Mass surveillance of electronic communications is a vast, new, government intrusion on the privacy of innocent people worldwide. It is a violation of International human rights law. Without checks and balances, its use will continue to spread from country to country, corrupting democracies and empowering dictators. That’s why, today, on February 11th, around the world, from Argentina to Uganda, from Colombia to the Philippines, the people of the Internet have united to fight back. The Day We Fight Back’s main global action is to sign and promote the 13 Principles, a set of fundamental rules that, in clear language, tells…
Author: EFFSource
EFF is proud to be one of the three non-profits selected for CREDO’s February giving pool. If you’re CREDO customer, vote for EFF on the February ballot to help direct as much as $150,000 to support the defense of digital civil liberties! CREDO has long been dedicated to funding hard-working non-profits. Each month, CREDO selects three groups to receive donations, looking to provide strong financial support that non-profits can use to drive social change forward. CREDO members generate donations as they use CREDO services—like making phone calls or using credit cards—and each month those members can vote on how to…
En 2013, nos enteramos que la vigilancia digital por los gobiernos del mundo no conoce límites. La NSA y otras agencias de investigación vienen capturando nuestras llamadas telefónicas, haciendo seguimiento de nuestra ubicación, escudriñando nuestras libretas de direcciones y haciendo acopio de nuestros correos electrónicos. Lo hacen en secreto, sin la adecuada supervisión pública, y en violación de nuestros derechos humanos. No vamos a tolerar esto más. El martes 11 de febrero, el mundo ha dicho basta. Fundación Karisma y el colectivo RedPaTodos con la colaboración de Mozilla Colombia se han unido a la campaña “Internet sin chuzadas”, pidiendo el…
Since 1990, the Electronic Frontier Foundation has been fighting to make sure when you go online your rights come with you. For the LGBT community, these rights are especially important. We’re Fighting for Your Right to Free Speech Free Speech is strongly protected in the United States. That means that people in the U.S. are free to talk about queer issues online without fear of government intervention. In places like Russia, however, the government just passed a law banning “propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations to minors,” a law used by the Russian government to limit speech by the LGBT community…
In 2013, we learned digital surveillance by the world’s governments knows no bounds. The NSA and other investigative agencies are capturing our phone calls, tracking our location, peering into our address books, and collecting our emails. They do this in secret, without adequate public oversight, and in violation of our human rights. We won’t stand for this anymore. On Tuesday February 11, the world is fighting back. In anticipation of the first united, worldwide action against mass spying, we asked Katarzyna Szymielewicz, Executive Director of the digital rights organization, Panoptykon Foundation, a signatory to the 13 Principles against mass surveillance,…
Beginning in 2011, a patent troll named Innovatio IP Ventures, LLP, began a massive shakedown campaign. Armed with some patents purchased from Broadcom, Innovatio sent thousands of letters targeting hotels and cafes that provide Wi-Fi for customers. The troll demanded as much as $2,500 per location. Router manufacturer Cisco stepped in to defend its customers and yesterday settled with Innovatio for just 3.2 cents a unit. The settlement counts as a victory. But we still need reform to stop the next abusive troll. The Innovatio story illustrates just about everything wrong with today’s patent system. It is a classic patent…
Free speech is equally important whether it’s shouted in a town square or posted to a personal website. The Supreme Court made that clear way back in 1997 in Reno v. ACLU, but it bears repeating as the Internet matures. Ensuring that online speech isn’t relegated to second-class status when it comes to the First Amendment is at the heart of two amicus briefs just submitted on behalf of EFF and the rock star First Amendment scholars Erwin Chemerinsky and Lyrissa Lidsky in a pair of cases currently before the Texas Supreme Court. The two cases, Burbage v. Burbage and…
Despite all the gains we’ve made in Washington toward patent reform, the legal threat posed by patent trolls isn’t going away. Trolls are still on the prowl, perhaps more so than ever before. The patent troll model relies on small businesses and individuals not being able to afford going through a multi-million dollar lawsuit—nor, in many cases, being able to afford legal representation at all. Because we’ve been a loud voice in the patent troll fight, we constantly get requests for help from those who have received their first demand letter or troll lawsuit. A handful of these come from the…
As the popularity of Bitcoins has increased, government officials are concerned about criminal activity associated with the virtual currency. But a recent subpoena issued by the New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs to 19-year-old Bitcoin developer and MIT student Jeremy Rubin goes too far, and we’re fighting back by moving to quash it. Rubin and some other MIT classmates developed a computer code called Tidbit for the Node Knockout Hackathon in November 2013. Tidbit uses a client’s computer to mine for Bitcoins as an alternative to website advertising: in exchange for removing ads from a website, a user would give some CPU cycles…
EFF is bringing the security and privacy of HTTPS Everywhere to an important new frontier: your Android phone. As of today, you can install HTTPS Everywhere on Firefox for Android (until now, it could only protect desktop browsers). With HTTPS Everywhere installed, Firefox for Android encrypts thousands of connections from your browser that would otherwise be insecure. This gives Firefox a huge security advantage over every other mobile browser available today. This is exciting news, because HTTPS encryption allows smartphone users to safely download apps, browse the web, exchange emails and instant messages, sync data between devices, and countless other…