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In our 706th issue:
It started with a tip to the FBI from a foreign law enforcement agency that a Tor Hidden Service site called “Playpen” was hosting child pornography. That tip would ultimately lead to the largest known hacking operation in U.S. law enforcement history. The Playpen investigation—driven by the FBI's hacking campaign—resulted in hundreds of criminal prosecutions that are currently working their way through the federal courts.
The issues in these cases are technical and the alleged crimes are distasteful. But make no mistake: these cases are laying the foundation for the future expansion of law enforcement hacking in domestic criminal investigations, and the precedent these cases create is likely to impact the digital privacy rights of Internet users for years to come.
School districts around the country are making use of cloud–based educational platforms and assigning laptops and tablets to students. Almost one third of all students—elementary through high school—already use school–issued digital devices, and many of these devices present a serious risk to student privacy. They collect far more information on kids than is necessary, store this information indefinitely, and sometimes even upload it to the cloud automatically. In short, they’re spying on students—and school districts, which often provide inadequate privacy policies (or no privacy policy at all), are helping them.
As the 2016-2017 school year begins, we want to hear from you about your experiences with student privacy and school-issued devices in your community. Take EFF's student privacy survey and help us paint a nation-wide picture of risks to student privacy.
EFF Updates
Facebook's Nudity Ban Affects All Kinds of Users
Facebook’s recent censorship of the iconic AP photograph of nine year-old Kim Phúc fleeing naked from a napalm bombing has once again brought the issue of commercial content moderation to the fore. Although Facebook has since apologized, the social media giant continues to defend the policy that allowed the takedown to happen in the first place.
If You Build A Censorship Machine, They Will Come
If you have the power to censor other people’s speech, special interests will try to co-opt that power for their own purposes. That’s a lesson the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) is learning this year. MPAA, which represents six major movie studios, also runs the private entity that assigns movie ratings in the U.S. While it’s a voluntary system with no formal connection to government, MPAA's “Classification and Ratings Administration” wields remarkable power.
4 Things to Consider When Running Social Media Campaigns About Texas Inmates
The Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) sent shockwaves through the prisoner rights community in April when it announced a new policy forbidding inmates from participating in social media. The wording of the new TDCJ rule was vague and chillingly broad, and the community was unsure how it would be applied.
CBP Fails to Meaningfully Address Risks of Gathering Social Media Handles
We submitted comments to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency opposing its proposal to gather social media handles from foreign visitors from Visa Waiver Program countries. CBP recently provided its preliminary responses to several of our arguments. The proposal to collect social media handles has serious flaws—and the government has failed to adequately address them.
Civil Liberties Groups Call for Stronger Oversight by House Intelligence Committee
Edward Snowden’s release of once-secret documents about U.S. intelligence surveillance focused much-needed attention on the problem of how to control the burgeoning U.S. surveillance-industrial complex. But while the USA Freedom Act began to limit national security surveillance to some extent, it did little to address the underlying problem of excessive executive branch secrecy.
Copyright Shouldn't Hold Technology Back
The FCC is about to make a decision about whether third-party companies can market their own alternatives to the set-top boxes provided by cable companies. The fight over set-top boxes isn’t just about stimulating competition to bring higher quality products to market—it’s about your basic rights as a consumer.
Tell Justin Trudeau to Fight for Web Developer Saeed Malekpour
Saeed Malekpour—a Canadian resident, Iranian citizen, and programmer—was seized by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard during a visit to his family in 2008 based on unsubstantiated accusations of connections to illegal websites. Saeed’s freedom depends on the global attention his case receives. That’s why we're asking you to write to Trudeau now, and tell the Canadian government that the world has not forgotten Saeed.
European Copyright Ruling Ushers in New Dark Era for Hyperlinks
In a case which threatens to cause turmoil for thousands if not millions of websites, the Court of Justice of the European Union decided today that a website that merely links to material that infringes copyright, can itself be found guilty of copyright infringement, provided only that the operator knew or could reasonably have known that the material was infringing.
Analog: The Last Defense Against DRM
With the recent iPhone 7 announcement, Apple confirmed what had already been widely speculated: that the new smartphone won’t have a traditional, analog headphone jack. By switching from an analog signal to a digital one, Apple has potentially given itself more control than ever over what people can do with music or other audio content on an iPhone.
Content Companies Demand Total Control of Set-Top Boxes at FCC
Major TV producers have finally said what they really want from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in exchange for breaking up the cable companies’ monopoly over set-top boxes. As they continue to push fake copyright arguments that experts in copyright law have roundly refuted, the big TV companies have now made clear that they do not want consumers to have the ability to search the Internet for videos and they do not want device makers to have the freedom to create devices with all of the features consumers want.
miniLinks
Unprecedented and Unlawful: The NSA’s “Upstream” Surveillance
ACLU staff attorneys explain why the NSA’s upstream collection is mass surveillance.
'Edward Snowden did this country a great service. Let him come home.'
EFF Executive Director Cindy Cohn, Bernie Sanders, Daniel Ellsberg, and former members of the NSA weigh in on whether Obama should pardon Edward Snowden.
Correcting the Record on Section 702: A Prerequisite for Meaningful Surveillance Reform
The NSA’s 702 surveillance is broader than it seems and needs reform. Jennifer Granick explains.
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Editor:
Dave Maass, Investigative Researcher
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EFFector is a publication of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
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