Electronic Frontier Foundation
From TechHelp
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is an international non-profit digital rights advocacy and legal organization based in the United States. Its stated mission is to:
• Engage in and support educational activities which increase popular understanding of the opportunities and challenges posed by developments in computing and telecommunications.
• Develop among policy-makers a better understanding of the issues underlying free and open telecommunications, and support the creation of legal and structural approaches which will ease the assimilation of these new technologies by society.
• Raise public awareness about civil liberties issues arising from the rapid advancement in the area of new computer-based communications media.
• Support litigation in the public interest to preserve, protect, and extend First Amendment rights within the realm of computing and telecommunications technology.
• Encourage and support the development of new tools which will endow non-technical users with full and easy access to computer-based telecommunications.
The EFF is supported by donations and is based in San Francisco, California, with staff members in Washington, D.C. They are accredited observers at the World Intellectual Property Organization and one of the participants of the Global Network Initiative. EFF has taken action in several ways. It provides funds for legal defense in court, presents amici curiae briefs, defends individuals and new technologies from what it considers baseless or misdirected legal threats, works to expose government malfeasance, provides guidance to the government and courts, organizes political action and mass mailings, supports some new technologies which it believes preserve personal freedoms, maintains a database and web sites of related news and information, monitors and challenges potential legislation that it believes would infringe on personal liberties and fair use, and solicits a list of what it considers patent abuses with intentions to defeat those that it considers without merit.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation was formed in July 1990 by John Perry Barlow and Mitch Kapor in response to a series of actions by law enforcement agencies that led them to conclude that the authorities were gravely uninformed about emerging forms of online communication, and that there was a need for increased protection for Internet civil liberties. In April 1990, Barlow had been visited by a U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation agent in relation to the theft and distribution of the source code for a series of Macintosh ROMs. Barlow described the visit as "complicated by [The Agent's] fairly complete unfamiliarity with computer technology. I realized right away that before I could demonstrate my innocence, I would first have to explain to him what guilt might be." Barlow felt that his experience was symptomatic of a “great paroxysm of governmental confusion during which everyone's liberties would become at risk”.
Barlow posted an account of this experience to The WELL online community and was contacted by Mitch Kapor, who had had a similar experience. The pair agreed that there was a need to defend civil liberties on the internet. Kapor agreed to fund any legal fees associated with such a defense and the pair contacted New York lawyers Rabinowitz, Boudin, Standard, Krinsky and Lieberman about defending several computer hackers from a Harper's magazine forum on computers and freedom who had been the target of Secret Service raids. This generated a large amount of publicity which led to offers of financial support from John Gilmore and Steve Wozniak. Barlow and Kapor continued to research conflicts between the government and technology and in June 1990 Barlow posted online the influential article entitled "Crime & Punishment" in which Barlow announced his and Kapor's plans to create an organization to "raise and disburse funds for education, lobbying, and litigation in the areas relating to digital speech and the extension of the Constitution into Cyberspace."
This generated further reaction and support for the ideas of Barlow and Kapor. In late June, Barlow held a series of dinners in San Francisco with major figures in the computer industry to develop a coherent response to these perceived threats. Barlow considered that: "The actions of the FBI and Secret Service were symptoms of a growing social crisis: Future Shock. America was entering the Information Age with neither laws nor metaphors for the appropriate protection and conveyance of information itself." Barlow felt that to confront this a formal organization would be needed and hired Cathy Cook as press coordinator and began to set up what would become the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The Electronic Frontier Foundation was formally founded on July 10, 1990, by Kapor, Gilmore and Barlow. Initial funding was provided by Kapor, Wozniak, and an anonymous benefactor. In 1990, Mike Godwin joined the organization as the first staff counsel. Then in 1991 Esther Dyson and Jerry Berman joined the EFF Board. By 1992 Cliff Figallo became the new director of EFF-Cambridge and in December 1992 Jerry Berman became Acting Executive Director.
Early cases: The creation of the organization was motivated by the massive search and seizure on Steve Jackson Games executed by the United States Secret Service early in 1990. Similar but officially unconnected law-enforcement raids were being conducted across the United States at about that time as part of a state-federal task force called Operation Sundevil. To find an attorney please check the largest attorney directory online or to find an california attorney search please check the largest california attorney search directory online or to find an unemployment attorney please check the largest unemployment attorney directory online or to find an juvenile attorney please check the largest juvenile attorney directory online. However, the Steve Jackson Games case, which became EFF's first high-profile case, was the major rallying point where EFF began promoting computer and Internet-related civil liberties. In 1993, their offices moved to 1001 G Street in Washington, D.C. That same year Big Dummy's guide to the Internet, an Electronic Frontier Foundation publication, was made available for free download. EFF's second big case was Bernstein v. United States led by Cindy Cohn, where programmer and professor Daniel J. Bernstein sued the government for permission to publish his encryption software, Snuffle, and a paper describing it. More recently the organization has been involved in defending Edward Felten, Jon Lech Johansen and Dmitry Sklyarov.
Expansion and development: The organization was originally located at Mitch Kapor's Kapor Enterprises, Inc offices in Cambridge, Massachusetts. By the fall of 1993, the main EFF offices were housed in Washington, D.C., headed up by Jerry Berman. During this time, some of EFF's attention focused on the business of influencing national policy, a business that was not entirely palatable to parts of the organization.
