It seems the government doesn’t know where it stands when it comes to national security letters (NSLs). National security letters are the investigative tool that the FBI uses to obtain information from companies as part of national security-related investigations. NSLs never have to be reviewed by a judge before being issued, and they almost always include gag orders that prevent the recipient from discussing the NSL. If you’ve been following our national security letter cases, you know that the government had to retract a statement made before the Ninth Circuit that minimized the devastating effect of these gag orders. Unfortunately,…
Author: EFFSource
EFF has joined 26 civil society organizations and 22 computer security experts in a letter that calls on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence to reject the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2015 (CISA). CISA, currently only available in draft form, is yet another iteration of the infamous Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), first introduced in 2011. These pieces of legislation have all been introduced under the auspices of increased computer and network security. But instead of providing increased funding for security research, providing funding for security training for federal government employees, or any of the other ways…
EFF joined more than sixty civil liberties organizations and public interest groups from across the world yesterday in calling upon the world’s governments to support the creation of a United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to privacy. The special rapporteurs are independent experts appointed by the Human Rights Council and serve in their personal capacities. The establishment of a special rapporteur on the right to privacy is a key step that the United Nations can take to ensure that the right to privacy is given meaning and practical application in the light of technological developments. A special rapporteur would…
UPDATE: Late tonight, the government released to EFF the “Raw Take” opinion and the 2008 FAA opinion, described below. Those opinions are available here (pdf) and here (pdf). We are reviewing the documents and will post our analysis, along with other documents released by the government, shortly. Later today, the government is scheduled to release two landmark opinions on NSA spying issued by the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. The documents are being released as a result of FOIA lawsuit filed by EFF last year, seeking disclosure of many of the surveillance court’s still-secret, yet significant, opinions. As we wrote…
The worst patent trolls bring weak cases and use the cost of defending a lawsuit as leverage to force settlements. A company called Joao Bock Transaction Systems LLC (“JBTS”) has elevated this business model to an art form. The company is associated with patent attorney and prolific “inventor” Raymond Joao. Apparently not content with drafting patents on behalf of others, Joao began to file his own patents. His companies have since launched dozens of lawsuits against technology ranging from streaming video to financial transactions. Of course, if you talk to the people who actually pioneered real-world technology, they’ve never heard…
The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) talks are stalling while the White House assures its trading partners that this secret trade agreement won’t be amended when it comes back to Congress for ratification after the President signs the deal. That’s why the Executive is scrambling to get its allies in Congress to pass Fast Track. If they succeed, the U.S. Trade Representative can block remaining opportunities for the examination of the TPP’s provisions by lawmakers who could ensure that this secret deal does not contain expansive copyright rules that would lock the U.S. into broken copyright rules that are already in bad…
On April 24, 2014, Brazil’s President, Dilma Rousseff, signed Marco Civil Da Internet, a civil-rights based framework for the Internet which Brazilian activists have long fought. Dubbed the “Internet Constitution,” the law seeks to reinforce the protection of fundamental freedoms in the digital age. The law was developed through a participatory process, but not without getting caught in the traditional horse-trading of the legislative process, which resulted in several concessions. One of the most damaging concessions, fiercely opposed by digital rights activists, was a data retention mandate that compels the collection and storage of connections logs of any innocent individual.…
If you have a user account on Reddit1, you can help EFF receive a big donation as part of their charity drive! Visit https://www.reddit.com/donate and vote for EFF on that page. Our friends at reddit made a generous promise at the beginning of 2014: “Today we are announcing that we will donate 10% of our advertising revenue receipts in 2014 to non-profits chosen by the reddit community.” They are making good on that promise by collecting votes until tomorrow, February 25, at 10am Pacific. The top 10 non-profits selected will receive more than $82,000 each! You can support digital rights…
For many months, EFF has been working with a broad coalition of advocates to persuade the Federal Communications Commission to adopt new Open Internet rules that would survive legal scrutiny and actually help protect the Open Internet. Our message has been clear from the beginning: the FCC has a role to play, but its role must be firmly bounded. Two weeks ago, we learned that we had likely managed the first goal—the FCC is going to do the right thing and reclassify broadband as a telecommunications service, giving it the ability to make new, meaningful Open Internet rules. But we…
We didn’t know how much copyright maximalists longed for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement—until we saw this creepy “open love letter” to the TPP from one of the biggest, most powerful copyright lobby groups, the Global Intellectual Property Center. We couldn’t have made this up if we tried. Here’s one part of it: You know, dear TPP, that I will drop to one knee and say “I do” for gold—no, diamond—standards for intellectual property. My creative and innovative talents need your protection. Without trade agreements like you, it would be a long, hard journey to jumpstart our economies. If you…