News & Resources

Facial recognition technology has rapidly evolved from a speculative concept into one of the most powerful surveillance tools available to governments worldwide. What was once confined to science fiction is now deployed at airports, public events, street corners, and...

In 2013, a new allegation emerged that reignited one of the most enduring conspiracy theories surrounding the British establishment: that the Special Air Service, Britain's elite special forces unit, was involved in the death of Princess Diana in 1997. The claim...

Every presidential administration generates controversy, but the Obama years produced a particularly extensive catalog of policy decisions, broken campaign promises, and executive actions that drew criticism from across the political spectrum. What made these...

In the summer of 2013, YouTube deactivated the official account of Press TV, the Iranian state-funded English-language news network, without providing a public explanation. The move came shortly after the Anti-Defamation League publicly stated that it had contacted...

Following the explosive revelation that the National Security Agency had committed 2,776 privacy violations in a single year, the agency mounted a public defense that relied heavily on minimization — arguing that the number of errors was trivial compared to the vast...

Among the most persistent fantasies in the preparedness community is the idea that when society collapses, a person can simply grab a bag, head for the nearest forest, and live off the land indefinitely. This plan is so deeply embedded in survivalist culture that it...

The very fact that developing a crisp, clear definition of journalist is difficult should signal to Congress that it might not be equipped to wade into the uncharted waters of deciding who is a journalist. EFF August 9, 2013 During the Senate Judiciary Committee’s...

The Transportation Security Administration, an agency most Americans associate with airport screening lines, quietly expanded its operations far beyond terminal checkpoints in the years following its creation. Through its Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response...

A good friend emailed me the other day to ask if I thought using Tor's network and software is truly as secure as everyone thinks. My immediate reply was no, I don't think Tor or any other so-called anonymizing service is truly secure. If you want absolutely...

Speaking to State Department personnel at the U.S. Embassy in Brasilia, Brazil, on Tuesday, Secretary of State John Kerry said that “this little thing called the Internet … makes it much harder to govern.” He also said that “ever since the end of the Cold War, forces...

In August 2013, Ladar Levison made a decision that would define his career and become a landmark moment in the fight for digital privacy. Rather than comply with a secret government surveillance order, Levison shut down Lavabit, the encrypted email service he had...

In a case that delighted consumer advocates and frustrated corporate lawyers in equal measure, a Russian man turned the tables on a major bank by rewriting the terms of a credit card agreement — and getting the bank to sign it without reading. The story became an...

A classified internal audit revealed that the National Security Agency violated its own privacy rules and overstepped its legal authority thousands of times annually following the expansion of its surveillance powers in 2008. The revelations, which emerged from...

In May 2013, an FBI interrogation in Orlando, Florida ended with the fatal shooting of 27-year-old Ibragim Todashev, a Chechen-American mixed martial arts fighter. The circumstances surrounding his death raised serious questions about the use of lethal force during...

The Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable searches is often described as the right to be secure in one's home. But a growing number of programs across the United States are testing the boundaries of that protection by enabling police officers to enter...

When members of Congress discovered that Internal Revenue Service agents were training with semi-automatic rifles at federal law enforcement facilities, a simple question emerged that the agency proved remarkably reluctant to answer: why does a tax collection agency...

The National Security Agency was built to spy on foreign adversaries, but revelations about its intelligence-sharing arrangements with domestic law enforcement agencies suggest that the surveillance infrastructure designed for counterterrorism has found a second life...

When Israel's Supreme Court ruled that mandatory water fluoridation must end nationwide, it marked one of the most significant policy reversals in the global fluoridation debate. The decision placed Israel alongside a growing number of countries that have reconsidered...

So, no one supports your cause? No problem. You can hire supporters- even protesters. A company started last October by 22-year-old Adam Swart provides just this service.  In a telephone interview I spoke with Swart about his new found success. “I came up with the...

A growing number of Americans are making the drastic decision to renounce their citizenship, driven not by political ideology but by the practical consequences of a tax system unlike any other in the developed world. The surge in renunciations — which increased...

The intersection of hacktivist movements and military institutions creates one of the more fascinating contradictions in modern information warfare. Anonymous — the decentralized collective known for digital activism, data leaks, and cyber operations against...

The concept of martial law occupies a uniquely unsettling position in American civic life. It represents the legal mechanism by which civilian governance yields to military authority, civil liberties are suspended, and the constitutional protections that define daily...

In a democracy built on the principle that no one is above the law, a peculiar carve-out exists for the very people who write and enforce legislation. Across multiple states and at the federal level, elected officials and government employees operate vehicles with...

The global decline of honeybee populations represents one of the most consequential ecological crises of the modern era. Colony losses that once alarmed only beekeepers now threaten the agricultural foundations that feed billions of people. Understanding the scale of...

Within the sprawling apparatus of federal law enforcement lies a unit whose very existence challenges fundamental principles of the American justice system. The Drug Enforcement Administration's Special Operations Division, known as SOD, operates as a clearinghouse...