Cindy Cohn joins Plutopia to discuss her new book, Privacy’s Defender, and reflects on her decades of work with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, from the landmark Bernstein encryption case to fights against NSA mass surveillance and national security letters. She argues that privacy limits the power of governments, corporations, and individuals, and that winning the battle to free encryption was one of the most important victories for digital civil liberties because it made modern secure communication and online commerce possible. The conversation expands into current threats, including ChatGPT data access by law enforcement, border device searches, Palantir and ICE surveillance, license plate readers, age verification laws, attacks on journalists, and the erosion of legal remedies for rights violations. Cohn emphasizes that technology is always a mixed bag, that social problems cannot simply be solved by blunt internet regulation, and that organizations like EFF help “stress test” proposed solutions to make sure they do not undermine free expression, privacy, or vulnerable communities. She also discusses her upcoming departure from EFF, praises incoming executive director Nicole Ozer, and says she hopes to return more directly to legal and civil-liberties battles as a “warrior lawyer.”
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Cindy Cohn:
When I look back on my career and I thought about, what are the things that I’ve done that have affected or helped the most people, I just don’t think anything comes close to freeing up encryption in terms of the impact. But also, as I mentioned, it’s not just about me. I’m very happy to tell the story. It was really fun to get to do that, but it’s a story about kind of a ragtag group of hackers and activists who bound together, and lo and behold, we won. I mean, that’s a narrative that is important for people to remember, even as I then did tell two other stories in the book where the win wasn’t so clean. I think all of those stories are important for people thinking about how can we make the world better today. You know, sometimes you get clean wins and sometimes you get messier situations, but the fights are always worth it.
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