Update: On August 28, 2014, EFF asked the Federal Circuit for permission to file a short amicus brief in this appeal. Our brief argues that the Supreme Court’s decision in Alice v. CLS Bank requires that Ultramercial’s patent on showing ads before content (but on the Internet!) be invalidated as abstract. Since this case has bounced back and forth between the Supreme Court and the Federal Circuit, this is now the fourth amicus brief EFF has prepared arguing that the patent is invalid.

PACER (Public Access to Court Electronic Records) is the government-run online system used by lawyers, the press, and the public to access public federal court records in the United States. The administrators of that system recently announced that a huge number of documents from five federal courts have been permanently removed from its database and are no longer publicly viewable. For one circuit court, only documents filed within the last 2.5 years are now available; for two other circuit courts, documents now go back only 4 years. 

The NSA’s mass collection of telephone call detail records violates the Fourth Amendment, Anna Smith, the plaintiff in Smith v. Obama, told the Ninth Circuit yesterday, in the third challenge to the so-called section 215 program to reach a court of appeals. The opening brief concludes: “The surveillance imposed on Americans by the call-records program is anathema to this country’s constitutional tradition, and the privacy intrusions the program works are unprecedented in our history.”

­Turns out, the DEA and FBI may know what medical conditions you have, whether you are having an affair, where you were last night, and more—all without any knowing that you have ever broken a law.

EFF, joined by Access, filed public comments last week urging the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) to tackle the unknown spying activities occurring under Executive Order 12333 (EO 12333). The Executive Order is supposed to protect Americans from presidentially-directed spying; however, despite the protections, EO 12333 is being used for mass spying that collects Americans' communications, address books, and other information.

The letter urges the PCLOB to expand its investigation into EO 12333 and

Back in June, we urged companies offering educational or communications tools to apply for licenses to make their products available in Sudan. Last week, we were thrilled to learn that Coursera—an online educational course provider that Sudanese activists have told us is "in great demand"—successfully applied for and was granted a license from the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) granting them permission to offer courses in Sudan and Cuba.

Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather.

These are the opening words of the Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace, written by EFF co-founder and board member, John Perry Barlow almost two decades ago. The document is more of a visionary dream than a political program, and doesn't shape EFF's policy on a day to day level (indeed, Barlow himself has said that he would write it differently today). Yet it continues to resonate strongly for many.

Smith v. Obama, a challenge to the NSA’s warrantless collection of phone records, currently before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, has received some high-profile support. In six amicus briefs filed yesterday, a range of groups add depth to our argument that the NSA’s activities are an extraordinary invasion of the privacy of innocent Americans.

Right now the FCC is considering a set of rules that would allow Internet providers to offer faster access to some websites that can afford to pay.  We need to stop them.

Let’s start with the obvious: The Internet is how we communicate and how we work, learn new things, and find out where to go and how to get there. It keeps us connected to those we love and informed of political events that affect our everyday lives.

A proposed anti-terrorism law in France has freedom of expression advocates concerned.  The bill, as our friends at La Quadrature du Net frame it, “institutes a permanent state of emergency on the Internet,” providing for harsher penalties for incitement or “glorification” of terrorism conducted online.  Furthermore, the bill (in Article 9) allows for “the possibility for the administrative authority to require Internet service providers to block access to sites inciting or apologizing for terrorism” without distinguishing criteria or an authority to conduct the blocking.

This is a guest post from Luis Fernando Garcia, Red en Defensa de los Derechos Digitales (R3D).  If you have comments on this post, you can contact R3D on Twitter.

Over the weekend accusations surfaced that Comcast has been threatening Tor users with termination of service. According to reports, Comcast subscribers claimed that agents from the company instructed subscribers that use of the highly popular Tor browser was “illegal” and against the giant ISP’s user policies. And let’s get one thing straight right now: Tor isn’t illegal. In fact, the Tor browser is used by academics, activists, regular Internet users, and even law enforcement.

If these accusations were true, then Comcast would not only be acting contrary to the principles of net neutrality, but would also potentially infringe on millions of users’ legitimate need to use the Internet without disclosing their IP address.

Alaa Abd El Fattah, the Egyptian activist and blogger who was sentenced in June to fifteen years in prison and began a hunger strike 26 days ago, has been freed on bail. Abd El Fattah was given release following a hearing for retrial, which he still faces. According to the Guardian, the judge presiding over the retrial has stepped down at the request of his defense lawyers. In addition to Abd El Fattah, Mohamed Abdel-Rahman aka Noubi and Wael Metwally were also released on bail.

This is a guest post from Angela Daly & Angus Murray, Members of the Policy and Research Standing Committee, Electronic Frontiers Australia. Angela is also a member of Australian Privacy Foundation's board of directors.  If you have comments on this post, you
can contact Angela or Electronic Frontiers Australia on Twitter

This is a guest post from Joe Mcnamee, Executive Director, European Digital Rights (EDRI). If you have comments on this post, you can contact EDRI on Twitter. This post was originally published in https://edri.org/13principles

Between 15th-19th of September, in the week leading up the first year anniversary of the 13 Necessary and Proportionate Principles, EFF and the coalition behind the Principles will be conducting a Week of Action explaining some of the key guiding principles for surveillance law reform. Every day, we'll take on a different part of the principles, exploring what’s at stake and what we need to do to bring intelligence agencies and the police back under the rule of law. You can read the complete set of posts at: https://necessaryandproportionate.org/anniversary. The Principles were first launched at the 24th Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva on 20 September 2013. Let's send a message to Member States at the United Nations and wherever else folks are tackling surveillance law reform: surveillance law can no longer ignore our human rights.

It's a sign of the times that online companies’ transparency reports are starting to include a new section: the Hall of Shame. Automattic, the company behind WordPress, is the latest to do so, highlighting examples of copyright and trademark overreach by prominent figures like Janet Jackson, as well as more local businesses, organizations, and individuals attempting to silence criticism and other noninfringing speech. It even highlighted one example we've written about—and even dedicated a short video to—in which a baked goods company misused trademark to go after bloggers talking about derby pie, a common regional dessert in the Southern U.S.

Colombian master's student Diego Gomez faces up to eight years in prison and crippling monetary fines for sharing another academic's master's thesis with his colleagues online. He recently attended his first preliminary hearing for this case, where the government is pressing charges against Diego under Colombia's stringent criminal copyright provisions.

An important California bill that would require warrants for law enforcement use of drones is currently sitting on Governor Jerry Brown’s desk. Unfortunately, there’s no guarantee that Gov. Brown will sign AB 1327, which passed the California legislature this August. EFF has long held that a warrant requirement is an essential component of any drone legislation, so while some of the bill’s language is imperfect, we encourage the Governor to sign the bill and ask concerned Californians to do the same.

One way the Brown administration gauges public support for a bill is through Twitter, so we've made it easy for you to send him the following message:

We’ve written before about how copyright is chipping away at your right to own devices you’ve bought and paid for—from e-books to toasters and even your car. Time and again, people who want to modify their own property or sell it to others are told that they can’t, because their property comes saddled with copyrighted code they’re not allowed to modify or give away when they are done with the device.

The Administrative Office of the United States Courts (AO) announced on Friday that it would make reams of court records once again accessible through PACER, the federal courts' digital warehouse for its court files. Many advocates are cheering this decision. But we are not. It's a big missed opportunity to provide free access to this trove of court records.

Good news for whistleblowers, journalists, and everyone who likes to browse the Internet with an added cloak of privacy: the Tor network got a little stronger. Tor—software that lets you mask your IP address—relies on an international network of committed volunteers to run relays to help mask traffic. And that network is stronger now, thanks to the 1,000+ volunteers who participated in our second-ever Tor Challenge.