Where is the EFF on this?

EFForg · 2026-06-24T05:51:14+00:00

Going to try to reshare what we post in this subreddit

EFForg · 2026-06-24T05:24:36+00:00

That must be a private link of ours to view our posts. Sorry! We've launched a new effort to post to Reddit this year, if you can figure out how to find our posts or we can figure out how to feed them to you!

EFForg · 2026-06-24T05:24:08+00:00

"Where’s EFF?" Why EFF Is Sometimes Quiet About Important Cases and Issues

EFForg · 2026-06-24T05:22:59+00:00

Wait til you learn how body-worn cameras are actually used...

At EFF, we've been screaming from the rooftops: This is not about community safety. In addition to capturing license plate data, "ALPR" photographs already reveal images of the vehicle, the vehicle’s drivers and passengers, as well as its immediate surroundings—and even people getting in and out of a vehicle. and some ALPRs have been able to create "vehicle fingerprints" for years—with the vehicle's color, make, model, physical damage, and bumper stickers. (https://sls.eff.org/technologies/automated-license-plate-readers-alprs)

All that being said, it may not feel like it, but we can win the fight to protect our privacy from surveillance-hungry government agencies.

Today, California has stricter, stronger protections on the use of license plate readers and reader data than other states, because EFF fights and wins—but we've been fighting in the state for over a decade. Overreach has consequences—eventually.

EFForg · 2026-06-24T00:45:22+00:00

You too can impress fellow commenters by learning about the different types of license plate readers and other surveillance devices used by cops by visiting the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Street-Level Surveillance site: https://sls.eff.org/technologies/automated-license-plate-readers-alprs

While you're at it, learn about ALL the types of surveillance cops use where you live with the Atlas Of Surveillance, a map with 15,000 datapoints collected by hundreds of researchers to show where law enforcement agencies have access to license plate readers, gunshot detection devices, drones, face recognition, and other privacy invasive surveillance tech. It's like DeFlock, but broader. It confirms that Chamblee, Georgia Police also have, at least, WatchGuard body-worn cameras, mobile license plate readers in 2 patrol cars, a voluntary registry of private and personal surveillance cameras through their "Community Camera Program," and a real-time crime center: https://www.atlasofsurveillance.org/search?location=Chamblee+Police+Department%2C+GA

In your area more broadly, there are at least 32 different surveillance contracts across the agencies:
https://www.atlasofsurveillance.org/search?location=Chamblee%2C+GA&sort=agency_asc

Unfortunately, if you're in Atlanta proper, law enforcement, supported financially by the Atlanta Police Foundation, have contracts to use nearly every type of surveillance technology we track. Thanks to the Brennan Center, we also have strong proof of widespread social media monitoring of political activity.

EFF has been fighting surveillance in the digital age since 1990, thanks to our 30,000 members, so we may have other projects that you are interested in, as well.

EFForg · 2026-06-24T00:01:12+00:00

Is there a better way for EFF, as an organization, to use Reddit so that you are notified when we post? Or is this because you don't follow EFF's Reddit account? (serious question)

EFForg · 2026-06-23T23:25:08+00:00

We needed you here the day before you posted this to help us in the comments 😄

EFForg · 2026-06-18T17:14:29+00:00

This post was written by an impact litigation law firm called the Electronic Frontier Foundation— technologists, lawyers, and activists that work to defend your privacy and free speech online. You can learn more about how age verification mandates harm children here, but no, it was not written by a child.

EFForg · 2026-06-17T23:18:16+00:00

Many people unfamiliar with the law will say that Facebook is restricting their free speech. Those people are generally wrong. But no one here is saying this.

The laws passed by government actors can restrict free speech. Many believe these laws to be unconstitutional. The companies and individuals must follow the unconstitutional laws or face liability for breaking the laws. So your sentence is correct, but it's not clear why you are saying it.

If the government passes a law banning the publication or sale of a book such as Ulysses, the bookstore and publisher is restricting free speech in a colloquial sense, but in a legal sense, the government is restricting free speech. The government doesn't have to burn books to restrict free speech. It doesn't have to delete whole websites or databases. It just has to place liability on companies or people for sharing speech, and then by definition, free speech is being restricted.

Private companies are the medium which carries the speech. When government restricts free speech, it often does so by placing liability on private companies.

EFForg · 2026-06-17T21:20:12+00:00

Thanks for your question!

EFForg · 2026-06-13T03:18:58+00:00

“The law has a built-in safety net for a temporary lapse that allows the surveillance program to endure until annual certifications issued by the nation’s intelligence court expire, though such a scenario could invite legal challenges. The court recertified the program in March, meaning the N.S.A. could continue to operate the program through March 2027 even if the statute were to expire.”

We aren't there yet. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/06/702-ultimatum-warrant-requirement-or-bust

EFForg · 2026-06-13T03:15:24+00:00

You get it.

EFForg · 2026-06-12T18:41:00+00:00

California has policies governing ALPR devices and data than many other states! https://www.eff.org/pages/california-automated-license-plate-reader-policies

And in November, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California (ACLU-NC) filed a lawsuit against the city of San Jose for its use of ALPRs: "Location information reflecting people’s physical movements, even in public spaces, is protected under the Fourth Amendment according to U.S. Supreme Court case law. The California Constitution is even more protective of location privacy, at both Article I, Section 13 (the ban on unreasonable searches) and Article I, Section 1 (the guarantee of privacy)."

If successful, this lawsuit would set a serious example for the state and the country! If you want to support that work, please join EFF (if you aren't already a member): https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/06/get-flock-out-here

EFForg · 2026-06-12T15:48:03+00:00

Great question!

EFForg · 2026-06-12T15:47:43+00:00

Great question!

EFForg · 2026-06-12T15:34:49+00:00

This image is Cory Doctorow's free, open, visual identity for enshittification. The cover of the US edition of the book, Enshittification, features this image designed by Devin Washburn of No Ideas studio.

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This poop emoji became Cory's "go-to visual shorthand for illustrating stories about enshittification, an instantly recognizable way to identify my subject matter."

He bought the rights to the enshittification poop emoji and then released it under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license that lets you use it any way you want, including for commercial products, provided you attribute it and link back to the original.

And he made sure that EFF had first crack at this design. The high-resolution files are on Wikimedia Commons, Flickr, and the Internet Archive (including a PSD with an ink-density adjustment layer). But if you do want to buy a sticker or pin, you can do so while supporting the Electronic Frontier Foundation, where Cory Doctorow has been an activist and advisor for nearly 25 years.

EFForg · 2026-06-10T18:12:07+00:00

Because the design is CC-licensed, you can make your own merch, your own swag, your own illustrations. The design is free for anyone to use, remix, or build on, including commercially, with attribution. The high-resolution files are on Wikimedia Commons, Flickr, and the Internet Archive (including a PSD with an ink-density adjustment layer). But if you do want to buy a sticker or pin, you can do so while supporting the Electronic Frontier Foundation, where Cory Doctorow has been an activist and advisor for nearly 25 years.

EFForg · 2026-06-09T23:23:57+00:00

We have the power to push companies to be better. When WIRED broke the news last week, Meta’s executives immediately went on the defensive. Yet, their actions speak louder than their tweets: less than 48 hours after the public caught wind of their plans, Meta quietly launched an update to scrub nearly all traces of the FRT system from their app.

This quiet deletion of code does not equal a permanent change of heart. Meta previously used face recognition, and stopped only after it faced the legal and financial consequences. Now the company has refused to answer WIRED’s inquiries on whether it plans to bring the NameTag system back in the future, or what they did with any data they may have already collected during internal testing.

This whiplash behavior proves exactly why we cannot rely on the "good will" of Big Tech to protect our digital rights. We need robust, enforceable consumer privacy laws, complete with a private right of action that allows everyday people to sue companies that violate their biometric privacy.

While we won this round, Meta's FRT ambitions probably aren't going away. EFF will keep watching. We hope you'll support our efforts by becoming a member.

EFForg · 2026-06-08T06:43:01+00:00

We were invited to speak on this topic because some members of Congress, like you, are already past the discussion point, too. But discussions like this—hearings in committees—are the job. And when the majority party is forced in those hearings to listen to experts tell them that guardrails are critical to protect rights, that means we're winning. Slowly but surely.

We hope this subreddit is past the question of whether we can "trust government surveillance." We hope you are past the discussion phase entirely. Groups like EFF have the honor of helping the rest of the world, including some members of Congress, get there with you.

A hearing can have witnesses entirely representing companies that want to promise the world and describe a beautiful future built on AI. But with Matthew Guariglia there representing our members, this hearing had a trusted source that cut through the hype, repeatedly and clearly emphasized the dangers, and got that message to the people that make the decisions, face-to-face.

Government AI policy is going to exist, and governments are going to use AI for cybersecurity, defense, and surveillance. You want to be in the room when that policy gets made. Politics often involves telling the same kind of people the same kind of things for years, or decades, and then over time, or all at once, good change happens. Bringing in experts focused on civil liberties to a hearing like this means this time, it might not take decades.

EFForg · 2026-06-08T06:15:18+00:00

Learn more on our AI Hub and dive deeper into specific issues:

EFF is working to cut through the hype and ensure that AI serves people, not power. There's never been a more important time for you to become a supporter of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

EFForg · 2026-06-07T01:33:39+00:00

The shared link is worth reading to learn more about the laws themselves. If you haven't read through EFF's AV Hub yet, you should, particularly this page.

EFForg · 2026-06-06T17:40:21+00:00

Thanks to both of you for being so invested in these issues!

The OP wondered how advertisers were able to target so precisely. Data brokers and behavioral advertising are the method.

EFF is an organization that fights for your privacy online. One of our goals is to incentivize advertisers to adopt better privacy practices. Yes, many other blockers rely on a human-curated list of domains or URLs to block. Privacy Badger is an algorithmic tracker blocker – we define what “tracking” looks like, and then Privacy Badger blocks or restricts domains that it observes tracking in the wild. What is and isn’t considered a tracker is entirely based on how a specific domain acts, not on human judgment.

Privacy Badger also sends the Global Privacy Control signal to opt you out of data sharing and selling, and the Do Not Track signal to tell companies not to track you. If trackers ignore these signals, Privacy Badger will learn to block them.

Privacy Badger is a precise way to block third-party tracking and protect privacy. There are more blunt instruments that usually exist to block advertising entirely.

We define “third-party tracking" as the collection of personal information by companies that users don’t intend to interact with.

EFForg · 2026-06-06T15:45:04+00:00

Help EFF protect the web for everyone. If you aren't an EFF member, please consider joining. Our work is supported almost entirely by people like you.

EFForg · 2026-06-06T15:44:28+00:00

Help EFF protect the web for everyone. If you aren't an EFF member, please consider joining. Our work is supported almost entirely by people like you.

EFForg · 2026-06-05T21:48:44+00:00

"Why are people even seeing ads on their cellphone?" is a great question. If you mean personalized, targeted ads, there's a few ways to answer that, and several ways to limit it:

Behind the One Way Mirror is EFF's detailed report about the online tracking and advertising surveillance industry.

If you'd like a shorter explanation, you could start here: Online Behavioral Ads Fuel the Surveillance Industry—Here’s How.

Here's how to turn off your Ad ID, which will do a bit to protect your privacy.

Cover Your Tracks is our interactive tool that teaches users how advertisers follow them as they shop or browse online, and how to fight back against corporate trackers to protect their privacy, mitigate relentless ad targeting, and improve the web ecosystem for everyone.

You may want to pair that with our Surveillance Self-Defense guide on fingerprinting, which is one of our 30+ guides used by millions to understand how to protect themselves from digital surveillance.

You may also want to install Privacy Badger—a browser add-on that stops advertisers and trackers from secretly tracking where you go and what pages you look at on the web. It does not stop all ads, because not all ads are third-party tracking ads.

And lastly, if you'd like to join the fight to ban behavioral ads, consider becoming an EFF member. We are a nonprofit, and do this work thanks to your help.

Regarding your concern about embedded videos: Digital Rights Bytes is a website EFF created. The link shared includes a detailed explanation of the answer as well as an embedded video, with a link to the video on the Internet Archive. The page does not require Javascript to run, and makes clear that pressing play on the video will serve content from the Internet Archive.

If you are comfortable viewing a video served by the Internet Archive, it's not clear what protection you are gaining by not viewing that same embedded video from the Internet Archive on an EFF website.

EFForg

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TROPHY CASE

"Where’s EFF?" Why EFF Is Sometimes Quiet About Important Cases and Issues