It's been a quarter-century since the Electronic Frontier Foundation was founded by John Perry Barlow, John Gilmore, and Mitch Kapor, and we're celebrating!
First on the block is the EFF25 membership drive, which aims to add 2500 new dues-paying members this year. If you've been thinking of supporting EFF but never got around to it, or if you let your support lapse years ago, this is the time to sign up!
But the main event is a minicon and party in San Francisco on July 16, a full day and night of celebrations. Wil Wheaton and I will be emceeing the evening event, which will feature performances from Midtown Social, Dual Core, and A plus D. The minicon will feature panels about online rights, as well as crypto trainings and hacking challenges. Tickets are on sale here.
I'll see you there!
In July of 1990, three pioneers of the digital world—John Perry Barlow, John Gilmore, and Mitch Kapor—founded an organization dedicated to defending people on the emerging electronic frontier. Twenty-five years later, EFF has fought for the users in myriad, pivotal battles over computers, networks, and rights. We've grown into a staff of 60 people, with 22,000 active donors and hundreds of thousands of supporters around the world, and have never been more ambitious about building the future upon a core foundation of privacy, free expression, and innovation.
Writing as one of those staff members today, it's inspiring to consider what EFF and our supporters have done and how we've grown. We helped secure Fourth Amendment protections for emails, established that code is speech, and fought to protect freedoms that allowed the web to grow. We've stopped patent trolls and stupid patents, defended creators, and secured commonsense protections for everyday users of technology. We've trained activists and journalists on protecting their communications, built tools to make browsing safer and more secure, and exposed and analyzed vulnerabilities in consumer products. We helped architect a successful defense against the entertainment industry's wayward attack on the Internet via SOPA. We uncovered key legal details behind the government's mass spying programs and we've stood before a judge time and time again to challenge US government overreach. And we have many, many exciting and important projects ongoing and planned for the next few years.
Our founders recognized that many of the civil liberties battles of the 20th century would be fought again, only this time against the transformative backdrop of the digital world. Mounting a strong defense has required a deep understanding of the laws, policies, and technologies at issue and an abiding passion. As digital technology has increasingly permeated our physical reality, bringing with it exciting new opportunities as well as dangers, EFF's mission has grown and become even more important. With the support of people like you, we will keep fighting for our rights to privacy, free expression, and creativity.
So please, celebrate our anniversary with us, and help us fight the good fight for many anniversaries to come.
EFF Is Turning 25 and We Want to Celebrate With You
[Alison Dame-Boyle/EFF]
