Delegates from nearly 200 nations — not including the U.S. — showed they could make some progress. But they deferred the hardest decisions.

Nearly two weeks of talks in the Amazon ended with commitments to do more, but no firm movement on the most divisive issues — including turning away from fossil fuels.

The final text of a proposed deal would be a disappointment for European countries and low-lying Pacific island nations.

I did not know Adidas sold a sneaker called “Squid.”

As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven’t covered.

Blog moderation policy.

One of our favorite—and most important—things that we do at EFF is to work toward a better future. It can be easy to get caught up in all the crazy things that are happening in the moment, especially with the fires that need to be put out. But it’s just as important to keep our eyes on new technologies, how they are impacting digital rights, and how we can ensure that our rights and freedoms expand over time.

That's why EFF is excited to spotlight two free book events this December that look ahead, providing insight on how to build this better future. Featuring EFF’s Executive Director Cindy Cohn, we’ll be exploring how stories, technology, and policy shape the world around us. Here’s how you can join us this year and learn more about next year’s events:

Exploring Progressive Social Change at The Booksmith - We Will Rise Again 

December 2 | 7:00 PM Pacific Time | The Booksmith, San Francisco 

We’re celebrating the release of We Will Rise Again, a new anthology of speculative stories from writers across the world, including Cindy Cohn, Annalee Newitz, Charlie Jane Anders, Reo Eveleth, Andrea Dehlendorf, and Vida Jame. This collection explores topics ranging from disability justice and environmental activism to community care and collective worldbuilding to offer tools for organizing, interrogating the status quo, and a blueprint for building a better world.

Join Cindy Cohn and her fellow panelists at this event to learn how speculative fiction helps us think critically about technology, civil liberties, and the kind of world we want to create. We hope to see some familiar faces there! 

RSVP AND LEARN MORE

AI, Politics, and the Future of Democracy - Rewiring Democracy

December 3 | 6:00 PM Pacific Time | Virtual

We’re also geared up to join an online discussion with EFF Board Member Bruce Schneier and Nathan E. Sanders about their new book, Rewiring Democracy: How AI Will Transform Our Politics, Government, and Citizenship. In this time when AI is taking up every conversation—from generative AI tools to algorithmic decision-making in government—this book cuts through the hype to examine the ways that the technology is transforming every aspect of democracy, for good and bad. 

Cindy Cohn will join Schneier and Sanders for a forward-looking conversation about what’s possible, and what’s at stake, as AI weaves itself into our governments and how to steer it in the right direction. We’ll see you online for this one! 

RSVP AND LEARN MORE

Announcing Cindy Cohn's New Book, Privacy's Defender

In March we’ll be kicking off the celebration for Cindy Cohn’s new book, Privacy’s Defender, chronicling her thirty-year battle to protect everyone’s right to digital privacy and offering insights into the ongoing fight for our civil liberties online. Stay tuned for more information about our first event at City Lights on Tuesday, March 10!

The celebration doesn’t stop there. Look out for more celebrations for Privacy’s Defender throughout the year, and we hope we’ll see you at one of them. Plus, you can learn more about the book and even preorder it today! 

PREORDER PRIVACY'S DEFENDER

You can keep up to date on these book events, and more EFF happenings when you sign up for our EFFector newsletter and check out our full event calendar.

 

It’s been a month since Rewiring Democracy: How AI Will Transform Our Politics, Government, and Citizenship was published. From what we know, sales are good.

Some of the book’s forty-three chapters are available online: chapters 2, 12, 28, 34, 38, and 41.

We need more reviews—six on Amazon is not enough, and no one has yet posted a viral TikTok review. One review was published in Nature and another on the RSA Conference website, but more would be better. If you’ve read the book, please leave a review somewhere.

My coauthor and I have been doing all sort of book events, both online and in person. This ...

A California judge ordered the end of a dragnet law enforcement program that surveilled the electrical smart meter data of thousands of Sacramento residents.

The Sacramento County Superior Court ruled that the surveillance program run by the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) and police violated a state privacy statute, which bars the disclosure of residents’ electrical usage data with narrow exceptions. For more than a decade, SMUD coordinated with the Sacramento Police Department and other law enforcement agencies to sift through the granular smart meter data of residents without suspicion to find evidence of cannabis growing.

EFF and its co-counsel represent three petitioners in the case: the Asian American Liberation Network, Khurshid Khoja, and Alfonso Nguyen. They argued that the program created a host of privacy harms—including criminalizing innocent people, creating menacing encounters with law enforcement, and disproportionately harming the Asian community.

The court ruled that the challenged surveillance program was not part of any traditional law enforcement investigation. Investigations happen when police try to solve particular crimes and identify particular suspects. The dragnet that turned all 650,000 SMUD customers into suspects was not an investigation.

“[T]he process of making regular requests for all customer information in numerous city zip codes, in the hopes of identifying evidence that could possibly be evidence of illegal activity, without any report or other evidence to suggest that such a crime may have occurred, is not an ongoing investigation,” the court ruled, finding that SMUD violated its “obligations of confidentiality” under a data privacy statute.

Granular electrical usage data can reveal intimate details inside the home—including when you go to sleep, when you take a shower, when you are away, and other personal habits and demographics.

The dragnet turned 650,000 SMUD customers into suspects.

In creating and running the dragnet surveillance program, according to the court, SMUD and police “developed a relationship beyond that of utility provider and law enforcement.” Multiple times a year, the police asked SMUD to search its entire database of 650,000 customers to identify people who used a large amount of monthly electricity and to analyze granular 1-hour electrical usage data to identify residents with certain electricity “consumption patterns.” SMUD passed on more than 33,000 tips about supposedly “high” usage households to police.

While this is a victory, the Court unfortunately dismissed an alternate claim that the program violated the California Constitution’s search and seizure clause. We disagree with the court’s reasoning, which misapprehends the crux of the problem: At the behest of law enforcement, SMUD searches granular smart meter data and provides insights to law enforcement based on that granular data.

Going forward, public utilities throughout California should understand that they cannot disclose customers’ electricity data to law enforcement without any “evidence to support a suspicion” that a particular crime occurred.

EFF, along with Monty Agarwal of the law firm Vallejo, Antolin, Agarwal, Kanter LLP, brought and argued the case on behalf of Petitioners.

Related Cases: Asian American Liberation Network v. SMUD, et al.

From Anthropic:

In mid-September 2025, we detected suspicious activity that later investigation determined to be a highly sophisticated espionage campaign. The attackers used AI’s “agentic” capabilities to an unprecedented degree­—using AI not just as an advisor, but to execute the cyberattacks themselves.

The threat actor—­whom we assess with high confidence was a Chinese state-sponsored group—­manipulated our Claude Code tool into attempting infiltration into roughly thirty global targets and succeeded in a small number of cases. The operation targeted large tech companies, financial institutions, chemical manufacturing companies, and government agencies. We believe this is the first documented case of a large-scale cyberattack executed without substantial human intervention...

Policyholder-owned insurance exchanges are filling voids left by traditional insurers. But some are low on cash to pay excessive claims.

“Good fortune” with a lack of catastrophes helps seven major insurers earn more than $1 billion in underwriting, new analysis finds.

The blaze closed an area with pavilions set up by countries to showcase their climate action. China’s knicknacks were especially popular.

Democrat Tina Kotek is directing agencies to coordinate on everything from permitting to investment in a push to achieve net-zero electricity by 2040.

A NOAA hurricane hunter aircraft measured a 252-mph gust at the ocean surface as the monster storm approached Jamaica.

Representatives of small island states said their economies depend on keeping global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius.

Walking away from oil and gas revenue would require a titanic shift in the nation’s economy.

Roam expects to begin selling the offsets in about a year. Its motorcycles are used in Kenya by the likes of DHL, Wells Fargo and Bolt.

The European Commission plan is part of a broader overhaul of the ESG framework to streamline regulations and cut costs for businesses.

Nature Climate Change, Published online: 21 November 2025; doi:10.1038/s41558-025-02474-z

Measurements of carbon fluxes and wood phenology are used to assess carbon sources from photosynthesis and their sink into woody growth along a thermal gradient. The authors show that stem growth advances slower than photosynthesis per degree Celsius, creating a phenological mismatch for carbon.

Nature Climate Change, Published online: 21 November 2025; doi:10.1038/s41558-025-02498-5

The authors consider studies reporting species range shifts and demonstrate a geometric bias in sampling along latitudinal, rather than longitudinal, gradients. This bias may favour the corroboration of shift expectations with warming and mask other patterns and drivers of species movements.

Nature Climate Change, Published online: 21 November 2025; doi:10.1038/s41558-025-02486-9

Climate change is expected to lead to higher day-to-day temperature variability in mid- to low latitudes. Here the authors show that extreme day-to-day temperature changes have distinct impacts on human health and become more frequent and intense in mid- to low latitudes with climate change.