EFF action alerts

Deep-pocketed individuals and corporations have been turning to civil lawsuits to silence their opponents. These Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation, or SLAPPs, aren’t designed to win on the merits, but rather to harass journalists, activists, and consumers into silence by suing them over their protected speech.

Now there’s a bill in Congress that will allow speakers targeted by SLAPPs to fight back, by getting the lawsuits quickly thrown out of federal court, and allow for SLAPP victims to get their legal fees back. The Free Speech Protection Act, H.R. 10310, sponsored by Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) and Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-CA), will protect people from getting sued just for exercising their constitutional rights.

The House of Representatives just passed a dangerous bill that gives broad and easily abused new powers to the executive branch would allow the Secretary of Treasury to strip a U.S. nonprofit of its tax-exempt status. Nonprofits would not have a meaningful opportunity to defend themselves, and could be targeted without disclosing the reasons or evidence for the decision. Even if they are not targeted, the threat alone could chill the activities of some nonprofit organizations. Over 130 civil liberties, religious, reproductive health, immigrant rights, human rights, racial justice, LGBTQ+, environmental, and educational organizations signed a letter opposing the bill as written. We most tell the Senate not to pass H.R. 9495, the so-called “Stop Terror-Financing and Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act.”

The Senate is considering a bill that would help save some of the worst patents and empower patent trolls.

The PREVAIL Act, S. 2220, would sharply limit the public’s right to challenge patents that never should have been granted in the first place.

UPDATE: On Nov. 21, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted 11-10 in favor of PREVAIL. We will continue to oppose this misguided bill. Help us by telling your members of Congress to oppose it when it comes up for another vote.

The Protect Reporters from Exploitive State Spying (PRESS) Act is a long overdue federal shield law that provides protections to journalists against government surveillance and forced disclosure of confidential sources.

Journalists shouldn’t be forced to choose between protecting their confidential sources or going to prison. But the reality is that both Democratic and Republican administrations have secretly subpoenaed reporters’ emails and phone records to hunt down their sources. That chills essential newsgathering and whistleblowing, and it needs to stop now.

AI-generated imitations raise legitimate concerns, and Congress should consider narrowly-targeted and proportionate proposals to deal with them. Instead, some Senators have proposed the broad NO FAKES Act, which would create an expansive and confusing new intellectual property right with few real safeguard against abuse.Tell the Senate to throw out the NO FAKES Act and start over.

The Public Safety Committee of Oakland’s City Council will meet on October 8, 2024 to decide whether to renew its contract for ShotSpotter technology. This acoustic gunshot technology is flawed and highly controversial. It erroneously deploys armed officers expecting gunfire and thereby endangers innocent people. It listens in on marginalized neighborhoods that already receive the lion’s share of police harassment and surveillance.

ShotSpotter has received a tremendous amount of well-deserved bad press. The Mayor of Chicago recently called the technology “walkie-talkies on a pole,” because of their limited utility to a city that has been trying to find solutions to gun violence. A number of cities have let their contracts expire. The U.S. Department of Justice has been urged to investigate why this technology is put up predominantly in Black neighborhoods, even in places that have little history of gun violence. And earlier this year, police in Chicago alerted by ShotSpotter responded to what they believed might be gun violence–only to open fire on a child playing with fireworks.

Oakland has a chance to act now to cut ties with this dangerous technology. It does not address the root causes of gun violence, but instead adds another layer of surveillance on minority communities, which get the majority of (possibly incorrect) alerts. Tell the City Council now: end Oakland’s relationship with ShotSpotter!