights Law Clinic, urged the Inter-American Court of Human Rights to rule that Colombia’s existing legal framework regulating intelligence activities, and the unlawful and arbitrary surveillance of members of the Jose Alvear Restrepo Lawyers Collective (CAJAR) and their families, violated a constellation of human rights, including the rights to privacy, freedom of expression, and...
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Axon Must Not Arm Drones with Tasers
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/06/axon-must-not-arm-drones-tasers
June 2, 2022, 9:37 PM
Taser and surveillance vendor Axon has proposed what it claims to be the solution to the epidemic of school shootings in the United States: a remote-controlled flying drone armed with a taser. For many many reasons, this is a dangerous idea. Armed drones would mission-creep their way into more every-day policing. We must oppose a process of normalizing the arming of drones and robots.
EFF has stated strongly before that drones and robots, whether they be autonomous or remote-controlled, should n...
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San Francisco Police Nailed for Violating Public Records Laws Regarding Face Recognition and Fusion Center Documents
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/06/san-francisco-police-nailed-violating-public-records-laws-regarding-face
June 2, 2022, 7:18 PM
By unanimous vote, San Francisco's public records appeals body ruled last night that the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) violated state and local laws when it failed to respond adequately to EFF's requests for documents about face recognition and the department's relationship with the Northern California Regional Intelligence Center (NCRIC), the Bay Area's fusion center.
The Sunshine Ordinance Task Force further ordered SFPD to conduct a fresh search for records and respond point-by-poin...
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New York: Tell Your Assemblymembers to Pass This Landmark Repair Bill
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/06/new-york-tell-your-assemblymembers-pass-landmark-repair-bill
June 1, 2022, 9:29 PM
New York’s legislature has the chance to make history and stand up for users’ rights by passing the Digital Fair Repair Act. Assemblymember Patricia Fahy’s bill, A7006-B, would require companies to give people access to what they need to fix their stuff by selling spare parts and special tools at fair and reasonable terms. It would also provide all customers and third-party repair technicians access to repair information, software, and give them the ability to apply firmware patches.
Take ...
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Hearing Wednesday: EFF Testifies Against SFPD for Violating Transparency Laws
https://www.eff.org/press/releases/hearing-wednesday-eff-testifies-against-sfpd-violating-transparency-laws
June 1, 2022, 3:19 PM
Police Department Withheld Documents About Use of Face RecognitionSAN FRANCISCO – On Wednesday, June 1, at 5 p.m. PT, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) will testify against the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) at the city’s Sunshine Ordinance Task Force meeting. EFF filed a complaint against the SFPD for withholding records about a controversial investigation involving the use of facial recognition.
In September 2020, SFPD arrested a man who was suspected of illegally dischargin...
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Community Activists Reach Settlement With Marin County Sheriff for Unlawfully Sharing Drivers’ Locations with Out-Of-State and Federal Agencies
https://www.eff.org/press/releases/community-activists-reach-settlement-marin-county-sheriff-unlawfully-sharing-drivers
June 1, 2022, 2:57 PM
Activists and Civil Rights Advocates Say Sheriff’s Sharing Practices Threatened Safety of Marginalized Groups SAN FRANCISCO—Community activists in Northern California today announced a settlement in their lawsuit against the County of Marin and Marin County Sheriff Robert Doyle, whose office illegally made the license plate and location information of local drivers, captured by a network of surveillance cameras, available to hundreds of federal and out-of-state agencies, including Immigratio...
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Podcast Episode: Wordle and the Web We Need
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/05/podcast-episode-wordle-and-web-we-need
May 31, 2022, 7:31 AM
Where is the internet we were promised? It feels like we’re dominated by megalithic, siloed platforms where users have little or no say over how their data is used and little recourse if they disagree, where direct interaction with users is seen as a bug to be fixed, and where art and creativity are just “content generation.”
But take a peek beyond those platforms and you can still find a thriving internet of millions who are empowered to control their own technology, art, and lives. Anil ...
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Massachusetts' Highest Court Upholds Cell Tower Dump Warrant
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/05/massachusetts-highest-court-upholds-cell-tower-dump-warrant
May 27, 2022, 8:42 PM
This blog post was drafted with help from former EFF Legal Intern Emma Hagemann.
Massachusetts’ highest court has upheld the collection of mass cell tower data, despite recognizing that this data not only provides investigators with “highly personal and private” information but also has the potential to reveal “the locations, identities, and associations of tens of thousands of individuals.”
The case is Commonwealth v. Perry, and in it the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) add...
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Patent Troll Uses Ridiculous "People Finder" Patent to Sue Small Dating Companies
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/05/patent-troll-uses-ridiculous-people-finder-patent-sue-small-dating-companies
May 27, 2022, 5:02 PM
Finding people near you with shared interests, and talking to them, has a very long history in human culture. We’re social animals. We need to find other people close to us to work together with, play games with, and build relationships and families with. Modern online social networks are built on top of those basic human needs. 
The technologies we humans use to do these things are ever-changing, but the basic concepts aren’t. Software that promotes new types of social networking is a terr...
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11th Circuit's Ruling to Uphold Injunction Against Florida’s Social Media Law is a Win Amid a Growing Pack of Bad Online Speech Bills
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/05/11th-circuits-ruling-uphold-injunction-against-floridas-social-media-law-win-amid
May 26, 2022, 5:00 PM
There’s a lot to like in the 11th Circuit Court of Appeal’s ruling that much of Florida’s social media law—the parts which would prohibit internet platforms from removing or moderating any speech by or about political candidates or by “journalistic enterprises”—likely violate the First Amendment and should remain on hold. The decision is a win for free speech that stands in stark contrast with a 5th Circuit Court of Appeals May 12 ruling allowing a similar, constitutionally questio...
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California Bill Would Make New Broadband Networks More Expensive
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/05/california-bill-would-make-new-broadband-networks-more-expensive
May 26, 2022, 4:57 PM
The state of California is primed to bring 21st-century fiber access at affordable rates to every Californian. Last year’s unanimous passage of S.B. 156, a historic multi-billion investment in broadband, means every California community has the resources available to chart a long-term course toward building fiber networks. The Department of Commerce’s recent National Telecommunications Information Administration (NTIA) proposal to allocate $48 billion from the bipartisan infrastructure bill ...
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Platform Liability Trends Around the Globe: Taxonomy and Tools of Intermediary Liability
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/05/platform-liability-trends-around-globe-taxonomy-and-tools-intermediary-liability
May 25, 2022, 4:40 PM
This is the second installment in a four-part blog series surveying global intermediary liability laws. You can read additional posts here: Platform Liability Trends Around the Globe: From Safe Harbors to Increased ResponsibilityPlatform Liability Trends Around the Globe: Recent Noteworthy DevelopmentsPlatform Liability Trends Around the Globe: Moving ForwardThe web of global intermediary liability laws has grown increasingly vast and complex as policymakers around the world move to adopt stri...
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Podcast Episode: Securing the Vote
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/05/podcast-episode-securing-vote
May 24, 2022, 8:12 AM
U.S. democracy is at an inflection point, and how we administer and verify our elections is more important than ever. From hanging chads to glitchy touchscreens to partisan disinformation, too many Americans worry that their votes won’t count and that election results aren’t trustworthy. It’s crucial that citizens have well-justified confidence in this pillar of our republic.
Technology can provide answers - but that doesn’t mean moving elections online. As president and CEO of the nonpa...
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Data Brokers and True the Vote are the Real Villains of "2000 Mules" Movie
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/05/data-brokers-and-true-vote-are-villains-dinesh-dsouzas-latest-movie
May 23, 2022, 7:53 PM
2000 Mules is a movie which claims to expose election fraud with phone app location data. While these claims have already been thoroughly debunked, the movie also deserves condemnation for performing wildly invasive research on thousands of people’s location data without their consent or even knowledge. It is a reminder of our need to stop the industry of shady data brokers that enabled this massive privacy invasion.
In its attempt to demonstrate widespread fraud in the 2020 presidential elect...
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EFF to Court: California Law Does Not Bar Content Moderation on Social Media
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/05/eff-court-california-law-does-not-bar-content-moderation-social-media
May 23, 2022, 7:17 PM
Moderated platforms often struggle to draw workable lines between content that is permitted, and content that's not. Every online forum for user speech struggles with this problem, not just the dominant social media platforms. Laws protecting companies’ ability to moderate their platforms free from legal mandates benefit the public, and help to create a diverse array of online spaces, with varied editorial views and community norms.
In April, EFF told California’s Sixth Court of Appeals tha...
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EFF Opposes Anti-Fiber, Anti-Affordability Legislation in California That Will Raise Prices on Middle Income Users
https://www.eff.org/press/releases/eff-opposes-anti-fiber-anti-affordability-legislation-california-will-raise-prices
May 23, 2022, 7:05 PM
California taxpayers are funding the creation of rural fiber infrastructure and should be guaranteed affordable access to 21st century broadband infrastructure.SACRAMENTO, CA – The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) opposes legislation sponsored by AT&T, AB 2749 (Quirk-Silva), that would undermine California’s historic broadband infrastructure law signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom last July.
The bill would amend the newly created grant program for funding broadband access in unserved areas b...
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Escape from Zoom: EFF's 6th Annual Tech Trivia Night Returns to Meatspace!
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/05/escape-zoom-effs-6th-annual-tech-trivia-night-returns-meatspace
May 23, 2022, 7:00 AM
The Cybertiger has escaped his Zoom meetings, yes! YES! The Cybertiger is out!After over two years of virtual meetings, EFF's Cooper "Cybertiger" Quintin returned to the stage, live and in-person! Friends reunited, suspicions that all our coworkers were actually holograms were assuaged (for now), and the tacos were delicious. So, so, delicious.After some much needed comradery, the competition was on! Five teams put their tech know-how to the test, all vying for the chance to win an EFF prize pac...
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DOJ’s New CFAA Policy is a Good Start But Does Not Go Far Enough to Protect Security Researchers
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/05/dojs-new-cfaa-policy-good-start-does-not-go-far-enough-protect-security
May 19, 2022, 9:32 PM
The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), the notoriously vague anti-hacking law, is long overdue for major reform. Among many problems, the CFAA has been used to target security researchers whose work uncovering software vulnerabilities frequently irritates corporations (and U.S. Attorneys). The Department of Justice (DOJ) today announced a new policy under which it will not bring CFAA prosecutions against those engaged “solely” in “good faith” security research.It's an important step fo...
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Two of Peru's Top ISPs Improve Transparency Practices, While Two Competitors Lag Behind, New Hiperderecho's Report Shows
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/05/perus-isps-show-imbalanced-commitments-users-privacy-new-hiperderechos-report
May 19, 2022, 8:55 PM
Peru’s top two telecom operators Movistar (Telefónica) and Claro (América Móvil) continued to earn high marks for being transparent about government requests for user data, while competitors Bitel (Viettel) and Entel slightly improved practices promoting human rights, but in general lagged behind, according to a new report issued today from digital rights group Hiperderecho. 
Hiperderecho’s new ¿Quién Defiende Tus Datos? (“Who Defends Your Data”) report, launched today, reveals di...
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Platform Liability Trends Around the Globe: From Safe Harbors to Increased Responsibility
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/05/platform-liability-trends-around-globe-safe-harbors-increased-responsibility
May 19, 2022, 4:59 PM
This is the first installment in a four-part blog series surveying global intermediary liability laws. You can read additional posts here: 
Platform Liability Trends Around the Globe: Taxonomy and Tools of Intermediary Liability
Platform Liability Trends Around the Globe: Recent Noteworthy Developments
Platform Liability Trends Around the Globe: Moving Forward
The vast majority of internet users around the world interact with online intermediaries—including internet service providers (ISPs)...
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We Finally Have a Federal Fiber Broadband Plan
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/05/we-finally-have-federal-fiber-broadband-plan
May 18, 2022, 6:25 PM
There is a lot to appreciate in the recently published “Notice of Funding Opportunity” (NOFO) by the Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications Information Administration (NTIA). It is arguably the first federal government proposal that seeks to promote infrastructure policies focused on the future, rather than the usual subsidizing “good enough for now” access. That means that the American government, or at least part of it, finally recognizes what appears obvious: that the ...
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New Surveillance Transparency Report Documents an Urgent Need for Change
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/05/new-surveillance-transparency-report-documents-urgent-need-change
May 18, 2022, 6:02 PM
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. Specifically, the report chronicles how Section 702, an amendment to the Foriegn Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), that authorizes the U.S. governm...
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EFF to Supreme Court: Put Texas Social Media Law Back on Hold
https://www.eff.org/press/releases/eff-supreme-court-put-texas-social-media-law-back-hold
May 17, 2022, 10:57 PM
Users Should Be Able to Choose Among Platforms With Different Moderation PoliciesWASHINGTON, D.C.—The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) today urged the U.S. Supreme Court to halt enforcement of Texas’ constitutionally questionable social media law, which allows the state to dictate what speech platforms must publish and may lead to more, not less, censorship of user expression as platforms face a storm of lawsuits.EFF,  joined by the Center for Democracy and Technology, the National Coal...
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Podcast Episode: An AI Hammer in Search of a Nail
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/05/podcast-episode-ai-hammer-search-nail
May 17, 2022, 8:17 AM
It often feels like machine learning experts are running around with a hammer, looking at everything as a potential nail - they have a system that does cool things and is fun to work on, and they go in search of things to use it for. But what if we flip that around and start by working with people in various fields - education, health, or economics, for example - to clearly define societal problems, and then design algorithms providing useful steps to solve them?
Rediet Abebe, a researcher and p...
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British Citizen Alaa Abd El Fattah Demands An End to Mistreatment in Egyptian Prison
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/05/british-citizen-alaa-abd-el-fattah-demands-end-mistreatment-egyptian-prison
May 16, 2022, 7:26 PM
Egyptian blogger, coder, and free speech activist Alaa Abd El Fattah is on day 45 of a hunger strike in protest of his mistreatment in an Egyptian prison. Alaa was sentenced, without due process, late last year, after spending two years at a maximum-security prison in Tora, 12 miles south of Cairo, in pre-trial detention. He was granted British citizenship in April, and civil society groups—including Access Now, Reporters Without Borders, Amnesty UK, English PEN, and EFF—are joining the call...
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EFF, Al Sur Launch Guide to Raise Awareness About Deficiencies in Cross-Border Surveillance Treaty and Strategies to Mitigate Human Rights Risks
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/05/eff-al-sur-launch-guide-raise-awareness-about-deficiencies-cross-border
May 16, 2022, 5:08 PM
Download the report
Latin American countries have a choice to make in the coming months—whether to accede to a new set of rules for coordinating and cooperating with each other and nations around the world on criminal investigations. Opened for signature on May 12, the Protocol has already more than 20 signing States, pending their ratification. Chile and Colombia are part of the list.
The 10,000-word Second Additional Protocol to the Budapest Cybercrime Convention aims to make cross-border ex...
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Geofence Warrants and Reverse Keyword Warrants are So Invasive, Even Big Tech Wants to Ban Them
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/05/geofence-warrants-and-reverse-keyword-warrants-are-so-invasive-even-big-tech-wants
May 13, 2022, 7:27 PM
Geofence and reverse keyword warrants are some of the most dangerous, civil-liberties-infringing and reviled tools in law enforcement agencies’ digital toolbox. It turns out that these warrants are so invasive of user privacy that big tech companies like Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo are willing to support banning them. The three tech giants have issued a public statement through a trade organization,“Reform Government Surveillance,'' that they will support a bill before the New York State le...
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California Law Enforcement Now Needs Approval for Military-Grade Surveillance Equipment. We'll Be Watching.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/05/california-law-enforcement-now-needs-approval-military-grade-surveillance
May 12, 2022, 9:19 PM
California residents finally have a law designed to dismantle some of the secrecy around domestic acquisitions of warzone surveillance equipment.
The weapons of the United States military—drones, mobile command centers, sound cannons, and more—have been handed off to local law enforcement for years. The transfers have equipped police departments with the ability to redirect surveillance tools and the weapons of war designed for foreign adversaries toward often-faultless targets on U.S. soil...
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In a Blow to Free Speech, Texas’ Social Media Law Allowed to Proceed Pending Appeal
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/05/blow-free-speech-texas-unconstitutional-social-media-law-allowed-proceed-pending
May 12, 2022, 4:56 PM
A constitutionally problematic Texas law limiting social media companies exercising their First Amendment rights to curate the content they carry can go into effect after a federal appeals court lifted a lower court’s injunction blocking it. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, in a 2-1 decision, lifted the injunction in a one-sentence order without giving a reason. The law, Texas HB 20, which prohibits large social media platforms from removing or moderating...
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The EU Commission’s New Proposal Would Undermine Encryption And Scan Our Messages
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/05/eu-commissions-new-proposal-would-undermine-encryption-and-scan-our-messages
May 12, 2022, 12:23 AM
The executive body of the European Union published today a legislative proposal (text) that, if it became law, would be a disaster for online privacy in the EU and throughout the world. In the name of fighting crimes against children, the EU Commission has suggested new rules that would compel a broad range of internet services, including hosting and messaging services, to search for, and report, child abuse material. 
The Commission’s new demands would require regular plain-text access to us...
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