The Woman Taking On Big Tech: She Fought the Government and Won
From Taylor Lorenz’s Power User by Taylor Lorenz
April 10, 2026 · 33 min
About this episode
Cindy Cohn discusses the implications of online surveillance and the fight for digital rights.
Are we losing our right to online privacy entirely? Support my independent journalism: 🙏 Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cw/taylorlorenz 🗞️ Buy a paid subscription to my Substack: https://www.usermag.co In this episode of Free Speech Friday, I sat down with Cindy Cohn, former head of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and author of the new book Privacy's Defender. We dive deep into the secret history of the early internet, the terrifying reality of mass online surveillance by the US government, and how "age verification" laws sweeping the US will destroy digital civil liberties for everyone. Cindy explains how the NSA and FBI use massive legal loopholes like Section 702 to secretly access your data for domestic purposes, the massive security dangers of forcing users to upload their IDs to access apps like Discord, and why the fight to protect encryption is more crucial now than ever. If you care about your digital rights, free speech, and the future of the open web, this is a must-watch conversation!! Topics Covered: The 90s hacker origins of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) How the Bernstein case saved internet encryption Post-9/11 mass…
People in this episode
Host: Taylor Lorenz
Guest: Cindy Cohn
Topics covered
- online privacy
- mass surveillance
- digital civil liberties
- encryption
- age verification laws
- government data access
Keywords
- online privacy
- mass surveillance
- encryption
- age verification
- digital rights
- government surveillance
- Electronic Frontier Foundation
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Electronic Frontier Foundation
Books & works: Privacy's Defender
Places: US
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