Achievements : EFF Winnings Against Government

Since the beginning of EFF in 1990, the organization has been fighting for numerous issues related to online freedom and has achieved many landmark victories. The EFF has sustained reputation during the lawsuits against the federal government, FCC, Tech giants, major entertainment companies and others.

Below are some EFF achievement/victories in the field of privacy and security.

Security

• MBTA V. Anderson – Judge George O’Toole lifted the gag order on three MIT students who were sued by the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority for discovering a security vulnerability in the MBTA’s fare payment system. [Read More]
• Sony BMG Litigation Info – [Read More]
• United States v. Andrew Auernheimer – In April 2014, the Third Circuit reversed Auernheimer’s conviction, ruling the criminal case should not have been brought in New Jersey. [Read More]
• Oregon v. Nascimento – On June 4, 2015, the Oregon Supreme Court granted review and will hear argument in the case on November 12, 2015. [Read More]

Privacy

• People v. Weaver – Victory for location privacy in New York GPS tracking case. [Read More]
• The USA v. Pen Register – Federal judges began to expose and reject secret surveillance requests. EFF served as a friend of the court and filed briefs with two of the judges that have ruled on this issue, and both judges denied the government’s requests. [Read More]
• EFF Location victory at the Third Circuit Stands – The Third Circuit Court of Appeals denied the government’s request of reconsidering its September decision regarding government access to cellphone company record that reveals your past location. [Read More]
• Victory in the US v. Councilman Case – Appeals Court Preserves Email Privacy and overturns First Circuit panel decision that had allowed an email service provider to secretly monitor the content of users’ incoming messages without violating federal wiretap law. [Read More]
• Doe v. 2TheMart.com – EFF along with ACLU of Washington state handled this case. In it, a federal district court in the Eastern District of Washington held that the identities of 23 participants in an Infospace chatroom were preserved against disclosure. [Read More]
• US v. Jones – In January 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously confirmed that Americans have constitutional protections against GPS surveillance by law enforcement, holding that GPS tracking is a “search” under the Fourth Amendment. [Read More]
• Manalapan v. Moskovitz – On December 21, 2007, Superior Court Judge Terence Flynn granted EFF’s motion to quash the Township’s September 26th subpoena seeking the identity of datruthsquad. [Read More]
• In re Telephone Info (Koh) – In July 2015, Judge Koh agreed with EFF and found the Fourth Amendment protected historical cell site records and required law enforcement use a warrant to obtain these records. [Read More]
• United States v. Graham – In August 2015, the Fourth Circuit agreed in a 2-1 opinion, ruling there was an expectation of privacy in historical cell site records and requiring police use a search warrant to obtain this information. [Read More]
• United States v. Vargas – The court agreed with Vargas and EFF, found the video surveillance unconstitutional. [Read More]
• Riley v. California and United States v. Wurie – In June 2014, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the search incident to arrest exception does not extend to a cell phone and that police need to get a search warrant in order to search an arrestee’s phone after an arrest. [Read More]
• State v. Granville – Texas high court, recognizing the breadth of information stored on a cell phone, agreed with EFF, Texas Civil Rights Project and the ACLU of Texas. [Read More]
• Commonwealth v. Augustine – In February 2014, the court agreed with EFF, ruling that police must obtain a search warrant in order to obtain long-term cell site data. [Read More]
• Washington state text message privacy cases – In February 2014, the Washington Supreme Court agreed with EFF in both cases, ruling the search of the text messages was unlawful. [Read More]
• Commonwealth v. Rousseau – In June 2013, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court agreed with EFF, finding that passengers had the standing to challenge GPS surveillance. [Read More]
• In re Appeal of Application of Search Warrant (Vermont) – In December 2012, the Court rejected the government’s arguments and agreed with EFF and partners. [Read More]
• California’s Electronic Communications Privacy Act (CalECPA) – SB 178 – After passing out of both chambers of the California legislature with 2/3 support (CalECPA was sponsored by EFF, ACLU of Northern California, and the California Newspaper Publishers Association, and supported by a wide variety of rights groups and technology companies), Gov. Jerry Brown signed the bill on October 8, 2015. [Read More]
• Warshak v. the United States – 6th Circuit agreed with EFF that email users have a Fourth Amendment-protected expectation of privacy in the email they store with their email providers. [Read More]
• Hemisphere: Law Enforcement’s Secret Call Records Deal With AT&T – [Read More]
• CHEVRON V. DONZIGER – Chevron agreed to withdraw the subpoenas to Yahoo! and Google and has agreed to protect and keep confidential any account information Chevron has already received related to the case. [Read More]
• Carpenter v. the United States – The Supreme Court handed down a landmark opinion, ruling 5-4 that the Fourth Amendment protects cell phone location information. [Read More]