The rights we have in the offline world–to speak freely, create culture, play games, build new things and do business–must be available to us online, as well. This core belief drives EFF’s work to fight the misuse of the patent system. Despite significant progress we’ve made over the last decade,...
For a while, ever since they lost in court, a number of industry giants have pushed a bill that purported to be about increasing access to the law. In fact, it would give them enormous power over the public ability to access, share, teach, and comment on the law....
EFF’s Atlas of Surveillance is one of the most useful resources for those who want to understand the use of police surveillance by local law enforcement agencies across the United States. This year, as the police surveillance industry has shifted, expanded, and doubled down on its efforts to win...
As we said last year, the U.S. Supreme Court has taken an unusually active interest in internet free speech issues over the past couple years.All five pending cases at the end of last year, covering three issues, were decided this year, with varying degrees of First Amendment guidance for...
People’s ability to speak online, share ideas, and advocate for change are enabled by the countless online services that host everyone’s views.Despite the central role these online services play in our digital lives, lawmakers and courts spent the last year trying to undermine a key U.S. law, Section 230, that...
EFF’s attorneys, activists, and technologists were media rockstars in 2024, informing the public about important issues that affect privacy, free speech, and innovation for people around the world. Perhaps the single most exciting media hit for EFF in 2024 was “Secrets in Your Data,” the NOVA PBS documentary episode...
EFF supporters get that strong encryption is tied to one of our most basic rights: the right to have a private conversation. In the digital world, privacy is impossible without strong encryption. That’s why we’ve always got an eye out for attacks on encryption. This year, we pushed back—successfully—against anti-encryption...
It is our end-of-year tradition at EFF to look back at the last 12 months of digital rights. This year, the number and diversity of our reflections attest that 2024 was a big year. If there is something uniting all the disparate threads of work EFF has done this year,...
It’s critical that copyright be balanced with limitations that support users’ rights, and perhaps no limitation is more important than fair use. Critics, humorists, artists, and activists all must have rights to re-use and re-purpose source material, even when it’s copyrighted. Yesterday, EFF weighed in...
A federal appeals court just gave software developers, and users, an early holiday present, holding that software updates aren’t necessarily “derivative,” for purposes of copyright law, just because they are designed to interoperate the software they update. This sounds kind of obscure, so let’s cut through the legalese. Lots...
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has failed to address six out of six main privacy protections for three of its border surveillance programs—surveillance towers, aerostats, and unattended ground sensors—according to a new assessment by the Government Accountability Office (GAO).In the report, GAO compared the policies for these technologies...
Privacy isn’t dead. While some information about you is almost certainly out there, that’s no reason for despair. In fact, it’s a good reason to take action.
This post is part two in a series of posts about EFF’s work in Europe. Read about how and why we work in Europe here. EFF’s mission is to ensure that technology supports freedom, justice, and innovation for all people of the world. While our work has taken us...
There are challenges ahead for online privacy and free speech, but we’re ready for them. Keep EFF fighting into 2025 and you’ll help unlock bonus grants, too!
