Privacy's Defenders: Stories From the Fights for Digital Rights

Conversations on digital rights, surveillance, and online content moderation AI summary

Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) Visit website › Technology · EN · 70 episodes · latest 2026-11-03

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What it is about

People are increasingly concerned about the ways in which mass surveillance is tracking our every move: from Flock license plate readers to face recognition to creepy ads that – based on what we see and do online – seem to know everything we’re thinking and planning. It didn’t have to be this way, and since the early days of the internet, a dedicated band of activists, lawyers and technologists have fought for a better, more secure and private digital future – a future that’s still attainable. Cindy Cohn, who this year finished a 26-year run with the Electronic Frontier Foundation including 11 years as its executive director, has lived this fight. She says privacy isn’t just about secrecy: It's ultimately about power – who has it, and who has the ability to protect themselves from it. Welcome to "Privacy’s Defenders,” a podcast about the people – lawyers, journalists, hackers, and others – who’ve fought to secure your digital liberties since before most people even knew what the internet was.

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Latest episodes

Privacy's Defenders: The Secret Room

2026-11-03 · 36 min · Season 7, episode 3

The government’s surveillance powers grew rapidly after Sept. 11, 2001, some in public view and some in secret. EFF suspected but couldn’t prove that the National Security Agency was spying on Americans' communications.…
Privacy's Defenders: No Privacy Without Encryption

2026-10-13 · 33 min · Season 7, episode 2

Three decades ago, the U.S government treated encryption like a weapon, and it took some unlikely heroes to set it free: a grad student, a junior lawyer, and a fledgling digital rights group who sued the federal…
Privacy's Defenders: Cowboys, Cypherpunks and Visionaries

2026-09-29 · 29 min · Season 7, episode 1

People are increasingly concerned about the ways in which mass surveillance is tracking our every move: from Flock license plate readers to face recognition to creepy ads that – based on what we see and do online – seem…
Bonus Episode: Privacy’s Defender

2026-03-17 · 1 hr 7 min

While How to Fix the Internet is on hiatus, we wanted to share a great conversation with you from earlier this week. EFF Executive Director Cindy Cohn spoke with bestselling novelist, journalist, and EFF Special Advisor…
Introducing EFFector: How Targeted Advertising Gives Your Location to the Government

2026-03-11 · 17 min

Introducing the EFFector Podcast from the Electronic Frontier Foundation
Building and Preserving the Library of Everything

2025-09-10 · 43 min · Season 6, episode 10

All this season, “How to Fix the Internet” has been focusing on the tools and technology of freedom – and one of the most important tools of freedom is a library. Access to knowledge not only creates an informed…
Protecting Privacy in Your Brain

2025-08-27 · 39 min · Season 6, episode 9

The human brain might be the grandest computer of all, but in this episode, we talk to two experts who confirm that the ability for tech to decipher thoughts, and perhaps even manipulate them, isn't just around the…
Separating AI Hope from AI Hype

2025-08-13 · 39 min · Season 6, episode 8

If you believe the hype, artificial intelligence will soon take all our jobs, or solve all our problems, or destroy all boundaries between reality and lies, or help us live forever, or take over the world and…
Smashing the Tech Oligarchy

2025-07-30 · 30 min · Season 6, episode 7

Many of the internet’s thorniest problems can be attributed to the concentration of power in a few corporate hands: the surveillance capitalism that makes it profitable to invade our privacy, the lack of algorithmic…
Finding the Joy in Digital Security

2025-07-16 · 41 min · Season 6, episode 6

Many people approach digital security training with furrowed brows, as an obstacle to overcome. But what if learning to keep your tech safe and secure was consistently playful and fun? People react better to learning,…

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Publisher details

Owner: Electronic Frontier Foundation
Oldest episode in feed: 11/2020 · over 6 years
Typical length: 34 min
Format: Episodic Newest first, episodes stand alone
Keywords: Law, competition, copyright, digitalrights, eff, electronicfrontierfoundation, freespeech, internet

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