The Kids Online Safety Act is Still A Huge Danger to Our Rights Online
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/05/kids-online-safety-act-still-huge-danger-our-rights-online
May 2, 2023, 11:45 PM
Congress has resurrected the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), a bill that would increase surveillance and restrict access to information in the name of protecting children online. KOSA was introduced in 2022 but failed to gain traction, and today its authors, Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), have reintroduced it with slight modifications. Though some of these changes were made in response to over 100 civil society organizations and LGBTQ+ rights groups’ criticisms of ...
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Why Is the U.S. Solicitor General Trying To Change The Law To Benefit Patent Trolls?
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/05/why-us-solicitor-general-trying-change-law-benefit-patent-trolls
May 2, 2023, 8:05 PM
For more than two decades now, developers and users of software have been plagued by a flood of bad patents. Software patents that describe everyday practices like watching an ad online, publishing nutrition information, meeting people nearby, or teaching a language class continue to be issued, and low-quality patents get used in hundreds of lawsuits every year. 
Government officials should be working to reduce, not increase, the burden that low-quality patent lawsuits impose on innovators. So ...
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EFF to Congress: Oppose the EARN IT Act and the STOP CSAM Act
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/05/eff-letter-congress-oppose-earn-it-act-and-stop-csam-act
May 2, 2023, 6:45 PM
The Senate Judiciary Committee is about to debate multiple bills that will lead to peoples’ private messages being scanned and reported to the government. We oppose these bills, and  we have sent a letter urging the Committee to vote No. 
Take Action
Protect Our Privacy—Stop "EARN IT"
On Thursday, May 4, 2023, the committee will consider S. 1207, the Eliminating Abusive and Rampant Neglect of Interactive Technologies Act of 2023 (EARN IT Act), and S. 1199, the Strengthening Transparency an...
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Podcast Episode: Dr. Seuss Warned Us
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/04/podcast-episode-dr-seuss-warned-us
May 2, 2023, 7:01 AM
Dr. Seuss wrote a story about a Hawtch-Hawtcher Bee-Watcher whose job it is to watch his town’s one lazy bee, because “a bee that is watched will work harder, you see.” But that doesn’t seem to work, so another Hawtch-Hawtcher is assigned to watch the first, and then another to watch the second... until the whole town is watching each other watch a bee. 


%3Ciframe%20scrolling%3D%22no%22%20seamless%3D%22%22%20src%3D%22https%3A%2F%2Fplayer.simplecast.com%2F4264fe11-5fac-4bed...
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Stupid Patent of the Month: Trying to Get U.S. Patents On An AI Program
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/04/stupid-patent-month-trying-get-us-patents-ai-program
April 28, 2023, 10:42 PM
Only people can get patents. There’s a good reason for that, which is that the patent grant—a temporary monopoly granted by the government—is supposed to be given out only to “promote the progress of science and useful arts.” Just like monkeys can’t get a copyright on a photo,  because it doesn’t incentivize the monkey to take more photos, software can’t get patents, because it doesn’t respond to incentives. 
Stephen Thaler hasn’t gotten this memo, because he’s spent year...
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At Congressional Hearing, PCLOB Members Suggest Bare Minimum of 702 Reforms
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/04/congressional-hearing-pclob-members-suggest-bare-minimum-702-reforms
April 28, 2023, 9:29 PM
Last week, the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Federal Government Surveillance held a hearing on “Fixing FISA: How a Law Designed to Protect Americans Has Been Weaponized Against Them,” ahead of the December 2023 expiration of the Section 702 surveillance authority. The three witnesses, Michael E. Horowitz (Inspector General, U.S. Department of Justice), Sharon Bradford Franklin (Chair, U.S. Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board), and Beth A. Williams (Board Member, U.S. Pri...
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Appeals Court Should Reconsider Letting The FBI Block Twitter’s Surveillance Transparency Report
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/04/appeals-court-should-reconsider-letting-fbi-block-twitters-surveillance
April 28, 2023, 9:24 PM
Today, EFF and ACLU filed a brief in support of Twitter’s effort to get an appeals court to reconsider its dangerous opinion enforcing a government gag order on Twitter’s 2013 transparency report.
In this long-running and important case, Twitter tried to publish a report bringing much-needed transparency to the government’s use of FISA orders and national security letters, including specifying whether it had received any of these types of requests. However, without going to a court, the FB...
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Maine Gets Another (Necessary) Opportunity to Defund Its Local Intelligence Fusion Center
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/04/maine-gets-another-necessary-opportunity-defund-its-local-intelligence-fusion
April 26, 2023, 8:02 PM
Maine State Senator Pinny Beebe-Center has introduced LD 1290 , or An Act to End the Maine Information and Analysis Center Program, a bill that would defund the Maine Information and Analysis Center (MIAC), also known as Maine’s only fusion center. EFF once again pleased to support this bill in hopes of defunding an unnecessary, intrusive, and often-harmful piece of the U.S. surveillance regime. You can read the full text of the bill here. A version of this bill managed to pass 88-54 out of th...
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Greenpeace Stands Up Against SLAPPs And Wins 
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/04/greenpeace-stands-against-slapps-and-wins
April 26, 2023, 8:01 PM
The U.S. litigation system is meant to resolve serious disputes. Unfortunately, the high cost of litigation can be weaponized as a means of harassment and censorship. That’s become all too common, and the last few decades have seen the rise of what’s known as a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation, or SLAPP. 
At EFF, as more speech of all types has moved online, we’ve seen SLAPPs proliferate over digital speech. SLAPPs get filed against protesters who oppose oil pipelines, and r...
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EFF Now Has Tor Onions
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/04/eff-now-has-tor-onions
April 26, 2023, 4:29 PM
Today, we’re announcing .onion addresses for eff.org and two of its affiliated projects: Certbot, an EFF-developed tool for automatically obtaining and renewing TLS certificates for websites, and Surveillance Self-Defense, which provides resources and guidance for individuals and organizations to protect themselves from surveillance and other security threats.
We have been made aware of events that indicate censorship could be occurring on some of our resources. By accessing these websites thr...
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Texas Should Leave Its Anti-SLAPP Law Alone
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/04/texas-should-leave-its-anti-slapp-law-alone
April 25, 2023, 7:16 PM
The Texas Citizens Participation Act, or TCPA, has been one of the strongest laws in the nation protecting citizens against lawsuits intended to silence or punish individuals who speak up on public matters. But HB 2781, a bill making its way through the state's legislature right now, would needlessly undercut the protections Texans have enjoyed for more than a decade.
Sometimes lawsuits are filed to chill speech or harass people, rather than resolve legitimate legal disputes. These types of cens...
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Internal Documents Show How Little the FBI Did to Correct Misuse of Section 702 Databases
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/04/internal-documents-show-how-little-fbi-did-correct-misuse-section-702-databases
April 25, 2023, 4:58 PM
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has released internal documents used to guide  agency personnel on how to search the massive databases of information collected under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, including communications collected without a warrant under Section 702. Despite reassurances from the intelligence community about its “culture of compliance,” these documents depict almost no substantial consideration of privacy or civil liberties. They also suggest that in ...
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Your Messaging Service Should Not Be a DEA Informant
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/04/your-messaging-service-should-not-be-dea-informant
April 24, 2023, 10:01 PM
A new U.S. Senate bill would require private messaging services, social media companies, and even cloud providers to report their users to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) if they find out about certain illegal drug sales. This would lead to inaccurate reports and turn messaging services into government informants.
The bill, named the Cooper Davis Act, is likely to result in a host of inaccurate reports and in companies sweeping up innocent conversations, including discussions about pas...
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The DMCA Cannot Protect You From Your Own Words
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/04/dmca-cannot-save-you-your-own-words
April 24, 2023, 9:33 PM
There is a loud debate raging over what companies should and shouldn’t be doing about the things people say on their platforms. What people often seem to forget is that we already know the dangers of providing a quick way for people to remove criticism of themselves from the internet. Thanks to copyright law’s disastrous damages provisions, all but the largest social media companies risk financial ruin if they don’t promptly remove any content that’s been flagged as infringing. As a resu...
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California Bill to Stop Dragnet Surveillance of People Seeking Reproductive and Gender-Affirming Care Passes Key Committees
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/04/california-bill-stop-dragnet-surveillance-people-seeking-reproductive-and-gender
April 24, 2023, 9:16 PM
A.B. 793, a bill authored by Assemblymember Mia Bonta to protect people seeking abortion and gender-affirming care from dragnet-style digital surveillance, has passed two key committees in the California Assembly.
EFF is a proud co-sponsor of A.B. 793, along with ACLU California Action and If/When/How. The bill targets a type of dragnet surveillance that can compel tech companies to search their records and reveal the identities of people who have driven down a certain street or looked up parti...
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First Appellate Court Finds Geofence Warrant Unconstitutional
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/04/first-us-appellate-court-decide-finds-geofence-warrant-unconstitutional
April 24, 2023, 7:36 PM
The California Court of Appeal has held that a geofence warrant seeking information on all devices located within several densely-populated areas in Los Angeles violated the Fourth Amendment. This is the first time an appellate court in the United States has reviewed a geofence warrant. The case is People v. Meza, and EFF filed an amicus brief and jointly argued the case before the court.
Geofence warrants, which we have written about extensively before, are unlike typical warrants for electroni...
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EFF and ECNL's Comment to the Meta Oversight Board on the Term 'Shaheed'
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/04/eff-and-ecnls-comment-meta-oversight-board-term-shaheed
April 24, 2023, 2:37 PM
EFF Intern Reema Moussa authored this post.
EFF recently submitted comments in partnership with the European Center for Not-for-Profit Law (ECNL) in response to the Oversight Board’s request for input on the moderation of the Arabic word “shaheed.” The Oversight Board was created by Meta in 2020 as an appellate body and has 27 members from around the world who review contested content moderation decisions made by the platform. The Board opened public comment on the term after accepting Met...
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Stop This Dangerous Bill That Would Normalize Face Surveillance in California
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/04/stop-dangerous-bill-would-normalize-face-surveillance-california
April 22, 2023, 12:08 AM
Californians: It's time to speak out against government use of face surveillance. While several California cities have banned government use of face recognition technology, state lawmakers haven't taken the same approach. A new bill this session, A.B. 642—authored by Assemblymember Phil Ting—would normalize and incentivize police use of this technology across the state.
EFF opposes this bill, along with more than 50 organizations including ACLU California Action. Together, we have called on ...
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The STOP CSAM Act Would Put Security and Free Speech at Risk
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/04/stop-csam-act-would-put-security-and-free-speech-risk
April 21, 2023, 9:51 PM
A new U.S. Senate bill introduced this week threatens security and free speech on the internet. EFF urges Congress to reject the STOP CSAM Act of 2023, which would undermine services offering end-to-end encryption, and force internet companies to take down lawful user content.   
TAKE ACTION
TELL CONGRESS NOT TO OUTLAW ENCRYPTED APPS
The bill is aimed at removing from the internet child sexual abuse material (CSAM), also known as child pornography. Existing law already requires online ser...
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The EARN IT Bill Is Back, Seeking To Scan Our Messages and Photos
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/04/earn-it-bill-back-again-seeking-scan-our-messages-and-photos
April 20, 2023, 4:30 PM
In a free society, people should not have their private correspondence constantly examined. U.S. lawmakers, we would hope, understand that individuals have the right to a private conversation without the government looking over their shoulder. 
So it’s dismaying to see a group of U.S. Senators attempting for a third time to pass the EARN IT Act (S. 1207)—a law that could lead to suspicionless scans of every online message, photo, and hosted file. In the name of fighting crime, the EARN IT ...
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Digital Rights Updates with EFFector 35.5
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/04/digital-rights-updates-effector-355
April 18, 2023, 4:49 PM
Keeping up on the latest in digital freedoms can be quite a challenge, but we're here to help catch you up to speed! The latest issue of our EFFector newsletter is out now, and you can learn more about our position on the U.N Cybercrime Treaty, the RESTRICT Act, privacy issues regarding renters and smart locks, and much more. Click here to read the full newsletter or you can listen to the audio version below! 
Listen on YouTube
Effector 35.5 - Decoding the U.n. Cybercrime Treaty
Make sure you n...
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Podcast Episode: Safer Sex Work Makes a Safer Internet
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/04/podcast-episode-safer-sex-work-makes-safer-internet
April 18, 2023, 7:01 AM
An internet that is safe for sex workers is an internet that is safer for everyone. Though the effects of stigmatization and criminalization run deep, the sex worker community exemplifies how technology can help people reduce harm, share support, and offer experienced analysis to protect each other. But a 2018 federal law purportedly aimed at stopping sex trafficking, FOSTA-SESTA, led to shutdowns of online spaces where sex workers could talk, putting at increased risk some of the very people it...
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Comunicado de prensa para Latinoamérica: La propuesta de tratado de la ONU sobre ciberdelincuencia carece de suficientes salvaguardias de derechos humanos, lo que agrava las amenazas a la privacidad y las libertades civiles en Latinoamérica
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/04/comunicado-de-prensa-para-latinoamerica-la-propuesta-de-tratado-de-la-onu-sobre
April 14, 2023, 8:43 PM
VIENA-El martes 18 de abril, a las 10:00 am hora del Pacífico (1:00 pm hora del Este), expertos de Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) y tres aliados latinoamericanos de derechos digitales informarán a los reporteros sobre las amenazas únicas a la privacidad que plantea la propuesta de Tratado sobre Delitos Cibernéticos de la ONU, que podría autorizar el uso de programas espía que ya se están desplegando contra periodistas y defensores de los derechos humanos. El tratado, que ha sido ob...
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EFF, International Allies Warn That Proposed UN Cybercrime Treaty, Rather Than Making Us More Secure, Could Legitimize Intrusive Surveillance and Drag Down Global Privacy and Free Expression Standards
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/04/eff-international-allies-warn-proposed-un-cybercrime-treaty-rather-making-us-more
April 14, 2023, 7:48 PM
EFF and international allies Access Now, Article 19, Epicenter, and Global Partners Digital are in Vienna this week and next for the fifth round of negotiations on the proposed UN Cybercrime Treaty, along with the over 100 representatives of Member States hashing out a new draft text.While we have not yet been allowed to speak on the floor—or even sit in the same room as delegates—that has not stopped us from speaking out for users about the lack of human rights protections, the criminalizat...
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Latam Media Briefing: Proposed UN Cybercrime Treaty Lacks Sufficient Human Rights Safeguards, Exacerbating Threats to Privacy and Civil Liberties in Latam
https://www.eff.org/press/releases/latam-media-briefing-proposed-un-cybercrime-treaty-lacks-sufficient-human-rights
April 14, 2023, 6:15 PM
Proposals for Broad Surveillance Powers Could Authorize Government Spyware, Which is Already Being Used to Target Human Rights Defenders, Journalists in the RegionVIENNA—On Tuesday, April 18, at 10:00 am Pacific Time (1:00 pm Eastern Time), experts from Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and three Latin American digital rights allies will brief reporters about the unique threats to privacy posed by the proposed UN Cybercrime Treaty, which could authorize the use of spyware already being depl...
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Be Skeptical of FBI Warnings About Phone Chargers
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/04/be-skeptical-fbi-warnings-about-phone-chargers-0
April 14, 2023, 4:48 AM
Every few years, an unsourced report circulates that “the FBI says plugging into public charging kiosks is dangerous.” Here’s why you should ignore the freakout and install software updates regularly. 
Your phone is designed to communicate safely with lots of things – chargers , web sites, Bluetooth devices such as earbuds or speakers, Wi-Fi, and even other phones, for instance when sending and receiving text messages. If doing any of these normal phone things can give your phone malwar...
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Join us for EFF's 7th Annual Tech Trivia Night!
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/04/join-us-effs-7th-annual-tech-trivia-night
April 12, 2023, 2:34 AM
Join us in San Francisco on April 27th for EFF's 7th annual Tech Trivia Night! Explore the obscure minutiae of digital security, online rights, and internet culture.Enjoy delicious tacos, churros, and complimentary adult beverages and soft drinks as you and your team battle through rounds of questions—and cutthroat live judging!—to see who will take home the coveted 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place trophies and EFF swag!Register Now$45 for EFF Members • $55 for General AdmissionThursday, April 27th...
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The U.S. Deserves Stronger Spyware Protections Than Biden’s Executive Order
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/04/us-deserves-stronger-spyware-protections-bidens-executive-order
April 11, 2023, 6:05 PM
U.S. President Joe Biden has signed an executive order that limits U.S. government agencies from using commercially available spyware – but that doesn’t mean there will be no government use of spyware in the United States. Spyware is a type of malicious software (or malware) which allows someone to gain remote access to a target’s device without the knowledge or consent of the device operator. This includes all of the data on it: messenger logs, photos, files, and contacts. It also gives t...
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An Update on Tornado Cash
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/04/update-tornado-cash
April 11, 2023, 3:55 PM
As many will remember, in August of 2022 the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) placed what it called “Tornado Cash” along with a list of Ethereum digital wallet addresses, on its “Specially Designated Nationals” (SDN) sanctions list. The goal was to prohibit anyone within the United States from “dealing” with the service, including by sending or receiving money to it.
This unclear order prompted Github to take down the code repository and, within a few ...
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In SAS v. WPL, the Federal Circuit Finally Gets Something Right on Computer Copyright
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/04/sas-v-wpl-federal-circuit-finally-gets-something-right-computer-copyright
April 10, 2023, 6:10 PM
Figuring out the correct boundaries of software copyright protection is a difficult task. As several judges have put it, “applying copyright law to computer programs is like assembling a jigsaw puzzle whose pieces do not quite fit.” Last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit solved one piece of that puzzle, by approving a procedural framework for analyzing software copyright cases.
Previously, the Federal Circuit failed miserably at solving that puzzle. It had issued two h...
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UN Cybercrime Draft Treaty Timeline
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/04/un-cybercrime-treaty-timeline
April 7, 2023, 8:56 PM
October 2017The Russian Federation presents a letter to the UN General Assembly containing a draft of the United Nations Convention on Cooperation in Combating Cybercrime, intended for circulation to Member States. 
November 2019A resolution, sponsored by Russia—along with Belarus, Cambodia, China, Iran, Myanmar, Nicaragua, Syria, and Venezuela—to set up an international convention to combat cybercrime passes in the UN General Assembly. The resolution was opposed by the US, the EU, and othe...
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Decoding the U.N. Cybercrime Treaty 
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/04/decoding-uncybercrime-treaty
April 7, 2023, 7:12 PM
As the fifth session of the UN Cybercrime Convention commenced in Vienna this week, EFF is in attendance to raise concerns that the document lacks strong commitments to human rights and detailed conditions and safeguards that are needed to protect the rights of individuals and organizations around the world.
EFF and partners are also organizing a hybrid media briefing on Thursday 13th April at 10:00 am Pacific Time (1:00 pm Eastern Time, 7 pm CEST) to brief reporters on the grave thre...
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EFF to Ninth Circuit: Twitter Has First Amendment Right to Ban Users, Including Presidents
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/04/eff-ninth-circuit-twitter-has-first-amendment-right-ban-users-including-presidents
April 7, 2023, 5:00 PM
Time and time again, we have said–and courts have ruled–that social media platforms have the First Amendment right to ban users. We have argued that banned users cannot successfully sue platforms for acting as government censors without showing that the platforms willfully and fully ceded their editorial discretion to the government. But nevertheless, the lawsuits keep getting filed.This time, former President Trump is the lead plaintiff in yet another “must carry” lawsuit, this one agai...
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Media Briefing: Proposed UN Cybercrime Treaty Negotiations Headed in Troubling Direction, Sidestepping Human Rights Protections and Threatening Free Expression, EFF and Allies Warn
https://www.eff.org/press/releases/media-briefing-proposed-un-cybercrime-treaty-negotiations-headed-troubling-direction
April 6, 2023, 4:49 PM
Proposals for Broad Surveillance Powers and Criminalization of Speech Put Journalists, Human Rights Defenders, and Dissidents at RiskSan Francisco—On Thursday, April 13, at 10:00 am Pacific Time (1:00 pm Eastern Time, 7 pm CEST), experts with Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and four international allies will brief reporters on the grave threat to human rights posed by ongoing UN Cybercrime Treaty negotiations that could lead to broad surveillance powers, criminalizing online speech, and e...
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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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