Top Features
At this point, it’s crystal clear that the FBI doesn’t believe that either our rights or the limitations that Congress has placed upon the bureau matter when it comes to the vast amount of private communications data about us collected under FISA Section 702. Matthew Guariglia makes the case for either letting the flawed law expire this year, or radically rewriting it to protect Americans’ rights once and for all.
Self-driving cars are becoming a more common sight in some U.S. cities, and each of those cars is sucking in vast quantities of visual and other information—creating a possibility for peoples’ movements to be tracked, aggregated, and retained by companies, law enforcement, or bad actors. Matthew Guariglia explains how the sheer mass of this data poses a potential threat to civil liberties and privacy for pedestrians, commuters, and any other people that rely on public roads and walkways in cities.
EFF Updates
We're piloting an audio version of EFFector's Newsletter. We hope you enjoy it!
EFF is honored to announce that Alexandra Asanovna Elbakyan, Library Freedom Project, and Signal Foundation will receive the 2023 EFF Awards for their vital work in helping to ensure that technology supports freedom, justice, and innovation for all people. The EFF Awards recognize specific and substantial technical, social, economic, or cultural contributions in diverse fields including journalism, art, digital access, legislation, tech development, and law. See the announcements section below for information on our awards ceremony Sept. 14 in San Francisco!
KOSA is fundamentally a censorship bill. Politicians are justifying it by harping on something we all know—that there’s content online that’s inappropriate for kids. But instead of letting tricky questions about what online content is appropriate at what age be decided by parents and families, politicians are stepping in to override us.
Read EFF General Counsel Jennifer Lynch’s white paper on forensic genetic genealogy, the police practice of accessing consumer-facing genetic genealogy websites to try to identify the source of crime scene DNA samples.
Weighing in on one of the year’s most thought-provoking legal cases, EFF argues that government input into social media platforms’ decisions about user content raises serious First Amendment concerns and the government must be held accountable for violations, but not all such communications are improper. EFF’s amicus brief was filed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in Missouri v. Biden, a lawsuit brought by Louisiana, Missouri, and several individuals alleging that federal government agencies and officials illegally pushed social media platforms to censor content about COVID safety measures and vaccines, elections, and Hunter Biden’s laptop, among other issues.
Announcements
We hope you can join us for the EFF Awards ceremony at 6:30 pm PT on Thursday, Sept. 14, 2023 at the Regency Lodge, 1290 Sutter St. in San Francisco, hosted by renowned science fiction author, activist, journalist, and EFF Special Advisor Cory Doctorow. (The ceremony will be recorded and video will be made available at a later date.)
EFF has launched the Tor University Challenge, a campaign urging higher education institutions to support free, anonymous speech by running a Tor network relay. Universities answering this call to defend private access to an uncensored web will receive prizes while helping millions of people around the world and providing students and faculty a vital learning experience. Tell your alma mater to join the network today!
We are excited to launch our new member t-shirt for 2023! Donate at the Copper Level or above to receive our new Watchers t-shirt.
Job Openings
No available positions at this time, but bookmark our opportunities page for future options!
MiniLinks
EFF’s Cindy Cohn joins Gaslit Nation hosts Andrea Chalupa and Sarah Kendzior for an in-depth chat about corporate surveillance and other prying tech eyes that are trying to harvest as much data as possible about you.
EFF’s Andrew Crocker explains how the Online Safety Bill now nearing approval in Parliament poses a dire threat to encryption that will reverberate around the world.
A federal law that has enabled massive, secret and unconstitutional surveillance of the private communications of innocent Americans expires at the end of 2023, and Congress should allow it to die, according to this excellent Southern California News Group editorial.
For enthusiasts, the rise of decentralized platforms represents an opportunity for a more open web—a chance to tear down some of the walled gardens that have become the norm on mainstream social media platforms. EFF’s Ross Schulman weighs in.
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