In our 585th issue:

• UPDATES
• MINILINKS
• ANNOUNCEMENTS

EFF to Court: Don't Let the Government Hide Illegal Surveillance

EFF lawyers urged the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Seattle to allow our two lawsuits challenging the National Security Agency's illegal mass surveillance of millions of ordinary Americans to continue. For those who couldn't attend in person, we have the next best thing: video recordings!

Check out Jewel v NSA and Hepting v. AT&T.

We can't predict when the appeals court will rule on our cases, but we hope it's soon. We've been fighting to obtain a ruling on the legality of the NSA's surveillance program for over half a decade, and are still stuck at the starting gate thanks to the government’s repeated claims of state secrecy and the unconstitutional "immunity" law that Congress passed for the telcos that have collaborated in the spying. Hopefully, the upcoming decisions in these cases will get us a step closer to finally imposing the rule of law on the NSA and stopping the spying.

EFF Updates

Iranian Man-in-the-Middle Attack Against Google Demonstrates Dangerous Weakness of Certificate Authorities

What’s worse than discovering that someone has launched a man-in-the-middle attack against Iranian Google users, silently intercepting everything from email to search results and possibly putting Iranian activists in danger? Discovering that this attack has been active for two months. We're glad to see computer security experts taking the issue so seriously, but for the time being almost all Internet users are still vulnerable to this sort of attack.

Government Internet Surveillance Starts With Eyes Built in the West

What has long been an EFF issue is once again making headlines. In recent days, the world is seeing damning reports of authoritarian regimes spying on their citizens using American- and European-made surveillance technologies, with new evidence emerging from Bahrain, Libya, Syria, and Thailand.

In South Korea, the Only Thing Worse Than Online Censorship is Secret Online Censorship

In South Korea, even the censors are being censored. Professor K.S. Park, who sits on South Korea’s nine-member Internet content regulatory board, has found his own blog under threat of censorship when he used it as platform to speak out for transparency and free expression.

EFF Supports Tunisian Internet Agency in Protecting Free Expression Online

For years, Tunisians suffered in relative media silence as the Ben Ali regime curtailed digital rights, blocking websites and surveilling citizens. Then, thanks to the hard work of Tunisian free expression advocates, censorship fell along with the regime. However, now Tunisian courts have become the next critical battleground in the ongoing effort for a censorship-free Internet in Tunisia, with the Agence Tunisienne d'Internet (Tunisian Internet Agency) caught in the middle of implementing censorship orders and arguing in support of free expression.

Patent Reform Legislation Set to Become Law, But Will Make Few Meaningful Changes

After many years and many failed attempts, patent reform legislation is about to pass Congress and become law. The good news: Washington, D.C. recognizes that the patent system is in dire need of reform. The bad news: the new law will do virtually nothing to fix many of the system’s fundamental problems.

EFF-Supported Bill Requiring Warrant for Cell Phone Searches Passes CA Legislature, Goes to Gov. Brown

EFF is happy to report that SB 914, a California bill that requires the police to obtain a search warrant before searching a recent arrestee’s cell phone, passed through the state Senate and is now on its way to Governor Brown's desk.

SPEAKEASY: NYC

Current Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) members and donors are invited to join Director for International Freedom of Expression Jillian York and Senior Activist Richard Esguerra at a secret location in New York City for drinks on Sunday, September 11th. Both Jillian and Richard will be speaking at the Open Video Conference that weekend at New York Law School. Find out about our latest work in intellectual property, online activism in the U.S. and abroad, and EFF's continuing fight to defend your privacy.

miniLinks

Action! Sign the Washington Declaration on Intellectual Property and the Public Interest

Over 180 experts from 32 countries and six continents came together to help re-articulate the public interest dimension in intellectual property law and policy. Now they need your signature.

Evidence Mounts Against Cisco Systems

Last week, an advocacy group submitted an amended complaint in a case against Cisco Systems, alleging more evidence that the U.S.-based company had customized its products to help the Chinese government abuse human rights.

Pakistan Goes After Encryption Software

From The Guardian: the government of Pakistan orders ISPs to snitch on users who rely on encryption technology to browse web.

Administrivia

ISSN 1062-9424

EFFector is a publication of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
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Editor: Parker Higgins, Activist
editor@eff.org

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Reproduction of this publication in electronic media is encouraged. Signed articles do not necessarily represent the views of EFF. To reproduce signed articles individually, please contact the authors for their express permission.

Press releases and EFF announcements & articles may be reproduced individually at will.

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