Lisa Femia

🚨HOLY CRAP. An ICE whistleblower just revealed a secret memo authorizing ICE officers to break into homes without a judicial warrant, which DHS's own legal training materials say is unconstitutional!

ICE then hid the memo from the public, passing it along by word of mouth and private conversation.

US to order foreign tourists to disclose social media histories Follow the latest news headlines from Australia's most trusted source. Read in-depth expert analysis and watch live coverage on ABC News.

The U.S. proposes asking foreign tourists for five years of social media history before allowing them into the country. EFF’s Lisa Femia breaks down this breaks down this speech-chilling and privacy-invasive scheme for ABC Australia.
www.abc.net.au/news/2025-1...

Why Isn’t Online Age Verification Just Like Showing Your ID In Person? This blog also appears in our Age Verification Resource Hub: our one-stop shop for users seeking to understand what age-gating laws actually do, what’s at stake, how to protect yourself, and why EFF

Online age verification isn't like showing ID at a bar. It's more invasive, affects far more transactions, and poses serious privacy, security, and free speech risks that in-person checks never do. www.eff.org/deeplinks/2...

Opinion: San Jose’s vast surveillance network is watching you. Be afraid. The city’s license plate cameras are collecting revealing data that police nationwide are searching — all without warrants.

Police surveil everyone driving in San Jose and search that data thousands of times per month without ever seeking a warrant. It’s an unchecked police power, an end run around the courts & a blatant privacy invasion, EFF’s Lisa Femia wrote for @MercuryNews.com. www.mercurynews.com/2025/12/06/...

Age Verification and Age Gating: Resource Hub Age verification (or age-gating) laws generally require online services to check, estimate, or verify all users’ ages—often through invasive tools like ID checks, biometric scans, or other dubious

Today we’re launching EFF.org/Age, our one-stop shop to answer all your questions about online age verification mandates. What’s at stake for users? How do we push back? What even IS age verification, anyway? Visit EFF.org/Age now to explore our resources and join the fight to protect the internet.

Proud to be on this team working to stop this unchecked police power

EFF today sued to stop the Trump administration from targeting visa holders for deportation based on their social media posts. “A lot of this is core political speech that is absolutely protected by the First Amendment,” EFF's Lisa Femia told @nbcnews.com.

📢 BREAKING NEWS 📢
EFF and co-counsel have filed a lawsuit against the Departments of State and Homeland Security for their viewpoint-based surveillance and suppression of First Amendment-protected speech online. (1/5)

Proud of my EFF colleagues for not letting up on this and uncovering the real story

Police Said They Surveilled Woman Who Had an Abortion for Her 'Safety.' Court Records Show They Considered Charging Her With a Crime Court records show that the narrative Flock and a Texas Sheriff's Office has told the public isn't the whole story, and that police were conducting a 'death investigation' into the abortion.

NEW: In May, a Texas police department said they used the powerful Flock surveillance network against a woman who had an abortion "for her safety"

Newly obtained court records show it was a 'death investigation,' and they considered charging her with a crime

www.404media.co/police-said-...

Meta is Removing Abortion Advocates' Accounts Without Warning BY LISA FEMIA | September 24, 2025This is the fifth installment in a blog series documenting EFF's findings from the Stop Censoring Abortion campaign. You can read additional posts here. When the team...

Meta's policies require "repeated" Community Standards violations before Meta will disable an account. But abortion advocates are getting banned after just one post. This completely cuts accounts off from their followers and silences crucial reproductive health information.

Crucial Information About Abortion Access Is Getting Censored on Social Media A new report reveals nearly 100 instances of anti-abortion censorship across TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and LinkedIn.

A new report reveals nearly 100 instances of anti-abortion censorship across TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and LinkedIn.
www.jezebel.com/crucial-info...

You Shouldn’t Have to Make Your Social Media Public to Get a Visa The Trump administration is continuing its dangerous push to surveil and suppress foreign students’ social media activity. The State Department recently announced an unprecedented new requirement that...

The State Department recently announced an unprecedented new requirement that applicants for student and exchange visas must set all social media accounts to “public” for government review. This mass surveillance is an outrageous violation of privacy.

Knight Institute Initiative on “Federal Funding and the First Amendment” Draws Leading Scholars and Litigators

In what circumstances can the government regulate speech by imposing conditions on federal funding? Thanks to all of the scholars and litigators who've agreed to participate in this only-too-timely @knightcolumbia.org initiative. knightcolumbia.org/blog/knight-...

Trump Administration’s Targeting of International Students Jeopardizes Free Speech and Privacy Online The federal government is using social media surveillance to target student visa holders living in the United States for online speech the Trump administration disfavors. This new program, called “Cat...

Speaking freely online shouldn’t cost you your visa. But the federal government is using social media surveillance to target student visa holders living in the U.S. for online speech the administration disfavors. This is an alarming attack on digital rights.

EFF’s Lisa Femia discusses online age verification and First Amendment rights with Bruce Friedman on the Adult Site Broker Talk podcast.

Dollars and nonsense: House Republicans vote to defund D.C. police and schools Congress could force D.C. to cut $1.1 billion out of its local budget, but no one really understands why.

NEW in @51st.news: House Republicans just voted to defund D.C. police and schools. As part of a spending bill to avert a federal government shutdown, they could force D.C. to slash $1.1 billion out of its budget, and no one understands really why. 51st.news/house-republ...

The Tyranny of Public Opinion The battle over trans rights shows that Democrats have forgotten the fundamentals of politics

my latest newsletter piece: on how the Democrats' posture toward trans rights signals a fundamental misunderstanding of how politics work

The Take It Down Act isn’t a law, it’s a weapon It’s not a law, it’s a weapon.

I wish this weren't true, but it is: "Parts of the Take It Down Act are more likely to become a sword for a corrupt presidential administration than a shield to protect NCII victims- & supporters of both civil liberties & Big Tech accountability should recognize it." www.theverge.com/policy/62497...

Meet Rayhunter: A New Open Source Tool from EFF to Detect Cellular Spying Rayhunter is a new open source tool we’ve created that runs off an affordable mobile hotspot that we hope empowers everyone, regardless of technical skill, to help search out cell-site simulators (CSS...

Cell-site simulators (CSS, also known as Stingrays or IMSI catchers) are devices that masquerade as legitimate cell-phone towers, tricking phones within a certain radius into connecting to the device rather than a tower. Our new tool, Rayhunter, can help you find them.

A team of us at EFF have partnered with the amazing folks at Repro Uncensored to hold social media platforms accountable for suppressing and removing vital, sometimes life-saving abortion information. Learn more and share your story at eff.org/censored

#StopCensoringAbortion

EFF Sues DOGE and the Office of Personnel Management to Halt Ransacking of Federal Data EFF and a coalition of privacy defenders have filed a lawsuit today asking a federal court to block Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) from accessing the private information of mil...

BREAKING: We are suing DOGE and the Office of Personnel Management to stop the brazen and illegal data sharing of federal employee data with the “government efficiency” group.

The US Is Openly Stockpiling Dirt on All Its Citizens A newly declassified report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence reveals that the federal government is buying troves of data about Americans.

thinking about roads not taken a lot

Instagram and Facebook Blocked and Hid Abortion Pill Providers’ Posts Some posts related to obtaining abortion pills were recently hidden on Instagram and Facebook and some accounts were suspended, before being later restored.

Since Roe v. Wade was overturned, “there’s been a massive uptick in social media platforms removing content related to reproductive health care and specifically abortion pills,” EFF’s Lisa Femia told @nytimes.com. "This is an ongoing, increasing problem.”

What the Supreme Court hearing about age verification could mean for you The court's decision could set a new precedent for free speech online.

"The Texas law robs adult internet users of anonymity, exposes them to serious privacy and security risks, and blocks some adults entirely from accessing sexual content that’s protected under the First Amendment," EFF’s Lisa Femia told @mashablebot.bsky.social.

U.S. Supreme Court weighing constitutionality of Texas’ age-verification requirement for porn sites The Supreme Court’s decision on Texas’ law, which adult entertainment website attorneys said were the most overreaching in the country, could determine the fate of similar laws in more than a dozen ot...

Texas “continued to incorrectly suggest that online age verification–which requires millions of internet users to upload and submit identifying information–is no different than quick, one-on-one, in-person ID checks," EFF’s Lisa Femia told @texastribune.org.

It is becoming ever more clear that if KOSA were to pass, Trump's FTC will 100% classify everything LGBTQ related as "harmful" so that they can get it purged from the internet.

This is so false. The “only people benefitting from KOSA” are authoritarian groups seeking to censor speech such as the Heritage Foundation. Meanwhile KOSA harms the most marginalized children while mandating that tech companies collect even *more* of our data

Meet the new KOSA, same as the old KOSA