April, 18 2017, 03:15pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Phone: 415-436-9333 x177,Email:,press@eff.org
No Passwords at U.S. Border, Says New "Fly Don't Spy" Coalition
Today, 29 organizations launched a campaign to oppose any type of "extreme vetting" that requires travelers to reveal their passwords to online accounts. The coalition created FlyDontSpy.com and will ask supporters to sign a petition to U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary John Kelly opposing any "password for entry" schemes.
WASHINGTON
Today, 29 organizations launched a campaign to oppose any type of "extreme vetting" that requires travelers to reveal their passwords to online accounts. The coalition created FlyDontSpy.com and will ask supporters to sign a petition to U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary John Kelly opposing any "password for entry" schemes.
"Even if you support 'extreme vetting,' password for entry is an extremely bad idea that sacrifices privacy and digital security for political posturing and 'security theater.' We're launching this campaign today to make it clear to Secretary John Kelly that we will not tolerate discrimination or a reckless disregard for privacy and cybersecurity. We invite people to join us at FlyDontSpy.com," said Nathan White, Senior Legislative Director at Access Now. (Pronouns for attributing this quote are: he, him, his.)
On February 7, 2017, Secretary Kelly told members of the House Homeland Security Committee that the agency is considering a wide range of methods of "extreme vetting," including requiring that visa applicants provide passwords to their social media accounts. In response to questioning by Senator Claire McCaskill in the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on May 5th, the Secretary stated that only a limited number of travelers would be impacted. However, DHS is currently expanding a program to ask travelers to hand over their social media accounts voluntarily.
"Asking people to hand over the passwords to their accounts will make all of us less safe, not more safe. Not only does it undermine our basic right to privacy and have a chilling effect on free speech, but it will inevitably make our information more vulnerable to hackers, identity thieves, and stalkers. Targeting people for this type of surveillance based on their religion or country of origin is clearly a form of discrimination," said Evan Greer, Campaign Director at Fight for the Future. (Pronouns for attributing this quote are: she, her, hers.)
The FlyDontSpy.com coalition, led by Access Now, includes Advocacy for Principled Action in Government, American Civil Liberties Union, Asian Americans Advancing Justice LA, Association for Progressive Communications, Brennan Center for Justice, Center for Democracy and Technology, Center for Media Justice, Committee to Protect Journalists, The Constitution Project, Daily Kos, Defending Rights and Dissent, Demand Progress, Duck Duck Go, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Electronic Privacy Information Center, Fight for the Future, Free Press, Freedom of the Press Foundation, The Identity Project, Immigrant Legal Resource Center, Media Justice League, National Immigration Law Center, New America's Open Technology Institute, Open Media, Pen America, Restore the Fourth, T'ruah, and Wickr Foundation.
Read more about why collecting passwords is extremely dangerous for human rights and cybersecurity.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is the leading nonprofit organization defending civil liberties in the digital world. Founded in 1990, EFF champions user privacy, free expression, and innovation through impact litigation, policy analysis, grassroots activism, and technology development. EFF's mission is to ensure that technology supports freedom, justice, and innovation for all people of the world.
(415) 436-9333LATEST NEWS
House Dems Voice 'Deep Concern' Over Biden Claim That Israel Is Legally Using US Arms
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More than two dozen House Democrats on Tuesday challenged the Biden administration's claim that Israel is using U.S.-supplied weapons in compliance with domestic and international law—an assertion made amid an ongoing World Court probe of "plausibly" genocidal Israeli policies and practices in Gaza.
Citing "mounting credible and deeply troubling reports and allegations" of human rights crimes committed by Israeli troops in Gaza and soldiers and settlers in the occupied West Bank, 26 congressional Democrats led by Texas Reps. Veronica Escobar—who co-chairs President Joe Biden's reelection campaign—and Joaquin Castro asked U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines "whether and how" their agencies determined Israel is lawfully using arms provided by Washington.
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While the lawmakers didn't mention the International Court of Justice's January 26
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This, despite multiple federal laws—and the administration's own rules— prohibiting U.S. arms transfers to human rights violators.
According to Palestinian and international officials, more than 110,000 Palestinians have been killed or wounded by Israeli forces since October 7. Most of the dead are women and children. At least 7,000 Palestinians are also missing and presumed dead and buried beneath the rubble of hundreds of thousands of bombed-out homes and other buildings.
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A growing number of not only progressive lawmakers but also mainstream Democrats are calling for a suspension of U.S. military aid to Israel.
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Responding on social media, his wife, Stella Assange—who is an attorney—blasted the U.S. assurances as "weasel words."
"The United States has issued a nonassurance in relation to the First Amendment, and a standard assurance in relation to the death penalty," she said. "It makes no undertaking to withdraw the prosecution's previous assertion that Julian has no First Amendment rights because he is not a U.S citizen."
"The Biden administration must drop this dangerous prosecution before it is too late."
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So far, the Biden administration has ignored significant pressure from Australian and U.S. politicians as well as human rights and press freedom groups, and continued to pursue the extradition of Julian Assange, who was charged under former President Donald Trump—the Republican expected to face the Democratic president in the November election.
Assange was charged under the Espionage Act and Computer Fraud and Abuse Act for publishing classified documents including the "Collateral Murder" video and the Afghan and Iraq war logs. Since British authorities dragged Assange out of the Ecuadorian Embassy in London—where he lived with political asylum for seven years—he has been jailed in the city's Belmarsh Prison.
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Former Google cloud software engineer Eddie Hatfield, who was fired last month for disrupting a Google Israel event, was among those who protested in New York.
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