EFF-Austin was formed in

Austin Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of Texas, as well as the seat and largest city of Travis County, with portions extending into Hays and Williamson counties. Incorporated on December 27, 1839, it is the 11th-most-populous city ...

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...

by Steve Jackson of

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shortly after the

Electronic Frontier Foundation The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is an international non-profit digital rights group based in San Francisco, California. The foundation was formed on 10 July 1990 by John Gilmore, John Perry Barlow and Mitch Kapor to promote Internet ci ...

or EFF was formed. Jackson was pursuing a lawsuit, eventually successful, against the Secret Service with EFF's help, and suggested the formation of an alpha EFF chapter in Austin. Jackson organized a picnic and stood on a picnic table to sound the call for the new organization. He recruited a smaller group including

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Jon Lebkowsky Jon Lebkowsky (born April 20, 1949) is a web consultant/developer, author, and activist who was the co-founder of FringeWare Review (along with Paco Nathan). FringeWare, an early attempt at ecommerce and online community, published a popular " ...

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, Smoot Carl-Mitchell, Lar Kaufman and Matt Lawrence to organize the group and serve on the first Board of Directors. The group formed a Texas corporation for EFF-Austin, and became active in discussions of potential chapters for the national organization. In January 1992, leaders of several potential chapters met with EFF in

Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...

, and learned that EFF had decided not to become a chapters organization. EFF-Austin continued as a separate organization and was active from 1991 through 1997, when it ceased operations following the

Supreme Court A supreme court is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts in most legal jurisdictions. Other descriptions for such courts include court of last resort, apex court, and high (or final) court of appeal. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...

Reno v. ACLU ''Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union'', 521 U.S. 844 (1997), was a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, unanimously ruling that anti-indecency provisions of the 1996 Communications Decency Act violated the First Amendme ...

'' decision. The organization re-formed in 2001.

External links

EFF-Austin's web site

{{DEFAULTSORT:Eff-Austin Internet privacy organizations Internet-related activism Intellectual property activism Non-profit organizations based in Texas Organizations established in 1991 Defunct privacy organizations 1991 establishments in Texas