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Podcast Episode: Separating AI Hope from AI Hype

Knowing “what the government is up to” is often the first step in ensuring that the government respects the civil liberties of its citizens. Transparency is especially important given the government’s increasingly secretive use of new technologies for law enforcement and national security purposes. From cell phone location tracking, the use of surveillance drones, secret interpretations of electronic surveillance law, and the expanding use of biometrics, EFF wants to hold the government accountable and uphold your digital rights.

To that aim, EFF’s transparency work is dedicated to using federal and state freedom of information laws, the courtroom, and our megaphone to shine light on government activities. 

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Transparency Highlights

FISC Orders on Illegal Government Surveillance

EFF has sued the Department of Justice (DOJ), demanding answers about illegal email and telephone call surveillance at the National Security Agency (NSA).
The FISA Amendments Act (FAA) of 2008 gave the NSA expansive power to spy on Americans’ international email and telephone calls. However, last month, a government...

FOILIES

The Foilies 2018

Recognizing the Year’s Worst in Government TransparencyGovernment transparency laws like the Freedom of Information Act exist to enforce the public’s right to inspect records so we can all figure out what the heck is being done in our name and with our tax dollars. But when a public agency ignores,...

Transparency Updates

3 squares hover over a map, seemingly looking for crime hot spots

NYC Lets AI Gamble with Child Welfare

The Markup revealed in its reporting last month that New York City’s Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) has been quietly deploying an algorithmic tool to categorize families as “high risk". Using a grab-bag of factors like neighborhood and mother’s age, this AI tool can put families under intensified scrutiny...

photo of John L Young by Deborah Natsios CC-By

In Memoriam: John L. Young, Cryptome Co-Founder

John L. Young, who died March 28 at age 89 in New York City, was among the first people to see the need for an online library of official secrets, a place where the public could find out things that governments and corporations didn’t want them to know. He made...

A 10-year anniverary party with cake where the guests' eyes redacted.

The Foilies 2025

Every year during Sunshine Week (March 16-22). the Electronic Frontier Foundation, MuckRock and AAN Publishers team up to publish The Foilies. This annual report—now a decade old—names and shames the most repugnant, absurd, and incompetent responses to public records requests under FOIA and state transparency laws.

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