Top Features
Ten years ago, a diverse coalition of internet users, non profit groups, and internet companies defeated the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA), bills that would have forced internet companies to blacklist and block websites accused of hosting copyright-infringing content. These bills would have made censorship very easy, all in the name of copyright enforcement. This collective action showed the world that the word of a few major companies that control film, music, and television can’t control internet policy for their own good. We celebrate Copyright Week every year on the anniversary of the internet blackout that finally got the message across: Team Internet will always stand up for itself.
Last year Google quietly pushed a new feature to its Android operating system allowing users to optionally disable 2G at the modem level in their phones. This is a fantastic feature that will provide some protection from cell site simulators, an invasive police surveillance technology employed throughout the country. We applaud Google for implementing this much needed feature. Now Apple needs to implement this feature as well, for the safety of their customers.
EFF Updates
We're piloting an audio version of EFFector's Newsletter. We hope you enjoy it!
EFF filed a lawsuit in December on behalf of prominent Saudi human rights activist Loujain AlHathloul against spying software maker DarkMatter Group and three of its former executives for illegally hacking her iPhone to secretly track her communications and whereabouts.
Modern life means leaving digital traces wherever we go. But those digital footprints can translate to real world harms: the websites you visit can impact the mortgage offers, car loans, and job options you see advertised. EFF’s Cindy Cohn and Danny O’Brien join Vinhcent Le, Legal Counsel for the Greenlining Institute, to discuss our digital privacy and how U.S. laws haven’t kept up with safeguarding our rights when we go online, as well as some ideas and examples about how we can turn the tables—and use algorithmic decision-making to help bring more equity, rather than less.
EFF and Human Rights Watch, along with nearly 130 organizations and academics working in 56 countries, regions, or globally, urged members of the Ad Hoc Committee responsible for drafting a potential United Nations Cybercrime Treaty to ensure human rights protections are embedded in the final product. The first session of the Ad Hoc Committee was scheduled to begin on January 17th, but has been briefly delayed.
The public should get to see whether a court that authorized the FBI to track someone’s air travels in real time for six months also analyzed whether the surveillance implicated the Fourth Amendment, EFF argued in a brief filed this week.
Fact-checking should not mean that users must be exposed to a whole new ecosystem, consisting of new actors, with new processes, and new rules. Facebook and other technology companies cannot encourage processes that detach fact checking from the overall content moderation process. Instead, it must take on the task of creating systems that users can trust and depend on. Unfortunately, the current system created by Facebook fails to achieve that.
Announcements
On Friday, January 21, 2022, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the ACLU of Northern California will ask a California state court to find that the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) violated city law when it used a network of non-city surveillance cameras to spy on Black-led protests in 2020 against police violence in the wake of George Floyd’s murder. You can watch live at 9:30 AM PT.
This is the first of a series of events, presented by Amnesty International and Fight for the Future, that brings together representatives of human rights organizations to present and discuss their current orientations and thoughts around emerging Web3 technologies like blockchain, the metaverse, and more. This month’s event on Tuesday the 25th at 12:00 PM PT includes representatives of Access Now, DWeb, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Fight for the Future, and Internet Archive.
In 2020, a majority of non-management staff at the Electronic Frontier Foundation signed union cards, joining the IFPTE (International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers) Local 20, a local also known as the ESC. The executive team at EFF voluntarily recognized the union. We look forward to collaborating together in the best interests of EFF and its employees.
Job Openings
EFF is looking for a full-time energetic and enthusiastic organizer and manager to join our Activism team and direct our grassroots Electronic Frontier Alliance network.
Help EFF spearhead our work on corporate threats to speech and privacy online! We're looking for a full-time advocate and researcher to join our Activism team as a Senior Speech and Privacy Activist.
EFF is looking for a System Administrator to help build and maintain the organization’s digital infrastructure as part of the Technical Operations Department.
MiniLinks
San Franciscans pushed for civil liberties in a landmark privacy ordinance, which EFF and ACLU of Northern California are proud to defend against unfettered police spying on protesters.
EFF Civil Liberties Director David Greene joined the Lawfare podcast to discuss the Santa Clara Principles 2.0 and the future of online content moderation.
Free software developer Ola Bini's trial resumes this week, and EFF and other organizations are closely following the case and hope that due process can finally have its day in court.
Naviance, a "college and career readiness software provider" used by 10 million students yearly to submit applications, is also a targeted ad platform that allows admissions departments at colleges to target students purportedly by race.
DMCA Section 1201 hurts preservation, repair, security, and innovation—but does nothing to prevent copyright infringement.
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