Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)

EFF is supported by several left-of-center grantmaking foundations including the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, David and Lucile Packard Foundation, Ford Foundation, and Open Society Foundations. ²

Background

Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is a left-of-center digital rights advocacy organization that educates, lobbies, and litigates for online user privacy, digital free speech, and technology innovation, with a focus on attacking government interference in digital activities. EFF has been described as the “online equivalent of the American Civil Liberties Union.” Media Bias/Fact Check rates EFF as left-center biased. ³

According to the EFF 2021 Annual Report, EFF has a staff of approximately 100 lawyers, activists, and technologists. ⁴ Activities include policy analysis and education, technology development, activism, and litigation. It advises policymakers and educates the public by providing educational guides, analysis, and activist workshops. ⁵ It develops technologies that protect individuals’ online privacy and security and releases it as freeware. It engages in litigation to fight digital censorship and spying, and fights for reforms to decrease government and law enforcement’s surveillance capabilities. ⁵

History

EFF was founded in 1990 by Grateful Dead lyricist and activist John Perry Barlow and former president of Lotus Development Corporation Mitch Kapor, ⁶ with financial support from activist John Gilmore and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak. Barlow and Kapor met through their participation in The Whole Earth ‘Lectronik Link (The WELL) bulletin board service, exchanging information about their negative experiences with the FBI. They decided to form the EFF. ⁷

EFF’s first case was to represent Steve Jackson Games, a small games book publisher, which was raided by the United States Secret Service while tracking the distribution of an illegally distributed document. The Secret Service took and retained all of Jackson’s electronic equipment and accessed and deleted electronic mail from customers. Jackson believed his rights and the privacy rights of his users had been violated. EFF represented Steve Jackson Games and several of its bulletin board users in a lawsuit against the Secret Service, resulting in a determination that electronic mail deserves at least as much protection as telephone calls and requires a detailed warrant. ⁶

EFF’s second major case was Bernstein v. U.S. Dept. of Justice. The United States government prohibited Bernstein from publishing an encryption program he had created, deeming encryption a weapon to be regulated. The court ruled that software code is speech protected by the First Amendment and should not be controlled. ⁶

Work Areas

EFF supports open-source software, encryption, security research, and file sharing tools. It defends free speech online and fights against surveillance activities by the government and law enforcement. It does this through research and education, technology development, lobbying, and litigation. ⁵

Research and Education

EFF has collated information on law enforcement’s use of technologies such as drones and facial recognition and made this available through Atlas of Surveillance, a searchable database and application. ⁸

EFF has developed technology education tools such as Surveillance Self-Defense and Security Education Companion. ⁹ Surveillance Self-Defense provides guidelines for increasing online security and tutorials for installing and using security tools such as encryption, password managers, and how to circumvent online censorship. ¹⁰

EFF’s Deeplinks blog contains hundreds of articles dating back to 2003 documenting alleged digital civil liberties threats from laws such as the PATRIOT Act, the Kids Online Safety Act, and Section 702 of the Freedom of Information Act, to the government’s database of immigrant DNA. ¹¹ The EFFector newsletter, which has been published since 1990, contains news about technologies and laws that EFF claims may impact digital rights. ¹²

Technology

EFF partnered with the Tor Project to develop HTTPS://Everywhere, an operating system extension that provides an extra layer of security to internet communications. ¹³ The Tor Project is funded by several left-of-center grantmaking organizations including Craig Newmark Foundation, Ford Foundation, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and Omidyar Network. ¹⁴

Additional technology tools developed by EFF include Privacy Badger, which can prevent advertisers from tracking web activity; Certbot, which enables encryption certificates; and Cover Your Tracks, which analyzes how well an internet browser prevents online tracking. ⁹

Advocacy

In January 2021, EFF wrote a transition memo addressed to the Biden administration, asking for a reversal of policies and practices put in place during the Trump administration. These included restricting the use of surveillance technologies including those used at the border, supporting net neutrality, and providing broadband to all Americans. ¹⁵

EFF opposes law enforcement’s ability to leverage digital data searches to find criminals and against police using digital surveillance and tools that employ cameras, drones, automated license plate readers, predictive policing algorithms, and voice recognition. ¹⁶

EFF is campaigning to end Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) which is coming up for renewal in December 2023. Section 702 allows warrantless surveillance of communications to and from a foreign target to support national security. ^{17 18}  EFF and other civil liberties groups claim that Section 702 allows surveillance of any U.S. citizen who communicates with a foreign target. ¹⁹

According to EFF, the FBI’s 2024 budget includes an increase in funding for its DNA database in support of a Trump administration rule to collect DNA from immigrants. ²⁰ EFF, American Civil Liberties Union, and other civil liberties groups are advocating against this. EFF’s Saira Hussain claims “It’s just another way of trying to grab more and more DNA.” ²¹

EFF advocates for protection of data for those seeking abortion access, claiming that healthcare data can now be considered potentially criminal evidence, and is “especially dangerous for BIPOC, lower-income, immigrant, LGBTQ+ people and other traditionally marginalized communities.” EFF provides digital safety tips for those seeking an abortion, including using a burner phone and turning on device encryption. ²²

Legal Cases

EFF’s 2021 Annual Report indicates it filed 54 amicus briefs and 4 new lawsuits in 2021. ²³

In July 2021, EFF filed a Freedom of Information lawsuit against the U.S. Postal Service demanding records about the Internet Covert Operations Program which had United States Postal Inspection Service analysts review social media data, looking for posts concerning planned protests for March 20, 2021. EFF claimed the program was a threat to civil liberties. ²⁴ The “Worldwide Rally for Freedom and Democracy” protests against COVID-19 restrictions were planned for that day. ²⁵

In October 2021, EFF and American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit on behalf of community activists against the Marin County Sheriff for sharing local drivers’ license plate information with federal and out-of-state agencies, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Patrol. The lawsuit claimed that this practice endangered the safety and privacy of local immigrant communities. In May 2022, a settlement was reached to stop sharing license plate and location information. ^{26 27}

EFF regularly leverages the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to obtain information about the activities of federal agencies regarding civil liberties issues related to the internet and social media. ^{28 29}

Affiliated Organizations

EFF Action Center is EFF’s affiliated advocacy arm. The EFF Action Center website publishes the EFF campaigns and encourages registered members to take action by contacting Congress. ³⁰

EFF launched Electronic Frontier Alliance (EFA) as a separate networking organization for community groups and student organizations interested in information-sharing and promoting digital rights. EFF provides tools to EFA member organizations, including media tips for activist groups, steps to building a coalition, and how to leverage social media for activism. ³¹

Funding

EFF’s 2021 revenues were $23,876,681 and expenses were $16,747,298. ³² It is supported by individuals, foundations, and corporations. As of 2022, individual donations accounted for more than half of EFF’s revenues and foundation grants totaled thirty percent. The remaining are employee matching donations and corporate donations. ³³

2021 foundation donors included large left-of-center philanthropies and grantmaking organizations such as John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Hopewell Fund, Network for Good, David and Lucile Packard Foundation, Ford Foundation, Open Society Foundations, ³⁴ Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Craig Newmark Foundation, Kaphan Foundation, California Community Foundation, Someland Foundation, and Rose Foundation for Communities and the Environment. ⁴

Controversies

EFF has been described as focusing on government intrusion and exploitation rather than any commercial issues since much of its funding comes from Silicon Valley. According to the Baffler, EFF has taken millions in donations from Google and Facebook. As EFF launched, it also received donations from large technology businesses such as IBM, Microsoft, and Bell Atlantic. As the internet grew, EFF lobbied against any government interference or federal oversight. The Baffler described EFF as “America’s oldest and most influential internet business lobby.” ³⁵

Leadership

Cindy Cohn is executive director of Electronic Frontier Foundation. She earned a law degree from the University of Michigan Law School and joined EFF as legal director in 2000. She became executive director in 2015. Cohn is a board member of the Tor Project which is focused on developing software that supports anonymity. ³⁶

Pamela Samuelson is board chair. She is a professor at the University of California, Berkeley with expertise in digital copyright law, intellectual property, cyberlaw, and information policy. Samuelson was a fellow of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. She is on the advisory boards for think tank Electronic Privacy Information Center, technology advocacy group Public Knowledge, and internet privacy advocates Center for Democracy and Technology. ³⁷

Brian Behlendorf is vice chair of the board. ³⁸ He is the managing director of the Open Source Security Foundation based at the Linux Foundation. Previously he was CTO at the World Economic Forum, founder and CTO of open-source collaborative CollabNet, and co-founder and president of the Apache Software Foundation that supports open-source software development. Behlendorf served as a technology advisor at the White House during the Obama administration. ³⁹

Shari Steele is the former executive director of EFF and a board member. Steele earned a law degree from Georgetown University Law Center and Widener University School of Law. In 1992, Steele joined EFF as a staff attorney, then a director of legal services. She left EFF and was executive director of the Tor Project. In 2000, Steele returned as executive director of EFF until 2015. In January 2019, Steele retired as executive director and joined the board. ⁴⁰