The pair agreed that there was a need to defend civil liberties on the internet. I realized right away that before I could demonstrate my innocence, I would first have to explain to him what guilt might be.' Barlow felt that his experience was symptomatic of a “great paroxysm of governmental confusion during which everyone's liberties would become at risk”.īarlow posted an account of this experience to The WELL online community and was contacted by Mitch Kapor, who had had a similar experience.

Barlow described the visit as 'complicated by fairly complete unfamiliarity with computer technology. Federal Bureau of Investigation agent in relation to the theft and distribution of the source code for a series of Macintosh ROMs. In April 1990, Barlow had been visited by a U.S. The Electronic Frontier Foundation was formed in July 1990 by John Gilmore, John Perry Barlow and Mitch Kapor in response to a series of actions by law enforcement agencies that led them to conclude that the authorities were gravely uninformed about emerging forms of online communication, and that there was a need for increased protection for Internet civil liberties. It provides funds for legal defense in court, presents amici curiae briefs, defends individuals and new technologies from what it considers baseless or misdirected legal threats, works to expose government malfeasance, provides guidance to the government and courts, organizes political action and mass mailings, supports some new technologies which it believes preserve personal freedoms, maintains a database and web sites of related news and information, monitors and challenges potential legislation that it believes would infringe on personal liberties and fair use, and solicits a list of what it considers patent abuses with intentions to defeat those that it considers without merit.Įlectronic Frontier Foundation founders Kapor, Gilmore and Barlow The Electronic Frontier Foundation ( EFF) is an international non-profit digital rights group based in the United States.ĮFF has taken action in several ways.

Macintosh roms john barlow