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Meritless defamation lawsuits can deter legal speech by forcing people to spend time and money fighting them. That is why courts must diligently protect people’s First Amendment rights by quickly dismissing claims that target people’s protected opinions.That did not happen in a case on appeal to... → Read More
In the summer of 2020, the Department of Justice was closely monitoring the public and congressional debate about a key law protecting internet users’ speech at the same time that it pushed to undermine the law, documents show. DOJ was tracking multiple efforts to repeal or frustrate 47 U.S.C. §... → Read More
The latest version of the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) is focused on removing online information that people need to see—people of all ages. Letting governments—state or federal—decide what information anyone needs to see is a dangerous endeavor. On top of that, this bill, supposedly designed to... → Read More
Copyright law cannot be used as a shortcut around the First Amendment’s strong protections for anonymous internet users, a federal trial court ruled on Tuesday.The decision by a judge in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California confirms that copyright holders issuing... → Read More
The public has a right to know what happens when companies litigate in publicly funded courts. Unfortunately, when it comes to patent cases, companies routinely ignore the public’s rights—for example, by filing entire documents under seal without making any attempt to justify that much secrecy.... → Read More
After pushing for more than three years to access court records in a lawsuit brought by a notorious patent troll, Uniloc, against Apple, EFF is challenging a federal appellate court’s decision that imperils the public’s ability to understand what happens in patent litigation.The U.S. Court of... → Read More
Anonymous speech is an important protection for those concerned about political or economic retribution, harassment, or even threats to their lives. The shield that protects those speakers’ anonymity in U.S. court is the First Amendment, and applying the appropriate constitutional test during... → Read More
Judges cannot minimize the First Amendment rights of anonymous speakers who use an organization’s logo, especially when that use may be intended to send a message to the trademark owner, EFF told a federal appeals court this week.EFF filed its brief in the U.S. Court of Appeal for the Second... → Read More
Within a day of Twitter fact-checking President Donald Trump’s May 2020 false tweets about mail-in voting, federal officials began trying to find out how much government agencies spent to advertise on social media. This inquiry was likely part of a planned effort to cut that funding, according to... → Read More
The Supreme Court’s Van Buren decision today overturned a dangerous precedent and clarified the notoriously ambiguous meaning of “exceeding authorized access” in the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, the federal computer crime law that’s been misused to prosecute beneficial and important online... → Read More
Among the dozens of bills introduced last Congress to amend a key internet law that protects online services and internet users, the Platform Accountability and Consumer Transparency Act (PACT Act) was perhaps the only serious attempt to tackle the problem of a handful of dominant online services... → Read More
It’s an uncontroversial position that EFF has long fought for: Internet users expect their private online activities to stay that way. That’s why law enforcement should have to get a search warrant before getting records of people’s Internet activities. But in a disappointing decision earlier this... → Read More
As part of their jobs, journalists routinely dig through government websites to find newsworthy documents and share them with the broader public. Journalists and Internet users understand that publicly available information on government websites is not secret and that, if government officials want... → Read More
One of the most important aspects of cryptocurrencies from a civil liberties perspective is that they can provide privacy protections for their users. But EFF is concerned that the U.S. government has been increasingly taking steps to undermine the anonymity of cryptocurrency transactions and... → Read More
Special thanks to legal intern Ross Ufberg, who was lead author of this post.A group of organizations and individuals are continuing their fight to overturn the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act, known as FOSTA, arguing that the law violates the Constitution in multiple... → Read More
Recently, nearly every week brings a new effort to undercut or overhaul a key U.S. law—47 U.S.C. § 230 (“Section 230”)—that protects online services and allows Internet users to express themselves. Many of these proposals jeopardize users’ free speech and privacy, while others are thinly-veiled... → Read More
This post based its initial analysis on a draft Executive Order. It has been updated to reflect the final order, available here.President Trump’s Executive Order targeting social media companies is an assault on free expression online and a transparent attempt to retaliate against Twitter for its... → Read More
A Motherboard investigation revealed in January how any cellphone users’ real-time location could be obtained for $300. The pervasiveness of the practice, coupled with the extreme invasion of people’s privacy, is alarming.The reporting showed there is a vibrant market for location data generated by... → Read More
A federal court’s ruling earlier this week has blunted a key provision of the surveillance reform law that required the government to be more transparent about legal decisions made by the United States secret surveillance court.After Edward Snowden revealed the government’s ongoing mass collection... → Read More
EFF fought FOSTA in 2018. We fought the bill in Congress and, when the president signed it into law, immediately set our sights on challenging it in court.The Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA, H.R. 1865) was ostensibly passed to fight sex trafficking. The reality... → Read More