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)
Fifty leading U.S. legal scholars cast fresh doubt on the constitutionality of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement in an open letter to the Senate Finance Committee today. (Press Release). At issue is whether the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) had authority to enter into the controversial IP enforcement agreement on behalf of the […]
Iran Continues March Towards “Halal Internet” This past weekend, Iran’s minister of telecommunications announced that domestic institutions including banks, telecom companies, insurance firms, and universities are now prohibited from dealing with emails that do not come from an “.ir” domain name. This means that customers who use foreign email clients such a […]
The U.S. content industry will try anything to preserve its profit margin and power over the creative content market at the expense of the Internet. They will use any tactic that circumvents democratic processes to make new rules for the Internet that favor their interests and not the interests of Internet users or the technical community that actually build […]
Documents just released by US Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) in response to one of EFF’s Freedom of Information Act requests show that DHS is considering collecting DNA from kids ages 14 and up—and is exploring expanding its regulations to allow collection from kids younger than that. The proposal appears to be working its way through DHS in the […]
On April 18, the Global Network Initiative (GNI) released its annual report documenting third-party assessments conducted in 2011 and 2012 for GNI’s three founding corporate participants: Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft. GNI was formed to bring major Internet companies together with human rights organizations to improve practices around human rights, privacy an […]
In a Statement for the Record, EPIC has expressed support for H.R. 2168, the "Geolocational Privacy and Surveillance Act," which prohibits the interception of location information by private parties and government agents acting without a search warrant. The bill will be considered at a hearing before the House Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and […]
The Federal Aviation Administration has announced new procedures for government agencies that operate drones in the United States. The procedures will streamline the process through which government agencies, including local law enforcement, receive drone licenses. However, the FAA has so far failed to establish privacy safeguards for drone use. On February […]
Following the recent decision of the Supreme Court in FAA v. Cooper, EPIC has set out proposed changes to the Privacy Act that would compensate individuals for provable nonpecuniary harms caused by willful violations of the Privacy Act. In Cooper, the Supreme Court held that the Privacy Act "does not unequivocally authorize" compensatory damages fo […]
EPIC submitted comments to the Federal Trade Commission for the May 30 workshop on mobile advertising disclosures. EPIC recommended that the agency focus on the development of substantive privacy protections, such as the Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights announced by the President earlier this year, for mobile services. EPIC also recommended that the workshop […]