Coalition Letters
TechFreedom has joined, and helped write, a number of coalition letters to members of Congress:
- SOPA. We joined with CEI, Americans for Job Security, and Americans for Limited Goverment to send a joint letter (pdf) to U.S. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith and Ranking Member John Conyers urging them not to rush deliberations on the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). Most importantly, Members have yet to hear testimony from experts versed in the bill's implications for cybersecurity, free speech, due process, Internet governance, innovation, and job creation.
- Copyright. In November, we joined a diverse array of public interest groups expressing concerns in a letter about the unintended consequences of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).
- CFAA Reform. In an August letter, we urged Senators Leahy and Grassley to consider reforming the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act to clarify that users could not be prosecuted under the CFAA solely for violating a website's terms of service. We joined with the same coalition — ACLU, ATR's DigitalLiberty.net, CDT, CEI, EFF, FreedomWorks and others — in a follow-up letter expressing appreciation for these Senators' efforts to amend the CFAA.
- Data Retention Mandates. In July, we joined with CEI and ATR in sending a letter to Congressmen Smith and Conyers expressing concerns about provisions in H.R. 1981 imposing data retention mandates on all U.S. commercial ISPs and allowing law enforcement to access retained data without meaningful judicial scrutiny.
- ECPA Reform. In April, we joined CEI, ATR, Campaign for Liberty, Less Government, FreedomWorks, Liberty Coalition, Washington Policy Center, The Committee for Justice, and the Center for Financial Privacy and Human Rights in a letter to Senators Leahy and Grassley supporting an overhaul of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act to create greater safeguards against government access to private data held by third parties, including locational information.
- CALEA Expansion. In February, we joined with thirteen other organizations in a statement expressing concern about the Administration's desire to expand the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act to require a broad array of Internet communications technologies to be wiretap-capable.
