EFF-Austin advocates establishment and protection of digital rights and defense of the wealth of digital information, innovation, and technology. We promote the right of all citizens to communicate and share information without unreasonable constraint. We also advocate the fundamental right to explore, tinker, create, and innovate along the frontier of emerging technologies.
Audio history of EFF-Austin (and why we're not formally connected to the national Electronic Frontier Foundation)
In a hearing last week in front of the House Judiciary Committee, Attorney General Eric Holder announced his support for updating the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA). ECPA, which was written in 1986, is the main privacy law protecting private electronic messages like email, private Facebook messages, and Twitter direct messages. The law has been […]
Once again, we are seeing entrenched interests try to fight the future with scare tactics and misinformation. This time, it's major journal publishers, and their target is open access to taxpayer-funded research. First things first: The reason the publishers are on the warpath is that state and federal legislators are looking to expand open access. O […]
The patent troll problem is not new. Trolls have been targeting companies large and small for some time, dragging productive businesses into court and extorting licensing fees that have become a nearly unavoidable tax on innovation. This is wrong. But even worse are the trolls who target end users. These end users are small businesses, startups, and even ind […]
According to the New York Times, President Obama is "on the verge of backing" a proposal by the FBI to introduce legislation dramatically expanding the reach of the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, or CALEA. CALEA forces telephone companies to provide backdoors to the government so that it can spy on users after obtaining court ap […]
In the midst of the major press blitz surrounding its annual I/O Conference, Google dropped some unfortunate news about its instant messaging plans. In several places around the web, the company is replacing the existing "Talk" platform with a new one called "Hangouts" that sharply diminishes support for the open messaging protocol known […]
A survey by the Pew Internet and American Life Project and the Berkman Center for Internet and Society found that while teens are disclosing more personal information on social media, the vast majority are actively taking steps to protect their privacy. 60 percent of teen Facebook users keep their profiles private and visible only to a select group of friend […]
EPIC Administrative Law Counsel Khaliah Barnes testified before the Colorado State Board of Education on privacy issues concerning inBloom and other companies that acquire student information. In response to public outcry over a pilot program which grants these companies access to sensitive student data, the Colorado Board of Education hosted a public sessio […]
EPIC filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission against Snapchat, the publisher of a mobile app that encourages user to share intimate photos and videos. The company represents that users can make photos and videos "disappear forever." In fact, the photos can be retrieved by others after they should have vanished. The EPIC complaint implic […]
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