Cell Phone Guide For US Protesters

Eva Galperin & Parker Higgins
EFF

With major protests in the news again, we decided it's time to update our cell phone guide for protesters. A lot has changed since we last published this report in 2011, for better and for worse. On the one hand, we've learned more about the massive volume of law enforcement requests for cell phone—ranging from location information to actual content—and widespread use of dedicated cell phone surveillance technologies. On the other hand, strong Supreme Court opinions have eliminated any ambiguity about the unconstitutionality of warrantless searches of phones incident to arrest, and a growing national consensus says location data, too, is private.

Protesters want to be able to communicate, to document the protests, and to share photos and video with the world. So they'll be carrying phones, and they'll face a complex set of considerations about the privacy of the data those phones hold. We hope this guide can help answer some questions about how to best protect that data, and what rights protesters have in the face of police demands.

Record Label Lawsuit Against Vimeo Threatens Free Speech Online

Activist Post

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and a coalition of advocacy groups have asked a federal appeals court to block record labels' attempt to thwart federal law in Capitol v. Vimeo—a case that could jeopardize free speech and innovation and the sites that host both.

In this lawsuit, the record labels sued online video site Vimeo, alleging that dozens of sound recordings were infringed in videos posted on the site. A ruling from a district court judge earlier this year found Vimeo could be responsible for copyright infringement, and in doing so imposed new, impossibly high standards for websites hosting user-generated content. In an amicus brief filed Wednesday, EFF argues that the decision undermines the safe harbors created by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), and the innovation and expression those safe harbors make possible.

Calling All Hackers: Help Us Build an Open Wireless Router

Peter Echersley, Jacob Hoffman-Andrews, and Ranga Krishnan
EFF

EFF is releasing an experimental hacker alpha release of wireless router software specifically designed to support secure, shareable Open Wireless networks. We will be officially launching the Open Wireless Router today at the HOPE X (Hackers on Planet Earth) conference in New York City, aiming to bring aboard members of the hacker community. This release is a work in progress and is intended only for developers and people willing to deal with the bleeding edge.

The software aims to do several things that existing routers don't do well—or don't do at all. We are beginning a journey that we hope will attract supporters and fellow travelers to help reach the following goals:1

• Allow small business and home users to easily enable an open network, so guests and passersby can get an Internet connection if they need one, while keeping a password-locked WPA2 network for themselves and their friends or coworkers.
• Let you share a bounded portion of your bandwidth on the open network, so guest users cannot slow down your Internet connection or use a large portion of your monthly quota.2

Secret TPP Negotiations Resume in Salt Lake City

Maira Sutton
EFF

The newest round of Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations begin today in Salt Lake City, Utah, where trade representatives will work towards finalizing the text of this sprawling secret agreement. Last week's publication of the controversial "Intellectual Property" chapter by Wikileaksconfirmed our worst fears: the TPP carries draconian copyright enforcement provisions that threaten users' rights and could stifle innovation well into the 21st Century. Public opposition to the TPP continues to grow as a result of the leaked document; an opaque policymaking process that seems geared towards appeasing Big Content does not provide much in the way of legitimacy.

In the past week, 23 Republicans and 151 Democrats in the House of Representatives wrote letters to the Obama administration indicating their unwillingness to comply with the Executive's request for power to fast-track trade agreements through Congress. Fast-trackauthority, also known as Trade Promotion Authority, limits congressional approval over trade agreements to a yes or no, up or down vote. If a bill granting fast-track were to pass, hearings would become extremely limited, and lawmakers would have no ability to make amendments. It would give the Obama administration unchecked power to shape TPP and other agreements like the EU-U.S. trade deal, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (T-TIP).

New Court Ruling Makes it Easier for Police to Track Your Cell Phone

Hanni Fakhoury

EFF

A Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling this week will make it easier for police to track your movements through your cell phone after the court decided police aren't required to obtain a search warrant to track you.

The case involved a 2010 law enforcement request to obtain 60 days of cell phone location records from two cell phone companies. The government wanted to identify which cell phone towers a particular phone number had connected to in order to place a suspect at the scene of a crime, and submitted a request under the Stored Communication Act ("SCA") for access. The magistrate judge denied the request, understanding that records revealing your daily movements could show where you worship, what your medical conditions might be, and what political issues might interest you, not to mention who your friends and family are. It therefore rightfully ordered the government to apply for a search warrant supported by probable cause before accessing this sensitive data.

Bills Introduced by Congress Fail to Fix Unconstitutional NSA Spying

Mark M. Jaycox
EFF

In the past two weeks Congress has introduced a slew of bills responding to the Guardian's publication of a top secret court order using Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act to demand that Verizon Business Network Services give the National Security Agency (NSA) a record of every customer's call history for three months. The order was confirmed by officials like President Obama and Senator Feinstein, who said it was a "routine" 90 day reauthorization of a program started in 2007.

Currently, four bills have been introduced to fix the problem: one by Senator Leahy, Senator Sanders, Senators Udall and Wyden, and Rep. Conyers. The well-intentioned bills try to address the Justice Department's (DOJ) abusive interpretations of Section 215 (more formally, 50 USC § 1861) apparently approved by the reclusive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA Court) in secret legal opinions.

Sadly, all of them fail to fix the problem of unconstitutional domestic spying—not only because they ignore the PRISM program, which uses Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and collects Americans' emails and phone calls—but because the legislators simply don't have key information about how the government interprets and uses the statute. Congress must find out more about the programs before it can propose fixes.That's why a coalition of over 100 civil liberties groups and over half a million people are pushing for a special congressional investigatory committee, more transparency, and more accountability.

FBI Sued For Access to Facial-Recognition Records

Lawsuit Seeks Transparency Before Implementation of a 'Bigger, Faster and Better' Biometrics System

Activist Post

As the FBI is rushing to build a "bigger, faster and better" biometrics database, it's also dragging its feet in releasing information related to the program's impact on the American public. In response, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) today filed a lawsuit to compel the FBI to produce records to satisfy three outstanding Freedom of Information Act requests that EFF submitted one year ago to shine light on the program and its face-recognition components.

Since early 2011, EFF has been closely following the FBI's work to build out its Next Generation Identification (NGI) biometrics database, which would replace and expand upon the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS). The new program will include multiple biometric identifiers, such as iris scans, palm prints, face-recognition-ready photos, and voice data, and that information will be shared with other agencies at the local, state, federal and international levels. The face recognition component is set to launch in 2014.

EFF Sues NSA, DOJ Over Secret Surveillance Program

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86 Civil Liberties Groups and Internet Companies Demand an End to NSA Spying

Rainey Reitman
EFF

Today, a bipartisan coalition of 86 civil liberties organizations and Internet companies – including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, reddit, Mozilla, FreedomWorks, and the American Civil Liberties Union – are demanding swift action from Congress in light of the recent revelations about unchecked domestic surveillance.

In an open letter to lawmakers sent today, the groups call for a congressional investigatory committee, similar to the Church Committee of the 1970s. The letter also demands legal reforms to rein in domestic spying and demands that public officials responsible for this illegal surveillance are held accountable for their actions.

The letter denounces the NSA’s spying program as illegal, noting:

This type of blanket data collection by the government strikes at bedrock American values of freedom and privacy. This dragnet surveillance violates the First and Fourth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution, which protect citizens’ right to speak and associate anonymously and guard against unreasonable searches and seizures that protect their right to privacy.

5 Lessons From the AP Spying Case and Other Leak Investigations

Cindy Cohn & Trevor Timm
EFF

The journalism world has been rightly outraged by theJustice Department dragging the Associated Press (and now a Fox News reporter) into one of its sprawling leak investigations. As we wrote last week, by obtaining the call records of twenty AP phone lines, “the Justice Department has struck a terrible blow against the freedom of the press and the ability of reporters to investigate and report the news."

But there are several other important lessons that this scandal can teach us besides how important free and uninhibited newsgathering is to the public’s right to know.

1. Weak Privacy Laws That Doomed AP Affect Everyone

The AP detailed in its letter to the Justice Department how its privacy was grossly invaded even though the government accessed only the call records of its reporters and not the content of their conversations. We completely agree. Unfortunately, this isn’t just a problem in the AP investigation. Law enforcement agencies routinely demand and receive this information about ordinary Americans over long periods of time without any court involvement whatsoever, much less a full warrant.