Cindy Cohn

This week and next, we’re bringing you recordings from our second-ever live taping in San Francisco. First, we sit down with Microsoft’s chief executive, Satya Nadella, to hear what he’s maxing out his A.I. tokens on, why he’s skeptical that software developers will ever be fully replaced, and how he’s hoping to create a new business model for Xbox. Then, Phil Mohun tells us what it has been like to watch people in the Bay Area interact with two robot dogs that wear the faces of Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg. And finally, we talk with the longtime privacy defender Cindy Cohn about where things stand in the fight to protect internet users from digital surveillance by Big Tech and the government. Guests: Satya Nadella , chairman and chief executive of Microsoft. Phil Mohun , executive director of Node. Cindy Cohn , former executive director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and author of “Privacy’s Defender: My Thirty-Year Fight Against Digital Surveillance.” Additional Reading: Microsoft C.E.O. Satya Nadella Says, ‘Everyone Is a Stakeholder’ in A.I. Node presents “Beeple: /Infinite_Loop” We want to hear from you. Email us at hardfork@nytimes.com. Find “Hard Fork” on YouTube and TikTok . Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher . For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

As we cascade further into the digital age, concerns over privacy and data security continue to rise with increasing urgency. As artificial intelligence expands its reach, vast aggregates of personal data are constantly being mined to refine future models. But, the fight for digital privacy is as old as the digital age itself. In Privacy's Defender: My Thirty-Year Fight Against Digital Surveillance , author and Digital Rights Activist, Cindy Cohn, chronicles her career-long battle to preserve our right to privacy online. Part memoir and part legal history for a general audience, Privacy's Defender reminds the reader just how hard-won the privacy rights we enjoy today were. Cohn stresses the societal importance of digital privacy, citing its role in combatting authoritarianism, organizing public protests, and reinforcing other human rights as well. Dismantling the myth that our digital landscape was the sole work of several male charismatic tech founders, Cohn instead paints a fuller picture of our technological history. Through weaving her own story with the history of Crypto Wars, FBI gag orders, and the post-9/11 surveillance state, Cohn reveals how she became a seasoned leader in the early digital rights movement, even helping her to discover her birth parents and a life partner. Along the way, she also details the development of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which Cohn grew from a ragtag group of lawyers and hackers into one of the most powerful digital rights organizations in the world. As we all know, advancements in technology never cease. Reckoning with its impact on our basic human rights is a conversation that Cindy Cohn has been having for over 30 years. Join Cohn at Town Hall Seattle, for a night of education, storytelling, and a reinvigoration in our fight to protect our rights in the digital age. Cindy Cohn is Executive Director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. From 2000 to 2015, she served as EFF's Legal Director as well as its General Counsel. Today, she spearheads a team of more than 120 lawyers, activists, and technologists who are dedicated to ensuring that technology supports speech, privacy, and innovation for all the people of the world. Buy the Book Privacy's Defender: My Thirty-Year Fight Against Digital Surveillance Elliott Bay Book Company

When the Pentagon formally designated Anthropic a “supply chain risk” this March, the dispute put a spotlight on civil liberties concerns in the AI-era. Anthropic had reportedly hit an impasse with the Trump administration over the company’s push for guardrails banning the use of its Claude model to conduct mass surveillance. Anthropic’s CEO had called such surveillance a “red line” it would not cross. But where exactly should those lines be drawn, and who should draw them? Few people have spent more time thinking about those issues than Cindy Cohn, executive director of the San Francisco-based civil liberties group Electronic Frontier Foundation. Throughout her career, EFF’s executive director has been driven by a fundamental question: Can we still have private conversations if we live our lives online? Her new book, Privacy’s Defender: My Thirty-Year Fight Against Digital Surveillance , chronicles her battles to protect our right to digital privacy. Cohn weaves her own personal story with the history of the Crypto Wars, FBI gag orders, and the post-9/11 surveillance state. She describes how she became a seasoned leader in the early digital rights movement, as well as how this work serendipitously helped her discover her birth parents and find her life partner. Along the way, she also details the development of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which she grew from a ragtag group of lawyers and hackers into “one of the most powerful digital rights organizations in the world.” Cohn will be joined by Adam Savage, former co-host of the Discovery Channel show “Mythbusters,” to talk about the issues raised in her book, EFF’s work, and the emerging battle over AI surveillance. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Cindy Cohn is one of the world's leading advocates for digital rights and online freedom. She is the Executive Director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, or EFF. Cindy has spent more than three decades fighting landmark battles for us over encryption, privacy, free expression, and government surveillance. It's my great honor to interview her today!

Brandon Aversano – Founder of Alloy Market In some of the darkest times come the brightest moments. Brandon Aversano is the founder of Alloy Market, a Newtown, Pennsylvania-based fintech startup launched in 2023 to bring more transparency, trust, and simplicity to the gold and fine jewelry resale market. Alloy Market buys gold jewelry and other precious metals directly from consumers online, offering a tech-enabled alternative to the traditional “Cash for Gold” or pawn shop experience. The idea came from a deeply personal moment. While undergoing cancer treatment at age 30, Aversano brought jewelry he had inherited from his grandmother to Philadelphia’s historic Jeweler’s Row, hoping to sell it to help cover mounting medical bills. Instead, he had what he described as “an absolutely horrific experience,” marked by lowball offers and little clarity into how prices were being set. That experience became the foundation for Alloy Market. The company’s model gives customers a free evaluation kit, insured shipping, and an offer based on weight, gold content, and current market prices. Alloy uses X-ray fluorescence technology, certified scales, and real-time pricing data to analyze each item and provide a more transparent process. Now, Alloy Market has launched a new model where sellers get paid upfront and also keep a share of the resale upside, something rarely seen in this category. The goal is to give consumers immediate liquidity while allowing them to participate in the additional value their jewelry may create on the resale market. The timing is significant. Resale prices for fine jewelry are reportedly up about 17% year over year, with high-value pieces seeing roughly 22% growth on resale platforms. Gold has surged more than 200% since 2020, and demand is especially strong for high-purity gold pieces and everyday “wearable assets,” rather than only ultra-luxury jewelry. Mid-tier jewelry in the $500 to $2,000 range is now driving much of the resale volume, while pieces with intrinsic material value, including gold, pearls, and certified stones, are outperforming trend-based jewelry. Before founding Alloy Market, Aversano worked in management consulting, strategy at JetBlue, and financial services at JPMorgan Chase, where he oversaw a major co-branded credit card portfolio, including the Amazon Prime card. Since launching, Alloy has raised approximately $3 million from partners including 11 Tribes, Hustle Fund, and Ben Franklin Technology Partners. At its core, Alloy Market is built around a simple idea: customers deserve honesty, transparency, and respect when selling valuable personal items. As Aversano puts it, “We just try to be as honest and transparent as possible. I think that goes a really, really long way with customers.” Brandon can speak to why more consumers are liquidating jewelry right now, what is happening in the gold and estate resale market, the shift from pawn shops to digital resale platforms, and why more people are moving from “buy and keep forever” to “buy, wear, and eventually liquidate.” Alloy Market , just launched a model where sellers get paid upfront and keep a share of the resale upside, something we haven’t seen before in this category. Cindy Cohn – Executive Director of Electronic Frontier Foundation The AI doesn’t know when it’s lying to you and when it’s not. Cindy Cohn is the Executive Director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. From 2000-2015 she served as EFF’s Legal Director as well as its General Counsel. Ms. Cohn first became involved with EFF in 1993, when EFF asked her to serve as the outside lead attorney in Bernstein v. Dept. of Justice, the successfu

Cindy Cohn joins Plutopia to discuss her new book, Privacy’s Defender, and reflects on her decades of work with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, from the landmark Bernstein encryption case to fights against NSA mass surveillance and national security letters. She argues that privacy limits the power of governments, corporations, and individuals, and that winning the battle to free encryption was one of the most important victories for digital civil liberties because it made modern secure communication and online commerce possible. The conversation expands into current threats, including ChatGPT data access by law enforcement, border device searches, Palantir and ICE surveillance, license plate readers, age verification laws, attacks on journalists, and the erosion of legal remedies for rights violations. Cohn emphasizes that technology is always a mixed bag, that social problems cannot simply be solved by blunt internet regulation, and that organizations like EFF help “stress test” proposed solutions to make sure they do not undermine free expression, privacy, or vulnerable communities. She also discusses her upcoming departure from EFF, praises incoming executive director Nicole Ozer, and says she hopes to return more directly to legal and civil-liberties battles as a “warrior lawyer.” Cindy Cohn: When I look back on my career and I thought about, what are the things that I’ve done that have affected or helped the most people, I just don’t think anything comes close to freeing up encryption in terms of the impact. But also, as I mentioned, it’s not just about me. I’m very happy to tell the story. It was really fun to get to do that, but it’s a story about kind of a ragtag group of hackers and activists who bound together, and lo and behold, we won. I mean, that’s a narrative that is important for people to remember, even as I then did tell two other stories in the book where the win wasn’t so clean. I think all of those stories are important for people thinking about how can we make the world better today. You know, sometimes you get clean wins and sometimes you get messier situations, but the fights are always worth it. Click this logo to support the Electronic Frontier Foundation “When you go online, your rights go with you.” The post Cindy Cohn: Privacy’s Defender first appeared on Plutop

Cindy Cohn has been on the front lines, defending your digital rights, for three decades. With the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), she has litigated several seminal legal cases that have directly impacted the lives of all Americans. As she retires from her role as Director of the EFF, she’s written a memoir about her time there and documents several of these legal fights called Privacy’s Defender . Today I’ll ask Cindy about the key parts of these cases, how we interpret our rights in the digital realm, and what we can do to ensure a free and open internet. Interview Notes Cindy Cohn: https://www.eff.org/about/staff/cindy-cohn Privacy’s Defender: https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262051248/privacys-defender/ Give thanks (donate): https://firewallsdontstopdragons.com/give-thanks-donate/ Clipper Chip: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_chip Secure Drop: https://securedrop.org/ Geofence warrants case: https://www.eff.org/press/releases/eff-supreme-court-shut-down-unconstitutional-geofence-searches 404 Media’s FOIA Forum: https://www.404media.co/foia-forum-archive/ Further Info My book: https://fdsd.me/book My newsletter: https://fdsd.me/newsletter Support the mission: https://fdsd.me/support Give the gift of privacy and security: https://fdsd.me/coupons Get your Firewalls Don’t Stop Dragons Merch! https://fdsd.me/merch Table of Contents 0:00:15: Intro 0:01:13: Lingo 0:03:52: What if you had lost the Bernstein case? 0:09:18: What re-ignited the Crypto Wars? 0:13:54: Can we prevent all crime with surveillance? 0:16:37: How do our rights apply in the digital world? 0:21:29: Should national security trump our rights? 0:26:58: Can’t courts handle secret evidence? 0:29:20: How does loss of privacy create a power imbalance? 0:35:02: How does privacy improve democracy? 0:36:54: How to you translate technogy to law? 0:40:49: Are we losing online anonymity? 0:44:13: How important are whistleblowers? 0:47:08: How can we protect privacy from the next crisis? 0:54:24: How do we avoid burnout and keep fighting? 0:57:47: How do we get a federal privacy law? 1:02:37: What’s next for you and the EFF? 1:06:48: Wrap-up 1:08:37: Donate to rights organizations 1:10:27: Patron podcast preview 1:11:05: Looking ahead

Jaws of Justice Radio investigates how we can achieve justice from a system of laws deeply rooted in economic, social and political inequality. We want to dispel misconceptions created by the news and entertainment industry, politicians and our educational system. We hope you will listen. Host Terri Wilke speaks with author Cindy Cohn about her new book, Privacy's Defender, My Thirty-Year Fight Against Digital Surveillance and her work as executive director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is the world’s biggest and oldest digital rights organization. https://www.eff.org/Privacys-Defender Cindy Cohn recounts the fight against sweeping government surveillance after 9/11, her reservations about internet regulations backfiring if placed in the wrong hands, and why the solution to these problems is a combination of comprehensive privacy law, revised business models of giant tech companies who make money off of user data, and more platform choices for individuals. Part memoir and part legal history for the general reader, the book is a compelling testament to just how hard-won the privacy rights we now enjoy as tech users are, and also how crucial these rights are in our efforts to combat authoritarianism, grow democracy, and strengthen other human rights. Cindy Cohn is an American civil liberties attorney specializing in Internet law. She has served as executive director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation since 2015. In the second part of our hour, I will speak with the Rev. Phil Woodson, Pastor, Stilwell United Methodist Church, Stilwell, Kansas and Dianna Heffernon, church member and retired teacher. They will talk about the Saturday, May 2, 2026 event, Guns to Gardens Kansas City, from 1 – 3 PM at the Stilwell United Methodist Church, 19335 Metcalf Ave, Stilwell, KS 66085 This event welcomes everyone who wants an opportunity to dispose of unwanted firearms safely, responsibly, and anonymously. Grocery store gift cards will be offered in appreciation for safely disposing of firearms, while supplies last. https://www.gunstogardenskc.org/ On Jaws of Justice, we examine how to find justice in our society. Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are.

Talk of the Bay features an interview with Cindy Cohn. For 26 years she was director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, fighting in court for internet privacy . Her new book Privacy’s Defender: My Thirty-Year Fight Against Digital Surveillance, explores today’s surveillance dystopia through the eyes of a lawyer who has been at the legal forefront of fighting it for decades, and who can describe a better path forward. We should all be concerned about privacy right now, as the federal government consolidates and weaponizes data, companies track our every click, and law enforcement, from local cops to ICE keep tabs on all of us, everywhere we go, every day. Cohn’s national book tour will bring her to UC-Santa Cruz on Tuesday, May 19 from 12-2pm For more information about her in-person appearance: https://events.ucsc.edu/event/privacys-defender-fight-against-digital-surveillance-with-cindy-cohn/

Cindy Cohn, author, "Privacy's Defender" Kirk Pearson - "Theme from Techtonic" - "Mark's intro" - "Interview with Cindy Cohn" [0:02:31] - "Mark's comments" [0:48:48] Grateful Dead - "Mexicali Blues" [0:54:39] https://www.wfmu.org/playlists/shows/162978

We recently interviewed Cindy Cohn, EFF Executive Director and author of her new memoir: “Privacy’s Defender: My Thirty-Year Fight Against Digital Surveillance” View on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PFv0ki3nDc Listen in your favorite podcast app: https://privacyinterviews.transistor.fm/episodes/defending-privacy-w-cindy-cohn-effs-executive-director The RSS feed for our audio interviews is separate from This Week in Privacy, you can find it at https://privacyinterviews.transistor.fm/subscribe ★ Support this podcast ★

Privacy Guides sat down with EFF Executive Director Cindy Cohn to reflect on her over 30 years of service defending privacy and digital civil liberties at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the importance of community in activist spaces, and the big picture in our fight for privacy. Cindy Cohn's memoir, Privacy's Defender, is now available at a variety of retailers: https://www.eff.org/Privacys-Defender In "Privacy’s Defender: My Thirty-Year Fight Against Digital Surveillance," Cindy (@EFForg) weaves her own personal story with her role as a leading legal voice representing the rights and interests of technology users, innovators, whistleblowers, and researchers during the Crypto Wars of the 1990s, battles over NSA’s dragnet internet spying revealed in the 2000s, and the fight against FBI gag orders. Timestamps: 00:15 Intro 00:39 What Was the Most Impactful Case of Your Career? 01:09 What Case Are You Most Proud Of? 02:03 Should We Fight Private Companies Instead of Government? 03:46 Are the Current Issues What You Expected To Be Dealing With? 07:37 Why Privacy Matters At Every Level 09:30 The Founding Fathers & Privacy 10:08 The Space For Everyone in the Privacy Fight 11:11 Why "The Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace" Falls Short 14:12 Are Our Privacy Rights Innate Or Do We Have To Go Take Them? 17:00 The Importance of Spaces Away From Privacy 20:05 How Can We Stay Motivated In the Fight For Privacy? 21:53 The Wisdom of Eva Galperin 23:57 The Importance of Community 25:45 How Can We Foster Healthy Communities ? 28:40 Everything We Need to Know About Jawboning 32:22 Why The App Store Duopoly Is a Nightmare 33:59 How Do We Know What The Government Is Currently Up To? 38:06 Open Comments Please 👍 like and 🔔 subscribe to our channel to support our work and find out about our latest video content! 💬 Join the community: https://discuss.privacyguides.net ❤️ Support our work: https://www.privacyguides.org/en/about/donate/ 🏡 Visit our website: https://www.privacyguides.org Have a question, comment, or tip for us? You can securely reach us on Signal at @privacyguides.01 https://www.privacyguides.org/en/about/ Copyright ©️ 2026 Privacy Guides. This video is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 4.0 International license. You can read the full license text here: https://github.com/privacyguides/privacyguides.org/blob/main/LICENSE YouTube is known for silent censorship and general privacy malfeasance. If you want to discuss this video you can do so on our forum at https://discuss.privacyguides.net in addition to commenting here, and you can follow our channel on the fediverse at: https://neat.tube/c/privacyguides/videos Privacy Guides is a nonprofit project dedicated to promoting privacy, best cybersecurity practices, and digital rights. As a part of MAGIC Grants, a 501(c)(3) public charity, your donation to support our cause may be tax deductible.