Defending liberties in high-tech world

So from Day One, the EFF sought to become a high-tech ACLU and ensure that offline rights indeed transferred to emerging technologies.

Early on, the EFF took on government efforts to treat encryption technology as military weapons rather than speech, and later it joined other groups in successfully challenging _ on free-speech grounds _ congressional efforts to block online pornography.

The group also defended developers of file-sharing software, arguing that technology with legal uses shouldn't be barred even if others can use it to commit crimes, such as trading copyright music and movies.

There have been internal tensions along the way as the organization left Cambridge, Mass., for Washington, D.C., in 1993. The EFF started trying to influence legislation, and some in the organization grew uncomfortable with the need to compromise in that setting.

So the EFF moved once more, to San Francisco in 1995, and after dabbling with corporate issues like privacy policies and spinning off the TRUSTe privacy-certification program for businesses as a standalone organization, it redirected its energies to litigation.

Most of the EFF's 25 employees now work in a former sewing factory and paint warehouse in San Francisco's gritty Mission District, its cubicle-less offices having the makeshift, open feel of a political campaign rather than a law firm. Attorneys walk around sans ties and suits and hold impromptu meetings on colorful couches. Chewed up tennis balls scattered throughout provide evidence of a dog-friendly environment.

Although the EFF was among the few tech-focused groups when it formed, many other organizations now complement it.

The Center for Democracy and Technology, or CDT, formed by former EFF staffers in the rift over its role in lobbying, is housed in Washington and tackles issues before Congress and federal agencies.

The ACLU also became active in technology and led the online pornography lawsuits. In challenging the Bush administration's domestic-surveillance program, the ACLU sued the government, while the EFF sued AT&T.

The EFF's nonlitigation projects include ongoing funding for the Tor system for anonymous online communications and research last year exposing tracking codes embedded in color laser printers. Its staffers also testify at public hearings; one took part in an electronic-voting task force that released a report on security in late June.

But the bulk of the work is legal — 60 percent to 70 percent, Steele estimated.

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