Cindy Cohn Is Leaving the EFF, but Not the Fight for Digital Rights

After a quarter Century Digital Rights Defending, Cindy Kohon announced on Tuesday that he was resigning as Executive Director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. San Francisco -led non -profit leadership has been led by San Francisco since the beginning of the year that he will leave this role later this year, ending a chapter that helped define the modern fight on online independence.

Kohan first became specific as the main suggestion Burnstein vs. judiciaryThe case of the 1990s that has revealed the federal restrictions on the release of encryption code. As a legal director of EFF and later the Executive Director he guided this team through legal challenges Government surveillanceAttempts to account for corporations for renovation and data collection in the Computer Crime Act. Over the past decade, the EFF has expanded its impact, has become a central force in the formation of controversy over privacy, protection and digital independence.

In an interview with wired, Cohon reflected in FF’s foundational encryption victory, its incomplete fight against it National Security Organization (NSA) SurveillanceAnd the work of the organization protects independent protection researchers. He talked about the transferred balance of power between the corporations and the governments, the pressure of the powerful state-level privacy laws and the rising risk raised by artificial intelligence.

Despite his resignation from the leadership, Cohon told Warder that he was planning to be active in mass surveillance and government privacy. Describing himself as “fighters more than a manager” he said, his purpose is to return to the frontline advocacy. She is also working in an upcoming book, Privacy DefenderDue to the next spring, which he expects to inspire a new generation of digital rights advocates.

This interview has been edited for length and precision.

Wired: Tell us about the fights you won and still feel incomplete after 25 years.

Cindy Kohon: The initial fight we have done to relieve encryption from government control still stands as a possible secure Internet stage. We are still working to transform that promise into reality, but if we lost that fight, we were in such a different place in a different place than the way we were. Anything that buys on encryption online, someone who uses a signal as a whistle blower or journalist, or only protects people who want privacy and use WhatsApp Or SignalThe Even the Backand-Certificate Authority provided by the Lets Encrypt-make sure that when you think you are going to your bank, you are actually going to your bank website-all is possible because of the encryption. All these things would have been at risk if we had not won this fight. I think that the fights were not over, but the wins were the basis.

The fights we have made around the NSA and national protection are still working on progress. We did not succeed with our major challenges on NSA spying Jewel vs. NSAEven though the long pressure on that case and the legislature with him, we have come back backwards to the back of the NSA 9/11.