About Face (Recognition) | EFFector 36.5
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/04/about-face-recognition-effector-365
April 17, 2024, 5:37 PM
There are a lot of updates in the fight for our freedoms online, from a last-minute reauthorization bill to expand Section 702 (tell your senators to vote NO on the bill here!), a new federal consumer data privacy law (we deserve better!), and a recent draft from the FCC to reinstate net neutrality (you can help clean it up!).
It can feel overwhelming to stay up to date, but we've got you covered with our EFFector newsletter! You can read the full issue here, or subscribe to get the next one in ...
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How Political Campaigns Use Your Data to Target You
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/04/how-political-campaigns-use-your-data-target-you
April 16, 2024, 7:49 PM
Data about potential voters—who they are, where they are, and how to reach them—is an extremely valuable commodity during an election year. And while the right to a secret ballot is a cornerstone of the democratic process, your personal information is gathered, used, and sold along the way. It's not possible to fully shield yourself from all this data processing, but you can take steps to at least minimize and understand it.
Political campaigns use the same invasive tricks that behavioral a...
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Speaking Freely: Lynn Hamadallah
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/04/speaking-freely-lynn-hamadallah
April 16, 2024, 7:27 PM
Lynn Hamadallah is a Syrian-Palestinian-French Psychologist based in London. An outspoken voice for the Palestinian cause, Lynn is interested in the ways in which narratives, spoken and unspoken, shape identity. Having lived in five countries and spent a lot of time traveling, she takes a global perspective on freedom of expression. Her current research project investigates how second-generation British-Arabs negotiate their cultural identity. Lynn works in a community mental health service supp...
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Americans Deserve More Than the Current American Privacy Rights Act
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/04/americans-deserve-more-current-american-privacy-rights-act
April 16, 2024, 7:03 PM
EFF is concerned that a new federal bill would freeze consumer data privacy protections in place, by preempting existing state laws and preventing states from creating stronger protections in the future. Federal law should be the floor on which states can build, not a ceiling. We also urge the authors of the American Privacy Rights Act (APRA) to strengthen other portions of the bill. It should be easier to sue companies that violate our rights. The bill should limit sharing with the government...
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Tell the FCC It Must Clarify Its Rules to Prevent Loopholes That Will Swallow Net Neutrality Whole
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/04/fcc-must-clarify-its-rules-prevent-loopholes-will-swallow-net-neutrality-whole
April 16, 2024, 6:53 PM
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has released draft rules to reinstate net neutrality, with a vote on adopting the rules to come on the 25th of April. The FCC needs to close some loopholes in the draft rules before then.
Proposed Rules on Throttling and Prioritization Allow for the Circumvention of Net Neutrality
Net neutrality is the principle that all ISPs should treat all traffic coming over their networks without discrimination. The effect of this principle is that customers dec...
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S.T.O.P. is Working to ‘Ban The Scan’ in New York
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/04/stop-working-ban-scan-new-york
April 13, 2024, 1:46 AM
Facial recognition is a threat to privacy, racial justice, free expression, and information security. EFF supports strict restrictions on face recognition use by private companies, and total bans on government use of the technology. Face recognition in all of its forms, including face scanning and real-time tracking, pose threats to civil liberties and individual privacy. “False positive” error rates are significantly higher for women, children, and people of color, meaning face recognition ...
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EFF Submits Comments on FRT to Commission on Civil Rights
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/04/eff-submits-comments-frt-commission-civil-rights
April 12, 2024, 10:06 PM
Our faces are often exposed and, unlike passwords or pin numbers, cannot be remade. Governments and businesses, often working in partnership, are increasingly using our faces to track our whereabouts, activities, and associations. This is why EFF recently submitted comments to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, which is preparing a report on face recognition technology (FRT).   
In our submission, we reiterated our stance that there should be a ban on governmental use of FRT and strict regu...
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What Does EFF Mean to You?
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/04/what-does-eff-mean-you
April 12, 2024, 6:26 PM
We could go on for days talking about all the work EFF does to ensure that technology supports freedom, justice, and innovation for all people of the world. In fact, we DO go on for days talking about it — but we’d rather hear from you. 
What does EFF mean to you? We’d love to know why you support us, how you see our mission, or what issue or area we address that affects your life the most. It’ll help us make sure we keep on being the EFF you want us to be.
So if you’re willing to go ...
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Bad Amendments to Section 702 Have Failed (For Now)—What Happens Next?
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/04/bad-amendments-section-702-have-failed-now-what-happens-next
April 11, 2024, 1:40 PM
Yesterday, the House of Representatives voted against considering a largely bad bill that would have unacceptably expanded the tentacles of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, along with reauthorizing it and introducing some minor fixes. Section 702 is Big Brother’s favorite mass surveillance law that EFF has been fighting since it was first passed in 2008. The law is currently set to expire on April 19. 
Yesterday’s decision not to decide is good news, at least tempo...
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Virtual Reality and the 'Virtual Wall'
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/04/virtual-reality-and-virtual-wall
April 10, 2024, 10:32 PM
When EFF set out to map surveillance technology along the U.S.-Mexico border, we weren't exactly sure how to do it. We started with public records—procurement documents, environmental assessments, and the like—which allowed us to find the GPS coordinates of scores of towers. During a series of in-person trips, we were able to find even more. Yet virtual reality ended up being one of the key tools in not only discovering surveillance at the border, but also in educating people about Customs &...
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The Motion Picture Association Doesn’t Get to Decide Who the First Amendment Protects
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/04/mpa-doesnt-get-decide-who-first-amendment-protects
April 10, 2024, 5:08 PM
Twelve years ago, internet users spoke up with one voice to reject a law that would build censorship into the internet at a fundamental level. This week, the Motion Picture Association (MPA), a group that represents six giant movie and TV studios, announced that it hoped we’d all forgotten how dangerous this idea was. The MPA is wrong. We remember, and the internet remembers.
What the MPA wants is the power to block entire websites, everywhere in the U.S., using the same tools as repressive re...
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Speaking Freely: Mary Aileen Diez-Bacalso
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/04/speaking-freely-mary-aileen-diez-bacalso
April 9, 2024, 6:43 PM
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.*
Mary Aileen Diez-Bacalso is the executive director of FORUM-Asia. She has worked for many years in human rights organizations in the Philippines and internationally, and is best known for her work on enforced disappearances. She has received several human rights awards at home and abroad, including the Emilio F. Mignone International Human Rights Prize conferred by the Government of Argentina and the Franco-German Ministerial Prize for Huma...
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Podcast Episode: Antitrust/Pro-Internet
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/04/podcast-episode-antitrustpro-internet
April 9, 2024, 7:06 AM
Imagine an internet in which economic power is more broadly distributed, so that more people can build and maintain small businesses online to make good livings. In this world, the behavioral advertising that has made the internet into a giant surveillance tool would be banned, so people could share more equally in the riches without surrendering their privacy.


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"Infrastructures of Control": Q&A with the Geographers Behind University of Arizona's Border Surveillance Photo Exhibition
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/04/infrastructures-control-qa-geographers-behind-university-arizonas-border
April 5, 2024, 7:50 PM
Guided by EFF's map of Customs & Border Protection surveillance towers, University of Arizona geographers Colter Thomas and Dugan Meyer have been methodologically traversing the U.S.-Mexico border and photographing the infrastructure that comprises the so-called "virtual wall." Anduril Sentry tower beside the Rio Grande River. Photo by Colter Thomas (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)
From April 12-26, their outdoor exhibition "Infrastructures of Control" will be on display on the University of Arizona campus...
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Federal Court Dismisses X's Anti-Speech Lawsuit Against Watchdog
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/04/federal-court-dimisses-xs-anti-speech-lawsuit-against-watchdog
April 5, 2024, 1:01 PM
This post was co-written by EFF legal intern Melda Gurakar.
Researchers, journalists, and everyone else has a First Amendment right to criticize social media platforms and their content moderation practices without fear of being targeted by retaliatory lawsuits, a federal court recently ruled.
The decision by a federal court in California to dismiss a lawsuit brought by Elon Musk’s X against the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), a nonprofit organization dedicated to fighting online ha...
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The White House is Wrong: Section 702 Needs Drastic Change
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/04/white-house-wrong-section-702-needs-drastic-change
April 4, 2024, 5:13 PM
With Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act set to expire later this month, the White House recently released a memo objecting to the SAFE Act—legislation introduced by Senators Dick Durbin and Mike Lee that would reauthorize Section 702 with some reforms. The White House is wrong. SAFE is a bipartisan bill that may be our most realistic chance of reforming a dangerous NSA mass surveillance program that even the federal government’s privacy watchdog and the White House itse...
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In Historic Victory for Human Rights in Colombia, Inter-American Court Finds State Agencies Violated Human Rights of Lawyers Defending Activists
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/04/historic-victory-human-rights-colombia-inter-american-court-finds-state-agencies
April 3, 2024, 7:22 PM
In a landmark ruling for fundamental freedoms in Colombia, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights found that for over two decades the state government harassed, surveilled, and persecuted members of a lawyer’s group that defends human rights defenders, activists, and indigenous people, putting the attorneys’ lives at risk. 
The ruling is a major victory for civil rights in Colombia, which has a long history of abuse and violence against human rights defenders, including murders and death...
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Speaking Freely: Emma Shapiro
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/04/speaking-freely-emma-shapiro
April 2, 2024, 8:38 PM
Emma Shapiro is an American artist, writer, and activist who is based in Valencia, Spain. She is the Editor-At-Large for the Don’t Delete Art campaign and the founder of the international art project and movement Exposure Therapy. Her work includes the use of video, collage, performance, and photography, while primarily using her own body and image. Through her use of layered video projection, self portraiture, and repeated encounters with her own image, Emma deconstructs and questions the mea...
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Ola Bini Faces Ecuadorian Prosecutors Seeking to Overturn Acquittal of Cybercrime Charge
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/03/ola-bini-faces-ecuadorian-prosecutors-seeking-overturn-acquittal-cybercrime-charge
April 1, 2024, 4:21 PM
Ola Bini, the software developer acquitted last year of cybercrime charges in a unanimous verdict in Ecuador, was back in court last week in Quito as prosecutors, using the same evidence that helped clear him, asked an appeals court to overturn the decision with bogus allegations of unauthorized access of a telecommunications system. Armed with a grainy image of a telnet session—which the lower court already ruled was not proof of criminal activity—and testimony of an expert witness to the l...
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U.S. Supreme Court Does Not Go Far Enough in Determining When Government Officials Are Barred from Censoring Critics on Social Media
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/03/us-supreme-court-does-not-go-far-enough-determining-when-government-officials-are
March 29, 2024, 9:45 PM
After several years of litigation across the federal appellate courts, the U.S. Supreme Court in a unanimous opinion has finally crafted a test that lower courts can use to determine whether a government official engaged in “state action” such that censoring individuals on the official’s social media page—even if also used for personal purposes—would violate the First Amendment.
The case, Lindke v. Freed, came out of the Sixth Circuit and involves a city manager, while a companion case...
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Restricting Flipper is a Zero Accountability Approach to Security: Canadian Government Response to Car Hacking
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/03/restricting-flipper-zero-accountability-approach-security-canadian-government
March 29, 2024, 3:30 AM
On February 8, François-Philippe Champagne, the Canadian Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, announced Canada would ban devices used in keyless car theft. The only device mentioned by name was the Flipper Zero—the multitool device that can be used to test, explore, and debug different wireless protocols such as RFID, NFC, infrared, and Bluetooth.
EFF explores toilet hacking
While it is useful as a penetration testing device, Flipper Zero is impractical in comparison to other, more ...
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EFF Asks Oregon Supreme Court Not to Limit Fourth Amendment Rights Based on Terms of Service
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/03/eff-asks-oregon-supreme-court-not-limit-fourth-amendemtn-rights-based-terms
March 28, 2024, 12:26 AM
This post was drafted by EFF legal intern Alissa Johnson.
EFF signed on to an amicus brief drafted by the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers earlier this month petitioning the Oregon Supreme Court to review State v. Simons, a case involving law enforcement surveillance of over a year’s worth of private internet activity. We ask that the Court join the Ninth Circuit in recognizing that people have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their browsing histories, and that checking a...
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Meta Oversight Board’s Latest Policy Opinion a Step in the Right Direction
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/03/meta-oversight-boards-latest-policy-opinion-step-right-direction
March 26, 2024, 7:11 PM
EFF welcomes the latest and long-awaited policy advisory opinion from Meta’s Oversight Board calling on the company to end its blanket ban on the use of the Arabic-language term “shaheed” when referring to individuals listed under Meta’s policy on dangerous organizations and individuals and calls on Meta to fully implement the Board’s recommendations.
Since the Meta Oversight Board was created in 2020 as an appellate body designed to review select contested content moderation decisions...
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Speaking Freely: Robert Ssempala
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/03/speaking-freely-robert-ssempala
March 26, 2024, 6:07 PM
*This interview has been edited for length and clarity. 
Robert Ssempala is a longtime press freedom and social justice advocate. He serves as Executive Director at Human Rights Network for Journalists-Uganda, a network of journalists in Uganda working towards enhancing the promotion, protection, and respect of human rights through defending and building the capacities of journalists, to effectively exercise their constitutional rights and fundamental freedoms for collective campaigning through...
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Podcast Episode: About Face (Recognition)
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/03/podcast-episode-about-face-recognition
March 26, 2024, 7:05 AM
Is your face truly your own, or is it a commodity to be sold, a weapon to be used against you? A company called Clearview AI has scraped the internet to gather (without consent) 30 billion images to support a tool that lets users identify people by picture alone. Though it’s primarily used by law enforcement, should we have to worry that the eavesdropper at the next restaurant table, or the creep who’s bothering you in the bar, or the protestor outside the abortion clinic can surreptitiously...
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No KOSA, No TikTok Ban | EFFector 36.4
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/03/no-kosa-no-tiktok-ban-effector-364
March 25, 2024, 5:32 PM
Want to hear about the latest news in digital rights? Well, you're in luck! EFFector 36.4 is out now and covers the latest topics, including our stance on the unconstitutional TikTok ban (spoiler: it's bad), a victory helping Indybay resist an unlawful search warrant and gag order, and thought-provoking comments we got from thousands of young people regarding the Kids Online Safety Act.
You can read the full newsletter here, or subscribe to get the next issue in your inbox automatically! You can...
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Responding to ShotSpotter, Police Shoot at Child Lighting Fireworks
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/03/responding-shotspotter-police-shoot-child-lighting-fireworks
March 22, 2024, 11:10 PM
This post was written by Rachel Hochhauser, an EFF legal intern
We’ve written multiple times about the inaccurate and dangerous “gunshot detection” tool, Shotspotter. A recent near-tragedy in Chicago adds to the growing pile of evidence that cities should drop the product.
On January 25, while responding to a ShotSpotter alert, a Chicago police officer opened fire on an unarmed “maybe 14 or 15” year old child in his backyard. Three officers approached the boy’s house, with one asking...
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Cops Running DNA-Manufactured Faces Through Face Recognition Is a Tornado of Bad Ideas
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/03/cops-running-dna-manufactured-faces-through-face-recognition-tornado-bad-ideas
March 22, 2024, 3:52 PM
In keeping with law enforcement’s grand tradition of taking antiquated, invasive, and oppressive technologies, making them digital, and then calling it innovation, police in the U.S. recently combined two existing dystopian technologies in a brand new way to violate civil liberties. A police force in California recently employed the new practice of taking a DNA sample from a crime scene, running this through a service provided by US company Parabon NanoLabs that guesses what the perpetrators f...
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EFF and 34 Civil Society Organizations Call on Ghana’s President to Reject the Anti-LGBTQ+ Bill 
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/03/eff-and-34-civil-society-organizations-call-ghanas-president-reject-anti-lgbtq
March 22, 2024, 12:42 PM
MPs in Ghana’s Parliament voted to pass the country’s draconian ‘Promotion of Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill’ on February 28th. The bill now heads to Ghana’s President Nana Akufo-Addo to be signed into law. 
EFF has joined 34 civil society organizations to demand that President Akufo-Addo vetoes the Family Values Bill.
The legislation criminalizes being LGBTQ+ or an ally of LGBTQ+ people, and also imposes custodial sentences for users and social media compa...
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Disinformation and Elections: EFF and ARTICLE 19 Submit Key Recommendations to EU Commission
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/03/disinformation-and-elections-eff-and-article-19-submit-key-recommendations-eu
March 21, 2024, 6:35 PM
Global Elections and Platform Responsibility
This year is a major one for elections around the world, with pivotal races in the U.S., the UK, the European Union, Russia, and India, to name just a few. Social media platforms play a crucial role in democratic engagement by enabling users to participate in public discourse and by providing access to information, especially as public figures increasingly engage with voters directly. Unfortunately elections also attract a sometimes dangerous am...
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EFF Seeks Greater Public Access to Patent Lawsuit Filed in Texas
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/03/eff-seeks-greater-public-access-patent-lawsuit-filed-texas
March 20, 2024, 7:26 PM
You’re not supposed to be able to litigate in secret in the U.S. That’s especially true in a patent case dealing with technology that most internet users rely on every day.
 Unfortunately, that’s exactly what’s happening in a case called Entropic Communications, LLC v. Charter Communications, Inc. The parties have made so much of their dispute secret that it is hard to tell how the patents owned by Entropic might affect the Data Over Cable Service Interface Specifications (DOCSIS) stand...
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The Tech Apocalypse Panic is Driven by AI Boosters, Military Tacticians, and Movies
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/03/how-avoid-ai-apocalypse-one-easy-step
March 20, 2024, 2:36 PM
There has been a tremendous amount of hand wringing and nervousness about how so-called artificial intelligence might end up destroying the world. The fretting has only gotten worse as a result of a U.S. State Department-commissioned report on the security risk of weaponized AI.
Whether these messages come from popular films like a War Games or The Terminator, reports that in digital simulations AI supposedly favors the nuclear option more than it should, or the idea that AI could assess nuclear...
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Lucy Parsons Labs Takes Police Foundation to Court for Open Records Requests
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/03/lucy-parsons-labs-takes-police-foundation-court-open-records-requests
March 19, 2024, 10:55 PM
The University of Georgia (UGA) School of Law’s First Amendment Clinic has filed an Open Records Request lawsuit to demand public records from the private Atlanta Police Foundation (APF). The lawsuit, filed at the behest of the Atlanta Community Press Collective and Electronic Frontier Alliance-member Lucy Parsons Labs, is seeking records relating to the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center, which activists refer to as Cop City. While the facility will be used for public law enforcement and e...
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Speaking Freely: Maryam Al-Khawaja
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/03/speaking-freely-maryam-al-khawaja
March 19, 2024, 6:35 PM
*This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Maryam Al-Khawaja is a Bahraini Woman Human Rights Defender who works as a consultant and trainer on Human Rights. She is a leading voice for human rights and political reform in Bahrain and the Gulf region. She has been influential in shaping official responses to human rights atrocities in Bahrain and the Gulf region by leading campaigns and engaging with prominent policymakers around the world.
She played an instrumental role in the pr...
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Decoding the California DMV's Mobile Driver's License
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/03/decoding-california-dmvs-mobile-drivers-license
March 19, 2024, 1:16 AM
The State of California is currently rolling out a “mobile driver’s license” (mDL), a form of digital identification that raises significant privacy and equity concerns. This post explains the new smartphone application, explores the risks, and calls on the state and its vendor to focus more on protection of the users. 
What is the California DMV Wallet? 
The California DMV Wallet app came out in app stores last year as a pilot, offering the ability to store and display your mDL on your ...
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EFF to California Appellate Court: Reject Trial Judge’s Ruling That Would Penalize Beneficial Features and Tools on Social Media
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/03/eff-california-appellate-court-reject-trial-judges-ruling-would-penalize
March 18, 2024, 11:22 PM
EFF legal intern Jack Beck contributed to this post.
A California trial court recently departed from wide-ranging precedent and held that Snap, Inc., the maker of Snapchat, the popular social media app, had created a “defective” product by including features like disappearing messages, the ability to connect with people through mutual friends, and even the well-known “Stories” feature. We filed an amicus brief in the appeal, Neville v. Snap, Inc., at the California Court of Appeal, and a...
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Lawmakers: Ban TikTok to Stop Election Misinformation! Same Lawmakers: Restrict How Government Addresses Election Misinformation!
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/03/lawmakers-ban-tiktok-stop-election-misinformation-same-lawmakers-restrict-how
March 16, 2024, 2:12 AM
In a case being heard Monday at the Supreme Court, 45 Washington lawmakers have argued that government communications with social media sites about possible election interference misinformation are illegal.Agencies can't even pass on information about websites state election officials have identified as disinformation, even if they don't request that any action be taken, they assert.Yet just this week the vast majority of those same lawmakers said the government's interest in removing election i...
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The SAFE Act to Reauthorize Section 702 is Two Steps Forward, One Step Back
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/03/safe-act-two-steps-forward-one-step-back
March 15, 2024, 8:48 PM
Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) is one of the most insidious and secretive mass surveillance authorities still in operation today. The Security and Freedom Enhancement (SAFE) Act would make some much-needed and long fought-for reforms, but it also does not go nearly far enough to rein in a surveillance law that the federal government has abused time and time again.
You can read the full text of the bill here.
While Section 702 was first sold as a tool necessary ...
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Thousands of Young People Told Us Why the Kids Online Safety Act Will Be Harmful to Minors
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/03/thousands-young-people-told-us-why-kids-online-safety-act-will-be-harmful-minors
March 15, 2024, 7:37 PM
With KOSA passed, the information i can access as a minor will be limited and censored, under the guise of "protecting me", which is the responsibility of my parents, NOT the government. I have learned so much about the world and about myself through social media, and without the diverse world i have seen, i would be a completely different, and much worse, person. For a country that prides itself in the free speech and freedom of its peoples, this bill goes against everything we stand for! - Ala...
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Analyzing KOSA’s Constitutional Problems In Depth 
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/03/analyzing-kosas-constitutional-problems-depth
March 15, 2024, 7:35 PM
Why EFF Does Not Think Recent Changes Ameliorate KOSA’s Censorship 
The latest version of the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) did not change our critical view of the legislation. The changes have led some organizations to drop their opposition to the bill, but we still believe it is a dangerous and unconstitutional censorship bill that would empower state officials to target services and online content they do not like. We respect that different groups can come to their own conclusions about ho...
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San Diego City Council Breaks TRUST
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/03/san-diego-city-council-breaks-trust
March 15, 2024, 6:54 PM
In a stunning reversal against the popular Transparent & Responsible Use of Surveillance Technology (TRUST) ordinance, the San Diego city council voted earlier this year to cut many of the provisions that sought to ensure public transparency for law enforcement surveillance technologies. 
Similar to other Community Control Of Police Surveillance (CCOPS) ordinances, the TRUST ordinance was intended to ensure that each police surveillance technology would be subject to basic democratic over...
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5 Questions to Ask Before Backing the TikTok Ban
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/03/5-big-unanswered-questions-about-tiktok-bill
March 15, 2024, 6:30 PM
With strong bipartisan support, the U.S. House voted 352 to 65 to pass HR 7521 this week, a bill that would ban TikTok nationwide if its Chinese owner doesn’t sell the popular video app. The TikTok bill’s future in the U.S. Senate isn’t yet clear, but President Joe Biden has said he would sign it into law if it reaches his desk. 
The speed at which lawmakers have moved to advance a bill with such a significant impact on speech is alarming. It has given many of us — including, seemingly,...
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Location Data Tracks Abortion Clinic Visits. Here’s What to Know
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/03/location-data-tracks-abortion-clinic-visits-heres-what-know
March 15, 2024, 5:59 PM
Our concerns about the selling and misuse of location data for those seeking reproductive and gender healthcare are escalating amid a recent wave of cases and incidents demonstrating that the digital trail we leave is being used by anti-abortion activists.The good news is some states and tech companies are taking steps to better protect location data privacy, including information that endangers people needing or seeking information about reproductive and gender-affirming healthcare. But we know...
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How to Figure Out What Your Car Knows About You (and Opt Out of Sharing When You Can)
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/03/how-figure-out-what-your-car-knows-about-you-and-opt-out-sharing-when-you-can
March 15, 2024, 4:56 PM
Cars collect a lot of our personal data, and car companies disclose a lot of that data to third parties. It’s often unclear what’s being collected, and what's being shared and with whom. A recent New York Times article highlighted how data is shared by G.M. with insurance companies, sometimes without clear knowledge from the driver. If you're curious about what your car knows about you, you might be able to find out. In some cases, you may even be able to opt out of some of that sharing of d...
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Making the Law Accessible in Europe and the USA
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/03/making-law-accessible-europe-and-usa
March 14, 2024, 9:46 PM
Special thanks to EFF legal intern Alissa Johnson, who was the lead author of this post.
Earlier this month, the European Union Court of Justice ruled that harmonized standards are a part of EU law, and thus must be accessible to EU citizens and residents free of charge.
While it might seem like common sense that the laws that govern us should be freely accessible, this question has been in dispute in the EU for the past five years, and in the U.S. for over a decade. At the center of this debat...
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Why U.S. House Members Opposed the TikTok Ban Bill
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/03/why-us-house-members-opposed-tiktok-ban-bill
March 14, 2024, 4:16 PM
What do House Democrats like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Barbara Lee have in common with House Republicans like Thomas Massie and Andy Biggs? Not a lot. But they do know an unconstitutional bill when they see one.These and others on both sides of the aisle were among the 65 House Members who voted "no" yesterday on the “Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act,” H.R. 7521, which would effectively ban TikTok. The bill now goes to the Senate, where we hope coole...
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SXSW Tried to Silence Critics with Bogus Trademark and Copyright Claims. EFF Fought Back.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/03/sxsw-tried-silence-critics-bogus-trademark-and-copyright-claims-eff-fought-back
March 13, 2024, 11:01 PM
Special thanks to EFF legal intern Jack Beck, who was the lead author of this post.
Amid heavy criticism for its ties to weapons manufacturers supplying Israel, South by Southwest—the organizer of an annual conference and music festival in Austin—has been on the defensive. One tool in their arsenal: bogus trademark and copyright claims against local advocacy group Austin for Palestine Coalition.
The Austin for Palestine Coalition has been a major source of momentum behind recent anti-SXSW p...
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Protect Yourself from Election Misinformation
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/03/protect-yourself-election-misinformation
March 13, 2024, 6:22 PM
Welcome to your U.S. presidential election year, when all kinds of bad actors will flood the internet with election-related disinformation and misinformation aimed at swaying or suppressing your vote in November. 
So… what’re you going to do about it? 
As EFF’s Corynne McSherry wrote in 2020, online election disinformation is a problem that has had real consequences in the U.S. and all over the world—it has been correlated to ethnic violence in Myanmar and India and to Kenya’s 2017 e...
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Congress Should Give Up on Unconstitutional TikTok Bans
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/03/congress-should-give-unconstitutional-tiktok-bans
March 13, 2024, 12:01 AM
Congress’ unfounded plan to ban TikTok under the guise of protecting our data is back, this time in the form of a new bill—the “Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act,” H.R. 7521 — which has gained a dangerous amount of momentum in Congress. This bipartisan legislation was introduced in the House just a week ago and is expected to be sent to the Senate after a vote later this week.
A year ago, supporters of digital rights across the country successfully...
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Congress Must Stop Pushing Bills That Will Benefit Patent Trolls
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/03/congress-must-stop-pushing-bills-will-benefit-patent-trolls
March 12, 2024, 10:27 PM
The U.S. Senate is moving forward with two bills that would enrich patent trolls, patent system insiders, and a few large companies that rely on flimsy patents, at the expense of everyone else. 
One bill, the Patent Eligibility Restoration Act (PERA) would bring back some of the worst software patents we’ve seen, and even re-introduce types of patents on human genes that were banned years ago. Meanwhile, a similar group of senators is trying to push forward the PREVAIL Act (S. 2220), which wo...
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