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Deeplinks

EFF"s Deeplinks Blog: Noteworthy news from around the internet

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The Federal Government Demands Data from SNAP—But...

Deeplinks ·

2025/06/03

Last month, the U.S. Department of Agriculture issued a troubling order to all state agency directors of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Programs (SNAP): hand over your data. This is part of a larger effort by the Trump administration to gain “unfettered access to comprehensive data from all state programs that receive federal funding,” through Executive Order 14243. While the order says this data sharing is intended to cut down on fraud, it is written so broadly that it could authorize almost any

The PERA and PREVAIL Acts Would Make Bad Patents...

Deeplinks ·

2025/06/03

Two dangerous bills have been reintroduced in Congress that would reverse over a decade of progress in fighting patent trolls and making the patent system more balanced. The Patent Eligibility Restoration Act (PERA) and the PREVAIL Act would each cause significant harm on their own. Together, they form a one-two punch—making it easier to obtain vague and overly broad patents, while making it harder for the public to challenge them. These bills don’t just share bad ideas—they share sponsors, a

The Defense Attorney’s Arsenal In Challenging...

Deeplinks ·

2025/06/02

In criminal prosecutions, electronic monitoring (EM) is pitched as a “humane alternative" to incarceration – but it is not. The latest generation of “e-carceration” tools are burdensome, harsh, and often just as punitive as imprisonment. Fortunately, criminal defense attorneys have options when shielding their clients from this over-used and harmful tech. Framed as a tool that enhances public safety while reducing jail populations, EM is increasingly used as a condition of pretrial release,

The EU’s “Encryption Roadmap” Makes Everyone Less Safe

Deeplinks ·

2025/06/02

EFF has joined more than 80 civil society organizations, companies, and cybersecurity experts in signing a letter urging the European Commission to change course on its recently announced “Technology Roadmap on Encryption.” The roadmap, part of the EU’s ProtectEU strategy, discusses new ways for law enforcement to access encrypted data. That framing is dangerously flawed. Let’s be clear: there is no technical “lawful access” to end-to-end encrypted messages that preserves security and privacy. Any

245 Days Without Justice: Laila Soueif’s Hunger...

Deeplinks ·

2025/06/02

Laila Soueif has now been on hunger strike for 245 days. On Thursday night, she was taken to the hospital once again. Soueif’s hunger strike is a powerful act of protest against the failures of two governments. The Egyptian government continues to deny basic justice by keeping her son, Alaa Abd el-Fattah, behind bars—his only “crime” was sharing a Facebook post about the torture of a fellow detainee. Meanwhile, the British government, despite Alaa’s citizenship, has failed to secure even a single

CCTV Cambridge: Digital Equity in 2025

Deeplinks ·

2025/05/30

EFF has long advocated for affordable, accessible, and future-proof internet access for all. Digital equity, the condition in which everyone has access to technology that allows them to participate in society, is an issue that I’ve been proud to organize around. So, it’s awesome to connect with a group that's doing something to address it in their community. Recently I got the chance to catch up with Maritza Grooms, Director of Community Relations at EFA member CCTV Cambridge, who told me about the

She Got an Abortion. So A Texas Cop Used 83,000...

Deeplinks ·

2025/05/30

In a chilling sign of how far law enforcement surveillance has encroached on personal liberties, 404 Media recently revealed that a sheriff’s office in Texas searched data from more than 83,000 automated license plate reader (ALPR) cameras to track down a woman suspected of self-managing an abortion. The officer searched 6,809 different camera networks maintained by surveillance tech company Flock Safety, including states where abortion access is protected by law, such as Washington and Illinois

California’s Cities and Counties Must Step Up Their...

Deeplinks ·

2025/05/29

“The right to privacy is being threatened by the indiscriminate collection, maintenance, and dissemination of personal information and the lack of effective laws and legal remedies,” some astute California lawmakers once wrote. “The increasing use of computers and other sophisticated information technology has greatly magnified the potential risk to individual privacy that can occur from the maintenance of personal information.” Sound familiar? These words may sound like a recent push back on

The Insidious Effort to Privatize Public Airwaves |...

Deeplinks ·

2025/05/28

School is almost out for summer! You know what that means? Plenty of time to catch up on the latest digital rights news! Don't worry, though—EFF has you covered with our EFFector newsletter. This edition of EFFector explains why efforts to privatize public airwaves would harm American TV viewers; goes over how KOSA is still a very bad censorship bill, especially for young people; and covers how Signal, WhatsApp, and other encrypted chat apps back up your conversations. You can read the full

Podcast Episode: Love the Internet Before You Hate On It

Deeplinks ·

2025/05/21

There’s a weird belief out there that tech critics hate technology. But do movie critics hate movies? Do food critics hate food? No! The most effective, insightful critics do what they do because they love something so deeply that they want to see it made even better. The most effective tech critics have had transformative, positive online experiences, and now unflinchingly call out the surveilled, commodified, enshittified landscape that exists today because they know there has been – and still can

Please Drone Responsibly: C-UAS Legislation Needs...

Deeplinks ·

2025/05/19

Today, the Senate Judiciary Committee is holding a hearing titled “Defending Against Drones: Setting Safeguards for Counter Unmanned Aircraft Systems Authorities.” While the government has a legitimate interest in monitoring and mitigating drone threats, it is critical that those powers are narrowly tailored. Robust checks and oversight mechanisms must exist to prevent misuse and to allow ordinary, law-abiding individuals to exercise their rights. Unfortunately, as we and many other civil society

Security Theater REALized and Flying without REAL ID

Deeplinks ·

2025/05/16

After multiple delays of the REAL ID Act of 2005 and its updated counterpart, the REAL ID Modernization Act, in the United States, the May 7th deadline of REAL ID enforcement has finally arrived. Does this move our security forward in the skies? The last 20 years says we got along fine without it. There were and are issues along the way that REAL ID does impose on everyday people, such as potential additional costs and rigid documentation, even if you already have a state issued ID. While TSA states

Standing Up for LGBTQ+ Digital Safety this...

Deeplinks ·

2025/05/16

Lawmakers and regulators around the world have been prolific with passing legislation restricting freedom of expression and privacy for LGBTQ+ individuals and fueling offline intolerance. Online platforms are also complicit in this pervasive ecosystem by censoring pro-LGBTQ+ speech, forcing LGBTQ+ individuals to self-censor or turn to VPNs to avoid being profiled, harassed, doxxed, or criminally prosecuted. The fight for the safety and rights of LGBTQ+ people is not just a fight for visibility

House Moves Forward With Dangerous Proposal Targeting...

Deeplinks ·

2025/05/16

This week, the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee moved forward with a proposal that would allow the Secretary of the Treasury to strip any U.S. nonprofit of its tax-exempt status by unilaterally determining the organization is a “Terrorist Supporting Organization.” This proposal, which places nearly unlimited discretion in the hands of the executive branch to target organizations it disagrees with, poses an existential threat to nonprofits across the U.S. This proposal, added to the House’s

The U.S. Copyright Office’s Draft Report on AI...

Deeplinks ·

2025/05/16

Within the next decade, generative AI could join computers and electricity as one of the most transformational technologies in history, with all of the promise and peril that implies. Governments’ responses to GenAI—including new legal precedents—need to thoughtfully address real-world harms without destroying the public benefits GenAI can offer. Unfortunately, the U.S. Copyright Office’s rushed draft report on AI training misses the mark. The Report Bungles Fair Use Released amidst a set of

In Memoriam: John L. Young, Cryptome Co-Founder

Deeplinks ·

2025/05/15

John L. Young, who died March 28 at age 89 in New York City, was among the first people to see the need for an online library of official secrets, a place where the public could find out things that governments and corporations didn’t want them to know. He made real the idea – revolutionary in its time – that the internet could make more information available to more people than ever before. John and architect Deborah Natsios, his wife, in 1996 founded Cryptome, an online library which collects and

The Kids Online Safety Act Will Make the Internet...

Deeplinks ·

2025/05/15

The Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) is back in the Senate. Sponsors are claiming—again—that the latest version won’t censor online content. It isn’t true. This bill still sets up a censorship regime disguised as a “duty of care,” and it will do what previous versions threatened: suppress lawful, important speech online, especially for young people. TAKE ACTION KOSA Will silence kids and adults KOSA Still Forces Platforms to Police Legal Speech At the center of the bill is a requirement that platforms

EFF to California Lawmakers: There’s a Better Way to...

Deeplinks ·

2025/05/15

We’ve covered a lot of federal and state proposals that badly miss the mark when attempting to grapple with protecting young people’s safety online. These include bills that threaten to cut young people off from vital information, infringe on their First Amendment rights to speak for themselves, subject them (and adults) to invasive and insecure age verification technology, and expose them to danger by sharing personal information with people they may not want to see it. Several such bills are

Keeping People Safe Online – Fundamental Rights...

Deeplinks ·

2025/05/15

This is the final part of a three-part series about age verification in the European Union. In part one, we give an overview of the political debate around age verification and explore the age verification proposal introduced by the European Commission, based on digital identities. Part two takes a closer look at the European Commission’s age verification app, and part three explores measures to keep all users safe that do not require age checks. When thinking about the safety of young people

Stopping States From Passing AI Laws for the Next...

Deeplinks ·

2025/05/14

This week, the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee moved forward with a proposal in its budget reconciliation bill to impose a ten-year preemption of state AI regulation—essentially saying only Congress, not state legislatures, can place safeguards on AI for the next decade. We strongly oppose this. We’ve talked before about why federal preemption of stronger state privacy laws hurts everyone. Many of the same arguments apply here. For one, this would override existing state laws enacted to

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