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Deeplinks

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

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Criminalizing Masks at Protests is Wrong

Deeplinks ·

2025/06/09

There has been a crescendo of states attempting to criminalize the wearing of face coverings while attending protests. Now the President has demanded, in the context of ongoing protests in Los Angeles: “ARREST THE PEOPLE IN FACE MASKS, NOW!” But the truth is: whether you are afraid of catching an airborne illness from your fellow protestors, or you are concerned about reprisals from police or others for expressing your political opinions in public, you should have the right to wear a mask. Attempts

Privacy Victory! Judge Grants Preliminary Injunction...

Deeplinks ·

2025/06/09

Court to Decide Scope of Injunction Later This Week NEW YORK–In a victory for personal privacy, a New York federal district court judge today granted a preliminary injunction in a lawsuit challenging the U.S. Office of Personnel Management’s (OPM) disclosure of records to DOGE and its agents. Judge Denise L. Cote of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York found that OPM violated the Privacy Act and bypassed its established cybersecurity practices under the Administrative

Victory! Austin Organizers Cancel City's Flock ALPR...

Deeplinks ·

2025/06/06

Austin organizers turned out to rebuke the city’s misguided contract with Flock Safety— and won. This successful pushback from the community means at the end of the month Austin police will no longer be able to use the surveillance network of automated license plate readers (ALPRs) across the city.Two years ago Austin City Council approved this controversial contract, despite strong local opposition. We knew then that these AI-driven surveillance systems weren’t just creepy, they are prone to

EFF to Department Homeland Security: No Social Media...

Deeplinks ·

2025/06/06

EFF submitted comments to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its subcomponent U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), urging them to abandon a proposal to collect social media identifiers on forms for immigration benefits. This collection would mark yet a further expansion of the government’s efforts to subject immigrants to social media surveillance, invading their privacy and chilling their free speech and associational rights for fear of being denied key immigration

EFF to Court: Young People Have First Amendment Rights

Deeplinks ·

2025/06/06

Utah cannot stifle young people’s First Amendment rights to use social media to speak about politics, create art, discuss religion, or to hear from other users discussing those topics, EFF argued in a brief filed this week. EFF filed the brief in NetChoice v. Brown, a constitutional challenge to the Utah Minor Protection in Social Media Act. The law prohibits young people from speaking to anyone on social media outside of the users with whom they are connected or those users’ connections. It also

Keeping the Web Up Under the Weight of AI Crawlers

Deeplinks ·

2025/06/05

If you run a site on the open web, chances are you've noticed a big increase in traffic over the past few months, whether or not your site has been getting more viewers, and you're not alone. Operators everywhere have observed a drastic increase in automated traffic—bots—and in most cases attribute much or all of this new traffic to AI companies. Background AI—in particular, Large Language Models (LLMs) and generative AI (genAI)—rely on compiling as much information from relevant sources (i.e.,

EFF to the FTC: DMCA Section 1201 Creates...

Deeplinks ·

2025/06/05

As part of multi-pronged effort towards deregulation, the Federal Trade Commission has asked the public to identify any and all “anti-competitive” regulations. Working with our friends at Authors Alliance, EFF answered, calling attention to a set of anti-competitive regulations that many don’t recognize as such: the triennial exemptions to Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and the cumbersome process on which they depend. Copyright grants exclusive rights to creators, but only as

The Dangers of Consolidating All Government Information

Deeplinks ·

2025/06/05

The Trump administration has been heavily invested in consolidating all of the government’s information into a single searchable, or perhaps AI-queryable, super database. The compiling of all of this information is being done with the dubious justification of efficiency and modernization–however, in many cases, this information was originally siloed for important reasons: to protect your privacy, to prevent different branches of government from using sensitive data to punish or harass you, and to

Judges Stand With Law Firms (and EFF) Against Trump’s...

Deeplinks ·

2025/06/05

“Pernicious.” “Unprecedented... cringe-worthy.” “Egregious.” “Shocking.” These are just some of the words that federal judges used in recent weeks to describe President Trump’s politically motivated and vindictive executive orders targeting law firms that have employed people or represented clients or causes he doesn’t like. But our favorite word by far is “unconstitutional.” EFF was one of the very first legal organizations to publicly come out in support of Perkins Coie when it became the

Statement on California State Senate Advancing...

Deeplinks ·

2025/06/04

In the wake of the California State Senate’s passage of S.B. 690, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), TechEquity, Consumer Federation of California, Tech Oversight California, ACLU California Action, Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, and the California Low Income Consumers Coalition issued a joint statement warning that the bill would put the safety and privacy of millions of Californians at serious risk: “SB 690 gives the green-light to dystopian big tech surveillance practices which will

Podcast Episode: Why Three is Tor's Magic Number

Deeplinks ·

2025/06/04

Many in Silicon Valley, and in U.S. business at large, seem to believe innovation springs only from competition, a race to build the next big thing first, cheaper, better, best. But what if collaboration and community breeds innovation just as well as adversarial competition?

San Diegans Push Back on Flock ALPR Surveillance

Deeplinks ·

2025/06/03

Approaching San Diego’s first annual review of the city's controversial Flock Safety contract, a local coalition is calling on the city council to roll back this dangerous and costly automated license plate reader (ALPR) program.The TRUST Coalition—a grassroots alliance including Electronic Frontier Alliance members Tech Workers Coalition San Diego and techLEAD—has rallied to stop the unchecked spread of ALPRs in San Diego. We’ve previously covered the coalition’s fight for surveillance oversight,

Hell No: The ODNI Wants to Make it Easier for the...

Deeplinks ·

2025/06/03

New reporting has revealed that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) is attempting to create the Intelligence Community’s Data Consortium–a centralized online marketplace where law enforcement and spy agencies can peruse and buy very personal digital data about you collected by data brokers. Not only is this a massive escalation of the deeply unjust data broker loophole: it’s also another repulsive signal that your privacy means nothing to the intelligence community. Imagine a

The Right to Repair Is Law in Washington State

Deeplinks ·

2025/06/03

Thanks in part to your support, the right to repair is now law in Washington. Gov. Bob Ferguson signed two bills guaranteeing Washingtonians' right to access tools, parts, and information so they can fix personal electronics, appliances, and wheelchairs. This is the epitome of common-sense legislation. When you own something, you should have the final say about who fixes, adapts, or modifies it—and how. When you own something, you should have the final say about who fixes, adapts, or modifies it—and

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

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