About EFF
David Greene
David Greene
David Greene, Senior Staff Attorney and Civil Liberties Director, has significant experience litigating First Amendment issues in state and federal trial and appellate courts and is one of the country's leading advocates for and commentators on freedom of expression in the arts. David was a founding member, with David Sobel and Shari Steele, of the Internet Free Expression Alliance, and currently serves on the Northern California Society for Professional Journalists Freedom of Information Committee, the steering committee of the Free Expression Network, the governing committee of the ABA Forum on Communications Law, and on advisory boards for several arts and free speech organizations across the country. David is also an adjunct professor at the University of San Francisco School of Law, where he teaches classes in First Amendment and media law and an instructor in the journalism department at San Francisco State University. He has written and lectured extensively on many areas of First Amendment Law, including as a contributor to the International Encyclopedia of Censorship. Before joining EFF, David was for twelve years the Executive Director and Lead Staff Counsel for First Amendment Project, where he worked with EFF on numerous cases including Bunner v. DVDCCA. David also previously served as program director of the National Campaign for Freedom of Expression where he was the principal contributor and general editor of the NCFE Quarterly and the principal author of the NCFE Handbook to Understanding, Preparing for and Responding to Challenges to your Freedom of Artistic Expression. He also practiced with the firms Bryan Cave LLP and Hancock, Rothert & Bunshoft. He is a 1991 graduate of Duke University School of Law.
David's work has been recognized by California Lawyer magazine as a 2013 California Lawyer Attorney of the Year, and by the SPJ Northern California as the recipient of its 2007 James Madison Freedom of information Award for Legal Counsel. He was also awarded The Hon. Ira A. Brown Adjunct Faculty Award by USF Law School in 2012.
Deeplinks Posts by David
EFF Statement on the Troubling Firing of FBI Director Comey
The FBI is the country’s top law enforcement agency and serves the public, not the president. As defenders of the rule of law, we have deep concerns about President Trump's firing of FBI Director James Comey. We disagreed with the director on many issues, including his consistent push for backdoors...
Kazakhstan’s Exploitation of Flawed U.S. Law To Censor Respublika Finally Ends, In Cautionary Tale About CFAA Abuse
The Republic of Kazakhstan’s harassing U.S. court case that it used to target the independent newspaper Respublika , and other fierce critics of the ruling regime, has finally come to an end. Kazakhstan employed the deeply flawed U.S. hacking statute called the Computer Fraud and...
EFF to Court: Don't Let California Gag IMDb
California is trying to gag websites from sharing true, publicly available information about actors in the name of age discrimination. But one online service, IMDb, is fighting back. EFF and four other public interest organizations have filed in a friend of the court brief in the case, urging the court...
EFF is Proud to Stand Beside Techdirt in its "First Amendment Fight for its Life."
First FISC Phone Records Ruling Post-USA FREEDOM Exposes Shortcomings of Reforms
The secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) had its first opportunity to review a government request for telephone call records since the enactment in June 2015 of the USA FREEDOM Act , which placed some restrictions and oversight on the NSA’s surveillance powers . Unfortunately the results...
Appeals Court Sends Smith v. Obama NSA Lawsuit Back to the Trial Court
The fallout from the passage of the USA FREEDOM Act continues. One of EFF’s three cases against the NSA, Smith v. Obama , has been sent back to the trial court by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The lawsuit was brought by an Idaho neonatal nurse,...-
Big Victory: Judge Pushes Jewel v. NSA Forward
We won a groundbreaking legal victory late Friday in our Jewel v. NSA case, which challenges the NSA’s Internet and telephone surveillance. Judge Jeffrey White has authorized EFF , on behalf of the plaintiffs, to conduct discovery against the NSA. We had been barred from... -
Bulk Call Details Records Collection Ends: What that Means
The NSA’s collection en masse of the call detail records of millions of ordinary Americans ended quietly at midnight November 29. The bulk collection was phased out after a 180-day transition period provided for in the USA FREEDOM Act. The USA FREEDOM Act was signed by President Obama... -
Judge Rules Respublika Cannot Be Forced to Take Down Articles; Kazakhstan To Proceed With Discovery
Preliminary Injunction Cannot Bar Respublika From Using “Stolen” Kazakhstan Emails in Its Reporting The Republic of Kazakhstan has been blocked from using the U.S. court system to censor one of its most vocal and effective critics. In a victory for free speech rights, United States District Judge... 
NSA Ordered to Stop Collecting, Querying Plaintiffs' Phone Records
Affirming his previous ruling that the NSA’s telephone records collection program is unconstitutional, a federal judge ordered the NSA to cease collecting the telephone records of an individual and his business. The judge further ordered the NSA to segregate any records that have already been collected so that...
