EFF Says News‑USA Today Published Fabricated EFF Quotes and Names in Six Articles

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, the digital-rights nonprofit, said Thursday that a website calling itself News-USA Today published at least six articles since April that attributed quotes to supposed EFF staffers and an “EFF Executive Director” who are not listed on the organization’s official public roster.

The significance of EFF’s complaint is not just that one article got a name wrong. In a June 11 Deeplinks post by Josh Richman, EFF said the site repeatedly presented nonexistent or unverified people as its experts across seven weeks of coverage, potentially misrepresenting the group’s views. As of June 11, there was no public correction, retraction or explanation from News-USA Today addressing the attributions.

EFF documented six articles published between April 23 and June 9. According to the group, an April 23 article identified “Mikko Kopponen” as “Legal Director, Electronic Frontier Foundation.” An April 28 article quoted “Emma Rodriguez,” described as “a policy analyst at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.” A May 12 story attributed comments to “Caitlin Chin,” identified as “Senior Staff Attorney, Electronic Frontier Foundation.”

The pattern continued into June. EFF said a June 1 article described “Sarah Chen” as a “Digital Rights Attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation,” and a June 5 story referred to “Javier Morales” as an “Electronic Frontier Foundation policy analyst.” Then, on June 9, News-USA Today published an article naming “Jared Cohen” as “Executive Director, Electronic Frontier Foundation.”

None of those names — Sarah Chen, Javier Morales, Caitlin Chin, Emma Rodriguez, Mikko Kopponen or Jared Cohen — appeared on EFF’s public Staff and Contributors, or People, page as of June 11. Richman wrote of the supposed sources, “For one thing, they don’t exist.”

EFF said it tried to contact the site using the contact information News-USA Today provided, but got no response. The group also said that after it reached out, News-USA Today still published the June 9 article attributing quotes to the purported Executive Director Jared Cohen.

One example cited by EFF came from the May 12 article, “Burlington Police Track Cross-State Incident with Flock Cameras,” which quoted “Caitlin Chin, Senior Staff Attorney, Electronic Frontier Foundation,” as saying: “The moment you create a database of every vehicle’s movements, you’ve created a surveillance tool.” EFF’s public staff page does not list anyone by that name in that role.

EFF matters here because it is a prominent nonprofit focused on online civil liberties, privacy and free speech, and its staff page functions as the organization’s authoritative public list of personnel. News-USA Today, meanwhile, describes itself on its About page as “an independent news publisher focused on clear, accurate, and useful journalism.”

In its June 11 post, EFF said fabricated quotations “damage the trust that the public and reputable media outlets have in us.” The group also stressed that its objection was not to republication of its work. EFF permits republication of its original material under a Creative Commons license. Its complaint, instead, was that News-USA Today attributed statements to people presented as EFF officials who were not listed by the organization.

EFF also linked the episode to a broader problem it has warned about before. In September 2025, the group published another Deeplinks post about bogus quotations and fabricated attributions, including examples tied to AI-assisted publishing. But EFF did not say News-USA Today had used AI, and as of June 11 the site had not publicly explained how the articles were produced.

The narrow, documented takeaway is that EFF says News-USA Today fabricated identities and quotations tied to the organization in at least six articles from April to June, and the site had not publicly corrected or explained those articles by Thursday.