Where’s EFF? Why EFF Is Sometimes Quiet About Important Cases and Issues

When legal issues light up the Internet, people turn to EFF for answers. Whether it’s attacks on coders’ rights, overreaching copyright claims online, or governments’ efforts to censor or spy on people, we are often among the first to hear about troubling events online, and we’re frequently the first place people turn to, both for help and for a broader understanding. 

So why are there times when we’re quiet about something big that is happening around digital rights?  Why are there times when we only say general things and don’t take a firm position, drill down into specifics, or provide the legal analysis that we are famous for? We know it can be frustrating, and can lead folks to jump to conclusions that we don’t care, or aren’t watching.

But most of the time, that’s not the case. Instead, we are being quiet or vague for one of three reasons: to protect the people who have asked us for help, because of a specific court requirement, or because we’re investigating and putting a strategy into place. Quite often, it’s some combination of those.    

First, and most of the time, we are protecting the folks who have reached out to us for help.  The legal protections for attorney/client communications and attorney work product allow lawyers and their prospective or existing clients to speak frankly with each other and to honestly evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of their cases. But these communications and notes must be kept strictly confidential in order to remain protected.  If the confidentiality is broken by either the lawyer or the client, the person or a person’s attorney can be required to reveal their communications, legal strategies, and evaluations to their opponents. The stakes here can be very high, since that can include the opposing lawyers in a civil case or prosecutors who can put them in jail. Breaching these privileges can seriously hurt the people who ask us for help and undermine our chances of winning a case, so we are very careful to avoid doing so. Indeed, we have strict ethical duties as lawyers to do this. 

Many times, there are multiple people seeking our help, and we need to take time to in

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