EFF to Court: Trump Appointee’s Removal of Open Technology Fund Leadership Is Unlawful

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) joined a group of 17 leading U.S.-based Internet freedom organizations (including the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society) in telling a federal appeals court that Trump administration appointee Michael Pack has no legal authority to purge leadership at the Open Technology Fund (OTF), a private, independent nonprofit that helps hundreds of millions of people across the globe speak out online and avoid censorship and surveillance by repressive regimes. The groups urged the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit in a filing to rule that Pack violated the First Amendment right of association and assembly and US law —which both ensure that OTF is independent and separate from the government—when he ousted the fund’s president and bipartisan board and replaced them with political appointees. Government-funded OTF filed a lawsuit against Pack to stop the takeover.