Admiring Our Heroes for International Women’s Day: Celebrating Women Who Have Received EFF Awards 

9 hours 12 minutes ago

For the last hundred years, women have had pivotal and far too often unsung roles in building and shaping the technology that we now use every day. Many have heard of Ada Lovelace’s contributions to computer programming, but far fewer know Mary Allen Wilkes, a prominent modern programmer who wrote much of the software for the LINC, one of the world’s first interactive personal computers (it could fit in a single office and cost $40,000, but it was the 60’s). Decades earlier, when the first all-electronic, digital Eniac computer was built in the 40’s, the “software” for it was written by women: Kathleen McNulty, Jean Jennings, Betty Snyder, Marlyn Wescoff, Frances Bilas and Ruth Lichterman. 

It’s thankfully become more common knowledge that actor and inventor Hedy Lamarr co-created the concept of "frequency-hopping" that became a basis for radio systems from cell phones to wireless networking systems. But too few know Laila Ohlgren, who in the 1970’s solved a major problem with the development of mobile networks and phones by recognizing that dialed numbers could be stored and sent all at once with a “call button,” rather than sent one number at a time, which created connection issues before a call was even made. 

Women in tech deserve more and brighter spotlights. At EFF, we’ve had the honor of celebrating some of our heroes at our annual EFF Awards, including many women who are leading the digital rights community. For International Women’s Day, we’re highlighting the contributions of just a few of these recipients from the last decade, whose work to protect privacy, speech, and creativity online has had a global impact.

Carolina Botero (EFF Award Winner, 2024) 

Carolina Botero is a leader in the fight for digital rights in Latin America. For over a decade, she led the Colombia-based Karisma Foundation and cultivated its regional and international impact. Botero and Karisma helped connect indigenous peoples to the internet and made it possible to contribute content to Wikipedia in their native language, expanding access to both history and modern information. They built alliances to combat disinformation, pushed for legal tools to protect cultural and heritage institutions from digital blackholes, and were, and remain, a necessary voice speaking for human rights in the online world. EFF worked closely with Karisma and Botero to help free Colombian graduate student Diego Gomez, who shared another student’s Master’s thesis with colleagues over the internet. Diego’s story demonstrates what can go wrong when nations enact severe penalties for copyright infringement, and thanks to work from Karisma, many partners, and many EFF supporters, he was cleared of the criminal charges that he faced for this harmless act of sharing scholarly research.

Carolina Botero receiving her EFF Award

Botero stepped down from the role in 2024, opening the door for a new generation. While her work continues—she’s currently on the advisory board of CELE, the Centro de Estudios en Libertad de Expresión—her EFF Award was well-deserved based on her strong and inspiring legacy for those in Latin America and beyond who advocate for a digital world that enhances rights and empowers the powerless. Learn more about Botero on her EFF Awards page and the recap of the 2024 event

Chelsea Manning (EFF Award Winner, 2017)

Chelsea Manning became famous as a whistleblower: In 2010, she disclosed classified Iraq War documents, including a video of the killings of Iraqi civilians and two Reuters reporters by U.S. troops. These documents exposed aspects of U.S. operations in Iraq and Afghanistan that infuriated the public and embarrassed the government. But she is also a transparency and transgender rights advocate, network security expert, author, and former U.S. Army intelligence analyst. 

Manning joined the military in 2007. Her role as an intelligence analyst to an Army unit in Iraq in 2009 gave her access to classified databases, but more importantly, it gave her a uniquely comprehensive view of the war in Iraq, and she became increasingly disillusioned and frustrated by what she saw, versus what was being shared. In 2010, she approached major news outlets hoping to give information to them that would reveal a new side of the war to the public. Ultimately, she shared the documents with Wikileaks. 

Manning’s bravery did not end there. When she was arrested a few months later, she endured "cruel, inhuman and degrading" treatment, according to the UN Special Rapporteur on torture. She was locked up alone for 23 hours a day over an 11-month period, before her trial. The mistreatment resulted in public outcry and advocacy by organizations like Amnesty International. Even a State Department spokesperson, Philip Crowley, criticized the treatment as "ridiculous, counterproductive, and stupid," and resigned. She was moved to a medium-security facility in April 2011. 

The government’s charges against Manning were outrageous, but in 2013 she was convicted of 19 of 22 counts as a result of her whistleblowing activities. She became one of fewerthan a dozen people prosecuted for espionage in the entire history of the United States, and she was sentenced to the longest punishment ever imposed on a whistleblower. Then, the day after her conviction, isolated from her community and in all likelihood expecting to remain in prison for years if not decades, she courageously issued a statement identifying herself as a trans woman, which she’d wanted to reveal for years. 

Over the next several years, while imprisoned, she became an advocate both for government transparency and for transgender rights. Her conviction and sentence pointed to the need for legal reform of both the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) and the Espionage Act.  EFF filed an amicus brief to the U.S. Army Court of Criminal Appeals arguing that the CFAA was never meant to criminalize violations of private policies like those of government systems, and EFF also pushed, and continues to fight for, narrower interpretations of the Espionage Act and stronger protections for whistleblowers, particularly to take into account both the motivation of individuals who pass on documents and the disclosure’s ramifications. 

Even after President Obama commuted her sentence in 2017, and EFF celebrated her work and her release with an EFF award in September, 2017, her fight wasn’t over. She was imprisoned again twice in 2019 and ultimately fined $256,000 for refusing to testify before grand juries investigating WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. The U.N. Special Rapporteur on torture again criticized Manning’s treatment, writing that "the practice of coercive detention appears to be incompatible with the international human rights obligations of the United States." 

Manning was released in 2020 after having spent almost a decade in total imprisoned for her courage. She wrote a memoir, README.txt, in 2022, to take back control over her story.

EFF Award Winners Mike Masnick, Annie Game, and Chelsea Manning

Annie Game (EFF Award Winner, 2017)

Annie Game spent over 16 years as the Executive Director of IFEX, a global network of journalism and civil liberties organizations working together to defend freedom of expression.  IFEX (formerly International Freedom of Expression Exchange) began in the 1990s, when a group of organizations and the Canadian Committee to Protect Journalists came together to consider how to respond as a single voice to free-expression violations around the world. IFEX now is a global hub for the protection of free speech and journalism. 

Game recognized early on that digital rights and freedom of expression groups needed one another. Under her leadership, IFEX paired more traditional free-expression organizations with their more digital counterparts, with a focus on building organizational security capacities. IFEX Initiatives under Game’s leadership have been expansive. For example, the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists, November 2, has been an annual wake-up call and reminder for UN member states to live up to their commitments to protecting journalists. UNESCO observed more than 1,700 journalists were killed globally between 2006 and 2024, and nearly 90% of these cases went unsolved in the courts. 

Game and IFEX have also focused on high-profile cases of journalists threatened by governments for their work, such as Bahey eldin Hassan in Egypt. Bahey is the director of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS) and has advocated for freedom of expression and the basic human rights of Egyptians, but has lived in exile since 2014. The charges against him, of “disseminating false information” and “insulting the judiciary,” are common tactics of intimidation and harassment. Bahey’s supposed crimes were sharing social media posts criticising the Egyptian judiciary’s lack of independence, and speaking about the killing in Egypt of Italian researcher Giulio Regeni. Bahey—an IFEX member—is just one of many reporters and human rights workers in danger when they speak. But when journalists and those defending their rights online speak out as one voice, as IFEX helps them do, it makes a difference. 

Another initiative has been the Faces of Free Expression project, a partnership between IFEX and the International Free Expression Project. If you’re looking for more heroes, this project details the stories of “risk-takers and change-makers – individuals who put their careers, their freedom, their safety, and sometimes even their lives on the line,” while reporting, or defending free expression and the right to information. 

Wherever authoritarianism and repression of speech have been on the rise, Game has unapologetically called out injustices and made it safer for journalists to do their work, while ensuring accountability when crimes are committed. The work is more critical now than ever, and since leaving IFEX in 2022, she’s remained an activist while focusing increasingly on environmental protection. 

Twelve More Heroes 

EFF has honored many more women with awards over the years—from Anita Borg and Hedy Lamarr to Amy Goodman and Beth Givens. This blog from 2012 looks back and acknowledges the important contributions from twelve more EFF Award winners. 

We’ve also asked five women at EFF about women in digital rights, freedom of expression, technology, and tech activism who have inspired us. You can read that here.

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Jason Kelley

Admiring Our Heroes for International Women’s Day: Five Women In Tech That EFF Admires

11 hours 21 minutes ago

In honor of International Women’s Day, we asked five women at EFF about women in digital rights, freedom of expression, technology, and tech activism who have inspired us.  

Anna Politkovskaya 

Jillian York, Activist 
This International Women’s Day, I want to honor the memory of Anna Politkovskaya, the Russian investigative journalist who relentlessly exposed political and social abuses, endured harassment and violence for her work, and was ultimately killed for telling the truth. I had just started my career when I learned of her death, and it forced me to confront that freedom of expression isn’t an abstract principle but rather something people risk—and sometimes lose—their lives for. 

Her story reminds me that journalism at its best is an act of moral courage, not just a profession. In the face of threats, poison, and relentless pressure to stay silent, she chose to continue writing about what she saw, insisting that ordinary people’s lives were worth the world’s attention. She refused to compromise with power, even when she knew it could cost her life. To me, defending freedom of expression means defending those like Anna who bear witness to injustice, prioritize truth, and hold power to account for those whose voices are silenced.  

Cindy Cohn 

Corynne McSherry, Legal Director 
There are so many women who have shaped tech history–most of whom are still unsung heroes—that it’s hard to single out just one. But it’s easier this year because it’s a chance to celebrate my boss, Cindy Cohn, before she leaves EFF for her next adventure.  

Cindy has been fighting for our digital rights for 30 years. leading EFF’s legal work and eventually the whole organization. She helped courts understand that code is speech deserving of constitutional protections at a time when many judges weren’t entirely sure what code even was. She led the fight against NSA spying, and even though outdated and ill-fitting doctrines like the state secrets privilege prevented courts from ruling on the obvious unconstitutionality of the NSA’s mass surveillance program, the fight itself led to real reforms that have expanded over time.   

I’ve worked closely with her for much of her EFF career, starting in 2005 when we sued Sony for installing spyware in millions of computers, and I’ve seen firsthand her work as a visionary lawyer, outstanding writer, and tireless champion for user privacy, free expression, and innovation. She’s also warm and funny, with the biggest heart in the world, and I’m proud to call her a friend as well as a mentor.  

Jane

Sarah Hamid, Activist 
When talking about women in tech, we usually mean founders, engineers, and executives. But just as important are the women who quietly built the practices that underpin today’s movement security culture. 

For as long as social movements have organized in the shadow of state surveillance, women have been designing the protocols, mutual aid networks, and information flows that keep people alive. Those threats feel ever-escalating: fusion‑center monitoring of protests, federal agencies infiltrating and subpoenaing encrypted Signal and social media chats, prosecutors mining search histories.  

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the underground Jane abortion counseling service—formally the Abortion Counseling Service of Women’s Liberation—built what we would now recognize as a feminist infosec project for abortion access. Jane connected an estimated 11,000 people with safer abortions before Roe v. Wade, using a single public phone number—Call Jane—paired with code names, compartmentalized roles, and minimal records so no one person held the full story of who needed care, who was providing it, and where. When Chicago police raided the collective in 1972, members destroyed their index‑card files rather than let them become a ready‑made map of patients and helpers—an analog secure‑deletion choice that should feel familiar to anyone who has ever wiped a phone or locked down a shared drive. 

The lesson we should take from Jane is a set of principles that still hold in our encrypted‑but‑insecure present: Collect less, separate what you do collect, and be ready to burn the file box. When a search query, a location ping, or a solidarity post can become evidence, treating information as both lifeline and liability is not paranoia—it is care work.  

Ebele Okobi

Babette Ngene, Director of Public Interest Technology 
In the winter of 2013, I had just landed my first job at the intersection of tech and human rights, working for a prominent nonprofit and I was encouraged to attend regular tech and policy events around town. One such event on internet governance was happening at George Washington Universit,  focusing on multistakeholder engagement on internet policy and governance issues, with companies, nonprofits, and government representatives in attendance. I was inexperienced with these topics, and I’ll admit I was a bit intimidated. 

Then I saw her. She was the only woman on the opening panel, an African woman, an accomplished woman. Not only was she a respected lawyer at Yahoo at the time, but her impressive background, presence, and confident speaking style immediately inspired me. She made me feel like I, too, belonged in that room and could become a powerful voice. 

Ebele Okobi would go on to become one of the most powerful and respected voices in the tech and human rights space, known for her advocacy for digital rights and responsible innovation across Africa and the broader global majority during her tenure at Facebook. Beyond her corporate advocacy, Ebele has consistently championed ethical technology and social justice. She embodies the leadership qualities I value most: empathy, speaking truth to power, integrity, and authenticity. 

I remain in the tech and human rights space because I saw her, because seeing her made me feel seen. Representation truly does matter.  

Ada Lovelace 

Allison Morris, Chief Development Director 
I’m not a lawyer, activist, or technologist; I’m a fundraiser and a lover of stories. And what storyteller at EFF couldn’t help but love Ada Lovelace? The daughter of Lord Byron – the human embodiment of Romanticism – Ada was an innovator in math and science and, ultimately, the writer of the first computer program.  

Lovelace saw the potential in Charles Babbage’s theoretical General Purpose Computer (which was never actually built) and created the foundations of modern computing long before the digital age. In creating the first computer code, Lovelace took Babbage’s concept of a machine that could perform mathematical calculations and realized that it could manipulate symbols as well as numbers. 

Given the expectations of women in her time and the controversy of what work should be attributed to Lovelace as opposed to the man she often worked with, I can’t help but be inspired by her story.  

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Women in tech deserve more and brighter spotlights. At EFF, we’ve had the honor of celebrating some of our heroes at our annual EFF Awards, including many women who are leading the digital rights community. For International Women’s Day, we also highlighted the contributions of just a few of these recipients from the last decade, whose work to protect privacy, speech, and creativity online has had a global impact.

Allison Morris

Weasel Words: OpenAI’s Pentagon Deal Won’t Stop AI‑Powered Surveillance

18 hours 7 minutes ago

OpenAI, the maker of ChaptGPT, is rightfully facing widespread criticism for its decisions to fill the gap the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) created when rival Anthropic refused to drop its restrictions against using its AI for surveillance and autonomous weapons systems. After protests from both users and employees who did not sign up to support government mass surveillance—early reports show that ChaptGPT uninstalls rose nearly 300% after the company announced the deal—Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, conceded that the initial agreement was “opportunistic and sloppy.” He then re-published an internal memo on social media stating that additions to the agreement made clear that “Consistent with applicable laws, including the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution, National Security Act of 1947, [and] FISA Act of 1978, the AI system shall not be intentionally used for domestic surveillance of U.S. persons and nationals.”

Trouble is, the U.S. government doesn’t believe “consistent with applicable laws” means “no domestic surveillance.” Instead, for the most part, the government has embraced a lax interpretation of “applicable law” that has blessed mass surveillance and large-scale violations of our civil liberties, and then fought tooth and nail to prevent courts from weighing in. 

"After all, many of the world’s most notorious human rights atrocities have historically been “legal” under existing laws at the time."

“Intentionally” is also doing an awful lot of work in that sentence. For years the government has insisted that the mass surveillance of U.S. persons only happens incidentally (read: not intentionally) because their communications with people both inside the United States and overseas are swept up in surveillance programs supposedly designed to only collect communications outside the United States. 

The company’s amendment to the contract continues in a similar vein, “For the avoidance of doubt, the Department understands this limitation to prohibit deliberate tracking, surveillance, or monitoring of U.S. persons or nationals, including through the procurement or use of commercially acquired personal or identifiable information.” Here, “deliberate” is the red flag given how often intelligence and law enforcement agencies rely on incidental or commercially purchased data to sidestep stronger privacy protections.

Here’s another one: “The AI System shall not be used for unconstrained monitoring of U.S. persons’ private information as consistent with these authorities. The system shall also not be used for domestic law-enforcement activities except as permitted by the Posse Comitatus Act and other applicable law.” What, one wonders, does “unconstrained” mean, precisely—and according to whom? 

Lawyers sometimes call these “weasel words” because they create ambiguity that protects one side or another from real accountability for contract violations. As with the Anthropic negotiations, where the Pentagon reportedly agreed to adhere to Anthropic’s red lines only “as appropriate,” the government is likely attempting to publicly commit to limits in principle, but retain broad flexibility in practice.

OpenAI also notes that the Pentagon promised the NSA would not be allowed to use OpenAI’s tools absent a new agreement, and that its deployment architecture will help it verify that no red lines are crossed. But secret agreements and technical assurances have never been enough to rein in surveillance agencies, and they are no substitute for strong, enforceable legal limits and transparency.

OpenAI executives may indeed be trying, as claimed, to use the company’s contractual relationship with the Pentagon to help ensure that the government should use AI tools only in a way consistent with democratic processes. But based on what we know so far, that hope seems very naïve.

Moreover, that naïvete is dangerous. In a time when governments are willing to embrace extreme and unfounded interpretations of “applicable laws,” companies need to put some actual muscle behind standing by their commitments. After all, many of the world’s most notorious human rights atrocities have historically been “legal” under existing laws at the time. OpenAI promises the public that it will  “avoid enabling uses of AI or AGI that harm humanity or unduly concentrate power,” but we know that enabling mass surveillance does both.     

OpenAI isn’t the only consumer-facing company that is, on the one hand, seeking to reassure the public that they aren’t participating in actions that violate human rights while, on the other, seeking to cash in on government mass surveillance efforts.  Despite this marketing double-speak, it is very clear that companies just cannot do both. It’s also clear that companies shouldn’t be given that much power over the limits of our privacy to begin with. The public should not have to rely on a small group of people—whether CEOs or Pentagon officials—to protect our civil liberties.

Corynne McSherry

【南鳥島3】筆者は同島に陸自がミサイル射撃場を整備、処分地が幻にという記事を24年7月31日Daily JCJに掲載。再掲載しました。幻が転じて現実になってほしいと願う=橋詰雅博

18 hours 10 minutes ago
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JCJ

[B] 「ネタニヤにはめられたトランプ」【西サハラ最新情報】  平田伊都子

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1 day 6 hours ago
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