INTERVIEW: ELECTRONIC FRONTIER FOUNDATION (EFF)
SAFEGUARDING THE INTERNET By Beth Cope Sustainable Business Magazine speaks to Cindy Cohn, Executive Director at the Electronic Frontiers Foundation, about their national and international work, protecting user freedoms on the internet, and preparing for the future in light of new legislation and the COVID-19 crisis. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is a San Francisco-based non-profit organization advocating for the civil liberties of internet users. Founded in 1990 in reaction to heavy-handed law enforcement interventions against early adopters of the internet, the EFF now has a staff of over 100 people, including technologists, lawyers, and activists, and the support in place for them.
“I joined in the 2000s,” says Cindy Cohn, Executive Director at the EFF. “At the time, I was involved in freeing-up encryption technology from government control. A lot of the work we did back then was explaining to people what the future would look like when everybody had this technology in their homes and hands all the time. Of course, we’re living in that world right now. The forces that have pushed away from freedom, away from justice, away from innovation, have evolved and become stronger over the years.” NATIONAL TO INTERNATIONAL The EFF has grown up alongside the internet. “For historical, geographical reasons, the government of the United States had a huge voice in how the internet developed,” explains Ms. Cohn. “That’s changed now. I would say the EU has a bigger role in thinking innovatively about the future than the US government does. One of the great benefits of the early internet was that it allowed people to have a space to speak free of the government’s control. Now we’re seeing, whether it’s in Australia or Turkey or China,
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