The EFF was founded in 1990 by John Perry Barlow, a lyricist for the Grateful Dead, and Mitch Kapor, a founder of the Lotus Development Corporation, which developed the Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet software. The EFF is a non-profit, non-partisan organization whose goal is to protect fundamental civil liberties related to technology, including privacy and freedom of expression on the Internet. It frequently undertakes court cases as an advocate of preserving individual rights.
The EFF's mission includes educating the press, policy makers, and the general public about civil liberties. Its Web site (www.eff.org) provides and extensive collection of information on issues such as censorship, free expression,digital surveillance, encryption, and privacy. The Web site gets more than 100,000 hits a day and is among the most visited sites on the Internet. Many visitors are key managers within companies who are responsible for making decisions about how to act ethically and legally in applying information technology.
Although more than 80 percent of its annual operating budget comes from individual donations from concerned citizens, the EFF also has corporate sponsors, including Intuit,Netscape, Oracle, Pacific Bell, Sun Microsystems, and law firms. Many of these sponsors hope to do a better job of minimizing the negative impacts of IT on society, help IT users become more responsible in fulfilling their role and responsibilities, and eventually build a more knowledgeable marketplace for their products. On the other hand, the EFF has developed many critics over the years for what some see as its bias against most forms of regulation.
Visit the EFF Website and develop a list of the current "hot issues". Research one EFF issue that interests you,and write a brief paper summarizing the EFF's position. In a 500 word minimum paper, discuss whether you support this position or not and why. Be sure your paper is in APA style and all sources are properly cited and referenced.