The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is an international non-profit digital rights advocacy and legal organization based in the United States. Its stated mission is to:
- Engage in and support educational activities which increase popular understanding of the opportunities and challenges posed by developments in computing and telecommunications.
- Develop among policy-makers a better understanding of the issues underlying free and open telecommunications, and support the creation of legal and structural approaches which will ease the assimilation of these new technologies by society.
- Raise public awareness about civil liberties issues arising from the rapid advancement in the area of new computer-based communications media.
- Support litigation in the public interest to preserve, protect, and extend First Amendment rights within the realm of computing and telecommunications technology.
- Encourage and support the development of new tools which will endow non-technical users with full and easy access to computer-based telecommunications.
The EFF is supported by donations and is based in San Francisco, California, with staff members in Washington, D.C. They are accredited observers at the World Intellectual Property Organization and one of the participants of the Global Network Initiative.
EFF has taken action in several ways. It provides funds for legal defense in court, presents amici curiae briefs, defends individuals and new technologies from what it considers baseless or misdirected legal threats, works to expose government malfeasance, provides guidance to the government and courts, organizes political action and mass mailings, supports some new technologies which it believes preserve personal freedoms, maintains a database and web sites of related news and information, monitors and challenges potential legislation that it believes would infringe on personal liberties and fair use, and solicits a list of what it considers patent abuses with intentions to defeat those that it considers without merit.
Read more about Electronic Frontier Foundation: Support, In Literature
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