 Welcome to Affector from the Electronic Frontier Foundation. This is the audio edition of EFF's email newsletter geared towards keeping you on the bleeding edge of your digital rights. This is Affector, Volume 36, Issue 2, titled, Voting Against the Surveillance State. This issue was published in February 2024, and I'm your host, Membership Advocate Christian Romero. Let's start with our top features. First up, vote no on Proposition E to stop police from testing dangerous surveillance technology on you. San Francisco voters will confront a looming threat to their privacy and civil liberties on the March 5, 2024 ballot. If Proposition E passes, we can expect the San Francisco Police Department will use untested and potentially dangerous technology on the public anytime they want for a full year without oversight. Next up, San Francisco Police's live surveillance yields almost 200 hours of spying, including of music festivals. A new report reveals that in just three months, from July 1 to September 30, 2023, the San Francisco Police Department racked up 193 hours and 19 minutes of live access to non-city surveillance cameras. That means for the equivalent of eight days, police sat behind a desk and tapped into hundreds of cameras, ostensibly including San Francisco's extensive semi-private security camera networks to watch city residents, workers, and visitors live. An article by the San Francisco Chronicle analyzing the report also uncovered that the SFPD tapped into these cameras to watch 42 hours of live footage during the Outside Lands music festival. Now let's move on to some EFF updates. First up, victory, Ring announces it will no longer facilitate police requests for footage from users. Amazon's Ring has announced that it will no longer facilitate police's warrantless requests for footage from Ring users. This is a victory in a long fight, not just against blanket police surveillance, but also against a culture in which private, for-profit companies build special tools to allow law enforcement to more easily access companies' users and their data, all of which ultimately undermine their customers' trust. Next up, dozens of rogue California police agencies still share a driver's location with anti-abortion states. California Attorney General Rob Bonta should crack down on police agencies that still violate Californian's privacy by sharing automated license plate reader information without state government agencies, putting abortion seekers and providers at particular risk, EFF and the state's ACLU affiliates urged in a letter to Bonta. Next up, the Press Act will protect journalists when they need it most. Our government shouldn't be spying on journalists, nor should law enforcement agencies force journalists to identify their confidential sources or go to prison. To fix this, we need to change the law. Now we've got our best chance in years. The House of Representatives has passed the Protect Reporters from Exploitive States Buying, Press Act, and it's one of the strongest federal shield bills for journalists we've seen. Next, save your Twitter account. Amid reports that X, the site formerly known as Twitter, is dropping in value, hindering how people use the site, and engaging in controversial account removals, it has never been more precarious to rely on the site as a historical record. So, it's important for individuals to act now and save what they can. We'll tell you how. And for our last update, what Apple's promise to support RCS means for text messaging. You may have heard recently that Apple is planning to implement rich communication services, RCS, on iPhones, once again igniting the green versus blue bubble debate. RCS will thankfully bring a number of long-missing features to those green bubble conversations and messages, but Apple's proposed implementation has a murkier future when it comes to security. Now let's go through some announcements. First up, how to fix the internet is an Anthem Award winner. We're honored to announce that EFF's How to Fix the Internet podcast is a winner in the Anthem Awards. By amplifying the voices that spark global change, the Anthem Awards, presented by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, seek to inspire others to take action in their own community. That's exactly why we launched How to Fix the Internet. Through curious conversations with some of the leading minds in law and technology, we want our listeners to become deeply informed on vital technology issues and join the movement working to build a better technological future. We offer our deepest thanks to the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation's program in public understanding of science and technology, our partners at Pacific Content, and all the amazing thinkers, makers, and doers who have been our guests. We're about to launch Season 5 with guests including Taiwan Minister of Digital Affairs Audrey Tang, US Senator Ron Wyden, documentary filmmaker Alex Winter, and many more. So subscribe today! Next up, Virtual Panel Discussion, How the Julian Assange Prosecution Endangers All Journalists. Register now to join EFF Cindy Cohen, Kerry Dissell, Senior Staff Attorney at the Night First Amendment Institute, Ben Wisner, Director of the ACLU's Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, and Trevor Tim, Executive Director of the Freedom of the Press Foundation at 12.30 p.m. Eastern Time, this Thursday, February 15th, for a Virtual Panel Discussion on How the Julian Assange Prosecution Endangers All Journalists. Whether you love or hate Assange, the Espionage Act against the WikiLeaks publisher for printing government secrets in 2010 poses an extreme risk to press freedom. With the UK High Court Schedule Blader this month to hear what could be Assange's final appeal before he's extradited to the United States, the threat to journalists is high. And for our last announcement, EFF at CactusCon 12. EFF is happy to be back at CactusCon for the 12th event, February 16th to 17th in Mesa, Arizona. We'll be at the conference with an info booth, so be sure to stop by and chat with our team to learn about the latest developments in the fight for digital freedoms. We're excited to say hi to new and returning faces and answer any questions about our work. Of course, you can also pick up a special gift as a token of our thanks when you take advantage of our membership specials or donate. We'll even have various swag like stickers, pins, hoodies, and more. Now, let's go through some job openings. Associate Director of Technology Policy and Research EFF is seeking an experienced manager to support our public interest technology team of ethical technologists. If you're eager to utilize your management skills and technical knowledge to make a significant impact on the future of digital rights, this is an opportunity for you. In this position, you will play a crucial role in supporting EFF's public interest technology efforts, addressing critical digital rights issues such as censorship, surveillance, and encryption. You will lead a small team of technologists developing robust research frameworks and technical policy approaches. And you will have opportunities to contribute to EFF's programmatic cross-team working groups and public-facing initiatives. Next up, staff technologists. EFF is seeking a staff technologist to join our public interest technology team. This team consists of ethical technologists focused on defending encryption, outwitting sensors and trackers, and leading the way towards a better digital future. This position will primarily focus on developing one of our open-source software projects, a browser extension called Privacy Badger, which is used by several million people around the world to help fight pervasive, non-consensual surveillance online. When users choose Privacy Badger, they're not just installing another ad blocker. They're joining the movement to bring about the end of data brokers and targeted advertising. And we're looking for a technologist to play a key role in getting us there. And now we've got some mini-links. First up, from Rolling Stone, Swifties want a massive crackdown on AI-generated nudes. They won't get one. EFF's Catherine Trendecosta says that we'll see the unstoppable movement of Swifties versus the immovable object that is the legislature. A Congress slow to respond to basically anything, but taking a measured approach to AI legislation is best, especially if existing laws can address the problems. Next up, from the National Constitution Centers, We the People podcast, unpacking the Supreme Court's tech term. EFF's David Green joins the Night First Amendment Institutes, Alex Abdo, and the American Enterprise Institutes, Clay Calvert, to explore key cases before the Supreme Court that have raised important questions at the intersection of technology and law. Next up, from Vice slash Motherboard, body cam maker Axon is on a mission to surveil America with AI. Axon, the maker of tasers and police body cameras, has bought AI surveillance company Fuchsius. Local government should ensure privacy invasive data collection and tools aren't adopted by bureaucracy instead of careful public review. EFF's Barrel Lipton said. Next up, from High Country News, new DNA technique could bring closure for families of missing and murdered Indigenous people. Investigators believe this new DNA process has a huge potential to solve cases involving missing Indigenous people, but EFF's Jennifer Lynch warns this data is so sensitive that it should be protected by the Fourth Amendment, which guards against unreasonable search and seizure. And for our last mini-link, quote, I'm sorry for everything, end quote. Facebook's Zuck apologizes to families at Senate hearing. Executives from the top social media companies faced contentious questioning from the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday in a hearing titled Big Tech and the Online Child Sexual Exploitation Crisis. In anticipation of the hearing, several advocacy groups, including EFF, wrote to the committee to warn that some of the legislative proposals during the Senate, including Stop CSAM Act of 2023, Urnet Act of 2023, and COSA 2023, bear this risk and threaten to jeopardize all Internet users' access to information and privacy. And that's it. Thanks for listening. If you like what you're hearing, be sure to sign up for the email version at eff.org. Before we end this issue of the newsletter, I want to let you know that EFF is a member supported nonprofit organization and you can help us protect digital privacy, security, and free expression for everyone. Donate to EFF today at eff.org slash EFFECT. Thanks for your support and I hope you'll join us for the next issue of EFFECTOR.