Protecting Encryption And Privacy In The US: 2023 Year in Review
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/12/protecting-encryption-and-privacy-us-2023-year-review
December 24, 2023, 5:30 PM
EFF believes you have the right to have a private conversation–in the physical world, and in the digital world. The best technology to protect that right is end-to-end encryption. 
Governments around the world are working hard to monitor online conversations, far beyond the bounds of traditional targeted law enforcement. 2023 has been a year of unprecedented threats to encryption and privacy. 
In the US, three Senate bills were introduced that, in our view, would discourage, weaken, or creat...
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Corporate Spy Tech and Inequality: 2023 Year in Review
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/12/corporate-spy-tech-and-inequality-2023-year-review
December 24, 2023, 5:30 PM
Our personal data and the ways private companies harvest and monetize it plays an increasingly powerful role in modern life. Throughout 2023, corporations have continued to collect our personal data, sell it to governments, use it to reach inferences about us, and exacerbate existing structural inequalities across society. 
EFF is fighting back. Earlier this year, we filed comments with the U.S. National Telecommunications and Information Administration addressing the ways that corporate data s...
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Sketchy and Dangerous Android Children’s Tablets and TV Set-Top Boxes: 2023 in Review
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/12/sketchy-and-dangerous-android-childrens-tablets-and-tv-set-top-boxes-2023-review
December 23, 2023, 9:29 PM
You may want to save your receipts if you gifted any low-end Android TV set-top boxes or children's tablets to a friend or loved one this holiday season. In a series of investigations this year, EFF researchers confirmed the existence of dangerous malware on set-top boxes manufactured by AllWinner and RockChip, and discovered sketchyware on a tablet marketed for kids from the manufacturer Dragon Touch. 
Though more reputable Android devices are available for watching TV and keeping the little o...
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Artificial Intelligence and Policing: Year in Review 2023
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/12/artificial-intelligence-and-policing-year-review-2023
December 23, 2023, 5:33 PM
Machine learning, artificial intelligence, algorithmic decision making–regardless of what you call it, and there is hot debate over that, this technology has been touted as a supposed threat to humanity, the future of work, as well as the hot new money-making doohickey. But one thing is for certain, with the amount of data required to input into these systems, law enforcement are seeing major opportunities, and our civil liberties will suffer the consequences. In one sense, all of the informat...
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Electronic Frontier Alliance Comes Back Strong: 2023 in Review
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/12/electronic-frontier-alliance-comes-back-strong-2023-review
December 22, 2023, 7:03 PM
The Electronic Frontier Alliance (EFA) is a loose network of local groups fighting for digital rights in the United States, chaired by EFF. Members’ efforts have been recovering from the limitations put on local organizing caused by the pandemic. More EFA members have been holding in-person workshops and meet-ups that help cement the relationships needed to do their work.
If you’re a member of a local or state group in the United States that fights for digital rights and might want to join, ...
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EFF Continues Fight Against Unconstitutional Geofence and Keyword Search Warrants: 2023 Year in Review
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/12/eff-continues-fight-against-unconstitutional-geofence-and-keyword-search-warrants
December 22, 2023, 6:30 PM
EFF continues to fight back against high-tech general warrants that compel companies to search broad swaths of users’ personal data. In 2023, we saw victory and setbacks in a pair of criminal cases that challenged the constitutionality of geofence and keyword searches. 
These types of warrants—mostly directed at Google—cast a dragnet that require a provider to search its entire reserve of user data to either identify everyone in a particular area (geofence) or everyone who has searched f...
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Stupid Patent of the Month: Selfie Contests
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/12/stupid-patent-month-selfie-contests
December 21, 2023, 9:17 PM
Patents are supposed to be an incentive to invent. Too often, they end up being a way to try to claim “ownership” of what should be basic building blocks of human activity, culture, and knowledge. This is especially true of software patents, an area EFF has been speaking out about for more than 20 years now. 
This month’s Stupid Patent, No. 8,655,715, continues the tradition of trying to use software language to capture a monopoly on a basic human cultural activity–in this case, contest...
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EFF Urges Supreme Court to Set Standard for How Government Can and Can’t Talk to Social Media Sites About Censoring Users’ Posts
https://www.eff.org/press/releases/eff-urges-supreme-court-set-standard-how-government-can-and-cant-talk-social-media
December 21, 2023, 5:01 PM
First Amendment Bars Coercive Censorship Demands But Some Communications Are PermissibleWASHINGTON, DC—The Supreme Court should clarify standards for determining if the government permissibly advised or convinced social media companies to censor content from 2020 to 2022, or impermissibly coerced or threatened sites in violation of the First Amendment, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) said in a brief filed today. 
“Government co-option of content moderation systems is a serious thre...
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EFF Has a Guiding Star 🌠
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/12/yec23
December 21, 2023, 4:14 PM
Do you ever look at something once and then get targeted ads? Have you ever been exposed in some company’s data breach? Have you ever heard a lawmaker push restrictions on technology that they don’t even understand?
To live in the modern world is to interact with technology in ways that are wonderful—and others that are an absolute pain in the butt. It's not fair to trade in your dignity or safety, and that’s why people like you stand with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Will you kee...
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The Great Interoperability Convergence: 2023 Year in Review
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/12/great-interoperability-convergence-2023-year-review
December 21, 2023, 4:08 PM
It’s easy to feel hopeless about the collapse of the tech sector into a group 0f monopolistic silos that harvest and exploit our data, hold our communities hostage, gouge us on prices, and steal our wages.
But all over the world and across different government departments, policymakers are converging on a set of muscular, effective solutions to Big Tech dominance.
This convergence spans financial regulators and consumer protection agencies; it’s emerging in Europe, the USA, and the UK. It�...
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Surveillance and the U.S.-Mexico Border: 2023 Year in Review
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/12/surveillance-and-us-mexico-border-2023-year-review
December 21, 2023, 4:06 PM
The U.S.-Mexico border continues to be one of the most politicized spaces in the country, with leaders in both political parties supporting massive spending on border security, including technological solutions such as the so-called "virtual wall." We spent the year documenting surveillance technologies at the border and the impacts on civil liberties and human rights of those who live in the borderlands.
In early 2023, EFF staff completed the last of three trips to the U.S.-Mexico border, where...
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2023 Year in Review
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/12/2023-year-review
December 21, 2023, 4:00 PM
At the end of every year, we look back at the last 12 months and evaluate what has changed for the better (and worse) for digital rights.  While we can be frustrated—hello ongoing attacks on encryption—overall it's always an exhilarating reminder of just how far we've come since EFF was founded over 33 years ago. Just the scale alone it's breathtaking. Digital rights started as a niche, future-focused issue that we would struggle to explain to nontechnical people; now it's deeply embedded i...
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FTC’s Rite Aid Ruling Rightly Renews Scrutiny of Face Recognition
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/12/ftcs-rite-aid-ruling-rightly-renews-scrutiny-face-recognition
December 20, 2023, 10:10 PM
The Federal Trade Commission on Tuesday announced action against the pharmacy chain Rite Aid for its use of face recognition technology in hundreds of stores. The regulator found that Rite Aid deployed a massive, error-riddled surveillance program, chose vendors that could not properly safeguard the personal data the chain hoarded, and attempted to keep it all under wraps. Under a proposed settlement, Rite Aid can't operate a face recognition system in any of its stores for five years.
EFF advoc...
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Victory: Utah Supreme Court Upholds Right to Refuse to Tell Cops Your Passcode
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/12/victory-utah-supreme-court-upholds-right-refuse-tell-cops-your-passcode
December 19, 2023, 12:44 AM
Last week, the Utah Supreme Court ruled that prosecutors violated a defendant’s Fifth Amendment privilege against self incrimination when they presented testimony about his refusal to give police the passcode to his cell phone. In State v. Valdez, the court found that verbally telling police a passcode is “testimonial” under the Fifth Amendment, and that the so-called foregone conclusion exception does not apply to “ordinary testimony” like this. This closely tracks arguments in the am...
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Does Less Consumer Tracking Lead to Less Fraud?
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/12/does-less-consumer-tracking-lead-less-fraud
December 18, 2023, 7:59 PM
Here’s another reason to block digital surveillance: it might reduce financial fraud.  That’s the upshot of a small but promising study published as a National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) working paper, “Consumer Surveillance and Financial Fraud. 
Authors Bo Bian, Michaela Pagel and Huan Tang investigated the relationship between the rollout of Apple’s App Tracking Transparency (ATT) and reports of consumer financial fraud. Many apps can track users across apps or websites owned...
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Digital Rights Updates with EFFector 35.16
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/12/digital-rights-updates-effector-3516
December 18, 2023, 7:07 PM
Have no fear, it's the final EFFector of the year! Be the digital freedom expert for your family and friends during the holidays by catching up on the latest online rights issues with EFFector 35.16. This issue of our newsletter covers topics including: the surveillance one could be gifting another with smart speakers and other connected gadgets, how to use various Android safety tools to secure your kids Android device, and a victory announcement—Montana's TikTok ban was ruled unconstitutiona...
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EFF Joins Forces with 20+ Organizations in the Coalition #MigrarSinVigilancia
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/12/eff-joins-forces-20-organizations-coalition-migrarsinvigilancia
December 18, 2023, 3:12 PM
Today, EFF joins more than 25 civil society organizations to launch the Coalition #MigrarSinVigilancia ("To Migrate Without Surveillance"). The Latin American coalition’s aim is to oppose arbitrary and indiscriminate surveillance affecting migrants across the region, and to push for the protection of human rights by safeguarding migrants' privacy and personal data.
On this International Migrants Day (December 18), we join forces with a key group of digital rights and frontline humanitarian org...
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The Surveillance Showdown That Fizzled
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/12/surveillance-showdown-fizzled
December 15, 2023, 8:08 PM
Like the weather rapidly getting colder outside, the fight over renewing, reforming, or sunsetting the mass surveillance power of Section 702 has been put on ice until spring.
In the last week of legislative business before the winter break, Congress was scheduled to consider two very different proposals: H.R. 6570, the Protect Liberty and End Warrantless Surveillance Act in House Judiciary Committee (HJC); and H.R. 6611, the FISA Reform and Reauthorization Act of 2023 in the House Permanent Se...
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Internet Archive Files Appeal Brief Defending Libraries and Digital Lending From Big Publishers’ Legal Attack
https://www.eff.org/press/releases/internet-archive-files-appeal-brief-defending-libraries-and-digital-lending-big
December 15, 2023, 5:30 PM
The Archive’s Controlled Digital Lending Program is a Lawful Fair Use that Preserves Traditional Library Lending in the Digital WorldSAN FRANCISCO—A cartel of major publishing companies must not be allowed to criminalize fair-use library lending, the Internet Archive argued in an appellate brief filed today. 
The Internet Archive is a San Francisco-based 501(c)(3) non-profit library which preserves and provides access to cultural artifacts of all kinds in electronic form. The brief filed in...
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Is This the End of Geofence Warrants?
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/12/end-geofence-warrants
December 14, 2023, 12:46 AM
Google announced this week that it will be making several important changes to the way it handles users’ “Location History” data. These changes would appear to make it much more difficult—if not impossible—for Google to provide mass location data in response to a geofence warrant, a change we’ve been asking Google to implement for years.
Geofence warrants require a provider—almost always Google—to search its entire reserve of user location data to identify all users or devices lo...
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Speaking Freely: Dr. Carolina Are
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/12/speaking-freely-dr-carolina-are
December 13, 2023, 9:42 PM
Dr. Carolina Are is an Innovation Fellow at Northumbria University Centre for Digital Citizens. Her research primarily focuses on the intersection between online abuse and censorship. Her current research project investigates Instagram and TikTok’s approach to malicious flagging against ‘grey area’ content, or content that toes the line of compliance with social media’s community guidelines.
She is also a blogger and creator herself, as well as a writer, pole dance instructor and award-w...
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Without Interoperability, Apple Customers Will Never Be Secure
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/12/without-interoperability-apple-customers-will-never-be-secure
December 13, 2023, 7:18 PM
Every internet user should have the ability to privately communicate with the people that matter to them, in a secure fashion, using the tools and protocols of their choosing.
Apple’s iMessage offers end-to-end encrypted messaging for its customers, but only if those customers want to talk to someone who also has an Apple product. When an Apple customer tries to message an Android user, the data is sent over SMS, a protocol that debuted while Wayne’s World was still in its first theatrical r...
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Spritely and Veilid: Exciting Projects Building the Peer-to-Peer Web
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/12/meet-spritely-and-veilid
December 13, 2023, 5:49 PM
While there is a surge in federated social media sites, like Bluesky and Mastodon, some technologists are hoping to take things further than this model of decentralization with fully peer-to-peer applications. Two leading projects, Spritely and Veilid, hint at what this could look like.
There are many technologies used behind the scenes to create decentralized tools and platforms. There has been a lot of attention lately, for example, around interoperable and federated social media sites using A...
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No Robots(.txt): How to Ask ChatGPT and Google Bard to Not Use Your Website for Training
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/12/no-robotstxt-how-ask-chatgpt-and-google-bard-not-use-your-website-training
December 12, 2023, 6:19 PM
Both OpenAI and Google have released guidance for website owners who do not want the two companies using the content of their sites to train the company's large language models (LLMs). We've long been supporters of the right to scrape websites—the process of using a computer to load and read pages of a website for later analysis—as a tool for research, journalism, and archivers. We believe this practice is still lawful when collecting training data for generative AI, but the question of whet...
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The House Intelligence Committee's Surveillance 'Reform' Bill is a Farce
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/12/section-702-needs-reform-and-oversight-not-expansion-congress-should-oppose-hpsci
December 8, 2023, 7:41 PM
Earlier this week, both the House Committee on the Judiciary (HJC) and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) marked up two very different bills (H.R. 6570 - Protect Liberty and End Warrantless Surveillance Act in HJC, and HR 6611, the FISA Reform and Reauthorization Act of 2023 in HPSCI), both of which would reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA)—but in very different ways. Both bills head to the House floor next week under a procedur...
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In Landmark Battle Over Free Speech, EFF Urges Supreme Court to Strike Down Texas and Florida Laws that Let States Dictate What Speech Social Media Sites Must Publish
https://www.eff.org/press/releases/landmark-battle-over-free-speech-eff-urges-supreme-court-strike-down-texas-and
December 7, 2023, 11:05 PM
Laws Violate First Amendment Protections that Help Create Diverse Forums for Users’ Free ExpressionWASHINGTON D.C.—The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and five organizations defending free speech today urged the Supreme Court to strike down laws in Florida and Texas that let the states dictate certain speech social media sites must carry, violating the sites’ First Amendment rights to curate content they publish—a protection that benefits users by creating speech forums accommodatin...
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Think Twice Before Giving Surveillance for the Holidays
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/12/think-twice-giving-surveillance-holidays
December 7, 2023, 8:22 PM
With the holidays upon us, it's easy to default to giving the tech gifts that retailers tend to push on us this time of year: smart speakers, video doorbells, bluetooth trackers, fitness trackers, and other connected gadgets are all very popular gifts. But before you give one, think twice about what you're opting that person into.
A number of these gifts raise red flags for us as privacy-conscious digital advocates. Ring cameras are one of the most obvious examples, but countless others over the...
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EFF Reminds the Supreme Court That Copyright Trolls Are Still a Problem
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/12/eff-reminds-supreme-court-copyright-trolls-are-still-problem
December 7, 2023, 7:11 PM
At EFF, we spend a lot of time calling out the harm caused by copyright trolls and protecting internet users from their abuses. Copyright trolls are serial plaintiffs who use search tools to identify technical, often low-value infringements on the internet, and then seek nuisance settlements from many defendants. These trolls take advantage of some of copyright law’s worst features—especially the threat of massive, unpredictable statutory damages—to impose a troublesome tax on many uses of...
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Meta Announces End-to-End Encryption by Default in Messenger
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/12/meta-announces-end-end-encryption-default-messenger
December 7, 2023, 5:03 PM
Yesterday Meta announced that they have begun rolling out default end-to-end encryption for one-to-one messages and voice calls on Messenger and Facebook. While there remain some privacy concerns around backups and metadata, we applaud this decision. It will bring strong encryption to over one billion people, protecting them from dragnet surveillance of the contents of their Facebook messages. 
Governments are continuing to attack encryption with laws designed to weaken it. With authoritariani...
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Speaking Freely: Alison Macrina
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/12/speaking-freely-alison-macrina
December 6, 2023, 9:02 PM
Cohn: Alright, we’re doing a Speaking Freely Interview with Alison- Alison why don’t you say your name?
Alison Macrina, like Ballerina
Cohn: From the Library Freedom Project- and an EFF Award Winner 2023! Alright, let’s get into it. What does freedom of speech mean to you, Alison?
Well, to me it means the freedom to seek information, to use it, to speak it, but specifically without fear of retribution from those in power. And in LFP (Library Freedom Project) we’re really particularly co...
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The Combined Federal Campaign Pledge Period is Closing Soon!
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/12/combined-federal-campaign-pledge-period-closing-soon
December 6, 2023, 8:40 PM
The Combined Federal Campaign (CFC) closes on January 15, 2024! U.S. federal employees and retirees can make a pledge to help support EFF’s lawyers, activists, and technologists fight for user rights online.
If you’re a U.S. federal employee or retiree, giving to EFF through the CFC is easy! Just head over to GiveCFC.org and use our ID 10437. Once there, click DONATE to give via payroll deduction, credit/debit, or an e-check. If you have a renewing pledge, you can increase your support as ...
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The Latest EU Media Freedom Act Agreement Is a Bad Deal for Users
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/12/latest-eu-media-freedom-act-agreement-bad-deal-users
December 6, 2023, 7:23 PM
The European Parliament and Member States’ representatives last week negotiated a controversial special status for media outlets that are active on large online platforms. The EU Media Freedom Act (EMFA), though well-intended, has significant flaws. By creating a special class of privileged self-declared media providers whose content cannot be removed from big tech platforms, the law not only changes company policies but risks harming users in the European Union (EU) and beyond. 
Fostering Me...
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Digital Rights Groups Urge Meta to Stop Silencing Palestine
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/12/digital-rights-groups-urge-meta-stop-silencing-palestine
December 6, 2023, 8:59 AM
Legal intern Muhammad Essa Fasih contributed to this post.
In the wake of the October 7 attack on Israel and the ensuing backlash on Palestine, Meta has engaged in unjustified content and account takedowns on its social media platforms. This has suppressed the voices of journalists, human rights defenders, and many others concerned or directly affected by the war. 
This is not the first instance of biased moderation of content related to Palestine and the broader MENA region. EFF has documented...
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Our “How to Fix the Internet” Podcast is an Anthem Awards Finalist— Help Make It a Winner!
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/12/our-how-fix-internet-podcast-anthem-awards-finalist-help-make-it-winner
December 5, 2023, 11:41 PM
EFF’s “How to Fix the Internet” podcast is a finalist in the Anthem Awards Community Voice competition, and we need YOUR help to put it over the top!
The Anthem Awards honors the purpose and mission-driven work of people, companies and organizations around the world. By amplifying the voices (and podcasts) that spark global change, the awards seek to inspire others to take action in their own community.
That’s exactly why we launched “How to Fix the Internet” — to offer a better ...
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How to Secure Your Kid's Android Device
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/12/how-secure-your-kids-android-device
December 4, 2023, 9:40 PM
After finding risky software on an Android (Google’s mobile operating system) device marketed for kids, we wanted to put together some tips to help better secure your kid's Android device (and even your own). Despite the dangers that exist, there are many things that can be done to at least mitigate harm and assist parents and children. There are also safety tools that your child can use at their own discretion.
There's a handful of different tools, settings, and apps that can help better secu...
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Tor University Challenge: First Semester Report Card
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/11/tor-university-challenge-first-semester-report-card
December 4, 2023, 6:29 PM
In August of 2023 EFF announced the Tor University Challenge, a campaign to get more universities around the world to operate Tor relays. The primary goal of this campaign is to strengthen the Tor network by creating more high bandwidth and reliable Tor nodes. We hope this will also make the Tor network more resilient to censorship since any country or smaller network cutting off access to Tor means it would be also cutting itself off from a large swath of universities, academic knowledge, and c...
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Victory! Montana’s Unprecedented TikTok Ban is Unconstitutional
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/12/victory-montanas-unprecedented-tiktok-ban-unconstitutional
December 1, 2023, 10:33 PM
A federal court on Thursday blocked Montana’s effort to ban TikTok from the state, ruling that the law violated users’ First Amendment rights to speak and to access information online, and the company’s First Amendment rights to select and curate users’ content. 
Montana passed a law in May that prohibited TikTok from operating anywhere within the state and imposed $10,000 penalties on TikTok or any mobile application store that allowed users to access TikTok. The law was scheduled to t...
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Latest Draft of UN Cybercrime Treaty Is A Big Step Backward
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/12/latest-draft-un-cybercrime-treaty-big-step-backward
December 1, 2023, 9:49 PM
A new draft of the controversial United Nations Cybercrime Treaty has only heightened concerns that the treaty will criminalize expression and dissent, create extensive surveillance powers, and facilitate cross-border repression. 
The proposed treaty, originally aimed at combating cybercrime, has morphed into an expansive surveillance treaty, raising the risk of overreach in both national and international investigations. The new draft retains a controversial provision allowing states to compel...
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U.S. Senator: What Do Our Cars Know? And Who Do They Share that Information With?
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/12/us-senator-what-do-our-cars-know-and-who-do-they-share-information
December 1, 2023, 6:44 PM
U.S. Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts has sent a much-needed letter to car manufacturers asking them to clarify a surprisingly hard question to answer: what data cars collect? Who has the ability to access that data? Private companies can often be a black box of secrecy that obscure basic facts of the consumer electronics we use. This becomes a massive problem when the devices become more technologically sophisticated and capable of collecting audio, video, geolocation data, as well as biometr...
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The Intelligence Committees’ Proposals for a 702 Reauthorization Bill are Beyond Bad
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/11/intelligence-committees-proposals-702-reauthorization-bill-are-beyond-bad
November 30, 2023, 10:36 PM
Both congressional intelligence committees have now released proposals for reauthorizing the government's Section 702 spying powers, largely as-is, and in the face of repeated abuse. 
The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) in the U.S. House of Representatives released a Nov. 16 report calling for reauthorization, which includes an outline of the legislation to do so. According to the report, the bill would renew the mass surveillance authority Section 702 and, in the proc...
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The Government Shouldn’t Prosecute People With Unreliable “Black Box” Technology
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/11/government-shouldnt-prosecute-people-unreliable-black-box-technology
November 30, 2023, 6:50 PM
On Tuesday, EFF urged the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, the highest court in that state, to affirm that a witness who has no knowledge of the proprietary algorithm used in black box technology is not qualified to testify to its reliability. We filed this amicus brief in Commonwealth v. Arrington together with the American Civil Liberties Union, the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, and the Massachusetts Association of C...
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Speaking Freely: Ron Deibert
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/11/speaking-freely-ron-deibert
November 29, 2023, 7:06 PM
Ron Deibert is a Canadian professor of political science, a philosopher, an author, and the founder of the renowned Citizen Lab, situated in the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto. He is perhaps best known to readers for his research on targeted surveillance, which won the Citizen Lab a 2015 EFF Award. I had the pleasure of working with Ron early on in my career on another project he co-founded, the OpenNet Initiative, a project that documented internet filtering (blockin...
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Let Them Know It’s Time to Power Up
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/11/let-them-know-its-time-power
November 28, 2023, 4:30 PM
Power Up Your Donation Week is here! Right now, your contribution will have double the impact on digital privacy, security, and free speech rights for everyone.
Power Up!
Donate to EFF for an instant 2X match
Thanks to a fund made by a group of dedicated EFF supporters, now through December 5th every online donation gets an instant match up to $304,200! This means every dollar you give becomes two dollars toward fighting surveillance, defending encryption, promoting open access to information, a...
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Digital Rights Updates with EFFector 35.15
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/11/digital-rights-updates-effector-3515
November 27, 2023, 5:50 PM
With the holiday season upon us, it can be difficult to keep track of the latest digital rights news. Lucky for you, EFF's EFFector newsletter has you covered with the latest happenings, from a breakdown of our latest Privacy Badger update, an investigation into Android TV set-top boxes infected with malware, and a report on how to better address online harms by focusing on user privacy.
EFFector 35.15 is out now—you can read the full newsletter here, and subscribe to get the next issue in you...
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How We Fundraise
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/11/how-we-fundraise
November 27, 2023, 5:39 PM
Hello from the fundraising team at EFF!
If you are reading this, you are probably already a donor to EFF (thank you!) or are considering supporting us and want to do your due diligence. We’d like to share some information with you about how EFF raises money for digital rights and (perhaps more importantly) how we don’t.
EFF is Member Supported.
Part of our team’s mandate is to not only raise money to support EFF’s work defending your rights in a digital world, but to bring as many people...
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Alaa Abd El-Fattah: Letter to the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/11/alaa-abd-el-fattah-letter-united-nations-working-group-arbitrary-detention
November 24, 2023, 3:41 PM
EFF has signed on to the following letter alongside 33 other organizations in support of a submission to the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (UNWGAD), first published here by English PEN. To learn more about Alaa's case, visit Offline.
23 November 2023
Dear Members of the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention,
We, the undersigned 34 freedom of expression and human rights organisations, are writing regarding the recent submission to the United Nations Working Gro...
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The Eyes on the Board Act Is Yet Another Misguided Attempt to Limit Social Media for Teens
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/11/eyes-board-act-yet-another-misguided-attempt-limit-social-media-teens
November 21, 2023, 6:37 PM
Young people’s access to social media continues to be under attack by overreaching politicians. The latest effort, Senator Ted Cruz’s blunt “Eyes on the Board” Act, aims to end social media’s use entirely in schools. This heavy-handed plan to cut federal funding to any school that doesn’t block all social media platforms may have good intentions—like ensuring kids are able to focus on school work when they’re behind a desk—but the ramifications of such a bill would be bleak, an...
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Protecting Kids on Social Media Act: Amended and Still Problematic
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/11/protecting-kids-social-media-act-amended-and-still-problematic
November 20, 2023, 10:18 PM
Senators who believe that children and teens must be shielded from social media have updated the problematic Protecting Kids on Social Media Act, though it remains an unconstitutional bill that replaces parents’ choices about what their children can do online with a government-mandated prohibition.  
As we wrote in August, the original bill (S. 1291) contained a host of problems. A recent draft of the amended bill gets rid of some of the most flagrantly unconstitutional provisions: It no lon...
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On His 42nd Birthday, Alaa Abd El Fattah’s Family Files UN Petition for His Release
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/11/his-42nd-birthday-alaa-abd-el-fattahs-family-files-un-petition-his-release
November 18, 2023, 11:00 PM
Today is the birthday of Alaa Abd El Fattah, a prominent Egyptian-British coder, blogger, activist, and one of the most high-profile political prisoners in the entire Arab world. This will be the tenth birthday that he will spend in prison. But we are newly optimistic for his release: This week, Alaa's family and International Counsel acting on his behalf filed an urgent appeal with the United Nations requesting urgent action over his continuing and unjust imprisonment in Egypt. 
The petitio...
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EFF to Supreme Court: Fifth Amendment Protects People from Being Forced to Enter or Hand Over Cell Phone Passcodes to the Police
https://www.eff.org/press/releases/eff-supreme-court-fifth-amendment-protects-people-being-forced-enter-or-hand-over
November 16, 2023, 9:16 PM
Lower Court Ruling Undermining Protections Against Self Incrimination Should Be Reversed WASHINGTON, D.C.—The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) today asked the Supreme Court to overturn a ruling undermining Fifth Amendment protections against self-incrimination and find that constitutional safeguards prevent police from forcing people to provide or use passcodes for their cell phones so officers can access the tremendous amount of private information on phones.At stake is the fundamental pr...
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