Action Alert
We need your help to tell Congress to stop TWO bills that could endanger encrypted messaging. The EARN IT Act (S. 1207) is back, and the goal of the bill is clear: to coerce online providers into giving up on private, secure messaging. A new bill, the STOP CSAM Act (S. 1199), would create massive legal risk for offering full encryption for private content.
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PROTECT OUR PRIVACY—STOP "EARN IT"
EARN IT would throw out critical legal protections for users and service providers who use encryption to communicate and share content. Then, it would invite all 50 states to regulate the internet, guided by a federal commission that will put in place “best practices” that are sure to include the scanning of all user messages, photos, and files. All of this will be done under the guise of fighting online
child abuse—something that’s already a serious crime.
Then there’s the STOP CSAM Act, which could make it too legally risky for many services to offer encryption at all. If STOP CSAM passes, offering end-to-end encryption could be used as evidence that a platform or service is "facilitating" the sharing of illegal child abuse material (CSAM)—even if there's no other evidence that it intended to do so. The law would undermine digital security
for all internet users, impacting private messaging and email app providers, social media platforms, cloud storage providers, and many other internet intermediaries and online services.
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TELL CONGRESS: DON'T OUTLAW ENCRYPTED APPS - VOTE NO ON STOP CSAM
Having a private conversation is a basic human right. And to have a private conversation online, we need end-to-end encryption. The EARN IT Act’s clear goal is to install universal scanning of messages and photos—a surveillance regime that is not, and never will be, compatible with real encryption. The STOP CSAM Act’s broad language could risk criminal charges or civil lawsuits for even offering an encrypted app, undermining security and free speech online for everyone.
The Senate Judiciary Committee is expected to vote on both bills later this week. We need you to contact your Senators right now and tell them to reject these privacy-killing bills. In 2020 and 2022, more than 200,000 EFF supporters told their representatives to reject earlier versions of EARN IT. We’ve stopped bills like this before, and we can do it again. But we need your help.
take action
PROTECT OUR PRIVACY—STOP "EARN IT"
take action
TELL CONGRESS: DON'T OUTLAW ENCRYPTED APPS - VOTE NO ON STOP CSAM
Thank you,
Joe Mullin
Activism Team
Electronic Frontier Foundation
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