
All EFF’d Up: Silicon Valley’s astroturf privacy shakedown - pizza
https://thebaffler.com/salvos/all-effd-up-levine
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rmrfstar
List of wrongs according to author:

* EFF currently takes money from Facebook and Google. Money comes from donations and strange payments resulting from litigation (settlement? judgement? case names?)

* Founders of EFF were rich guys with "bizzjets"

* Early sponsors included large monopolists like IBM, MCI, Bell, AT&T, and Microsoft

* EFF moved HQ from Cambridge to DC instead of investing in regional offices to build a grass-roots movement

* After DC move, EFF hired Jerry Berman who previously helped "turn the ACLU into a big business lobby" and also "helped craft the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act" which is the statutory origin of the pen trap (metadata without warrant).

* EFF and Berman helped design "Communications Law Enforcement Assistance Act" of 1994, which requires companies to build infrastructure for wiretapping (with warrant).

* Non-specific "lobbying for ISPs" after moving to SF

* EFF did not join 2004 letter asking Google to delay gmail launch because of privacy concerns, and deflected criticism for this. EFF staffer $W occasionally parroted Google corporate talking points.

* CA state senator Figueroa proposed legislation that would essentially ban Google from having algorithms read emails. EFF attacked Figueroa, "painting her as ignorant and out of [her] depth". Author of the attack pieces was EFF staffer $W, who left the EFF for Google shortly after this episode.

* EFF collaborated with large companies to oppose SOPA. Their public communications used language similar to corporate communications on the same topic.

* EFF's position is "corporate surveillance neutral, government surveillance bad." Evidence is lack of attention to corporate surveillance, and (ineffective) public condemnation of government surveillance. Also former staff statements confirming this view.

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bryan_w
(2018)

