Response to DOJ Letter on DMCA Exemptions for Security Researchers
On June 28, the Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section (CCIPS) of the Department of Justice sent a letter to the Copyright Office. In this letter, CCIPS voiced its support for CDT’s request that the Office expand an exemption under Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) that allows computer security researchers to find and repair flaws and vulnerabilities in programs without running afoul of copyright law.
To express our appreciation for both the letter and the Copyright Office’s willingness to accept it into the record for this exemption proceeding, we and our colleagues at the Samuelson-Glushko Technology Law & Policy Clinic submitted a response to the letter. We hope the Office will give the CCIPS letter due consideration as it prepares its recommendations for the next round of exemptions.
On September 15, 2026, the Center for Democracy & Technology and Electronic Frontier Foundation filed an amicus brief along with the Wikimedia Foundation in Meta Platforms v. Bonta, challenging California’s SB 976.
Not All Guardrails Are Created Equal: Comparing Content Safety and Copyright Filtering
As courts and policymakers work through questions about chatbot liability, they should be wary of analogies that flatten meaningful technical differences. Copyright filtering and safety intervention share real challenges around ambiguity and evasion, but they diverge in what each control must assess, how each manifests over the course of a conversation, and how much can be verified from the outside.
CDT-led Coalition Calls for Transparency for White House AI Framework
CDT and Americans for Responsible Innovation led a broad, bipartisan coalition of over two dozen civil society groups in calling on the White House to release its Framework for review of frontier AI models.
CDT Amicus Brief Calls on Fourth Circuit to Rein In Geofence Warrants
Earlier this year the Supreme Court ruled in Chatrie v United States that the Fourth Amendment protected all cell phone location information, which CDT lauded as a landmark decision, but sent the case back down to the Fourth Circuit to assess the propriety of the geofence warrant at issue.
