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Electronic Frontier Foundation

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File:Eff.gif
EFF Logo

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is a non-profit advocacy and legal organization based in the United States with the stated purpose of being dedicated to preserving free speech rights such as those protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution in the context of today's digital age. Its stated main goal is to educate the press, policymakers and the general public about civil liberties issues related to technology; and to act as a defender of those liberties. The EFF is a membership organization supported by donations and is based in San Francisco, California, with staff members in Toronto, Ontario and Washington, D.C.

The EFF uses the blue ribbon as symbolism for their Free Speech defense.
EFF vs. at&t
EFF vs. at&t

EFF has taken action in several ways:

  • Providing or funding legal defense in court.
  • Defending the individual and new technologies from the chilling effects of what it considers baseless or misdirected legal threats.
  • Providing guidance to the government and courts.
  • Organizing political action and mass mailings.
  • Supporting some new technologies which it believes preserve personal freedoms.
  • Maintaining a database and web sites of related news and information.
  • Monitoring and challenging potential legislation that it believes would infringe on personal liberties and fair use.
  • Soliciting a list of what it considers patent abuses with intentions to defeat those that it considers without merit.

The EFF publishes a weekly newsletter known as the EFFector. The EFFector began in 1990, coinciding with the EFF creation.

History

Mitch Kapor, EFF founder

The Electronic Frontier Foundation was founded in July 1990 by Mitch Kapor, John Gilmore and John Perry Barlow. The founders met through the online community at The WELL.

The creation of the organization was motivated by the massive search and seizure on Steve Jackson Games by the United States Secret Service early in 1990. Similar but officially unconnected law-enforcement raids were being conducted across the United States at about that time as part of a state-federal task force called Operation Sundevil. However, the Steve Jackson Games case, which became EFF's first high-profile case, was the major rallying point when EFF began promoting computer- and Internet-related civil liberties. EFF's second big case was Bernstein v. United States led by Cindy Cohn, where programmer and professor Daniel Bernstein sued the government for permission to publish his encryption software, Snuffle, and a paper describing it. More recently the organization has been involved in defending Edward Felten, Jon Johansen and Dmitry Sklyarov.

The organization was originally located at Mitch Kapor's K.E.I. in Cambridge, Massachusetts. By the fall of 1993, the main EFF offices were housed in Washington, D.C., headed up by Jerry Berman. During this time, some of EFF's attention focused on the business of influencing national policy, a worthy business, but one perhaps not entirely palatable to parts of the organization. In 1994, Mr. Berman parted ways with EFF and formed the Center for Democracy and Technology. EFF moved offices across town, where Drew Taubman briefly took the reins as director. In 1995, under the auspices of director Lori Fena, after some downsizing and in an effort to regroup and refocus on their base support, the organization moved offices to San Francisco, California. There, it took up temporary residence at John Gilmore's Toad Hall, and soon afterward moved into the Hamm's building at 1550 Bryant St. After Fena moved onto the EFF board of directors for a while, the organization was led by Tara Lemmey. Just prior to the EFF's move into its new and present offices at 454 Shotwell St. in SF's Mission District, long-time EFF Legal Director Shari Steele became, and remains as of mid-2006, the Executive Director. In the spring of 2006, EFF announced the opening of an office in Washington, D.C. with two new staff attorneys.[1]

Books and references

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John Gilmore, EFF founder

Books that cover EFF's history in-depth from a policy and legal cases perspective include:

Some other references are:

Major supporters

Criticisms

The EFF has a strong base of supporters who prioritize wholesale changes to law (including legalizing potentially unauthorized trading of copyrighted files over peer-to-peer networks, implying some change of the copyright laws) over stopping abuses of the law (such as stopping abusive patents and DMCA complaints). By the same token, the EFF does not officially condone the trading of copyrighted material. Likewise the EFF has helped defend Skylink and OPG against DMCA abuse. It also began its so-called Patent Busting Project.

The EFF has been criticized by anti-spam militants for its official opposition to certain anti-spam techniques that do not deliver all wanted messages to the end-user. The EFF argues that the decision as to what is spam and what is not resides with the recipient, not intermediaries such as ISPs, and that there are efficient spam filters available to the end-user. It further argues that the problem resides in those creating spam rather than the lack of effective filters.

Prior to the EFF's defense of 2600: The Hacker Quarterly magazine in 2001, the hacker community criticized EFF as "missing in action" with regards to their legal troubles.

History, milestones, cases

  • 1990: EFF is founded and the groundwork is laid for the successful representation of Steve Jackson Games in a Federal court case to prosecute the United States Secret Service for unlawfully raiding their offices and seizing computers.
  • 1990: Mike Godwin joins the organization as the first staff counsel.
  • 1991: Esther Dyson and Jerry Berman join EFF Board
  • 1991: Steve Jackson Games v. United States Secret Service. EFF files in federal court.
  • 1992: EFF gives first annual Pioneer Awards at 2nd Computers, Freedom, and Privacy conference in Washington, DC
  • 1992: Cliff Figallo became the new director of EFF-Cambridge
  • December 1992: Jerry Berman becomes Acting Executive Director
  • 1993: SJ Games vs. The Secret Service. Steve Jackson Games wins its case against the Secret Service.
  • 1993: Offices moved to 1001 G. St. office in Washington, DC
  • 1993: Big Dummy's guide to the Internet made available for free download.
  • October 1993: Stanton McCandlish joins the organization as online activist.
  • 1994: Drew Taubman named Executive Director
  • 1994: Center for Democracy and Technology is formed by Jerry Berman
  • 1994: Scientology versus The Internet
  • 1995: Bernstein v. United States
  • 1995: EFF moves to San Francisco
  • 1995-1996: EFF opens its "Blue Ribbon Campaign" in direct response to the Communications Decency Act
  • 1996: EFF co-founds TRUSTe, the first Privacy Seal company, with CommerceNet, a non-profit industry consortium.
  • 1998: EFF builds Deep Crack, a machine that decrypts a DES-encrypted message after only 56 hours of work, winning RSA Security's DES Challenge II-2.
  • 1999: EFF and Anonymizer launch the Kosovo Privacy Project, an anonymous and secure email and Web surfing service conceived by Alex Fowler and Patrick Ball to ensure the protection of Kosovars, Serbs, and others reporting on the Kosovo War within the region from reprisal from Serbian officials.
  • 2001: Felten v. RIAA. EFF supports Felten in suing RIAA after Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI), RIAA, and Verance Corporation threaten Felten with legal action under the terms of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) over Felten's plan to present a paper about methods for defeating the SDMI watermarks. The case is dismissed.
  • April 2002: EFF supports the Chilling Effects Clearinghouse effort to organize a database of IP law abuse and educate potential victims.
  • November 2002: Universal v. Reimerdes (The 2600 Magazine case). EFF loses its appeal before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, establishing a legal precedent to permit prior restraint. 2600 Magazine is restrained from publishing links to the DeCSS code under provisions of the DMCA and declines to appeal to the Supreme Court.
  • December 2003: RIAA v. Verizon, D.C. Cir. EFF supports Verizon in a successful challenge to a lower court ruling holding that the company must reveal the identity of a Verizon customer accused of copyright infringement using the peer-to-peer file-sharing software KaZaA. The DC Circuit Court of Appeals agrees with Verizon and EFF that the special subpoena provisions in the DMCA apply to potentially infringing material stored on an ISP server, not material stored on an individual's own computer.
  • 2004: DirecTV v. Treworgy, 11th Circuit. EFF helps defend "smart card" technology owner Mike Treworgy after DirecTV sued him based on the fact that he purchased hardware that could be used to intercept the company's satellite TV signals. Treworgy prevails in the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, which finds that DirecTV cannot sue individuals for "mere possession" of smart-card technology. In separate negotiations with DirecTV, EFF succeeds in getting the company to drop its "guilt-by-purchase" litigation strategy altogether.
  • 2004-02-18: EFF files amicus curiae brief in 1-800 Contacts, Inc. v. WhenU.Com and Vision Direct, Inc. appeal (see 1-800 Contacts)
  • April 19, 2004: EFF initiates the Patent Busting Project to challenge "illegitimate patents that suppress non-commercial and small business innovation or limit free expression online"
  • May 2004: Doe v. Ashcroft. EFF files amicus supporting ACLU's challenge to the constitutionality of 18 U.S.C. § 2709, which authorizes the FBI to compel the production of subscriber and communications records in the possession of a broad range of ISPs, potentially covering billions of records from tens of thousands of entities. These demands, known as National Security Letters, were issued without judicial oversight of any kind, yet allowed the FBI to obtain a vast amount of constitutionally protected information. In September 2004, Judge Victor Marrero of the Southern District of New York issues a landmark decision striking down the NSL statute and the associated gag provision.
  • August 2004: Chamberlain v. Skylink. EFF helps defend Skylink in the Federal Circuit that puts limits on the controversial "anti-circumvention" provision of the DMCA. Chamberlain, the manufacturer of garage doors, invoked the provision to stop Skylink from selling a "universal" remote control that works with Chamberlain garage doors. The court rejected Chamberlain's claims, noting that if it adopted the company's interpretation of the DMCA, it would threaten many legitimate uses of software within electronic and computer products -- something the law aims to protect.
  • August 19, 2004: MGM v. Grokster. EFF prevails before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals with a decision affirming the "Betamax doctrine" -- the rule following the Supreme Court's 1984 holding that a company that creates a technology cannot be held liable for copyright violations by users if the technology has substantial legal uses. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals rules that neither were liable for infringements by people using their software to distribute copyrighted works. However, on June 27, 2005 U.S. Supreme Court reverses, finding the defendants liable for copyright infringement, though the Court preserved the Betamax doctrine. Co-defendant Grokster eventually settles with MGM and disbands the company.
  • October 6, 2004: EFF submits a brief in cooperation with eight other public interest organizations, challenging the FCC's authority to impose the broadcast flag mandate, which was to go into effect during July 2005.
  • October 15, 2004: EFF successfully represents the non-profit ISP Online Policy Group (OPG) and two Swarthmore College students who published major security flaws in Diebold Election Systems voting machines. From the press release: "Diebold is the first company to be held liable for violating section 512(f) of the DMCA. which makes it unlawful to use DMCA takedown threats when the copyright holder knows that infringement has not actually occurred."
  • 2004: JibJab Media v. Ludlow Music, N.D. Cal. EFF successfully defends JibJab, the creators of a parody flash animation piece using Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land", and uncovered evidence that the classic folk song is in fact already part of the public domain.
  • November 2004: EFF files brief opposing the FCC's proposal to expand CALEA to broadband Internet access providers and VoIP systems.
  • December 2004: EFF starts promoting and supporting Tor, a second generation Onion Routing network that allows people to communicate anonymously.
  • June 2005: EFF issues a Legal Guide for Bloggers, designed to be a basic roadmap to the legal issues one may confront as a blogger, to let bloggers know their rights.
  • October 2005: EFF investigates and documents how the Xerox DocuColor printer's serial number, as well as the date and time of the printout, are encoded in a repeating 15 by 8 dot pattern in the yellow channel on printed pages. EFF is working to reverse engineer additional printers. (see Printer identification encoding)
  • November 2005: EFF files suit against Sony BMG Music Entertainment -- along with two leading national class action law firms -- demanding that the company repair the damage done by the First4Internet XCP and SunnComm MediaMax software it included on over 24 million music CDs (see 2005 Sony BMG CD copy protection scandal).
  • January 2006: Hepting vs. AT&T. EFF files a class action lawsuit against AT&T alleging that AT&T allowed the NSA to potentially tap the entirety of its clients' Internet and Voice over IP communications.
  • August 2006: EFF files a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission, accusing AOL of violating the Federal Trade Commission Act and asking for the FTC to take action. EFF alleges that AOL has engaged in deceptive and unfair trade practices with the disclosure of 20 million search queries of 650,000 anonymized users, intended for research purposes (see AOL for details). AOL is failing to "implement reasonable and appropriate measures to protect personal consumer information from public disclosure." Beyond that, AOL's failure to "employ proper security measures [...] to protect personal consumer information from public disclosure" constitutes an unfair trade practice.
  • November 2006: EFF files a lawsuit, on behalf of blogger Jeffrey Diehl, against Michael Crook, a webmaster Diehl claimed filed false DMCA claims against his and other websites. As of late 2006, the case is still pending in federal court.

Notes

  1. ^ McCullagh, Declan (April 27, 2006). "EFF reaches out to D.C. with new office". CNET News.com.

See also

Publications

Wikinews has related news:
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