If the Supreme Court doesn’t reverse a lower court’s ruling, internet service providers (ISPs) could be forced to terminate people’s internet access based on nothing more than mere accusations of copyright infringement. This would threaten innocent users who rely on broadband for essential aspects of daily life. EFF—along with the American Library Association, the Association of Research Libraries, and Re:Create—filed an amicus brief urging the Court to reverse the decision.

The Stakes: Turning ISPs into Copyright Police

Among other things, the Supreme Court approving the appeals court’s findings will radically change the amount of risk your ISP takes on if a customer infringes on copyright, forcing the ISP to terminate access to the internet for those users accused of copyright infringement—and everyone else who uses that internet connection.

This issue turns on what courts call “secondary liability,” which is the legal idea that someone can be held responsible not for what they did directly, but for what someone else did using their product or service.

This is the first installment in a blog series documenting EFF's findings from the Stop Censoring Abortion campaign. You can read additional posts here. 

We’ve been hearing that social media platforms are censoring abortion-related content, even when no law requires them to do so. Now, we’ve got the receipts. 

The California legislature has passed a necessary piece of legislation, S.B. 524, which starts to regulate police reports written by generative AI. Now, it’s up to us to make sure Governor Newsom will sign the bill. 

We must make our voices heard. These technologies obscure certain records and drafts from public disclosure. Vendors have invested heavily on their ability to sell police genAI. 

TAKE ACTION

The Mexican government passed a package of outrageously privacy-invasive laws in July that gives both civil and military law enforcement forces access to troves of personal data and forces every individual to turn over biometric information regardless of any suspicion of crime.   

This is the second instalment in a ten-part blog series documenting EFF's findings from the Stop Censoring Abortion campaign. You can read additional posts here. 

During our Stop Censoring Abortion campaign, we set out to collect and spotlight the growing number of stories from people and organizations that have had abortion-related content removed, suppressed, or flagged by dominant social media platforms. Our survey submissions have revealed some alarming trends, including: if you don’t have a personal or second-degree connection at Meta, your chances of restoring your content or account are likely to drop significantly. 

It's easy to keep up with the fight for digital privacy and free expression. Our EFFector newsletter delivers bite-sized updates, stories, and actions you can take to stay informed and help out.

In this latest issue, we show how libraries and schools can safeguard their computers with Privacy Badger; highlight the dangers of unaccountable corporations and billionaires buying surveillance tech for police; and share news that EFF’s Executive Director, Cindy Cohn, will be stepping down in mid-2026 after more than two decades of leadership.

EFFector isn’t just for reading—you can listen, too! In our audio companion, EFF Senior Staff Technologist Cooper Quintin explains why ICE’s contract with Paragon Solutions is so dangerous. Catch the conversation on YouTube or the Internet Archive.

This posted was drafted by EFF legal intern Alexandra Halbeck

The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which covers California and most of the Western U.S., just delivered good news for digital privacy: abandoning a phone doesn’t abandon your Fourth Amendment rights in the phone’s contents. In United States v. Hunt, the court made clear that no longer having control of a device is not the same thing as surrendering the privacy of the information it contains. As a result, courts must separately analyze whether someone intended to abandon a physical phone and whether they intended to abandon the data stored within it. Given how much personal information our phones contain, it will be unlikely for courts to find that someone truly intended to give up their privacy rights in that data.

The San Francisco Police Department is the latest California law enforcement agency to get caught sharing automated license plate reader (ALPR) data with out-of-state and federal agencies. EFF and the ACLU of Northern California are calling them out for this direct violation of California law, which has put every driver in the city at risk and is especially dangerous for immigrants, abortion seekers, and other targets of the federal government.

This week, we sent the San Francisco Police Department a demand letter and request for records under the city’s Sunshine Ordinance following the SF Standard’s recent report that SFPD provided non-California agencies direct access to the city’s ALPR database. Reporters uncovered that at least 19 searches run by these agencies were marked as related to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”). The city’s ALPR database was also searched by law enforcement agencies from Georgia and Texas, both states with severe restrictions on reproductive healthcare.

It's been a year full of challenges, but also important victories for digital freedoms. From EFF’s new lawsuit against OPM and DOGE, to launching Rayhunter (our new tool to detect cellular spying), to exposing the censorship of abortion-related content on social media, we’ve been busy! But we’re not the only ones leading the charge. 

This is the third installment in a blog series documenting EFF's findings from the Stop Censoring Abortion campaign. You can read additional posts here.