New York City Is Dismantling Low-Cost Community Broadband
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/04/new-york-city-dismantling-low-cost-community-broadband-2
April 5, 2023, 8:23 PM
New York City is in the process of dismantling low-cost community broadband infrastructure in public housing that, if supported, could provide quality access to the internet for hundreds of thousands of families. It’s being replaced by a $90 million, three-year government subsidy, called “Big Apple Connect” that instead gives a contract to big internet providers Optimum and Spectrum Communications (Charter).
This existing broadband network was built in 2021 mainly by three community cooper...
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Enough is Enough. Tell Congress to Ban Federal Use of Face Recognition
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/04/enough-enough-tell-congress-ban-federal-use-face-recognition
April 4, 2023, 10:17 PM
Cities and counties across the country have banned government use of face surveillance technology, and many more are weighing proposals to do so. From Boston to San Francisco, Jackson, Mississippi to Minneapolis, elected officials and activists know that face surveillance gives police the power to track us wherever we go. It also disproportionately impacts people of color, turns us all into perpetual suspects, increases the likelihood of being falsely arrested, and chills people’s willingness ...
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Smart Locks Endanger Tenants’ Privacy and Should Be Regulated
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/04/smart-locks-endanger-tenants-privacy-and-should-be-regulated
April 4, 2023, 8:27 PM
The growing deployment of smart locks in apartments, often installed without tenants’ permission, has created a new stream of sensitive location data for law enforcement, landlords, and private companies. Tenants should not be forced to submit to tracking just to enter their home. At minimum, we need privacy laws that require consent to collect this data, a warrant for police access, and strong data minimization.
Smart locks come in many forms. At the most basic level, they are physical locks ...
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The Broad, Vague RESTRICT Act is a Dangerous Substitute for Comprehensive Data Privacy Legislation
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/04/broad-vague-restrict-act-dangerous-substitute-comprehensive-data-privacy
April 4, 2023, 5:11 PM
The recently introduced RESTRICT Act (S. 686, Sen. Warner and Sen. Thune) rightfully is causing a lot of concern. This bill is being called a “TikTok ban,” but it’s more complicated than that. As we wrote in our initial review of the bill, the RESTRICT Act would authorize the executive branch to block “transactions” and “holdings” of “foreign adversaries” that involve “information and communication technology” and create “undue or unacceptable risk” to national security...
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Podcast Episode: Losing Until We Win: Realistic Revolution in Science Fiction
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/04/podcast-episode-losing-until-we-win-realistic-revolution-science-fiction
April 4, 2023, 7:01 AM
When a science-fiction villain is defeated, we often see the heroes take their victory lap and then everyone lives happily ever after. But that’s not how real struggles work: In real life, victories are followed by repairs, rebuilding, and reparations, by analysis and introspection, and often, by new battles.  


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How We Think About Copyright and AI Art
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/04/how-we-think-about-copyright-and-ai-art-0
April 3, 2023, 7:53 PM
Artists are understandably concerned about the possibility that automatic image generators like Stable Diffusion will undercut the market for their work. We live in a society that does not support people who are automated out of a job, and being a visual artist is an already precarious career.
In this context, it’s natural to look to copyright law, because copyright is supposed to help ensure that artists get paid for their work. Unfortunately, one copyright theory advanced in a class-action l...
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AI Art Generators and the Online Image Market
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/04/ai-art-generators-and-online-image-market
April 3, 2023, 7:53 PM
Now that computer-generated imaging is accessible to anyone with a weird idea and an internet connection, the creation of “AI art” is raising questions—and lawsuits. The key questions seem to be 1) how does it actually work, 2) what work can it replace, and 3) how can the labor of artists be respected through this change?
The lawsuits over AI turn, in large part, on copyright. These copyright issues are so complex that we’ve devoted a whole, separate post to them. Here, we focus on thorn...
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Bad Content Moderation Is Bad, And Government Interference Can Make It Even Worse
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/03/bad-content-moderation-bad-and-government-interference-can-make-it-even-worse
March 31, 2023, 11:34 PM
This week, the House Energy and Commerce Committee held a hearing titled “Preserving Free Speech and Reining in Big Tech Censorship.” Lawmakers at the hearing trotted out the usual misunderstandings of these concepts, and placed the blame on Section 230, the law that actually promotes free speech online.
However, buried in these misunderstandings from Congress, and most of the witnesses called to testify, was a genuinely serious problem: Government officials keep asking online services to re...
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Stupid Patent of the Month: Traxcell Tech Gets Ordered To Pay Attorneys’ Fees 
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/03/stupid-patent-month-traxcell-tech-gets-ordered-pay-attorneys-fees
March 31, 2023, 8:58 PM
If someone loses a patent lawsuit very badly—to the point where they face orders to pay attorneys' fees—you wouldn’t think they would be eager to come back to court with a nearly identical lawsuit. But that’s what has happened with this month’s patent. What’s more, the lawyer representing the patent owner, William Ramey, has been ordered to pay attorneys' fees no fewer than five times in recent years. 
U.S. Patent No. 10,820,147 is owned by Traxcell Technologies. It’s not clear wh...
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Without Verification, What Is the Point of Elon Musk’s Twitter?
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/03/what-made-pre-elon-musk-twitter-relevant
March 31, 2023, 8:49 PM
Elon Musk's Twitter fundamentally misunderstands what made Twitter useful in the first place. In an attempt to wring blood from a stone, Twitter’s announced that all the original "blue checks"—initially created as a way to verify that someone was who they said they were—will disappear on April 1st. Instead, blue checks will once again be for sale, just as they were briefly, when Musk took control. April 1 is a date that makes it hard to take anything seriously but, since this isn’t the f...
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After Students Challenged Proctoring Software, French Court Slaps TestWe App With a Suspension
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/03/after-students-challenged-proctoring-software-french-court-slaps-testwe-app
March 31, 2023, 6:33 PM
In a preliminary victory in the continuing fight against privacy-invasive software that “watches” students taking tests remotely, a French administrative court outside Paris suspended a university’s use of the e-proctoring platform TestWe, which monitors students through facial recognition and algorithmic analysis.TestWe software, much like Proctorio, Examsoft, and other proctoring apps we’ve called out for intrusive monitoring of exam takers, constantly tracks students’ eye movements ...
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Digital Rights Updates with EFFector 35.4
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/03/digital-rights-updates-effector-354
March 30, 2023, 11:52 PM
We've got you covered with a collection of updates on your digital rights! Version 35, issue 4 of our EFFector newsletter is out now. Catch up on the latest EFF news by reading our newsletter or listening to the audio version below. This issue covers our recent work mapping surveillance towers along the U.S.-Mexico border, our fight to protect the right of incarcerated people to receive physical mail, and much more.
LISTEN ON YouTube
EFFECTOR 35.4 - We're Fighting For Your Rights In Court, In Co...
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Victory at the Ninth Circuit: Twitter’s Content Moderation is Not “State Action”
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/03/victory-ninth-circuit-twitters-content-moderation-not-state-action
March 24, 2023, 6:27 PM
Earlier this month, the Ninth Circuit held that Twitter did not act as the government by banning a user months after a government agency flagged for Twitter one of his tweets on alleged election fraud. O’Handley v. Weber is the latest decision rejecting social media users’ attempts to hold platforms liable for deleting, demonetizing, and otherwise moderating their content.
Twitter is a private entity, so the government and the courts cannot tell it what speech it must remove or what speech i...
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Courts Should Let You Sue Federal Officials Who Violate Your Right to Record
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/03/courts-should-let-you-sue-federal-officials-who-violate-your-right-record
March 22, 2023, 10:49 PM
Intern Katie Farr contributed to this blog post.
Late last year, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed Dustin Dyer’s lawsuit against Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officers who ordered him to stop recording their pat-down search of his husband. The officers also ordered him to delete what he had already recorded. But the court, using a flawed legal doctrine that limits civil rights lawsuits, ruled that Dyer could not sue the officers for money damages even if they violate...
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Civil Rights Organizations File Amicus Brief in Support of EFF Lawsuit Against Discriminatory SFPD Surveillance
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/03/civil-rights-organizations-file-amicus-brief-support-eff-lawsuit-against
March 21, 2023, 9:45 AM
Intern Taylor Fox contributed to this blog post.
At the height of the George Floyd protests in 2020, the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) spied on thousands of demonstrators in real time by using a business district’s network of over 300 cameras. The SFPD targeted protests against police brutality led by Black people and other people of color, chilling future racial justice protests by making people less likely to come out in the future out of fear of reprisals from police. The SFPD’s...
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Podcast Episode: So You Think You’re A Critical Thinker
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/03/podcast-episode-so-you-think-youre-critical-thinker
March 21, 2023, 7:01 AM
The promise of the internet was that it would be a tool to melt barriers and aid truth-seekers everywhere. But it feels like polarization has worsened in recent years, and more internet users are being misled into embracing conspiracies and cults. 


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Sign The Petition And Tell EU Legislators: Don’t Scan Us
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/03/sign-petition-and-tell-eu-legislators-dont-scan-us
March 20, 2023, 6:22 PM
The European Parliament is debating a proposal that, if it passes, could be disastrous for privacy worldwide. Every message, photo, or hosted file could be scanned, with the results sent to government agencies. 
We don’t need “bugs in our pockets.” A private and secure internet should be built with privacy and security in mind—not by treating every user like they’re in a criminal lineup. 
TAKE ACTION
Tell EU Legislators: Stop Scanning Me!
This proposal is meant to stem the spread of...
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EU Lawmakers Must Reject This Proposal To Scan Private Chats
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/10/eu-lawmakers-must-reject-proposal-scan-private-chats
March 20, 2023, 6:21 PM
Having a private conversation is a basic human right. Like the rest of our rights, we shouldn’t lose it when we go online. But a new proposal by the European Union could throw our privacy rights out the window. 
LEARN MORE
Tell the European Parliament: Stop Scanning Me
The European Union’s executive body is pushing ahead with a proposal that could lead to mandatory scanning of every private message, photo, and video. The EU Commission wants to open the intimate data of our digital lives up ...
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CBP Is Expanding Its Surveillance Tower Program at the U.S.-Mexico Border–And We're Mapping It
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/03/cbp-expanding-its-surveillance-tower-program-us-mexico-border-and-were-mapping-it
March 20, 2023, 5:00 PM
Update: As of April 5, 2023, the map and dataset has grown to 340 towers.
To provide researchers with the tools they need to analyze the impact of U.S. border security policy, EFF is releasing a new map and dataset of more than 290 surveillance towers installed by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) along the border with Mexico. Compiled using public records, satellite imagery, road trips, and even exploration in virtual reality, EFF's data serves as a living snapshot of the so-called "virtual ...
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What Policymakers Need to Know About the First Amendment and Section 230
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/03/what-policymakers-need-know-about-first-amendment-and-section-230
March 16, 2023, 11:16 PM
The Supreme Court just heard two cases - Twitter v. Taamneh and Gonzalez v. Google - that could dramatically affect users’ speech rights online. Last week, EFF hosted a panel in Washington D.C. to discuss what legislators need to know about these cases, the history of Section 230, and the First Amendment’s protections for online speech.
Alongside EFF Senior Staff Attorney Aaron Mackey, the panel included Billy Easley, Senior Public Policy Lead at Reddit, and Emma Llanso, Director of the Free...
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Government Hasn't Justified a TikTok Ban
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/03/government-hasnt-justified-tiktok-ban
March 16, 2023, 8:34 PM
Freedom of speech and association include the right to choose one’s communication technologies. Politicians shouldn’t be able to tell you what to say, where to say it, or who to say it to.
So we are troubled by growing demands in the United States for restrictions on TikTok, a technology that many people have chosen to exchange information with others around the world. Before taking such a drastic step, the government must come forward with specific evidence showing, at the very least, a rea...
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Civil Society Organizations Urge Ghana’s Parliament to Reject Repressive Anti-LGBTQ+ Bill
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/03/civil-society-organizations-urge-ghanas-parliament-reject-repressive-anti-lgbtq
March 16, 2023, 2:25 PM
With Ghana's 'Promotion of Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill, 2021' set to undergo its second reading in the Ghanaian Parliament, EFF and other civil society partners are calling on the government of Ghana to immediately reject this draconian bill and commit instead to protecting the human rights of all people in Ghana.
As we've said before, this bill is not only an assault on the rights of LGBTQI+ people to exist, but it also represents a grave threat to freedom o...
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The Aftermath of Ola Bini’s Unanimous Acquittal by Ecuadorian Court
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/03/aftermath-ola-binis-unanimous-acquittal-ecuadorian-court
March 16, 2023, 4:29 AM
On January 31, the Swedish free software developer and computer security expert Ola Bini was declared innocent in a unanimous verdict by a three-judge tribunal in Ecuador—the Court of Criminal Guarantees of Pichincha. After almost four years of a criminal prosecution plagued with irregularities, delays, and due process violations, his right to a fair trial has finally prevailed. EFF, Access Now, APC, Fundación Karisma, and other digital and human rights groups that have been monitoring the ca...
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Tell the UK’s House of Lords: Protect End-to-End Encryption in the Online Safety Bill
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/03/tell-uks-house-lords-protect-end-end-encryption-online-safety-bill
March 15, 2023, 1:48 PM
Private communication is a basic, universal right. In the online world, the best tool we have to defend this right is end-to-end encryption. 
End-to-end encryption ensures that governments, tech companies, social media platforms, and other groups cannot view or access our private messages, the pictures we share with family and friends, or our bank account details. This is a universal right, and one that is a particularly vital protection for the most vulnerable in society—such as children or ...
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Digital Rights Updates with EFFector 35.3
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/03/digital-rights-updates-effector-353
March 14, 2023, 9:47 PM
New month, new digital rights updates! Version 35, issue 3 of our EFFector newsletter is out now. Catch up on the latest EFF news by reading our newsletter or listening to the audio version below. This issue covers our new Coded Resistance comic as well as our co-sponsorship of new California legislation to protect communities from dragnet-style digital surveillance, and much more.
LISTEN ON YouTube
EFFECTOR 35.3 - International Women's Day is Every Day
Make sure you never miss an issue by sign...
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ADC's New Argentina Report Flags How ISPs Can Do More for Users’ Data Privacy
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/03/adcs-new-argentina-report-flags-how-isps-can-do-more-users-data-privacy
March 14, 2023, 4:01 PM
Argentinian telecommunications providers have made strides in their commitments to protecting users’ data privacy, but the gains are uneven—they are doing a better job at informing about data processing and users' data rights, but still a poor job at disclosing how they handle government demands for user data, according to a new report by digital rights group ADC.
In this third edition of Argentina's report, most of the improvements relate to the ISPs’ privacy policies. ADC has increased ...
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Even Rep. LaHood Likely Can't Sue the NSA or FBI to Protect His Rights
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/03/even-rep-lahood-likely-cant-sue-nsa-or-fbi-protect-his-rights
March 14, 2023, 12:46 AM
In a stunning revelation, a sitting U.S. Congressman has publicly identified himself as the subject of likely illegal surveillance by the NSA and FBI. During a hearing on the question of renewal the controversial mass NSA spying authorities known as FISA Amendments Act section 702, Rep. Darin LaHood of Illinois revealed: “the member of Congress who was wrongly queried multiple times solely by his name was in fact me.” It seems Rep. LaHood was one of the Congresspersons identified in a footno...
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This Texas Bill Would Systematically Silence Anyone Who Dares to Talk About Abortion Pills
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/03/texas-bill-would-systematically-silence-anyone-who-dares-talk-about-abortion-pills
March 14, 2023, 12:25 AM
Texas State Representative Steve Toth recently introduced a bill that targets the most viable form of safe and effective abortion access today—medication abortion.
House Bill (HB) 2690 seeks to prevent the sale and distribution of abortion pills like Mifepristone and misoprostol, but it doesn’t stop there. By restricting access to certain information online, the bill seeks to prevent people from learning about abortion drugs, or even being aware of their existence. It would also systematical...
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Why We’re Suing to Protect the Right of Incarcerated People to Receive Physical Mail
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/03/why-were-suing-protect-right-incarcerated-people-receive-physical-mail
March 13, 2023, 11:42 PM
In 2021, San Mateo County, California, banned people incarcerated in county jails from receiving physical mail. Instead, family and friends were required to mail their letters to Smart Communications, a private for-profit company based in Florida that would scan and destroy those letters so that incarcerated people would be required to access them digitally through a limited number of shared tablets and kiosks in public spaces within the jails.
This is why the Electronic Frontier Foundation, th...
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The Foilies 2023
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/03/foilies-2023
March 12, 2023, 4:31 PM
Recognizing the worst in government transparency.
The Foilies are co-written by EFF and MuckRock News and published in alternative newspapers around the country through a partnership with the Association of Alternative Newsmedia. 
It seems like these days, everyone is finding classified documents in places they shouldn't be: their homes, their offices, their storage lockers, their garages, their guitar cases, between the cracks of their couches, under some withered celery in the vegetable drawe...
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Appeals Court Upholds Restriction on Twitter’s First Amendment Right to Publish National Security Transparency Report
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/03/appeals-court-upholds-restriction-twitters-first-amendment-right-publish-national
March 11, 2023, 12:37 AM
A ruling from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals earlier this week marks a new low in judicial deference to classification and national security, even against the nearly inviolable First Amendment right to be free of prior restraints against speech. In Twitter v. Garland, the court ruled that it was not a violation of the First Amendment for the Justice Department to censor a draft transparency report on the aggregate number of national security demands Twitter received in the second half of 201...
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Age Verification Mandates Would Undermine Anonymity Online
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/03/age-verification-mandates-would-undermine-anonymity-online
March 10, 2023, 8:09 PM
Age verification systems are surveillance systems. Mandatory age verification, and with it, mandatory identity verification, is the wrong approach to protecting young people online. It would force websites to require visitors to prove their age by submitting information such as government-issued identification. This scheme would lead us further towards an internet where our private data is collected and sold by default. The tens of millions of Americans who do not have government-issued identifi...
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Flipper Zero Devices Being Seized by Brazil’s Telecom Agency
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/03/flipper-zero-devices-being-seized-brazils-telecom-agency
March 10, 2023, 1:07 AM
You may have heard of the Flipper Zero. It’s marketed as a “Portable Multi-tool Device for Geeks”—a programmable portable device packed with hardware that facilitates wireless penetration testing and hacking on the go. The device, which greets its owner with an adorable cyber-dolphin on its monochrome 128x64 pixel screen, is facing problems in Brazil: despite products with similar features being available to Brazilians, the national telecoms regulator Anatel has flagged the Flipper Zero ...
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Incarcerated Individuals & Advocacy Groups Challenge California County’s Policy of Digitizing and Destroying Jail Mail
https://www.eff.org/press/releases/incarcerated-individuals-advocacy-groups-challenge-california-countys-policy
March 9, 2023, 10:44 PM
Electronic Frontier Foundation, Knight Institute, and Social Justice Legal Foundation say that the policy violates the rights to free speech and privacyREDWOOD CITY, CA—The Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, and the Social Justice Legal Foundation today filed a complaint challenging San Mateo County’s policy of digitizing and destroying physical mail sent to people in its jails.  
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of five people incar...
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Utah's Governor Should Veto "Social Media Regulations" Bill S.B. 152
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/03/utahs-governor-should-veto-social-media-regulations-bill-sb-152
March 9, 2023, 5:55 PM
This week, EFF asked Utah’s Governor Cox to veto a dangerous “social media regulations” bill, S.B. 152 (McKell). Utah’s bill is part of a wave of age verification laws that would make users less secure, and make internet access less private overall. EFF opposes laws that mandate age verification requirements, and Utah’s S.B. 152 would be one of the worst we’ve seen. 
S.B. 152 would require a social media company to stop a resident minor from creating an account unless they have the ...
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Section 702’s Unconstitutional Domestic Spying Program Must End
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/03/section-702s-unconstitutional-domestic-spying-program-must-end
March 8, 2023, 12:17 AM
A few months ahead of its expiration this fall, the Biden administration has announced its intention to seek renewal of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA)—an invasive and unconstitutional law that cannot continue to exist in its current form.
On its face, Section 702 allows the government to conduct surveillance inside the United States so long as the surveillance is directed at foreigners currently located outside the United States. It also prohibits intentionall...
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EFF Tells Supreme Court: Trademark Law Doesn’t Trump the First Amendment
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/03/eff-tells-supreme-court-trademark-law-doesnt-trump-first-amendment
March 7, 2023, 8:37 PM
A trademark dispute between a liquor company and a maker of novelty dog toys may not sound like an important First Amendment battleground, but the latest trademark case to come before the U.S. Supreme Court could have serious consequences for online speech and political activism. Trademarks are part of our modern lexicon, and we cannot allow their owners to use the law as a censorship tool.
In Jack Daniel’s Properties v. VIP Products, Jack Daniels claims that a company infringed and diluted it...
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EFF Comments to NTIA on Privacy and Civil Rights
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/03/eff-comments-ntia-privacy-and-civil-rights
March 7, 2023, 4:27 PM
EFF recently submitted comments to the U.S. National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) on "Privacy, Equity, and Civil Rights". NTIA is a unit of the U.S. Department of Commerce that advises the President on information policy. NTIA is writing a report on privacy and civil rights, and requested comments from the public.
The submission spotlights how data surveillance practices cause discrimination against vulnerable groups across the entire lifecycle of data processing: at ...
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Podcast Episode: Making the Invisible Visible
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/03/podcast-episode-making-invisible-visible
March 7, 2023, 9:53 AM
What would the internet look like if it weren't the greatest technology of mass surveillance in the history of mankind? Trevor Paglen wonders about this, and he makes art from it. 


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EFF and Student Press Law Center Urge Supreme Court to Require Government to Show Subjective Intent in Threat Cases
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/03/eff-and-student-press-law-center-urge-supreme-court-require-government-show
March 3, 2023, 12:29 AM
EFF Intern Reema Moussa authored this post.
In our highly digitized society, online speech like posts, messages, and emails, can be taken out of context, repackaged in ways that distort or completely lose their meaning, and spread far beyond the intended recipients.With this in mind, we are urging the Supreme Court to rule that any time the government seeks to prosecute someone for threatening violence against another person, it must show that the speaker subjectively intended to threaten before...
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Report: ICE and the Secret Service Conducted Illegal Surveillance of Cell Phones
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/03/report-ice-and-secret-service-conducted-illegal-surveillance-cell-phones
March 2, 2023, 8:51 PM
The Department of Homeland Security’s Inspector General has released a troubling new report detailing how federal agencies like Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), and the Secret Service have conducted surveillance using cell-site simulators (CSS) without proper authorization and in violation of the law. Specifically, the office of the Inspector General found that these agencies did not adhere to federal privacy policy governing the use of CSS and...
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Coded Resistance, the Comic!
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/02/coded-resistance-comic
March 2, 2023, 1:00 PM
Illustrations by Chelsea Saunders, produced in collaboration with the Nib.
March 21, 2023 Update: A past version of this comic depicted Harriet Tubman writing. This has been amended to show Harriet Tubman dictating her words to a collaborator.
From the days of chattel slavery until the modern Black Lives Matter movement, Black communities have developed innovative ways to communicate to fight back against oppression.
EFF's Director of Engineering, Alexis Hancock, documented this important histo...
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Win for Government Transparency and Immigrant Privacy Rights at Second Circuit
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/02/win-government-transparency-and-immigrant-privacy-rights-second-circuit
February 28, 2023, 8:57 PM
Intern Reema Moussa contributed to this blog post.
As government agencies increasingly use digital tools to track citizens and immigrants, we need to use the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to make that surveillance transparent. But while the government opens its databases to public scrutiny, it must also protect individual privacy.
Late last month, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals held that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) must be transparent and respect privacy by producing ...
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Stupid Patent of the Month: Clocking In To Work—On an App
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/02/stupid-patent-month-clocking-work-app
February 28, 2023, 4:11 PM
What if we told you the Stupid Patent of the Month has a sponsor, but we don’t know who it is? That would seem shady, wouldn’t it? 
This month’s stupid patent, U.S. Patent No. 9,986,435, was brought to you—to all of us, really—from the murky depths of the litigation finance industry. Originally assigned to a shell company linked to giant patent troll Intellectual Ventures, this patent was sold off and is now in the hands of Mellaconic IP LLC, a recently-created Texas shell company. Me...
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EFF Files Amicus Brief to Protect the Speech Rights of Immigrants and Immigrant Rights Advocates
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/02/eff-files-amicus-brief-protect-speech-rights-immigrants-and-immigrant-rights
February 25, 2023, 1:29 AM
This post was written by intern Devin Sullivan.Should it be a federal crime to encourage an undocumented immigrant to remain in the country? In a friend of the court brief filed today with the U.S. Supreme Court, we argue that such a prohibition is facially unconstitutional on First Amendment grounds that it would sweep up and prohibit constitutionally protected speech.Our brief was filed in United States v. Hansen, a challenge to the Encouragement Provision in 8 U.S.C. § 1324(a)(1)(A)(iv), whi...
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Fourth Circuit: Individuals Have a First Amendment Right to Livestream Their Own Traffic Stops
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/02/fourth-circuit-individuals-have-first-amendment-right-livestream-their-own-traffic
February 23, 2023, 11:36 PM
In a partial victory for police accountability, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit held that the First Amendment protects a passenger who livestreams the traffic stop of the car he is traveling in. EFF filed an amicus brief in Sharpe v. Winterville in 2021 in support of the plaintiff. Unfortunately, the Fourth Circuit’s opinion is not a total win for First Amendment rights because the court curtailed the plaintiff’s ability to hold the individual officers accountable.
After pol...
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Podcast Episode: The Right to Imagine Your Own Future
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/02/podcast-episode-right-imagine-your-own-future
February 21, 2023, 12:07 PM
Too often we let the rich and powerful dictate what technology’s future will be, from Mark Zuckerberg’s Metaverse to Elon Musk’s neural implants. But what if we all were empowered to use our voices and perspectives to imagine a better world in which we all can thrive while creating and using technology as we choose? 
That idea guides Deji Bryce Olukotun’s work both as a critically acclaimed author and as a tech company’s social impact chief. Instead of just envisioning the oligarch-do...
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Two Ways The U.S. Patent Office Could Do Better At Examination
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/02/two-ways-us-patent-office-could-do-better-examination
February 17, 2023, 7:17 PM
The patent examination process is rife with problems. Too often, patent law supports applicants seeking unwarranted monopolies—not the public interest. That’s why we get things like Amazon’s patent on white-background photography. This is especially true when it comes to software and so-called “business methods,” a catchall term for patents that are often granted for trivial innovations on well-known concepts, like financial hedging. 
Fees from patent applicants pay about 85 percent o...
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Section 230 is On Trial. Here's What You Need to Know.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/02/section-230-trial-heres-what-you-need-know
February 16, 2023, 7:36 PM
The Supreme Court next week will hear two cases — Gonzalez v. Google on Tuesday, Feb. 21, and Twitter v. Taamneh on Wednesday, Feb. 22 — that could dramatically affect users’ speech rights online.  
Nearly everyone who speaks online relies on Section 230, a 1996 law that promotes free speech online. Because users rely on online intermediaries as vehicles for their speech, they can communicate to large audiences without needing financial resources or technical know-how to distribute their...
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How We Fought For and Won Access to Records About Predictive Policing in General Escobedo, Mexico
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/02/como-luchamos-y-ganamos-el-acceso-los-registros-sobre-la-policia-predictiva-en-una
February 16, 2023, 4:59 PM
What started with a simple public records request became a journey into the absurd depths of Mexican bureaucracy. But we emerged victorious, and learned a lot about how a city experimented with a dangerous surveillance tool.
Filing public records requests for government information is a vital tool that EFF uses to shed light on law enforcement use of surveillance technologies. When a government agency hides crucial information about their surveillance policies and practices, it harms the democr...
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