One week after it was passed by the U.S. House of Representatives, the Senate has passed what Senator Ron Wyden has called, “one of the most dramatic and terrifying expansions of government surveillance authority in history.” President Biden then rushed to sign it into law.  

The perhaps ironically named “Reforming Intelligence and Security America Act (RISAA)” does everything BUT reform Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). RISAA not only reauthorizes this mass surveillance program, it greatly expands the government’s authority by allowing it to compel a much larger group of people and providers into assisting with this surveillance. The bill’s only significant “compromise” is a limited, two-year extension of this mass surveillance. But overall, RISAA is a travesty for Americans who deserve basic constitutional rights and privacy whether they are communicating with people and services inside or outside of the US.

Section 702 allows the government to conduct surveillance of foreigners abroad from inside the United States. It operates, in part, through the cooperation of large telecommunications service providers: massive amounts of traffic on the Internet backbone are accessed and those communications on the government’s secret list are copied. And that’s just one part of the massive, expensive program. 

While Section 702 prohibits the NSA and FBI from intentionally targeting Americans with this mass surveillance, these agencies routinely acquire a huge amount of innocent Americans' communications “incidentally.” The government can then conduct backdoor, warrantless searches of these “incidentally collected” communications.

The government cannot even follow the very lenient rules about what it does with the massive amount of information it gathers under Section 702, repeatedly abusing this authority by searching its databases for Americans’ communications. In 2021 alone, the FBI reported conducting up to 3.4 million warrantless searches of Section 702 data using Americans’ identifiers. Given this history of abuse, it is difficult to understand how Congress could decide to expand the government’s power under Section 702 rather than rein it in.

One of RISAA’s most egregious expansions is its large but ill-defined increase of the range of entities that have to turn over information to the NSA and FBI. This provision allegedly “responds” to a 2023 decision by the FISC Court of Review, which rejected the government’s argument that an unknown company was subject to Section 702 for some circumstances. While the New York Times reports that the unknown company from this FISC opinion was a data center, this new provision is written so expansively that it potentially reaches any person or company with “access” to “equipment” on which electronic communications travel or are stored, regardless of whether they are a direct provider. This could potentially include landlords, maintenance people, and many others who routinely have access to your communications on the interconnected internet.

This is to say nothing of RISAA’s other substantial expansions. RISAA changes FISA’s definition of “foreign intelligence” to include “counternarcotics”: this will allow the government to use FISA to collect information relating to not only the “international production, distribution, or financing of illicit synthetic drugs, opioids, cocaine, or other drugs driving overdose deaths,” but also to any of their precursors. While surveillance under FISA has (contrary to what most Americans believe) never been limited exclusively to terrorism and counterespionage, RISAA’s expansion of FISA to ordinary crime is unacceptable.

RISAA also allows the government to use Section 702 to vet immigrants and those seeking asylum. According to a FISC opinion released in 2023, the FISC repeatedly denied government attempts to obtain some version of this authority, before finally approving it for the first time in 2023. By formally lowering Section 702’s protections for immigrants and asylum seekers, RISAA exacerbates the risk that government officials could discriminate against members of these populations on the basis of their sexuality, gender identity, religion, or political beliefs.

Faced with massive pushback from EFF and other civil liberties advocates, some members of Congress, like Senator Ron Wyden, raised the alarm. We were able to squeeze out a couple of small concessions. One was a shorter reauthorization period for Section 702, meaning that the law will be up for review in just two more years. Also, in a letter to Congress, the Department of Justice claimed it would only interpret the new provision to apply to the type of unidentified businesses at issue in the 2023 FISC opinion. But a pinky promise from the current Department of Justice is not enforceable and easily disregarded by a future administration. There is some possible hope here, because Senator Mark Warner promised to return to the provision in a later defense authorization bill, but this whole debacle just demonstrates how Congress gives the NSA and FBI nearly free rein when it comes to protecting Americans – any limitation that actually protects us (and here the FISA Court actually did some protecting) is just swept away.

RISAA’s passage is a shocking reversal—EFF and our allies had worked hard to put together a coalition aimed at enacting a warrant requirement for Americans and some other critical reforms, but the NSA, FBI and their apologists just rolled Congress with scary-sounding (and incorrect) stories that a lapse in the spying was imminent. It was a clear dereliction of Congress’s duty to oversee the intelligence community in order to protect all of the rest of us from its long history of abuse.

After over 20 years of doing it, we know that rolling back any surveillance authority, especially one as deeply entrenched as Section 702, is an uphill fight. But we aren’t going anywhere. We had more Congressional support this time than we’ve had in the past, and we’ll be working to build that over the next two years.

Too many members of Congress (and the Administrations of both parties) don’t see any downside to violating your privacy and your constitutional rights in the name of national security. That needs to change.

Yesterday, the House of Representatives voted against considering a largely bad bill that would have unacceptably expanded the tentacles of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, along with reauthorizing it and introducing some minor fixes. Section 702 is Big Brother’s favorite mass surveillance law that EFF has been fighting since it was first passed in 2008. The law is currently set to expire on April 19. 

Yesterday’s decision not to decide is good news, at least temporarily. Once again, a bipartisan coalition of law makers—led by Rep. Jim Jordan and Rep. Jerrold Nadler—has staved off the worst outcome of expanding 702 mass surveillance in the guise of “reforming” it. But the fight continues and we need all Americans to make their voices heard. 

Use this handy tool to tell your elected officials: No reauthorization of 702 without drastic reform:

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TELL congress: 702 Needs serious reforms

Yesterday’s vote means the House also will not consider amendments to Section 702 surveillance introduced by members of the House Judiciary Committee (HJC) and House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI). As we discuss below, while the HJC amendments would contain necessary, minimum protections against Section 702’s warrantless surveillance, the HPSCI amendments would impose no meaningful safeguards upon Section 702 and would instead increase the threats Section 702 poses to Americans’ civil liberties.

Section 702 expressly authorizes the government to collect foreign communications inside the U.S. for a wide range of purposes, under the umbrellas of national security and intelligence gathering. While that may sound benign for Americans, foreign communications include a massive amount of Americans’ communications with people (or services) outside the United States. Under the government’s view, intelligence agencies and even domestic law enforcement should have backdoor, warrantless access to these “incidentally collected” communications, instead of having to show a judge there is a reason to query Section 702 databases for a specific American's communications.

Many amendments to Section 702 have recently been introduced. In general, amendments from members of the HJC aim at actual reform (although we would go further in many instances). In contrast, members of HPSCI have proposed bad amendments that would expand Section 702 and undermine necessary oversight. Here is our analysis of both HJC’s decent reform amendments and HPSCI’s bad amendments, as well as the problems the latter might create if they return.

House Judiciary Committee’s Amendments Would Impose Needed Reforms

The most important amendment HJC members have introduced would require the government to obtain court approval before querying Section 702 databases for Americans’ communications, with exceptions for exigency, consent, and certain queries involving malware. As we recently wrote regarding a different Section 702 bill, because Section 702’s warrantless surveillance lacks the safeguards of probable cause and particularity, it is essential to require the government to convince a judge that there is a justification before the “separate Fourth Amendment event” of querying for Americans’ communications. This is a necessary, minimum protection and any attempts to renew Section 702 going forward should contain this provision.

Another important amendment would prohibit the NSA from resuming “abouts” collection. Through abouts collection, the NSA collected communications that were neither to nor from a specific surveillance target but merely mentioned the target. While the NSA voluntarily ceased abouts collection following Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) rulings that called into question the surveillance’s lawfulness, the NSA left the door open to resume abouts collection if it felt it could “work that technical solution in a way that generates greater reliability.” Under current law, the NSA need only notify Congress when it resumes collection. This amendment would instead require the NSA to obtain Congress’s express approval before it can resume abouts collection, which―given this surveillance's past abuses—would be notable.

The other HJC amendment Congress should accept would require the FBI to give a quarterly report to Congress of the number of queries it has conducted of Americans’ communications in its Section 702 databases and would also allow high-ranking members of Congress to attend proceedings of the notoriously secretive FISC. More congressional oversight of FBI queries of Americans’ communications and FISC proceedings would be good. That said, even if Congress passes this amendment (which it should), both Congress and the American public deserve much greater transparency about Section 702 surveillance.  

House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence’s Amendments Would Expand Section 702

Instead of much-needed reforms, the HPSCI amendments expand Section 702 surveillance.

One HPSCI amendment would add “counternarcotics” to FISA’s definition of “foreign intelligence information,” expanding the scope of mass surveillance even further from the antiterrorism goals that most Americans associate with FISA. In truth, FISA’s definition of “foreign intelligence information” already goes beyond terrorism. But this counternarcotics amendment would further expand “foreign intelligence information” to allow FISA to be used to collect information relating to not only the “international production, distribution, or financing of illicit synthetic drugs, opioids, cocaine, or other drugs driving overdose deaths” but also to any of their precursors. Given the massive amount of Americans’ communications the government already collects under Section 702 and the government’s history of abusing Americans’ civil liberties through searching these communications, the expanded collection this amendment would permit is unacceptable.

Another amendment would authorize using Section 702 to vet immigrants and those seeking asylum. According to a FISC opinion released last year, the government has sought some version of this authority for years, and the FISC repeatedly denied it—finally approving it for the first time in 2023. The FISC opinion is very redacted, which makes it impossible to know either the current scope of immigration and visa-related surveillance under Section 702 or what the intelligence agencies have sought in the past. But regardless, it’s deeply concerning that HPSCI is trying to formally lower Section 702 protections for immigrants and asylum seekers. We’ve already seen the government revoke people’s visas based upon their political opinions—this amendment would put this kind of thing on steroids.

The last HPSCI amendment tries to make more companies subject to Section 702’s required turnover of customer information in more instances. In 2023, the FISC Court of Review rejected the government’s argument that an unknown company was subject to Section 702 for some circumstances. While we don’t know the details of the secret proceedings because the FISC Court of Review opinion is heavily redacted, this is an ominous attempt to increase the scope of providers subject to 702. With this amendment, HPSCI is attempting to legislatively overrule a court already famously friendly to the government. HPSCI Chair Mike Turner acknowledged as much in a House Rules Committee hearing earlier this week, stating that this amendment “responds” to the FISC Court of Review’s decision.

What’s Next 

This hearing was unlikely to be the last time Congress considers Section 702 before April 19—we expect another attempt to renew this surveillance authority in the coming days. We’ve been very clear: Section 702 must not be renewed without essential reforms that protect privacy, improve transparency, and keep the program within the confines of the law. 

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TELL congress: 702 Needs serious reforms

At the end of every year, we look back at the last 12 months and evaluate what has changed for the better (and worse) for digital rights.  While we can be frustrated—hello ongoing attacks on encryption—overall it's always an exhilarating reminder of just how far we've come since EFF was founded over 33 years ago. Just the scale alone it's breathtaking. Digital rights started as a niche, future-focused issue that we would struggle to explain to nontechnical people; now it's deeply embedded into all of our lives.

The legislative, court, and agency fights around the world this year also helped us see and articulate a common thread: the need for a "privacy first" approach to laws and technology innovation.  As we wrote in a new white paper aptly entitled "Privacy First: A Better Way to Address Online Harms," many of the ills of today’s internet have a single thing in common, and it is that they are built on a business model of corporate surveillance and behavioral advertising.  Addressing that problem could help us make great strides in a range of issues, and avoid many of the the terrible likely impacts of many of today's proposed "solutions."

Instead of considering proposals that would censor speech and put children's access to internet resources at the whims of state attorneys general, we could be targeting the root cause of the concern: internet companies' collection, storage, sales, and use of our personal information and activities to feed their algorithms and ad services. Police go straight to tech companies for your data or the data on everyone who was near a certain location.  And that's when they even bother with a court-overseen process, rather than simply issuing a subpoena, showing up and demanding it, or buying data from data brokers. If we restricted what data tech companies could keep and for how long, we could also tackle this problem at the source. Instead of unconstitutional link taxes to save local journalism, laws that attack behavioral advertising--built on collection of data--would break the ad and data monopoly that put journalists at the mercy of Big Tech in the first place.

Concerns about what is feeding AI, social media algorithms, government spying (either your own or another country's), online harassment, getting access to healthcare--so much can be better protected if we address privacy first. EFF knows this, and it's why, in 2023, we did things like launch the Tor University Challenge, urge the Supreme Court to recognize that the Fifth Amendment protects you from being forced to give your phone's passcode to police, and work to fix the dangerously flawed UN Cybercrime Treaty. Most recently, we celebrated Google's decision to limit the data collected and kept in its "Location History" as a potentially huge step to prevent geofence warrants that use Google's storehouse of location data to conduct massive, unconstitutional searches sweeping in many innocent bystanders. 

Of course, as much as individuals need more privacy, we also need more transparency, especially from our governments and the big corporations that rule so much of our digital lives. That's why EFF urged the Supreme Court to overturn an order preventing Twitter—now X—from publishing a transparency report with data about what, exactly, government agents have asked the company for. It's why we won an important victory in keeping laws and regulations online and accessible. And it's why we defended the Internet Archive from an attack by major publishers seeking to cripple libraries' ability to give the rest of us access to knowledge into the digital age.

All of that barely scratches the surface of what we've been doing this year. But none of it would be possible without the strong partnership of our members, supporters, and all of you who stood up and took action to build a better future. 

EFF has an annual tradition of writing several blog posts on what we’ve accomplished this year, what we’ve learned, and where we have more to do. We will update this page with new stories about digital rights in 2023 every day between now and the new year.

• Surveillance and the U.S.-Mexico Border
• The Great Interoperability Convergence
• EFF Continues Fight Against Unconstitutional Geofence and Keyword Search Warrants
• Electronic Frontier Alliance Comes Back Strong
• Artificial Intelligence and Policing
• Sketchy and Dangerous Android Children’s Tablets and TV Set-Top Boxes
• Corporate Spy Tech and Inequality
• Protecting Encryption And Privacy In The US
• The Last Mile of Encrypting the Web
• Recent Surveillance Revelations, Enduring Latin American Issues
• Surveillance Self-Defense
• EFF Membership
• International Threats to Freedom of Expression
• The U.S. Supreme Court’s Busy Year of Free Speech and Tech Cases
• Equitable Access to the Law Got Stronger
• The Atlas of Surveillance Hits Major Milestones
• Kids Online Safety Shouldn’t Require Massive Online Censorship and Surveillance
• Protecting Students from Faulty Software and Legislation
• In the Trenches of Broadband Policy
• Fighting For Your Digital Rights Across the Country
• First, Let’s Talk About Consumer Privacy
• States Attack Young People’s Constitutional Right to Use Social Media
• Fighting European Threats to Encryption
• Taking Back the Web with Decentralization
• How To Fight Bad Patents
• Google’s Corporate Paternalism in The Browser
• Digital Rights for LGBTQ+ People

Here’s another reason to block digital surveillance: it might reduce financial fraud.  That’s the upshot of a small but promising study published as a National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) working paper, “Consumer Surveillance and Financial Fraud. 

Authors Bo Bian, Michaela Pagel and Huan Tang investigated the relationship between the rollout of Apple’s App Tracking Transparency (ATT) and reports of consumer financial fraud. Many apps can track users across apps or websites owned by other companies. By default, Apple's ATT opted all iPhone users out of tracking, which meant that apps and websites no longer received user identifiers unless they obtained user permission. 

The highlight of the research is that Apple users were less likely to be victims of financial fraud after Apple implemented the App Tracking Transparency policy. The results showed a 10% increase in the share of Apple users in a particular ZIP code leads to roughly 3% reduction in financial fraud complaints. 

The Methodology 

The authors designed a complicated methodology for this study, but here are the basics for those who don’t have time to tackle the actual paper. 

The authors primarily use the number of financial fraud complaints and the amount of money lost due to fraud to track how much fraud is happening. These figures are obtained from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The researchers used machine learning and keyword searches to narrow the complaints down to those related to financial fraud that was caused by lax data privacy as opposed to other types of financial fraud. They concluded that complaints in certain product categories—like credit reporting and debt collection—are most likely to implicate the lack of data privacy. 

The study used data acquired by a company called Safegraph to determine the share of iPhone users on ZIP code level. It then estimated the effect of Apple’s ATT,on the number of complaints of financial fraud in each ZIP code. They found a noticeable, measurable reduction in complaints for iPhone users after ATT was implemented. The researchers also investigated variation in this reduction across different demographic groups. They found that the effect is stronger for minorities, women, and younger people—suggesting that these groups, which may have been more vulnerable to fraud before, saw a greater increase in protection when Apple turned on ATT.  

To test the accuracy and reliability of their results, the researchers employed many different methods typically used in a statistical analysis. These include placebo tests, robustness check, and Poisson regression. In lay terms, these methods test the results against assumptions, the potential effect of other factors and alternative specifications, and variable conditions. 

These methods help establish causation (as opposed to mere correlation), in part by ruling out other possible causes. Although one can never be 100% sure that a result was caused by something in a regression analysis, these methods are popularly used to reasonably infer causation and the report meticulously applies them. 

What This Means 

While the scope of the data is small, this is the first significant research we’ve seen that connects increased privacy with decreased fraud. This should matter to all of us. It reinforces that when companies take steps to protect our privacy, they also help protect us from financial fraud. This is a point we made in our Privacy First whitepaper, which discusses the many harms that a robust privacy system can protect us from.  Lawmakers and regulators should take note.   

In implementing ATT, Apple has proven something EFF has long said: with over 75% of consumers as of May 2022 keeping all tracking off rather than opting in, it’s clear that most consumers want more privacy than they are currently getting through the surveillance business model. Now, with this research it seems that when they get more privacy, they also get some protection against fraud as well.   

Of course, we are not done pushing Apple or anyone else on stepping up for our privacy. As Professor Zeynep Tufekci noted in a recent NY Times column, “I was happy to see Apple switch the defaults for tracking in 2021, but I’m not happy that it was because of a decision by one powerful company—what oligopoly giveth, oligopoly can taketh away. We didn’t elect Apple’s chief executive, Tim Cook, to be the sovereign of our digital world. He could change his mind.”  

We appreciate Apple for implementing ATT. The initial research indicates that it may have a welcome additional  effect for all of us who need both privacy and security against fraud.  We’d like to see more research about this connection and, of course, more companies following Apple’s lead.  

As a side note, it is important to mention that we are concerned about researchers using data from Safegraph, a company that EFF has criticized for unethical personal data collection and its PR efforts to "research wash" its practices by making that data available for free to academics. The use of this data in several academic research projects speaks to the reach of unethical data brokers as well as to the need to rein them in, both with technical measures like ATT and with robust consumer data privacy legislation.  

However, the use of this data does not take away from the credibility of the research and its conclusions. The iOS share per ZIP code could have been determined by other legitimate sources, but that would have had no effect on the results determining the impact of ATT.  

Thanks to EFF Intern Muhammad Essa for research and key drafting help with this blog post.

Cohn: Alright, we’re doing a Speaking Freely Interview with Alison- Alison why don’t you say your name?

Alison Macrina, like Ballerina

Cohn: From the Library Freedom Project- and an EFF Award Winner 2023! Alright, let’s get into it. What does freedom of speech mean to you, Alison?

Well, to me it means the freedom to seek information, to use it, to speak it, but specifically without fear of retribution from those in power. And in LFP (Library Freedom Project) we’re really particularly concerned about how free speech and power relate. In the US, I think about power that comes from, not just the government, but also rich individuals and how they use their money to influence things like free speech, as well as corporations. I also think about free speech in terms of how it allows us to define the terms of public debate and conversation. And how also we can use it to question and shift the status quo to, in my view, more progressive ends. I think the best way that we can use our speech is using it to challenge and confront power. And identifying power structures. I think those power structures are really present in how we talk about speech. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about all the big money that’s involved with shaping speech like the Koch brothers, etc, and how they’re influencing the culture wars. Which is why I think it’s really important, when I think about free speech, to think about things like social and economic justice. In LFP we talk about information democracy – that’s like the EFF Award that we got – and what that means to us is about how free expression, access, privacy, power, and justice interact. It’s about recognizing the different barriers to free expression, and what is actually being said, and also prioritizing the collective and our need to be able to criticize and hold accountable the people with power so that we can make a better world. 

Cohn: One of the things that I think the Library Freedom Project is that it’s really talking about the ability to access information as part of freedom of expression. Sometimes we only think about it as the speaking part, the part where it goes out, and I think one of the things that LFP really does is elevate the part where you get access to information which is equally, and importantly, a part of free speech. Is that something you want to talk about a little more? 

I think it’s one of the things that make libraries so special, right? It’s like what else do we have in our society that is a space that is just dedicated to information access? You know, anybody can use the library. Libraries exist in every community in the country. There’s all kinds of little sound bites about that, like, “there’s more libraries than there are McDonalds,” or, “there’s more libraries than Starbucks,” and what I think is also really unique and valuable about libraries is that they’re a public good that’s not means-tested. So in other words, they show up in poor communities, they’re in rich communities, they’re in middle-class communities. Most other public goods – if they exist – they’re only for the super, super poor. So it’s this, kind of… at it’s best… libraries can be such an equalizer. Some of the things we do in Library Freedom Project, we try to really push what the possibilities are for that kind of access. So offering trainings for librarians that expand on our understanding of free speech and access and privacy. Things like helping people understand artificial intelligence and algorithmic literacy. What are these tools? What do they mean? How do they work? Where are they at use? So helping librarians understand that so they can teach their communities about it. We try to think creatively about – what are the different kinds of technology at use in our world and how can librarians be the ones to offer better information about them in our communities? 

Cohn: What are the qualities that make you passionate about freedom of expression or freedom of speech? 

I mean it’s part of why I became a librarian. I don’t remember when or why it was what I wanted to do. I just knew it was what I wanted. I had like this sort of Loyd Dobler “say anything” moment where he’s like “I don’t want to buy anything that’s bought, sold, or made. I don’t want to sell anything that’s sold, bought, or made.” You know, I knew I wanted to do something in the public good. And I loved to read. And I loved to have an opinion and talk. And I felt like the library was the place that, not only where I could do that, but was a space that just celebrated that. And I think especially, all of the things that are happening in the world now, libraries are a place where we can really come together around ideas, we can expand our ideas, we can get introduced to ideas that are different from our own. I think that’s really extraordinary and super rare. I’ve always just really loved the library and wanted do it for my life. And so that’s why I started Library Freedom Project.

Cohn: That’s wonderful. Let’s talk a little about online speech and regulation. How do you think about online speech and regulation and how we should think about those issues? 

Well, I think we’re in a really bad position about it right now because, to my mind, there was a too-long period of inaction by these companies. And I think that now a decade or so of inaction created the conditions for a really harmful information movement. And now, it’s like, anything that we do, there’s unintended consequences. Content moderation is obviously extremely important- it’s an important public demand. I think it should be transparent and accountable. But all the ways that there are harmful information movements, everything I have seen, attempts to regulate them, have just resulted in people becoming hardened in their positions. 

This morning, for example, I was listening to the Senate Judiciary Hearings on book banning – because I’m a nerd – and it was a mess. It ended up not even really being about the book banning issue – which is a huge, huge issue in the library world – but it was all these Republican Senators talking about how horrible it was that the Biden administration was suppressing different kinds of COVID misinfo and disinfo. And they didn’t call it that, obviously, they called it “information” or “citizen science” or whatever. And it’s true that the Biden administration did do that – they made those demands of Facebook and so what were the results? It didn’t stop any of that disinformation. It didn’t change anybody’s minds about it. I think another big failure was Facebook and other companies trying to react to fake news by labeling stuff. And that was just totally laughable. And a lot of it was really wrong. You know, they were labeling all these leftwing outlets as Russian propaganda. I think that I don’t really know what the solution is to dealing with all of that. 

I think, though, that we’re at a place where the toothpaste is already so far out of the tube that I don’t know that any amount of regulation of it is going to be effective. I wish that those companies were regulated like public resources. I think that would make for a big shift. I don’t think companies should be making those kinds of decisions about speech. It’s such a huge problem, especially thinking about how it plays out for us at the local level in libraries- like because misinfo and disinfo are so popular, now we have people who request those materials from the library. And librarians have to make the decision- are we going to give in to public demand and buy this stuff or are we going to say, no, we are curators of information and we care about truth? We’re now in this position that because of this environment that’s been created outside of us, we have to respond to it. And it’s really hard- we’re also facing, relatedly, a massive rightwing assault on the library. A lot of people are familiar with this showing up as book bans, but it’s legislation, it’s taking over Boards, and all these other things. 

Cohn: What kind of situations, if any, is appropriate for governments or companies to limit speech? And I think they’re two separate questions, governments on the one hand and companies on the other. 

I think that, you know, Alex Jones should not be allowed to say that Sandyhook was a hoax – obviously, he’s facing consequences for that now. But the damage was done. Companies are tricky, because on the one hand, I think that different environments should be able to dictate the terms of how their platforms work. Like LFP is technically a company, and you’re not coming on any of my platforms and saying Nazi shit. But I also don’t want those companies to be arbiters of speech. They already are, and I think it’s a bad thing. I think that government regulation of speech we have to be really careful about. Because obviously it has the unintended consequence – or sometimes the intended consequences – are always harmful to marginalized people. 

Part of what motivated me to care about free speech is, I’ve been a political activist most of my life, on the left, and I am a big history nerd. And I paid a lot of attention to, historically, the way that leftist movements - how they’re speech has been marginalized and censored. From the Red Scare to anti-war speech. And I also look at a lot of what is happening now with the repression after the 2020 uprising, the No Cop City people just had this huge RICO indictment come down. And that is all speech repression that impacts things that I care about. And so I don’t want the government to intervene in any way there. At the same time, white supremacy is a really big problem. It has very real material effects and harms people. And one way this is a really big issue in my world, is part of the rightwing attack on libraries is, there is a bad faith free speech effort among them. They talk about free speech a lot. They talk about [how] they want their speech to be heard. But what they actually mean is, they want to create a hostile environment for other people. And so this is something that I end up feeling really torn about. Because I don’t want to see anyone go to prison for speech. I don’t want to see increased government regulation of speech. But I also think that allowing white supremacists to use the library meeting room or have their events there creates an environment where marginalized people just don’t go. I’m not sure what the responsible thing for us to do is. But I think that thinking about free speech outside of the abstract – thinking about the real material consequences that it has for people, especially in the library world – a lot of civil libertarians like to say, “you just respond with more speech.” And it’s like, well, that’s not realistic. You can’t easily do that especially when you’re talking about people who will cause some harm to these communities. One thing I do think, one reasonable speech regulation, is that I don’t think cops should be allowed to lie. And they are allowed, so we should do something about that. 

Cohn: Who is your free speech hero?

Well, okay, I have a few. Number one is so obvious that I feel like it’s trite to say, but, duh, Chelsea Manning. Everyone says Chelsea Manning, right? But we should give her her flowers again and again. Her life has been shaped by the decisions that she made about the things that she had to say in the public interest. I think that all whistleblowers in general are people that I have enormous respect for. People who know there are going to be consequences for their speech and do it anyway. And will sacrifice themselves for public good – it’s astounding. 

I also am very fortunate to be surrounded by free speech heroes all the time who are librarians. Not just in the nature of the work of the library, like the everyday normal thing, but also in the environment that we’re in right now. Because they are constantly pushing the bounds of public conversation about things like LGBT issues and racial justice and other things that are social goods, under extremely different conditions. Some of them are like, the only librarian in a rural community where, you know, the Proud Boys or the three percenters or whatever militant group is showing up to protest them, is trying to defund their library, is trying to remove them from their positions, is trying to get the very nature of the work criminalized, is trying to redefine what “obscenity” means. And these people, under those conditions, are still pushing for free speech and I think that’s amazing. 

And then the third one I’ll say is, I really try to keep an internationalist approach, and think about what the rest of the world experiences, because we really, even as challenging as things are in the US right now, we have it pretty good. So, when I was part of the Tor Project I got to go to Uganda with Tor to meet with some different human rights activists and talk to them about how they used Tor and help them with their situations. And I met all of these amazing Ugandan environmental activists who were fighting the construction of a pipeline – a huge pipeline from Tanzania to Uganda. And these are some of the world’s poorest people fighting some of the biggest corporations and Nation-States – because the US, Israel, and China all have a major interest in this pipeline. And these are people who were publishing anonymous blogs, with the use of Tor, under extreme threat. Many of them would get arrested constantly. Members of their organization would get disappeared for a few days. And they were doing it anyway, often with the knowledge that it wasn’t even going to change anything. Which just really was mind-blowing. And I stop and think about that a lot, when I think about all the issues that we have with free speech here. Because I think that those are the conditions that, honestly, most of the world is operating under, and those people are everyday heroes and they need to get their flowers. 

Cohn: Terrific, thank you Alison, for taking the time. You have articulated many of the complexities of the current place that we are and a few truths that we can hold, so thank you.

Agustina Del Campo is the Director at the Center for Studies on Freedom of Expression and Access to Information (CELE) at the University of Palermo in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She holds a law degree from Universidad Catolica Argentina and an LL.M. in International Legal Studies from American University Washington College of Law.

Agustina has extensive experience in human rights training, particularly as it relates to freedom of expression and the press in the Inter-American human rights system. She has taught and lectured in several Latin American countries and the U.S.

EFF’s Executive Director Cindy Cohn caught up with Agustina at RightsCon 2023 in Costa Rica. In this brief but powerful exchange Agustina discusses how, though free speech has a bad rap these days, it is inherent in any advocacy agenda aimed at challenging – and changing – the status quo and existing power dynamics.

Cindy Cohn: Would you introduce yourself?

Sure, I’m Agustina Del Campo and I direct the Center for Studies on Freedom of Expression and Access to Information (CELE) in Argentina.

Cohn: First, what does free speech mean to you?

Free speech means a lot of things to me, but it basically means the power to bring unpopular ideas to the mainstream. That is what free speech means to me. It’s the power of advocating for something.

Cohn: Wonderful. How do you think online speech should or shouldn’t be regulated?

Well, I think it should or shouldn’t be regulated in the same way that offline speech should or shouldn’t be regulated. The power of speech is basically not the power to share popular ideas, but the power to share unpopular ideas, and popular ideas are online and offline and they have an impact online and offline. We’ve been discussing the limits and the possibilities and the opportunities and the challenges for speech offline for a number of years, so I think in whatever we decide to do in online speech we should at least bear in mind the discussions that we had prior to getting to this new technology and new tools.

Cohn: I know you’ve told me in the past that you’re a feminist and, obviously you live in Argentina, so you come from the Global Majority. Often we are told that free speech is a white western concept—how do you react to that accusation?

It’s interesting, in a lot of countries the freedom of expression agenda has been somewhat lost. It’s an unpopular time for freedom of expression. A lot of that unpopularity may be due to this association precisely—the freedom of expression agenda as a white male, middle-aged kind of right—and there’s a lot of anger to this place that freedom of expression has. My immediate reaction is the fact that you can have an advocacy agenda for women, for abortion rights, for anything basically, the fact that you were able to bring vulnerable populations to the mainstream conversation, the fact that we are sensitive to gender, to pronouns, to indigenous populations, to children’s need—it’s a lot the product of people fighting for the possibilities of those groups and voices to be heard. It wasn’t long ago that in my country and in my region, Latin America, there was a very conservative regime in a lot of countries where a lot of these claims that today are mainstream and popular and shared were unspeakable. You could not raise them anywhere. It is freedom of expression that has facilitated and allowed those discussions to flourish to become what they are. The fact that a lot of those agendas, the feminist agenda, the most vulnerable populations’ agendas are now really established in a lot of countries and flourishing took a lot of fighting from freedom of expression advocates so that those voices could be heard. The fact that we’re winning doesn’t mean we’ll always be. And we need to protect the guarantees and rights that allowed us to get to where we are now.

Cohn: That is so perfect. I think I just want to stop there. I wish I could put that on posters.

Every year, we encounter new, often ill-conceived, bills written by state, federal, and international regulators to tackle a broad set of digital topics ranging from child safety to artificial intelligence. These scattershot proposals to correct online harm are often based on censorship and news cycles. Instead of this chaotic approach that rarely leads to the passage of good laws, we propose another solution in a new report: Privacy First: A Better Way to Address Online Harms.

In this report, we outline how many of the internet's ills have one thing in common: they're based on the business model of widespread corporate surveillance online. Dismantling this system would not only be a huge step forward to our digital privacy, it would raise the floor for serious discussions about the internet's future.

What would this comprehensive privacy law look like? We believe it must include these components:

• No online behavioral ads.
• Data minimization.
• Opt-in consent.
• User rights to access, port, correct, and delete information.
• No preemption of state laws.
• Strong enforcement with a private right to action.
• No pay-for-privacy schemes.
• No deceptive design.

A strong comprehensive data privacy law promotes privacy, free expression, and security. It can also help protect children, support journalism, protect access to health care, foster digital justice, limit private data collection to train generative AI, limit foreign government surveillance, and strengthen competition. These are all issues on which lawmakers are actively pushing legislation—both good and bad.

Comprehensive privacy legislation won’t fix everything. Children may still see things that they shouldn’t. New businesses will still have to struggle against the deep pockets of their established tech giant competitors. Governments will still have tools to surveil people directly. But with this one big step in favor of privacy, we can take a bite out of many of those problems, and foster a more humane, user-friendly technological future for everyone.