This statement was drafted with SMEX, Global Voices, and individual actors. The original post can be found here. Today, on Human Rights Day, we remind the world of our many friends who have broken the silence of oppression by expressing their thoughts, asking questions, and thinking critically and constructively about how to solve the problems before them. We remember today Alaa Abd El Fattah and Bassel Khartabil (aka Bassel Safadi), two jailed friends who are serving arbitrary sentences that jeopardize their futures as innovators and free thinkers from the Arab region. Bassel has been behind bars in Syria since March…
Author: EFFSource
It’s no secret that the US Trade Representative (USTR) has approached the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations with a disappointing lack of transparency. For years now, leaks have been an inadequate substitute to reasonable public policy, and non-corporate groups have resorted to reading between the lines of press statements even as the stated timeline of the agreement has blown by. There’s another tool that members of the public can use to pry information out of agencies like the USTR: the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Through FOIA, groups like EFF can demand certain kinds of information, and the agency has a…
You may be shocked to hear that EFF doesn’t think technology is a solution to every problem. That includes problems with the police and with public safety. And, as we’ve pointed out when it comes to drones and other types of local surveillance, we think adoption of new technology requires communities to understand and discuss the pros and cons. That’s why we think President Obama’s announcement last week about federal assistance to local law enforcement was a little lackluster. The President made it clear that he plans to leave largely untouched the controversial programs that funnel military equipment and surveillance…
EFF is in Geneva this week at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), where the organization’s Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights is gathered to debate proposals for a treaty to give new legal rights to broadcasters, and for instruments that would standardize copyright limitations and exceptions for libraries, archives, educators and researchers. More about those proposals will be coming in a series of updates this week. But first, why are we at WIPO at all? Here’s a short history lesson to explain. The DMCA’s Origins at WIPO Way back in 1995, the Clinton administration put forward a bill…
The lawsuit filed last week by music publishers BMG and Round Hill against Cox Communications could be the next battle in the major media companies’ long-term campaign to turn Internet service providers into copyright police. BMG and Round Hill are asking a federal court to declare that ISPs like Cox must terminate their customers’ accounts whenever the publishers’ agent—a company called Rightscorp—says so. Because Cox didn’t immediately kick subscribers off of its service after Rightscorp accused those subscribers of copyright infringement, BMG and Round Hill say that Cox should pay potentially millions of dollars in penalties. BMG and Round Hill…
EFF, ACLU Support Smith in Fighting Mass Surveillance Before Ninth Circuit Seattle – An appeals court will hear oral arguments in Smith v. Obama, a case filed by an Idaho nurse against a controversial National Security Agency (NSA) telephone data collection program, in Seattle on Monday, Dec. 8. Anna Smith, a neonatal nurse from Coeur d’Alene, filed her lawsuit against President Barack Obama and several U.S. intelligence agencies in June 2013, shortly after the government confirmed that the NSA was collecting telephone records on a massive scale under Section 215 of the Patriot Act. Smith, a Verizon customer, argues the…
Paraguay understands the dangers of pervasive surveillance. Its ex-dictator, Alfredo Stroessner, maintained his grip on power with the help of “pyragues”, informers who monitored the civilian population on his behalf. That’s why so many in the country recognise the dangers in its new proposed data retention bill. The bill, currently being debated by its politicians, would compel local ISPs to retain communications and location details of every user for a period of 12 months. No wonder it’s been described as creating a new gang of “pyrawebs”: online informers that the authorities can ask to pinpoint the movements, connections, and associations…
Following recent reports in the Wall Street Journal and Ars Technica, there’s been new interest in the government’s use of a relatively obscure law, the All Writs Act. According to these reports, the government has invoked the All Writs Act in order to compel the assistance of smartphone manufacturers in unlocking devices pursuant to a search warrant. The reports are based on orders from federal magistrate judges in Oakland and New York City issued to Apple and another unnamed manufacturer (possibly also Apple) respectively, requiring them to bypass the lock screen on seized phones and enable law enforcement access. These…
This week EFF joined an amicus brief in support of a college student who was expelled from school for comments he made on Facebook. Craig Keefe was a nursing student at a public college in Minnesota when he posted several comments on his Facebook profile expressing frustration about certain aspects of the nursing program, including what he considered to be favoritism of female students. Keefe also engaged in a dispute with one of his classmates, calling her a “stupid bitch.” While his Facebook profile was publicly viewable, he was off-campus when he posted his comments and did not use any…
Faulty Decision from Ninth Circuit Panel Endangers Free Speech, Historical RecordSan Francisco – The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and a coalition of technology and free speech organizations are asking the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to fix a disastrously wrongheaded copyright ruling that required an online service provider to take offline—and keep offline—a controversial video that has been the center of a global debate. This case, Garcia v. Google, centers on “The Innocence of Muslims,” a short video on YouTube that sparked protests worldwide in the fall of 2012 with its anti-Islamic content. The video was…