EFF Urges Supreme Court to Make Clear That Government Officials Have First Amendment Obligations When They Use Their Social Media Accounts for Governmental Purposes
https://www.eff.org/press/releases/eff-urges-supreme-court-make-clear-government-officials-have-first-amendment
June 30, 2023, 8:11 PM
Officials Using Nominally Personal or Pre-existing Campaign Accounts Can’t Sidestep the First Amendment and Block People Washington, D.C. — EFF urged the Supreme Court today to send a loud and clear message to government officials around the country who use social media in furtherance of their official duties, but then block people who criticize them: doing so violates our First Amendment right to receive and respond to government communications.EFF, Knight First Amendment Institute at Colum...
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Digital Rights Updates with EFFector 35.8
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/06/digital-rights-updates-effector-358
June 30, 2023, 5:42 PM
There's a lot happening in the digital rights movement, but don't worry, we've got you covered! Catch up on the latest news with our EFFector newsletter, featuring updates, upcoming events, and more. Our latest issue features updates from Reddit's moderator strike and mass exodus of users, a recap of the work EFF has been doing a year after the Supreme Court's Dobbs decision, and more.
Learn more about the latest happenings by reading the full newsletter here, or you can listen to the audio vers...
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Data Sanctuary for Trans People
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/06/data-sanctuary-trans-people
June 28, 2023, 5:54 PM
A growing number of states have prohibited transgender youths from obtaining gender-affirming health care. Some of these states are also restricting access by transgender adults. Fortunately, other states have responded by enacting sanctuary laws to protect trans people who visit to obtain this health care.
Even before these new laws, most trans people had to travel out of state to obtain gender-affirming surgery. After these laws, we can expect much more out-of-state travel for all forms of gen...
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Around the World, Threats to LGBTQ+ Speech Deepen
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/06/around-world-threats-lgbtq-speech-deepen
June 27, 2023, 1:21 PM
Globally, an increase in anti-LGBTQ+ intolerance is impacting individuals and communities both online and off. The digital rights community has observed an uptick in censorship of LGBTQ+ websites as well as troubling attempts by several countries to pass explicitly anti-LGBTQ+ bills restricting freedom of expression and privacy—bills that also fuel offline intolerance against LGBTQI+ people, and force LGBTQI+ individuals to self-censor their online expression to avoid being profiled, harassed,...
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VICTORY! Maine Increases Transparency and Accountability for its Fusion Center
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/06/victory-maine-increases-transparency-and-accountability-its-fusion-center
June 26, 2023, 8:33 PM
In a major step for reigning in the unaccountable power of fusion centers, the Maine state House and Senate have passed HP 947, An Act to Increase the Transparency and Accountability of the Maine Information and Analysis Center. The bill creates an Auditor position within the Office of the Attorney General whose job it is to conduct regular reviews of the Main Information and Analysis Center’s (MIAC) activities, to keep records, and to share information with the public. The bill also makes any...
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Civil Society Calls on Tech Firms to Oppose Protest Song Ban
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/06/tech-firms-should-oppose-protest-song-ban
June 23, 2023, 10:48 PM
EFF and more than 24 civil society organizations have written to tech companies including Apple, Google, Meta, Twitter, and Spotify urging them to oppose the Hong Kong government’s application for an injunction to ban broadcasting and distribution of the 2019 protest song, “Glory to Hong Kong.” 
The injunction, if ordered by the court, would ban intermediaries from broadcasting, performing, selling, or distributing the song and its lyrics. It would also require companies to remove the son...
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Californians: Tell the Governor and Legislature to Keep Their Promise on Broadband Funding
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/06/californians-tell-governor-and-legislature-keep-their-promise-broadband-funding
June 23, 2023, 9:48 PM
We need your help telling Governor Newsom and the California Legislature to keep their promise on broadband infrastructure funding—giving it full funding without any cuts or delays. California’s broadband infrastructure fund created by S.B. 156 in 2021 creates several critical programs to finally deliver 21st century broadband access to every Californian. These programs would address the systemic inequalities inflicting our cities and counties, which were exacerbated and painfully revealed a...
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A Year Since Dobbs, The Fight For Reproductive Privacy and Information Access Continues
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/06/year-dobbs-fight-reproductive-privacy-and-information-access-continues
June 23, 2023, 3:41 PM
A year ago this Saturday, the Supreme Court's Dobbs abortion ruling overturned Roe v. Wade. This decision deprived millions of people of a fundamental right. As we wrote then, it also underscored the importance of fair and meaningful protections for data privacy. In the past year, EFF staff have worked with reproductive justice and civil liberties organizations to protect and advocate for the digital rights of people seeking or supporting reproductive care; here are some highlights from just the...
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Steering Mobility Data to a Better Privacy Regime
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/06/steering-mobility-data-better-privacy-regime
June 22, 2023, 11:30 PM
Cars today collect a lot more data than they used to, often leaving drivers' privacy unprotected. Car insurance is mainly regulated at the state level—there’s no federal privacy law for car data—but unsurprisingly there is an active government and private market for vehicle data, including location data, which is difficult if not impossible to deidentify. Advertisers, investment companies, and insurance companies are among those who want to actively collect or use this data to deliver and ...
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Student Monitoring Tools Should Not Flag LGBTQ+ Keywords
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/06/student-monitoring-tools-should-not-flag-lgbtq-keywords
June 22, 2023, 5:34 PM
One of the more dangerous features of student monitoring tools like GoGuardian, Gaggle, and Bark is their “flagging” functionality. The tools can scan web pages, documents in students’ cloud drives, emails, video content, and more for keywords about topics like sex, drugs, and violence. They then either block or flag this content for review by school administrators. 
But in practice, these flags don’t work very well—many of the terms flagged by these student monitoring applications ar...
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Remembering Daniel Ellsberg
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/06/remembering-daniel-ellsberg
June 16, 2023, 9:50 PM
“Popular government without popular information is but the prologue to a farce or tragedy.”  - James Madison
The world lost an unmistakable voice this week, as Daniel Ellsberg passed away at 92.  
Dan will be remembered for many things, of course most prominently providing the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times in 1971. Although he hated being called one, he was rightly a hero to anyone who believes that we must be in a position to evaluate our governments and cast our votes based upon...
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There is Nothing Fair About the European Commission’s “Fair Share” Proposal
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/06/there-nothing-fair-about-european-commissions-fair-share-proposal
June 16, 2023, 4:32 PM
In a fight between the big tech companies and the internet provider giants, it can be very tempting to not care who wins and loses. However, in the case of the ISPs' "fair share" proposals, ISP victory would mean undermining one of the very foundations of the internet—net neutrality.
After the European Commission held a public consultation on whether they should adopt what they call a “fair share” proposal, they unfortunately voted to move forward with this dangerous plan. This proposal is...
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What Reddit Got Wrong
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/06/what-reddit-got-wrong
June 13, 2023, 8:31 PM
After weeks of burning through users’ goodwill, Reddit is facing a moderator strike and an exodus of its most important users. It’s the latest example of a social media site making a critical mistake: users aren’t there for the services, they’re there for the community. Building barriers to access is a war of attrition.
Reddit has an admirable record when it comes to defending an open and free internet. While not always perfect, the success of the site is owed to its model of empowering ...
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The FTC Forces Ring to Take User Privacy Seriously
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/06/ftc-forces-ring-take-user-privacy-seriously
June 13, 2023, 6:13 PM
Amazon’s surveillance doorbell company Ring has reached a settlement with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission which will require the company to pay $5.8 million over its inability to keep private footage and audio collected from users’ homes.
This action stems from a collection of privacy violations that occurred between 2017 and 2020. Ring customers brought a class action lawsuit in December 2019 after dozens of people had their Ring devices accessed by malicious actors using brute force and...
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The California Legislature Must Stay The Course on Broadband Funding
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/06/california-legislature-must-stay-course-broadband-funding
June 12, 2023, 9:20 PM
As California, the world's fifth-largest economy, navigates a changing landscape, including a budget deficit, it's important that the legislature not take shortcuts that rob the state of future-proof technology. Instead of backing down, the California legislature must continue on the path for broadband funding that it has already started down. Doing so would ensure a future of high-speed, low-cost internet access for all Californians.
In 2021 Governor Newsom signed into law S.B. 156, which promi...
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To Save the News, We Need an End-to-End Web
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/06/save-news-we-need-end-end-web
June 12, 2023, 3:35 PM
This is part five of an ongoing, five-part series. Part one, the introduction, is here. Part two, about breaking up ad-tech companies, is here. Part three, about banning surveillance ads, is here. Part four, about opening up app stores, is here. Download this whole series as a single PDF.
Once, news organizations enthusiastically piled into social media. New platforms like Facebook and Twitter were powerful “traffic funnels,” where algorithmic recommendation systems put excerpts from news st...
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Supreme Court Sends Bad Spaniels Back to Obedience School, Leaves Rogers Test Mostly Intact
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/06/supreme-court-sends-bad-spaniels-back-obedience-school-leaves-rogers-test-mostly
June 9, 2023, 11:33 PM
The question of when you can use a trademark is one we see all the time—and one that is often misunderstood. Many of the world’s largest and most powerful companies are  fanatical about their trademarks. But that means the public is often in the dark about how their First Amendment rights stack up to the censoring power of trademark rights. All of this came to a head in a case about a dog toy.
The U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision Thursday in Jack Daniel’s Properties v. VIP Products, a...
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China Must Release Program Think Blogger Ruan Xiaohuan, Champion of Free Expression Who Spoke Out Against Censorship and Oppression
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/06/china-must-release-program-think-blogger-ruan-xiaohuan-champion-free-expression
June 9, 2023, 5:04 PM
As the Chinese government cracked down on online free expression over the last decade, blocking access to information, filtering content, surveilling users for social control, and unleashing malware disproportionately against its own people, there was one steady, anonymous voice on the internet speaking out against government censorship, calling for protests, and teaching netizens and activists how to protect themselves online.It was a blog called Program Think, and its author’s identity was n...
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EFF and Allies Send Letters to Senate Judiciary Opposing Bill to Require Messaging Platforms to Report Users to the DEA
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/06/eff-and-allies-send-letters-senate-judiciary-opposing-bill-require-messaging
June 8, 2023, 8:07 PM
EFF, the ACLU, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers joined a coalition that sent two letters to the Senate Judiciary Committee to oppose S. 1080, the Cooper Davis Act. The letters point out the privacy, speech, and criminal justice problems with the bill.
The 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.
Even with ...
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Victory! New Jersey Court Rules Police Must Give Defendant the Facial Recognition Algorithms Used to Identify Him
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/06/victory-new-jersey-court-rules-police-must-give-defendant-facial-recognition
June 8, 2023, 12:16 AM
In a victory for transparency in police use of facial recognition, a New Jersey appellate court today ruled that state prosecutors—who charged a man for armed robbery after the technology showed he was a “possible match” for the suspect—must turn over to the defendant detailed information about the face scanning software used, including how it works, source code, and its error rate.Calling facial recognition “a novel and untested technology,” the court in State of New Jersey v. Franc...
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To Save the News, We Must Open Up App Stores
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/06/save-news-we-must-open-app-stores
June 6, 2023, 1:22 PM
This is part four of an ongoing, five-part series. Part one, the introduction, is here. Part two, about breaking up ad-tech companies, is here. Part three, about banning surveillance ads, is here. Part five, about enshrining "end-to-end" delivery on social media, is here. Download this whole series as a single PDF.
When Steve Jobs unveiled the iPad in 2010, he didn’t just usher in a new kind of computing device - the first mainstream touchscreen tablet - he also promised a new model for intern...
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Digital Rights Updates with EFFector 35.7
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/06/digital-rights-updates-effector-357
June 2, 2023, 4:33 PM
Catch up on the latest news in the digital rights movement with our EFFector newsletter! Our latest issue is out now, and it is jam packed with updates, from decisions made by the Supreme court on Section 230 and fair use cases, to EFF's investigation into California police agencies sharing drivers' location data with law enforcement agencies in other states. You can read the full newsletter here, or listen to the audio version below!
Listen on YouTube
EFFector 35.7 - EFF at RightsCon 2023
Make ...
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Our Right To Challenge Junk Patents Is Under Threat 
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/06/our-right-challenge-junk-patents-under-threat
June 2, 2023, 3:13 PM
The U.S. Patent Office has proposed new rules about who can challenge wrongly granted patents. If the rules become official, they will offer new protections to patent trolls. Challenging patents will become far more onerous, and impossible for some. The new rules could stop organizations like EFF, which used this process to fight the Personal Audio “podcasting patent,” from filing patent challenges altogether. 
If you have a personal experience with patent troll attacks, please mention it. ...
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The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court Has Made a Mockery of the Constitutional Right to Privacy
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/06/foreign-intelligence-surveillance-court-has-made-mockery-constitutional-right
June 1, 2023, 10:09 PM
The latest evidence that Section 702 of the Foreign Surveillance Intelligence Act (FISA) must be ended or drastically reformed came last month in the form of a newly unsealed order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) detailing massive violations of Americans’ privacy by the FBI.
The FISC order is replete with problems. It describes the government’s repeated, widespread violations—over a seven-year period—of procedures for searching its databases of internet communicat...
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The Right to Repair Is Law in Minnesota. California Should Be Next
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/05/right-repair-law-minnesota-california-should-be-next
May 31, 2023, 8:43 PM
Last week, Minnesota governor Tim Walz signed an omnibus bill that includes a comprehensive right to repair law requiring manufacturers to make spare parts, repair information, and tools available to consumers and repair shops. This law builds on smaller, but still significant, wins in Colorado, Massachusetts, and New York. California could be next. "The Right to Repair" Act (S.B. 244), just passed the California Senate and is on its way to the State Assembly.
The right to repair movement has a ...
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Federal Judge Makes History in Holding That Border Searches of Cell Phones Require a Warrant
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/05/federal-judge-makes-history-holding-border-searches-cell-phones-require-warrant
May 30, 2023, 7:57 PM
With United States v. Smith (S.D.N.Y. May 11, 2023), a district court judge in New York made history by being the first court to rule that a warrant is required for a cell phone search at the border, “absent exigent circumstances” (although other district courts have wanted to do so).
EFF is thrilled about this decision, given that we have been advocating for a warrant for border searches of electronic devices in the courts and Congress for nearly a decade. If the case is appealed to the Sec...
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EU’s Proposed Cyber Resilience Act Raises Concerns for Open Source and Cybersecurity
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/05/eus-proposed-cyber-resilience-act-raises-concerns-open-source-and-cybersecurity
May 30, 2023, 5:16 PM
The EU is in the middle of the amendments process for its proposed Cyber Resilience Act (CRA), a law intended to bolster Europe’s defenses against cyber-attacks and improve product security. This law targets a broad swath of products brought to market intended for European consumers, including Internet of Things (IoT) devices, desktop computers, and smartphones. It places requirements on device manufacturers and distributors with regards to vulnerability disclosure, and introduces new liabilit...
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To Save the News, We Must Ban Surveillance Advertising
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/05/save-news-we-must-ban-surveillance-advertising
May 30, 2023, 11:20 AM
This is part three of an ongoing, five-part series. Part one, the introduction, is here. Part two, about breaking up ad-tech companies, is here. Part four, about opening up app stores, is here. Part five, about enshrining "end-to-end" delivery on social media, is here. Download this whole series as a single PDF.
The ad-tech industry is incredibly profitable, raking in hundreds of billions of dollars every year by spying on us. These companies have tendrils that reach into our apps, our televisio...
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Podcast Episode: Who Inserted the Creepy?
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/05/podcast-episode-who-inserted-creepy
May 30, 2023, 7:01 AM
Writers sit watching a stranger’s search engine terms being typed in real time, a voyeuristic peek into that person’s most private thoughts. A woman lands a dream job at a powerful tech company but uncovers an agenda affecting the lives of all of humanity. An app developer keeps pitching the craziest, most harmful ideas she can imagine but the tech mega-monopoly she works for keeps adopting them, to worldwide delight.  


%3Ciframe%20scrolling%3D%22no%22%20seamless%3D%22%22%20sr...
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Californians: Speak Up To Protect People Seeking Repro and Gender-Affirming Care
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/05/californians-speak-protect-people-seeking-repro-and-gender-affirming-care
May 26, 2023, 10:05 PM
We need your help to advance A.B. 793, a bill authored by Assemblymember Mia Bonta to protect people seeking abortion and gender-affirming care from dragnet-style digital surveillance. It's facing law enforcement opposition as it heads to the Assembly floor for a vote. California's Assemblymembers need to hear from you to stand up for what's right.
TAKE ACTION
Tell Your Assemblymember to Support aB 793
EFF is a proud co-sponsor of A.B. 793, which targets law enforcement demands that can compel t...
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EFF at RightsCon 2023
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/05/eff-rightscon-2023
May 26, 2023, 11:53 AM
After three years of virtual gatherings, RightsCon is back! The 12th edition of the world’s leading summit on human rights in the digital age will be a hybrid convening taking place online through the RightsCon platform and in San José, Costa Rica between June 5-8.
RightsCon provides an opportunity for human rights experts, technologists, government representatives, and activists to discuss pressing human rights challenges and their potential solutions. 
We’re excited that many EFFers are ...
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Victory in California! Police Instructors Can’t Claim Copyright Protections to Block Release of Use-of-Force and Other Training Materials
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/05/victory-california-police-instructors-cant-claim-copyright-protections-block
May 25, 2023, 8:30 PM
After a two-year legal battle, the state agency that certifies police officers in California has agreed to EFF's demand that it stop using copyright concerns as a predicate to withhold law enforcement training materials from public scrutiny.
The immediate impact of this victory for transparency is the public will be able to visit the California Commission on Peace Officers Standards & Training (POST) website to inspect 19 previously unseen training outlines. These documents cover a variety ...
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Civil Liberties Groups Demand California Police Stop Sharing Drivers’ Location Data With Police In Anti-Abortion States
https://www.eff.org/press/releases/civil-liberties-groups-demand-california-police-stop-sharing-drivers-location-data
May 25, 2023, 4:30 PM
This sharing by 71 CA police agencies violates state law and could be used by other states to identify and prosecute abortion seekers and providers.SAN FRANCISCO—Seventy-one* California police agencies in 22 counties must immediately stop sharing automated license plate reader (ALPR) data with law enforcement agencies in other states because it violates California law and could enable prosecution of abortion seekers and providers elsewhere, three civil liberties groups demanded Thursday in let...
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Congress Must Exercise Caution in AI Regulation
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/05/congress-must-exercise-caution-ai-regulation
May 24, 2023, 6:16 PM
Artificial intelligence technologies (AI) are all the rage in Washington D.C. these days. Policymakers are hearing stories of utopian opportunities and certain doom from technologists, CEOs, and public interest groups and trying to figure out when and how Congress should intervene.
Congress should be paying attention to AI technologies. Many are tools with extraordinary potential. They can help users distill large volumes of information, manage numerous tasks more efficiently, and change how we ...
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To Save the News, We Must Shatter Ad-Tech
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/05/save-news-we-must-shatter-ad-tech
May 24, 2023, 12:02 PM
This is part two of an ongoing, five-part series. Part one, the introduction, is here. Part three, about banning surveillance ads, is here. Part four, about opening up app stores, is here. Part five, about enshrining "end-to-end" delivery on social media, is here. Download this whole series as a single PDF.
The news is in trouble. It’s not just the mass closures of newsrooms - it’s also the physical and ideological attacks on journalists.News websites are plastered with ads, but more than ha...
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How Do Different Encrypted Messaging Apps Treat Deleted Messages?
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/05/how-do-different-encrypted-messaging-apps-treat-deleted-messages
May 23, 2023, 9:32 PM
A feature of various end-to-end encrypted (E2EE) messaging apps and other non E2EE social media messaging are disappearing messages, which automatically delete after a set period of time. This feature may be useful for general privacy within your extended network, high-risk users, and preemptively clearing side conversations easily within linear chats. However, different messaging apps handle deleted and disappearing messages a little differently, in particular when it comes to quoted messages, ...
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What the Supreme Court’s Decision in Warhol Means for Fair Use
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/05/what-supreme-courts-decision-warhol-means-fair-use
May 23, 2023, 4:42 PM
The Supreme Court has issued its long-awaited decision in Andy Warhol Foundation v. Goldsmith, a fair use case that raised fundamental questions about rights and obligations of commercial artists. The Court’s opinion did not answer many of those questions, but happily it affirmed both important fair use precedents and the role of fair use as a crucial element of the copyright system. EFF filed an amicus brief in the case.
These are the basic facts: In 1981, Newsweek commissioned Lynn Goldsmith...
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SFPD Obtained Live Access to Business Camera Network in Anticipation of Tyre Nichols Protest
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/05/sfpd-obtained-live-access-business-camera-network-anticipation-tyre-nichols
May 23, 2023, 1:02 PM
New documents EFF received through public records requests have revealed that the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) received live access to the hundreds of surveillance cameras that comprise the Union Square Business Improvement District’s (USBID) camera network in anticipation of potential protests following the police killing of Tyre Nichols in Memphis, Tennessee. The protests were impassioned and peaceful as Bay Area residents gathered to oppose police violence–and the SFPD proactive...
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Newly Public FISC Opinion is The Best Evidence For Why Congress Must End Section 702
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/05/newly-public-fisc-opinion-best-evidence-why-congress-must-end-section-702
May 22, 2023, 11:33 PM
A surveillance court order unsealed last week that details massive violations of Americans’ privacy by the FBI underscores why Congress must end or radically change the unconstitutional spying program enabled by Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).
The opinion recounts how for years the FBI illegally accessed a database containing communications obtained under Section 702 and other FISA authorities more than 278,000 times, including searching for communications of ...
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EFF to Court: California’s Public Records Law Must Remain a Check on Police Use of Drones
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/05/eff-court-californias-public-records-law-must-remain-check-police-use-drones
May 22, 2023, 9:13 PM
An increasing number of cities are adding drone flights to their law enforcement tool kit. Public access to appropriately redacted video footage from those flights can provide oversight of police surveillance and help ensure cities are living up to their privacy promises.
Every second of every drone video should not be categorically exempt from public records laws as an investigatory record. This is the argument of an amicus letter filed in California state court last week by EFF, the First Amen...
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From Past Lessons to Future Protections: EFF's Advice to the EU Commission on Extended Reality Governance
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/05/past-lessons-future-protections-effs-advice-eu-commission-extended-reality
May 22, 2023, 5:54 PM
EFF, in partnership with Access Now and the European Center for Not-for-Profit Law (ECNL), has responded to the European Commission's consultation, "Virtual Worlds (Metaverses) – A Vision for Openness, Safety, and Respect." This follows our joint statement on International Human Rights Day in 2021, "Virtual Worlds, Real People: Human Rights in the Metaverse," which called for governments and corporations to uphold human rights within Extended Reality (XR), which include Virtual Reality (VR) an...
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10 Years After Snowden: Some Things Are Better, Some We’re Still Fighting For
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/05/10-years-after-snowden-some-things-are-better-some-were-still-fighting
May 19, 2023, 4:39 PM
On May 20, 2013, a young government contractor with an EFF sticker on his laptop disembarked a plane in Hong Kong carrying with him evidence confirming, among other things, that the United States government had been conducting mass surveillance on a global scale. What came next were weeks of disclosures—and official declassifications—as Edward Snowden worked with some of the world’s top news organizations to reveal critical facts about the National Security Agency vacuuming up people’s o...
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States Should Not Skirt Federal Rules on Fiber Infrastructure
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/05/states-should-not-skirt-federal-rules-fiber-infrastructure
May 19, 2023, 3:40 PM
Across the country, states are designing broadband plans to begin spending billions of federal dollars made available by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) and past COVID-19 rescue dollar investment programs. The Biden administration has consistently made clear that states are to build future-proof infrastructure to deliver broadband that will be useful for communities for decades. This is arguably one of the best changes in federal policy for broadband subsidies ever. Past federa...
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The Internet Dodges Censorship by the Supreme Court
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/05/internet-dodges-censorship-supreme-court
May 19, 2023, 12:26 AM
The Supreme Court today refused to weaken one of the key laws supporting free expression online, and recognized that digital platforms are not usually liable for their users’ illegal acts, ensuring that everyone can continue to use those services to speak and organize.
The decisions in Gonzalez v. Google and Twitter v. Taamneh are great news for a free and vibrant internet, which inevitably depends on services that host our speech. The court in Gonzalez declined to address the scope of 47 U.S....
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Support the "My Body, My Data" Act
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/05/eff-supports-my-body-my-data
May 18, 2023, 7:08 PM
EFF supports Rep. Sara Jacobs’ “My Body, My Data" Act, which will protect the privacy and safety of people seeking reproductive health care. The bill was reintroduced this week.
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 rep...
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Victory! Apple and Google Collaborate on Detecting Unwanted Location Trackers
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/05/victory-apple-and-google-collaborate-detecting-unwanted-location-trackers
May 18, 2023, 5:36 PM
Location trackers like Tiles and AirTags aren’t just a helpful way to find missing luggage or a misplaced wallet—they can also be easily slipped into a bag or car, allowing stalkers and abusers unprecedented access to a person’s location without their knowledge. That’s why we are enthusiastic about the effort between Apple and Google to release a draft specification on a detection protocol for these devices. We have been calling for an industry-wide standard for detection of this transie...
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How to Enable Advanced Data Protection on iOS, and Why You Should
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/05/how-enable-advanced-data-protection-ios-and-why-you-should
May 17, 2023, 10:01 PM
Apple has long used end-to-end encryption for some of the information on your iPhone, like passwords or health data, but the company neglected to offer a way to better protect other crucial data, including iCloud backups, until recently. This came after years of a hard fought battle pushing Apple to encrypt backups and drop its plans for client-side scanning. With Advanced Data Protection, that additional security is now an option, but you have to turn it on yourself. This is a big win for user ...
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Saving the News From Big Tech
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/04/saving-news-big-tech
May 17, 2023, 7:05 PM
Download this whole series as a single PDF.
Media is in crisis: newsrooms all over the world are shuttering and the very profession of journalism is under sustained ideological and physical assault. Freedom of the press is a hollow doctrine if the only news media is written or published by independently wealthy individuals who don’t need to get paid for their labor.
Where did the media’s money go? It’s complicated.
How News Companies Shot Themselves in the Face
Let’s start with the news ...
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Don't Mess With Texas' Anti-SLAPP Law
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/05/texas-lawmakers-dont-weaken-your-states-strong-anti-slapp-law
May 17, 2023, 5:06 PM
Update 6/1/23: After overwhelming opposition, this bill did not get a floor vote before the Texas Legislature adjourned on 5/31/23. Thank you to EFF supporters, and all supporters of free speech and strong anti-SLAPP, for this victory.  
Update 5/18/23: News reports indicate that this bill's language has also been added to a separate bill, Texas House Bill 3129. Texas lawmakers should vote no. 
Over the past few decades, we’ve seen the rise of civil lawsuits that are meant to harass and...
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Podcast Episode: People With Disabilities Are The Original Hackers
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/05/podcast-episode-people-disabilities-are-original-hackers
May 16, 2023, 7:01 AM
People with disabilities were the original hackers. The world can feel closed to them, so they often have had to be self-reliant in how they interact with society. And that creativity and ingenuity is an unappreciated resource.


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