The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has created this Surveillance Self-Defense site to
educate the American public about the law and technology of government surveillance in the
United States, providing the information and tools necessary to evaluate the threat of
surveillance and take appropriate steps to defend against it.
Surveillance Self-Defense (SSD) exists to answer two main questions: What can the
government legally do to spy on your computer data and communications? And what can you
legally do to protect yourself against such spying?
After an introductory discussion of how you should think about making security decisions — it’s
all about Risk Management — we’ll be answering those two questions for three types of data:
First, we’re going to talk about the threat to the Data Stored on Your Computer posed by
searches and seizures by law enforcement, as well as subpoenas demanding your records.
Second, we’re going to talk about the threat to your Data on the Wire — that is, your data as
it’s being transmitted — posed by wiretapping and other real-time surveillance of your
telephone and Internet communications by law enforcement.
Third, we’re going to describe the information about you that is stored by third parties like your
phone company and your Internet service provider, and how law enforcement officials can get
it.