Would you happen to have any notable examples of EFF's treating Big Tech as the enemy (or major threat if you prefer) during its first five or ten years? That would be 1994--1999 or 1994--2004, roughly.
I ... was well aware of the EFF for at least the latter half of that period, and this doesn't seem to correspond well with my recollection, though I suppose one could argue that Jackson Games cast AT&T as Big Evil Tech. The defendant in the case however was the US Secret Service, a federal government entity. The Church of Scientology was of course another notable early non-government focus.
But largely at least through 2000, and for much of the decade of the 2000s, EFF's principle focus was law and policy, not abusive tech giants. Rather than abandoning the former, the EFF seems now to consider both as significant concerns. Even key EFF staffers themselves (e.g., Doctorow, Cohn) acknowledge this shift.
Touche. Should have said two decades. You got me. But I really don't see how that's responsive.
I haven't seen the EFF weigh in once on the legality or privacy concerns of a just-hired unvetted contractor walking around with the entire IRS on his MacBook, or of the trolling of law enforcement data that disappeared a thousand people into cages in some Salvadoran jungle.
Instead, the EFF seems more concerned with making sure we all buy iPhones instead of Pixels.
Spare me, basically. I know what I care about. The EFF doesn't represent my interests. Which sucks, because they used to.
"EFF Sues DOGE and the Office of Personnel Management to Halt Ransacking of Federal Data" (February 11, 2025)
EFF and a coalition of privacy defenders have filed a lawsuit today asking a federal court to block Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) from accessing the private information of millions of Americans that is stored by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), and to delete any data that has been collected or removed from databases thus far....
"EFF Sues OPM, DOGE and Musk for Endangering the Privacy of Millions" (February 11, 2025)
(Concerns same action.)
"The Dangers of Consolidating All Government Information" (June 5, 2025)
The Trump administration has been heavily invested in consolidating all of the government’s information into a single searchable, or perhaps AI-queryable, super database. The compiling of all of this information is being done with the dubious justification of efficiency and modernization–however, in many cases, this information was originally siloed for important reasons: to protect your privacy, to prevent different branches of government from using sensitive data to punish or harass you, and to perserve the trust in and legitimacy of important civic institutions.
Oh, come on. The first link is an ACLU lawsuit[1], the EFF is just a hanger-on. And the second is a blog post about abstractions when again, people are actively being hurt by actual abuses RIGHT NOW.
The house is burning down, and EFF is just business-as-usual. And their business is freakout out about Facebook and Google, not protecting the citizenry from technology abuse.
[1] An organization I do support, who are doing good work, often at great professional risk to themselves. It's not like there aren't good lawyers out there. It's that the EFF have poisoned themselves into impotence.
I ... was well aware of the EFF for at least the latter half of that period, and this doesn't seem to correspond well with my recollection, though I suppose one could argue that Jackson Games cast AT&T as Big Evil Tech. The defendant in the case however was the US Secret Service, a federal government entity. The Church of Scientology was of course another notable early non-government focus.
But largely at least through 2000, and for much of the decade of the 2000s, EFF's principle focus was law and policy, not abusive tech giants. Rather than abandoning the former, the EFF seems now to consider both as significant concerns. Even key EFF staffers themselves (e.g., Doctorow, Cohn) acknowledge this shift.