Top Features
Technical standards like fire and electrical codes developed by private organizations but incorporated into public law can be freely disseminated without any liability for copyright infringement, a federal appeals court ruled. The decision by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upholds the idea that our laws belong to all of us, and we should be able to find, read, and share them free of registration requirements, fees, and other roadblocks. It's a long-awaited victory for Public.Resource.org, a nonprofit organization founded in 2007 by open records advocate Carl Malamud of Healdsburg, Calif., and represented in this case by EFF with co-counsel Fenwick & West and David Halperin.
EFF Updates
A federal appeals court undermined more than a century of First Amendment law by upholding a gag order that kept X—formerly known as Twitter—from discussing the government’s demand for Donald Trump’s account data, EFF argued in a brief urging a re-hearing.
Should the government have to get a warrant before using a drone to spy on your home and backyard? We think so, and in an amicus brief filed last Friday in Long Lake Township v. Maxon, we urged the Michigan Supreme Court to find that warrantless drone surveillance of a home is unconstitutional. We argue that the township's conduct was governed by and violated the Fourth Amendment and the equivalent section of the Michigan Constitution.
EFF is honored to announce today that Erica Astrella, Head of Technology at Parkwood Entertainment and a leading voice for diversity and equity in tech, and University of Washington Computer Science & Engineering Professor Tadayoshi “Yoshi” Kohno, a renowned security researcher and scholar, have joined EFF’s Board of Directors.
We released a new version of Privacy Badger that updates how we fight “link tracking” across a number of Google products. With this update Privacy Badger removes tracking from links in Google Docs, Gmail, Google Maps, and Google Images results. Privacy Badger now also removes tracking from links added after scrolling through Google Search results.
Here’s an audio version of EFFector. We hope you enjoy it!
Announcements
It's that time of the year again! U.S. federal employees and retirees can support the digital freedom movement through the Combined Federal Campaign—the largest and most successful annual charity campaign for U.S. federal employees and retirees. Last year, 175 members of the CFC community raised over $34,000 for EFF's lawyers, activists, and technologists fighting for digital freedoms online. But, in a year with many threats popping up to our rights online, we need your support now more than ever.
EFF’s Lee Tien will speak on a panel about California constitutional privacy and Cindy Cohn will moderate a panel on fighting the public/private surveillance partnership at the Berkeley Technology Law Journal’s fourth annual technology and racial justice symposium on Friday, October 27 at the Bancroft Hotel in Berkeley. The symposium—hosted with the Berkeley Center for Law & Technology, Coalition of Minorities in Technology Law, Privacy Law at Berkeley, and Thelton E. Henderson Center for Social Justice—will bring together leading academics and practitioners to explore the landscape of California’s constitutional right to privacy at age 50, highlight how the right is currently used to promote racial justice and other social progress, and discuss new creative and intersectional uses of state constitutional rights to privacy to defend and promote justice in the digital age.
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!
Don’t miss out on our new member t-shirt for 2023! Donate at the Copper Level or above to receive our new Watchers t-shirt.
Job Openings
EFF is hiring a Media Relations Specialist to work closely with the Media Relations Director to ensure that EFF’s communications with news gatherers of all kinds is prompt, effective, and proactive. The Media Relations Specialist sometimes also writes and edits press releases and blog posts, and helps everyone at EFF uncover press-friendly ways to communicate our work. Click here to learn more about this job.
EFF is hiring a Legislative Analyst to help EFF oppose and/or develop and support legislation affecting technology, innovation, and civil liberties by: advising EFF on legislative strategy with policymakers at local, state, and the federal level; maintaining relationships with key legislative offices and developing a bridge between EFF expertise and policymakers; building and working with coalitions; engaging with media; testifying on legislative panels on behalf of the organization to influence policy; drafting comments for agency rulemakings; drafting and/or commenting on legislative text; and drafting blog posts or other public-facing communications. Click here to learn more about this job.
MiniLinks
EFF’s Eva Galperin helps Good Morning America’s Becky Worley explore the risk of electronic surveillance applications, which some parents use to monitor kids but others have used for malicious purposes.
Under the guise of “security concerns,” Arkansas Gov. Sarah Sanders made a brash attempt to gut her state’s public records law. And then an unexpectedly beautiful thing happened, EFF’s Beryl Lipton writes: Members of the public on the political left and right, in the media and in labor and from all walks of life, united to assert their right to know. The bill that finally passed is still bad for transparency—it severely restricts materials on who travels with the governor, how much it costs, and the activities of the Arkansas State Police—but it doesn’t ravage citizens’ rights as badly as the first version would have. That’s thanks to the power of the people.
EFF filed a brief in July arguing 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. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit agreed, and rolled back much of a trial court’s injunction—an outcome EFF’s David Greene called “a thousand times better.”
California lawmakers enacted unprecedented legislation allowing state residents to compel data brokers to delete their personal information with the push of a button. EFF was a proud supporter of the DELETE Act, and EFF’s Hayley Tsukayama said advocates “hope other states looking to address data broker issues consider [the DELETE Act] as a template.”
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