As the first copyright cases concerning AI reach appeals courts, EFF wants to protect important, beneficial uses of this technology—including AI for legal research. That’s why we weighed in on the long-running case of Thomson Reuters v. ROSS Intelligence. This case raises at least two important issues: the use of (possibly) copyrighted material to train a machine learning AI system, and public access to legal texts.   ROSS Intelligence was a legal research startup that built an AI-based tool for locating judges’ written opinions based on natural language queries—a competitor to ubiquitous legal research platforms like Lexis and Thomson Reuters’ Westlaw. To build its tool, ROSS hired another firm to read through thousands of the “West headnotes” that Thomson Reuters adds to the legal decisions it publishes, paraphrasing the individual legal conclusions (what lawyers call “holdings”) that the headnotes identified. ROSS used those paraphrases to train its tool. Importantly, the ROSS tool didn’t output any West headnotes, or even the paraphrases of those headnotes—it simply directed the user to the original judges’ decisions. Still, Thomson sued ROSS for copyright infringement, arguing that using the headnotes without permission was illegal.   Early decisions in the suit were encouraging. EFF wrote about how the court allowed ROSS to bring an antitrust counterclaim against Thomson Reuters, letting them try to prove that Thomson was abusing monopoly power. And the trial judge initially ruled that ROSS’s use of the West headnotes was fair use under copyright law.  The case then took turns for the worse. ROSS was unable to prove its antitrust claim. The trial judge issued a new opinion reversing his earlier decision and finding that ROSS’s use was not fair but rather infringed Thomson’s copyrights. And in the meantime, ROSS had gone out of business (though it continues to defend itself in court).   The court’s new decision on copyright was particularly worrisome. It ruled that West headnotes—a few lines of text copying or summarizing a single legal conclusion from a judge’s written opinion—could be copyrighted, and that using them to train the ROSS tool was not fair use, in part because ROSS was a competitor to Thomson Reuters. And the court rejected ROSS’s attempt to avoid any illegal copying by using a “clean room” procedure often used in software development. The decision also threatens to limit the public’s access to legal texts.  EFF weighed in with an amicus brief joined by the American Library Association, the Association of Research Libraries, the Internet Archive, Public Knowledge, and Public.Resource.Org. We argued that West headnotes are not copyrightable in the first place, since they simply restate individual points from judges’ opinions with no meaningful creative contributions. And even if copyright does attach to the headnotes, we argued, the source material is entirely factual statements about what the law is, and West’s contribution was minimal, so fair use should have tipped in ROSS’s favor. The trial judge had found that the factual nature of the headnotes favored ROSS, but dismissed this factor as unimportant, effectively writing it out of the law.  This case is one of the first to touch on copyright and AI, and is likely to influence many of the other cases that are already pending (with more being filed all the time). That’s why we’re trying to help the appeals court get this one right. The law should encourage the creation of AI tools to digest and identify facts for use by researchers, including facts about the law. 

This post is an adapted version of the article originally published at Silla Vacía  Heads of state and governments of the Americas will gather this December at the Tenth Summit of the Americas in the Dominican Republic to discuss challenges and opportunities facing the region’s nations. As part of the Summit of the Americas’ Process, which had its first meeting in 1994, the theme of this year’s summit is "Building a Secure and Sustainable Hemisphere with Shared Prosperity.”   More than twenty civil society organizations, including EFF, released a joint contribution ahead of the summit addressing the intersection between technology and human rights. Although the meeting's concept paper is silent about the role of digital technologies in the scope of this year's summit, the joint contribution stresses that the development and use of technologies is a cross-cutting issue and will likely be integrated into policies and actions agreed upon at the meeting.   Human Security, Its Core Dimensions, and Digital Technologies  The concept paper indicates that people in the Americas, like the rest of the world, are living in times of uncertainty and geopolitical, socioeconomic, and environmental challenges that require urgent actions to ensure human security in multiple dimensions. It identifies four key areas: citizen security, food security, energy security, and water security.  The potential of digital technologies cuts across these areas of concern and will very likely be considered in the measures, plans, and policies that states take up in the context of the summit, both at the national level and through regional cooperation. Yet, when harnessing the potential of emerging technologies, their challenges also surface. For example, AI algorithms can help predict demand peaks and manage energy flows in real time on power grids, but the infrastructure required for the growing and massive operation of AI systems itself poses challenges to energy security.  In Latin America, the imperative of safeguarding rights in the face of already documented risks and harmful impacts stands out particularly in citizen security. The abuse of surveillance powers, enhanced by digital technologies, is a recurring and widespread problem in the region.   It is intertwined with deep historical roots of a culture of secrecy and permissiveness that obstructs implementing robust privacy safeguards, effective independent oversight, and adequate remedies for violations. The proposal in the concept paper for creating a Hemispheric Platform of Action for Citizen and Community Security cannot ignore—and above all, must not reinforce—these problems.  It is crucial that the notion of security embedded in the Tenth Summit's focus on human security be based on human development, the protection of rights, and the promotion of social well-being, especially for historically discriminated against groups. It is also essential that it moves away from securitization and militarization, which have been used for social control, silencing dissent, harassing human rights defenders and community leaders, and restricting the rights and guarantees of migrants and people in situations of mobility.  Toward Regional Commitments Anchored in Human Rights  In light of these concerns, the joint contribution signed by EFF, Derechos Digitales, Wikimedia Foundation, CELE, ARTICLE 19 – Office for Mexico and Central America, among other civil society organizations, addresses the following:  -- The importance of strengthening the digital civic space, which requires robust digital infrastructure and policies for connectivity and digital inclusion, as well as civic participation and transparency in the formulation of public policies.  -- Challenges posed by the growing surveillance capabilities of states in the region through the increasing adoption of ever more intrusive technologies and practices without necessary safeguards.   -- State obligations established under the Inter-American Human Rights System and key standards affirmed by the Inter-American Court in the case of Members of the Jose Alvear Restrepo Lawyers Collective (CAJAR) v. Colombia.   -- A perspective on state digitalization and innovation centered on human rights, based on thorough analysis of current problems and gaps and their detrimental impacts on people. The insufficiency or absence of meaningful mechanisms for public participation, transparency, and evaluation are striking features of various experiences across countries in the Americas.   Finally, the contribution makes recommendations for regional cooperation, promoting shared solutions and joint efforts at the regional level anchored in human rights, justice, and inclusion.  We hope the joint contribution reinforces a human rights-based perspective across the debates and agreements at the summit. When security-related abuses abound facilitated by digital technologies, regional cooperation towards shared prosperity must take into account these risks and put justice and people's well-being at the center of any unfolding initiatives. 

Alaa Abd El Fattah is finally free and at home with his family. On September 22, it was announced that Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi had issued a pardon for Alaa’s release after six years in prison. One day later, the BBC shared video of Alaa dancing with his family in their Cairo home and hugging his mother Laila and sister Sanaa, as well as other visitors.  Alaa's sister, Mona Seif, posted on X: "An exceptionally kind day. Alaa is free." Alaa has spent most of the last decade behind bars, punished for little more than his words. In June 2014, Egypt accused him of violating its protest law and attacking a police officer. He was convicted in absentia and sentenced to fifteen years in prison, after being prohibited from entering the courthouse. Following an appeal, Alaa was granted a retrial, and sentenced in February 2015 to five years in prison. In 2019, he was finally released, first into police custody then to his family. As part of his parole, he was told he would have to spend every night of the next five years at a police station, but six months later—on September 29, 2019—Alaa was re-arrested in a massive sweep of activists and charged with spreading false news and belonging to a terrorist organisation after sharing a Facebook post about torture in Egypt. Despite that sentence effectively ending on September 29, 2024, one year ago today, Egyptian authorities continued his detention, stating that he would be released in January 2027—violating both international legal norms and Egypt’s own domestic law. As Amnesty International reported, Alaa faced inhumane conditions during his imprisonment, “including denial of access to lawyers, consular visits, fresh air, and sunlight,” and his family repeatedly spoke of concerns about his health, particularly during periods in which he engaged in hunger strike. When Egyptian authorities failed to release Alaa last year, his mother, Laila Soueif, launched a hunger strike. Her action stretched to an astonishing 287 days, during which she was hospitalized twice in London and nearly lost her life. She continued until July of this year, when she finally ended the strike following direct commitments from UK officials that Alaa would be freed. Throughout this time, a broad coalition, including EFF, rallied around Alaa: international human rights organizations, senior UK parliamentarians, former British Ambassador John Casson, and fellow former political prisoner Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe all lent their voices. Celebrities joined the call, while the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention declared his imprisonment unlawful and demanded his release. This groundswell of solidarity was decisive in securing his release. Alaa’s release is an extraordinary relief for his family and all who have campaigned on his behalf. EFF wholeheartedly celebrates Alaa’s freedom and reunification with his family. But we must remain vigilant. Alaa must be allowed to travel to the UK to be reunited with his son Khaled, who currently lives with his mother and attends school there. Furthermore, we continue to press for the release of those who remain imprisoned for nothing more than exercising their right to speak.

The European Union Council is once again debating its controversial message scanning proposal, aka “Chat Control,” that would lead to the scanning of private conversations of billions of people. Chat Control, which EFF has strongly opposed since it was first introduced in 2022, keeps being mildly tweaked and pushed by one Council presidency after another. Chat Control is a dangerous legislative proposal that would make it mandatory for service providers, including end-to-end encrypted communication and storage services, to scan all communications and files to detect “abusive material.” This would happen through a method called client-side scanning, which scans for specific content on a device before it’s sent. In practice, Chat Control is chat surveillance and functions by having access to everything on a device with indiscriminate monitoring of everything. In a memo, the Danish Presidency claimed this does not break end-to-end encryption. This is absurd. We have written extensively that client-side scanning fundamentally undermines end-to-end encryption, and obliterates our right to private spaces. If the government has access to one of the “ends” of an end-to-end encrypted communication, that communication is no longer safe and secure. Pursuing this approach is dangerous for everyone, but is especially perilous for journalists, whistleblowers, activists, lawyers, and human rights workers. If passed, Chat Control would undermine the privacy promises of end-to-end encrypted communication tools, like Signal and WhatsApp. The proposal is so dangerous that Signal has stated it would pull its app out of the EU if Chat Control is passed. Proponents even seem to realize how dangerous this is, because state communications are exempt from this scanning in the latest compromise proposal. This doesn’t just affect people in the EU, it affects everyone around the world, including in the United States. If platforms decide to stay in the EU, they would be forced to scan the conversation of everyone in the EU. If you’re not in the EU, but you chat with someone who is, then your privacy is compromised too. Passing this proposal would pave the way for authoritarian and tyrannical governments around the world to follow suit with their own demands for access to encrypted communication apps. Even if you take it in good faith that the government would never do anything wrong with this power, events like Salt Typhoon show there’s no such thing as a system that’s only for the “good guys.” Despite strong opposition, Denmark is pushing forward and taking its current proposal to the Justice and Home Affairs Council meeting on October 14th. We urge the Danish Presidency to drop its push for scanning our private communication and consider fundamental rights concerns. Any draft that compromises end-to-end encryption and permits scanning of our private communication should be blocked or voted down. Phones and laptops must work for the users who own them, not act as “bugs in our pockets” in the service of governments, foreign or domestic. The mass scanning of everything on our devices is invasive, untenable, and must be rejected. Further reading: EDRi’s Stop Scanning Me Fight Chat Control EFF and EDRi Coalition Statement on the Future of the CSA Regulation

This post was co-authored by EFF legal intern Olivia Miller. For most Americans—driving is a part of everyday life. Practically speaking, many of us drive to work, school, play, and anywhere in between. Not only do we visit places that give insights into our personal lives, but we sometimes use vehicles as a mode of displaying information about our political beliefs, socioeconomic status, and other intimate details. All of this personal activity can be tracked and identified through Automatic License Plate Reader (ALPR) data—a popular surveillance tool used by law enforcement agencies across the country. That’s why, in an amicus brief filed with the Virginia Court of Appeals, EFF, the ACLU of Virginia, and NACDL urged the court to require police to seek a warrant before searching ALPR data. In Commonwealth v. Church, a police officer in Norfolk, Virginia searched license plate data without a warrant—not to prove that defendant Ronnie Church was at the scene of the crime, but merely to try to show he had a “guilty mind.” The lower court, in a one-page ruling relying on Commonwealth v. Bell, held this warrantless search violated the Fourth Amendment and suppressed the ALPR evidence. We argued the appellate court should uphold this decision. Like the cellphone location data the Supreme Court protected in Carpenter v. United States, ALPR data threatens peoples’ privacy because it is collected indiscriminately over time and can provide police with a detailed picture of a person’s movements. ALPR data includes photos of license plates, vehicle make and model, any distinctive features of the vehicle, and precise time and location information. Once an ALPR logs a car’s data, the information is uploaded to the cloud and made accessible to law enforcement agencies at the local, state, and federal level—creating a near real-time tracking tool that can follow individuals across vast distances. Think police only use ALPRs to track suspected criminals? Think again. ALPRs are ubiquitous; every car traveling into the camera’s view generates a detailed dataset, regardless of any suspected criminal activity. In fact, a survey of 173 law enforcement agencies employing ALPRs nationwide revealed that 99.5% of scans belonged to people who had no association to crime. Norfolk County, Virginia, is home to over 170 ALPR cameras operated by Flock, a surveillance company that maintains over 83,000 ALPRs nationwide. The resulting surveillance network is so large that Norfolk county’s police chief suggested “it would be difficult to drive any distance and not be recorded by one.” Recent and near-horizon advancements in Flock’s products will continue to threaten our privacy and further the surveillance state. For example, Flock’s ALPR data has been used for immigration raids, to track individuals seeking abortion-related care, to conduct fishing expeditions, and to identify relationships between people who may be traveling together but in different cars. With the help of artificial intelligence, ALPR databases could be aggregated with other information from data breaches and data brokers, to create “people lookup tools.” Even public safety advocates and law enforcement, like the International Association of Chiefs of Police, have warned that ALPR tech creates a risk “that individuals will become more cautious in their exercise of their protected rights of expression, protest, association, political participation because they consider themselves under constant surveillance.”   This is why a warrant requirement for ALPR data is so important. As the Virginia trial court previously found in Bell, prolonged tracking of public movements with surveillance invades peoples’ reasonable expectation of privacy in the entirety of their movements. Recent Fourth Amendment jurisprudence, including Carpenter and Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle from the federal Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals favors a warrant requirement as well. Like the technologies at issue in those cases, ALPRs give police the ability to chronicle movements in a “detailed, encyclopedic” record, akin to “attaching an ankle monitor to every person in the city.”   The Virginia Court of Appeals has a chance to draw a clear line on warrantless ALPR surveillance, and to tell Norfolk PD what the Fourth Amendment already says: come back with a warrant.