Electronic Frontier Foundation

What is the Electronic Frontier Foundation?

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is an international non-profit organization based out of the United States. The Electronic Frontier Foundation is classified as a digital rights advocacy group and is responsible for engaging in and supporting various educational activities which aim to promote the understanding of the various challenges and opportunities posed by advancements in computer technologies and the telecommunications industry.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation aims to develop a better understanding of the problems or issues latent in the open and free telecommunications market. The organization, through policy-makers, supports the creation of an organized and legal approach to ultimately ease the assimilation of a new technological development into society.

Goals of the Electronic Frontier Foundation

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, through their organizational efforts, attempts to raise public awareness concerning issues revolving around civil liberties and the ambiguity that invariably arises from the rapid advancement in new computer-based communications media.

In addition to raising public awareness, the Electronic Frontier Foundation openly supports litigation in the public interest to protect, preserve and extend the rights latent in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution within the direct realm of telecommunications technology and computing.The Electronic Frontier Foundation encourages and openly supports the development of new tools or resources which ultimately endow non-technical users with easy access to computer-based technologies and new forms of telecommunications.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation uses its resources in a number of ways. The organization provides funding for legal defense, in which it defends individuals and new forms of technology from what the organization considers misleading or baseless legal threats. In addition, the organization aims to expose government malfeasance, while providing public entities guidance in regards to forms of technology.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation supports new technologies which it believes to promote personal freedoms. By the same function, the organization challenges legislation that it believes would impede or infringe on personal liberties and fair use. The organization solicits a publication of what it considers patent abuse with intentions to defeat those platforms that it considers without merit.

Who Supports the Electronic Frontier Foundation?

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is supported by public and private donations. The organization is accredited observers at the World Intellectual Property Organization and one of the principal partners of the Global Network Initiative. The Electronic Frontier Foundation is based out of San Francisco, California and possesses offices in Washington, D.C.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation receives the bulk of its support from its board members. John Buckman is the current Chairman of the organization, and Pamela Samuelson, John Barlow, David Farber, Lorrie Cranor, Edward Felten, John Gilmore, Brad Tempelton, and Joe Kraus are all Acting Vice Chairmen. In addition to support from its leaders, the organization receives considerable funding from the private sector.