Electronic Frontier Foundation

Posted by Kenneth Ronkowitz on


If you find technology empowering, and if you find tremendous freedom in what it allows us to do (as citizens, as educators), then you need to be aware of and support the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).

Founded in 1990 (before the Net exploded), it monitors and takes action in issues defending free speech, privacy, innovation, and
consumer rights in the public interest.

EFF = lawyers, policy analysts, activists, and technologists and theyare actually in the courts, bringing/defending lawsuits. They are a donor-funded nonprofit.

A sample current case involves the Sony Rootkit - a nasty piece of DRM that was loaded on computers by folks putting in certain Sony music CDs to their computers to play.

"EFF held Sony BMG accountable for infecting its customers' computers with software that created grave security vulnerabilities and let the company spy on listening behavior.
Sony BMG included the dangerous software on millions of music CDs as part of a misguided attempt to restrict consumer usage. After pushing Sony BMG to take the CDs off the market, EFF filed and subsequently settled a class-action lawsuit that forced Sony to repair the damage already done. EFF also successfully pressured Sunncomm, the creators of one of the harmful technologies, to fix the security flaws" more at http://www.eff.org/IP/DRM/Sony-BMG/

And this week on their site, a posting about my home state:

March 13, 2006 - Coalition Opposes New Jersey Bills That Threaten Anonymity Online

"We recently criticized two New Jersey bills that would eliminate online anonymous speech by requiring every Internet service provider, blog, and website that allows reader comments or provides open forums to demand user identification from every participant. Today, a diverse coalition of companies, public interest organizations, and legal scholars, including EFF, craigslist, Public Citizen, the US Internet Industry Association (USIIA), the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) and Professors Lyrissa C. Barnett Lidsky and Jennifer M. Urban, sent an open letter today to the bills' authors, urging them to withdraw their support."



LINKS

For information on donating to EFF, see
http://www.eff.org/support/

Learn about significant EFF court victories
http://www.eff.org/legal/victories/

Learn more about EFF's founding
http://www.eff.org/about/history.php

This partial list of topics from the EFF site is an education in digital rights:
Anonymity
Biometrics
Bloggers' Rights
Censorship
Copyright Law
Digital Rights Management (DRM)
DMCA
Domain names
E-voting
File-sharing
Filtering
Intellectual Property
Internet governance
Linking
Privacy
Reverse engineering
RFID
Spam
Surveillance
USA PATRIOT Act
Wireless


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