経済産業省は、工場を建設する目的で平成27年（1月～12月期）に1,000平方メートル以上の用地を取得した製造業、ガス業、熱供給業、電気業の事業者を対象に「工場立地動向調査」を実施し、結果を取りまとめました。

4月5日から9日まで、韓国のソウルにおいて、日中韓自由貿易協定(FTA)交渉の第10回交渉会合(局長/局次長会合)が開催されます。

経済産業省は、昨年10月に「活力あふれる『ビンテージ・ソサエティ』の実現に向けた取組に係る研究会」を立ち上げ、検討を重ね、今般報告書をとりまとめました。

交通事故の削減や渋滞緩和、環境負荷低減等の課題解決が期待される協調ITS（※）の実現普及に必要とされる地図データベースの整備や維持・更新のコスト削減に役立つ日本発の国際規格が制定されました。

平成28年3月4日に、東京電力からありました改正電気事業法に基づく会社分割に係る申請について、このたび申請のとおり認可しました。

California lawmakers are fast-tracking A.B. 1709—a sweeping bill that would ban anyone under 16 from using social media and force every user, regardless of age, to verify their identity before accessing social platforms.

That means that under this bill, all Californians would be required to submit highly sensitive government-issued ID or biometric information to private companies simply to participate in the modern public square. In the name of “safety,” this bill would destroy online anonymity, expose sensitive personal data to breach and abuse, and replace parental decision-making with state-mandated censorship.

A.B. 1709 has already passed out of the Assembly Privacy and Judiciary Committees with nearly unanimous support. Its next stop is the Assembly Appropriations Committee, followed by a floor vote—likely within the next week.

Take action

Tell Your Representative to OPPOSE A.B. 1709

California Is About to Set a Dangerous Precedent for Online Censorship

By banning access to social media platforms for young people under 16, California is emulating Australia, where early results show exactly what EFF and other critics predicted: overblocking by platforms, leaving youth without support and even adults barred from access; major spikes in VPN use and other workarounds ranging from clever to desperate; and smaller platforms shutting down rather than attempting costly compliance with these sweeping bills.

California should not be racing to replicate those failures. After all, when California leads—especially on tech—other states follow. There is no reason for California to lead the nation into an unconstitutional social media ban that destroys privacy and harms youth.

Take action

Tell Your Representative to OPPOSE A.B. 1709

What’s Wrong With A.B. 1709?

Just about everything.

A.B. 1709 weaponizes legitimate parental concerns by using them to hand over even more censorship and surveillance power to the government. Beneath its shiny “protect the children” rhetoric, this bill is misguided, unconstitutional, and deeply harmful to users of all ages.

A.B. 1709 Recklessly Violates Free Speech Rights

The First Amendment protects the right to speak and access information, regardless of age. But by imposing a blanket ban on social media access, A.B. 1709 would cut off lawful speech for millions of California teenagers, while also forcing all users (adults and kids alike) to verify their ages before speaking or accessing information on social media. This will immensely and unconstitutionally chill Californians’ exercise of their First Amendment.

These mandates ignore longstanding Supreme Court precedent that protects young people’s speech and consistently find these bans unconstitutional. Banning young people entirely from social media is an extreme measure that doesn’t match the actual risks of online engagement. California simply does not have a valid interest in overriding parents’ and young people’s rights to decide for themselves how to use social media.

After all, age-verification technology is far from perfect. A.B. 1709’s reliance on imperfect age-verification technology will disproportionately silence marginalized communities—those whose IDs don’t match their presentation, those with disabilities, trans and gender non-conforming folks, and people of color—who are most likely to be wrongfully denied access by discriminatory systems.  

Finally, many people will simply refuse to give up their anonymity in order to access social media. Our right to anonymity has been a cornerstone of free expression since the founding of this country, and a pillar of online safety since the dawn of the internet. This is for good reason: it allows creativity, innovation, and political thought to flourish, and is essential for those who risk retaliation for their speech or associations. A.B. 1709 threatens to destroy it.

AB 1709 Needlessly Jeopardizes Everyone’s Privacy

A.B. 1709’s age verification mandate also creates massive security risks by forcing users to hand over immutable biometric data and government IDs to third-party vendors. By creating centralized "honeypots" of sensitive information, the bill invites identity theft and permanent surveillance rather than actual safety. If we don’t trust tech companies with our private information now, we shouldn't pass a law that mandates we give them even more of it. 

We’ve already seen repeated data breaches involving age- and identity-verification services. Yet A.B. 1709 would require millions more Californians—including the youth this bill claims to protect—to feed their most sensitive data into this growing surveillance ecosystem. 

This is not the answer to online safety.

Take action

Tell Your Representative to OPPOSE A.B. 1709

AB 1709 Harms the Youth It Claims to Protect

While framed as a safety measure, this bill serves as a blunt instrument of censorship, severing vital lifelines for California’s young people. Besides being unconstitutional, banning young people from the internet is bad public policy. After all, social media sites are not just sources of entertainment; they provide crucial spaces for young people to explore their identities—whether by creating and sharing art, practicing religion, building community, or engaging in civic life. 

Social science indicates that moderate internet use is a net positive for teens’ development, and negative outcomes are usually due to either lack of access or excessive use. Social media provides essential spaces for civic engagement, identity exploration, and community building—particularly for LGBTQ+ and marginalized youth who may lack support in their physical environments. By replacing access to political news and health resources with state-mandated isolation, A.B. 1709 ignores the calls of young people themselves who favor digital literacy and education over restrictive government control.

Young people have been loud and clear that what they want is access and education—not censorship and control. They even drafted their own digital literacy education bill, A.B. 2071, which is currently before the California legislature! Instead of cutting off vital lifelines, we should support education measures that would arm them (and the adults in their lives) with the knowledge they need to explore online spaces safely.

AB 1709 Is Misguided and Won’t Work

In case you needed more reasons to oppose this bill.

• A.B. 1709 Replaces Parenting With Government Control. Families know there is no one-size-fits-all solution to parenting. But AB 1709 imposes one anyway, overriding parental decision-making with a blanket censorship prohibition. Parents who want to actively guide their children’s online experiences should be empowered, not relegated to the sidelines by a blunt state mandate.
• A.B. 1709 Strengthens Big Tech Instead of Challenging It. Supporters claim that this bill will rein in the major tech companies, but in fact, steep fines and costly compliance regimes disproportionately harm smaller platforms. Where large corporations can afford to absorb legal risk and shell out for expensive verification systems, smaller forums and emerging platforms cannot. We’ve already seen platforms shut down or geoblock entire states in response to age-gating laws. And when the small platforms shutter, where do all of those users—and their valuable data—go? Straight back to the biggest companies.
• A.B. 1709 Creates Expensive and Shady Bureaucracy During a Budget Crisis. California is facing a massive deficit, but A.B. 1709 would waste taxpayer dollars to fund a shadowy new "e-Safety Advisory Commission" to enforce this ban and dream up new ways to censor the internet. In addition, lawmakers in support of A.B. 1709 have already admitted that this bill is likely to follow the same path as other recent "child safety" laws that were struck down or blocked in court for First Amendment and privacy reasons. With A.B. 1709, taxpayers are being asked to hand over a blank check for millions in legal fees to defend a law that is unconstitutional on its face.

Californians: Act Now to Kill This Bill

A.B. 1709 is not an inevitability, as some supporters want you to believe. But we need to act now to support our youth and their right to participate in online public life.

Your representatives could vote on A.B. 1709 as soon as next week. If you’re a Californian, email your legislators now and tell them to vote NO on AB 1709.

Take action

Tell Your Representative to OPPOSE A.B. 1709

Clinic students Emily Ko and Zoe Lee at the Technology Law and Policy Clinic at the NYU School of Law were the principal authors of this post.

Courts are not private forums for business disputes. They are public institutions, and their records belong to the public. But too often, courts forget that and allow for massive over-sealing, especially in patent cases. 

EFF recently discovered another case of this in the Eastern District of Texas, where key court filings about Wi-Fi technology used by billions of people every day were hidden entirely from public view. The public could not see the parties’ arguments about patent ownership, the plaintiff’s standing in court, or licensing obligations tied to standardized technologies.

EFF Seeks to Uncover Sealed Information in Wilus 

The case Wilus Institute of Standards and Technology Inc. v. HP Inc., highlights a recurring transparency problem in patent litigation. 

Wilus claims to own standard essential patents (SEPs) related to Wi-Fi 6 — technology embedded in everyday devices. Wilus sued Samsung and HP for patent infringement. HP argued that Wilus failed to offer licenses on Fair, Reasonable, and Non-Discriminatory (FRAND) terms, which are required to prevent SEP holders from exploiting their position, by blocking fair access to widely used technologies. 

In reviewing the docket, EFF found that many filings were improperly sealed under a lenient protective order without the required, specific justification needed in a proper motion to seal. Because there is a presumption of public access to court filings, litigants must file a motion to seal and demonstrate compelling reasons for secrecy. This typically requires a document-by-document and line-by-line justification. 

In the Eastern District of Texas, that standard is often not enforced. Instead, district judges allow litigants to hide information using boilerplate justification in a protective order without explaining why specific documents or specific parts in a document should be hidden. 

In Wilus, two sets of documents stood out. 

First, Samsung moved to dismiss the case, arguing Wilus may not have validly obtained the patents — raising doubts about whether they had standing to sue at all. Wilus’s opposition to that motion was filed completely under seal, with no redacted public version available at all. That briefing likely addresses the patent assignment agreements that underpin Wilus’s business model — information the public has an interest in, especially in cases involving non-practicing entities (NPEs) like Wilus. 

Second, filings related to HP’s supplemental briefing on FRAND obligations were also sealed in full, with no redacted versions available to the public. Whether Wilus is bound by FRAND has implications far beyond this case. Companies subject to FRAND must adhere to reasonable licensing terms, while those that are not can charge significantly higher licensing fees. 

In both instances, the public was shut out of arguments that bear directly on how essential technologies are licensed and controlled.

EFF Pushes For Public Access 

EFF raised these concerns with Wilus’s counsel and pressed for public access to the sealed records. Wilus ultimately agreed to file redacted versions of several documents now available as Document Numbers 387, 388, and 389. 

That result is progress, but it shouldn’t require outside intervention. Public versions of court filings should be the default, not something negotiated after outside pressure.

Even now, these newly filed redacted versions conceal significant portions of the parties’ arguments. The public still cannot fully see how this case about technologies that are used every day is being litigated. 

Why Public Access Matters 

Sealing court records is designed to be rare. To overcome the presumption of public access, litigants must show compelling reasons for secrecy. That’s because open courts are a distinguishing feature of American democracy. The public, journalists, and policymakers all have the right to observe proceedings and hold both government actors and private litigants accountable. 

Some filings do contain trade secrets or commercially sensitive information. But that doesn’t mean litigants should be able to hide information without explaining why. The Eastern District of Texas allows litigants to bypass the requirement to explain why.

EFF confronted this very same issue in its attempt to intervene in another Eastern District of Texas case, Entropic v. Charter. The same pattern appeared again in Wilus: instead of narrowly tailored redactions supported by specific reasoning, filings were withheld wholesale. 

Courts Must Enforce the Standard

Courts, not third parties, are responsible for protecting the public’s right of access. 

That means enforcing the “compelling reasons” standard, as a matter of course. Parties seeking to seal sensitive information should be required to justify each proposed redaction. The Eastern District of Texas’ current approach falls short. By allowing broad, unsupported sealing through expansive protective orders, it effectively treats judicial records as confidential by default. 

Heavy caseloads don’t change the rule. Administrative burden cannot override constitutional and common law rights. Judicial records are presumptively public. Courts, including the Eastern District of Texas, should enforce that presumption. 

Other Federal Courts Get It Right 

The Eastern District of Texas is an outlier. In the Northern District of California, judges routinely reject overbroad sealing requests. As Judge Chhabria’s Civil Standing Order explains: 

[M]otions to seal . . . are almost always without merit. . . . Federal courts are paid for by the public, and the public has the right to inspect court records, subject only to narrow exceptions. 

The filing party must make a specific showing explaining why each document that it seeks to seal may justifiably be sealed . . . Generic and vague references to “competitive harm” are almost always insufficient justification for sealing. 

This approach reflects the law: sealing must be narrowly tailored and specifically justified.

Court Transparency is Fundamental 

At first glance, secrecy in patent litigation may not seem alarming. But it signals a broader erosion of transparency. The widespread use of expansive protective orders in the Eastern District of Texas is a practice that risks spreading if courts do not enforce the law. 

These practices allow private parties to obscure information about disputes involving technologies that shape modern life. That undermines a core principle of a free society: transparency regarding the actions of powerful actors. 

Courts are not private forums for business disputes. They are public institutions, and their records belong to the public. 

So long as these practices continue, EFF will keep advocating for transparency and working to vindicate the public’s right to access court records.

Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is seeking permission from the California city of San Clemente to install an Anduril Industries surveillance tower on a cliff that would allow for constant monitoring of entire coastal neighborhoods. 

The proposed tower is Anduril's Sentry, part of the Autonomous Surveillance Tower (AST) program. While CBP says it will primarily monitor the coastline for boats carrying migrants, it will actually be installed 1.5 miles inland, overlooking the bulk of the 62,000-resident city. By CBP's own public statement, the system–which combines video, radar, and computer vision–is "constantly scanning" for movement and identifying and tracking objects an AI algorithm decides are of interest. Depending on the model–the photos provided by CBP indicate it is a long range maritime model–the camera could see as far as nine miles, which would cover the entire city and potentially see as far as neighboring Dana Point.

"The AST utilize advanced computer vision algorithms to autonomously detect, identify, and track items of interest (IoI) as they transit through the towers field of view," CBP writes in a privacy threshold analysis. "The system can determine if an IoI is a human, animal, or vehicle without operator intervention. The system then generates and transmits an alert to operators with the location and images of the IoI for adjudication and response." 

On April 28, local residents and Oakland Privacy, a privacy- and anti-surveillance-focused citizens’ coalition, are holding a town hall to inform the public about the dangers of this technology. We urge people to attend to better understand what's at stake. 

"The planned deployment of an Anduril tower along a heavily used Orange County coastline 75 miles from the border demonstrates that the militarization of the border region is rapidly moving northwards and across the entire state," writes Oakland Privacy. 

City officials raised concerns about resident privacy and proposed that a lease agreement include a prohibition on surveilling neighborhoods. CBP rejected that proposal, instead saying that they would configure the tower to "avoid" scanning residential neighborhoods, but the system would remain capable of tracking human beings in residential areas. According to the staff report: 

In response to privacy concerns, CBP has stated the system would be configured to avoid scanning residential areas that fall into the scan viewshed, focusing the system on the marine environment. CBP has maintained the purpose of the system is specifically maritime surveillance, and the system would be singularly focused on offshore activities. However, there may be an instance in which there is an active smuggling event, detected by the system at sea, in which the subsequent smuggling event traverses through the residential neighborhoods. In such a case, the system may continue to track and monitor. To restrict this functionality would be contrary to the spirit and intent of the deployment. Therefore, they cannot make such a contractual obligation.

The Anduril towers retain a variety of data, including images and more. 

The proposed Anduril surveillance tower. Source: City of San Clemente

"The AST capture and retain imagery which occurs in plan view of the tower sites and is stored as an individual event with a unique event identified allowing replay of the event for further investigation or dismissal based on activity occurring," according to the private threshold analysis.

The document indicates a potential 30-day retention period for imagery, but then contradicts itself to say that data will be held indefinitely to train algorithms: "AST will also be maintaining learning training data, these records should not be deleted." This means that taxpayers would be paying for the privilege of having their data turned into fuel for Anduril's product.

In 2020 CBP said it would work with National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) to develop a retention schedule for training data (i.e., a timeline for deletion). However, when EFF filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) with NARA, the agency said there were no records of these discussions. Likewise, CBP has not provided records in response to the FOIA request EFF filed with them seeking the same records. 

Anduril Maritime Sentry in San Diego, where the border fence meets the ocean.

This would not be the first CBP tower placed along the coastline in California. EFF identified one in Del Mar, about 30 miles from the border, and another in San Diego County where the border fence meets the Pacific Ocean. CBP has also applied to place towers–although not necessarily the Anduril model–in or near several other coastal locations: Gaviota State Park, Refugio State Park, Vandenberg Air Force Base, Piedras Blancas and Point Vicente. The California coastline isn’t the only coastline dotted with surveillance towers. The Migrant Rights Network has also documented numerous Anduril towers along the southeast coast of England. Where the San Clemente tower would differ is that there is a substantial population between the tower and the beach, and because it's a 360-degree system, it can watch neighborhoods even further from the coast. 

However, this won't be the first time an Anduril tower has been placed next to a community. EFF has documented numerous Anduril towers in public parks along the Rio Grande in Laredo and Roma, Texas. In Mission, Texas, an Anduril tower was placed outside an RV park: the tower could not even see the border without capturing data from the community. Because AI can swivel the cameras 360 degrees, two churches were within the "viewshed" of that tower. 

Click here to view EFF's ongoing map of CBP surveillance towers.

Many border surveillance towers are placed on city or county property, requiring a lease to be approved by the local governing body–as is the case with San Clemente. In 2024, EFF and Imperial Valley Equity and Justice organized an effort to fight the renewal of a Border Patrol's lease for a tower next to a public park. The coalition lost narrowly after a recall election ousted two officials who were critical of the lease.

CBP is rapidly increasing the number of towers at the border and beyond, recently announcing the potential to install 1,500 more towers in the next few years–more than tripling what we've documented so far–at a cost of more than $400 million to the public for maintenance alone. This is despite more than 20 years of government reports that have documented how tower-based systems are ineffective and wasteful.

It's time to fight back. 

　開高健ノンフィクション賞を受賞した本書は、一家の運命を通じて、シリア内戦を生きた人々の声を掬い取った、スケールの大きな傑作だ。　写真家の著者が、初めてシリアを訪れたのは2008年。ラクダの放牧で生きる四代70人の大家族の伝統的な暮らしと文化に魅せられ、彼女は繰り返し現地へ通った。　だが2011年、民主化運動とアサド政権による弾圧が、一家の運命を一変させる。政府軍に徴兵された十二男ラドワンは、民衆弾圧を拒んで脱走。民主化運動に加わった兄は、秘密警察に逮捕された。　故郷パルミラ..

The Apache Software Foundationが提供するApache ActiveMQシリーズでは、MQTTパケットの検証が適切に行われていません。

2026年04月23日（現地時間）、米国CISAがCISA ICS Advisory / ICS Medical Advisoryを公表しました。

EFF filed an amicus brief for the second time in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, arguing that allowing cases against the Apple, Google, and Facebook app stores to proceed could lead to greater censorship of users’ online speech.

Our brief argues that the app stores should not lose Section 230 immunity for hosting “social casino” apps just because they process payments for virtual chips within those apps. Otherwise, all platforms that facilitate financial transactions for online content—beyond app stores and the apps and games they distribute—would be forced to censor user content to mitigate their legal exposure.

Social casino apps are online games where users can buy virtual chips with real money but can’t ever cash out their winnings. The three cases against Apple, Google, and Facebook were brought by plaintiffs who spent large sums of money on virtual chips and even became addicted to these games. The plaintiffs argue that social casino apps violate various state gambling laws.

At issue on appeal is the part of Section 230 that provides immunity to online platforms when they are sued for harmful content created by others—in this case, the social casino apps that plaintiffs downloaded from the various app stores and the virtual chips they bought within the apps.

Section 230 is the foundational law that has, since 1996, created legal breathing room for internet intermediaries (and their users) to publish third-party content. Online speech is largely mediated by these private companies, allowing all of us to speak, access information, and engage in commerce online, without requiring that we have loads of money or technical skills.

The lower court hearing the case ruled that the companies do not have Section 230 immunity because they allow the social casino apps to use the platforms’ payment processing services for the in-app purchasing of virtual chips.

However, in our brief we urged the Ninth Circuit to reverse the district court and hold that Section 230 does apply to the app stores, even when they process payments for virtual chips within the social casino apps. The app stores would undeniably have Section 230 immunity if sued for simply hosting the allegedly illegal social casino apps in their respective stores. Congress made no distinction—and the court shouldn’t recognize one—between hosting third-party content and processing payments for the same third-party content. Both are editorial choices of the platforms that are protected by Section 230.

We also argued that a rule that exposes internet intermediaries to potential liability for facilitating a financial transaction related to unlawful user content would have huge implications beyond the app stores. All platforms that facilitate financial transactions for third-party content would be forced to censor any user speech that may in any way risk legal exposure for the platform. This would harm the open internet—the unique ability of anyone with an internet connection to communicate with others around the world cheaply, easily, and quickly.

The plaintiffs argue that the app stores could preserve their Section 230 immunity by simply refusing to process in-app purchases of virtual chips. But the plaintiffs’ position fails to recognize that other platforms don’t have such a choice. Etsy, for example, facilitates purchases of virtual art, while Patreon enables artists to be supported by memberships. Platforms like these would lose Section 230 immunity and be exposed to potential liability simply because they processed payments for user content that a plaintiff argues is illegal. That outcome would threaten the entire business models of these services, ultimately harming users’ ability to share and access online speech.

The app stores should be protected by Section 230—a law that protects Americans’ freedom of expression online by protecting the intermediaries we all rely on—irrespective of their role as payment processors.

令和7年度地方財政審議会（3月27日）議事要旨

令和7年度地方財政審議会（3月24日）議事要旨

情報通信審議会　情報通信技術分科会　電波利用環境委員会　基地局等評価方法作業班（第10回）資料配付

令和8年度地方財政審議会（4月14日）議事要旨

令和8年度地方財政審議会（4月10日）議事要旨

令和8年度地方財政審議会（4月7日）議事要旨