Electronic Frontier Alliance Defending Local Communities: 2021 in Review

In another year of masking up, local communities have found enough footing to push back on surveillance tech and fight for our digital rights. Members of the Electronic Frontier Alliance have continued to innovate by organizing workshops and trainings for neighbors, overwhelmingly online, and made important headway on issues like more equitable broadband access, surveillance oversight, and even banning government use of face recognition.

The Electronic Frontier Alliance (EFA) is an information-sharing network of local groups that span a range of organizational models. Some are fully volunteer-run, some are affiliated with a broader institution (such as student groups), and others are independent non-profit organizations. What these groups all share in common is an investment in local organizing, a not-for-profit model, and a passion for five guiding principles:

• Free Expression: People should be able to speak their minds to whomever will listen.
• Security: Technology should be trustworthy and answer to its users.
• Privacy: Technology should allow private and anonymous speech, and allow users to set their own parameters about what to share with whom.
• Creativity: Technology should promote progress by allowing people to build on the ideas, creations, and inventions of others.
• Access to Knowledge: Curiosity should be rewarded, not stifled.

Since first forming in 2016, the alliance has grown to 73 member groups across 26 states. It's not possible to review everything these grassroots groups have accomplished over the last year, but this post highlights a number of exemplary victories. We hope they will inspire others to take action in the new year.

Advocacy

Pushing Back on Police Surveillance

EFA members have been vital in the fight against government use of face recognition technology. This type of biometric surveillance comes in many forms, and is a special menace to civil liberties. Since 2019, when San Francisco became the first city to ban government use of this technology, more than a dozen municipalities nationwide have followed suit, including Portland and Boston last year. In 2021, these victories continued with the passage of bans in Minneapolis and Kings County, Washington, which were won by a close collaboration between EFA members, local ACLU chapters, other local community groups, and the support of EFF.

Alliance member Restore the Fourth Minnesota (RT4MN), and the rest of the Twin Cities-based Safety Not Surveillance (SNS) coalition, successfully advocated to pass their ban on government use of face recognition technology in Minneapolis. During the year-long fight for the ban, the coalition built widespread community support, took the argument to the local press, and won with a unanimous vote from the city council. The SNS coalition didn’t rest on its laurels after this victory, but instead went on to mobilize against increased state funding to the local fusion center, and to continue to advocate for a Community Control Over Police Surveillance (CCOPS) ordinance. These campaigns and other impressive work coming out of Minnesota are covered in more detail in EFF’s