Since 2002, 34 privacy and civil rights organizations in the European Union have joined forces to defend civil rights in today’s information society. Together, they are the European Digital Rights Initiative. This organization aims to protect fundamental freedoms in an online environment. Safeguarding freedom, transparency and the constitutional state is the organization’s top priority.

To this end, the initiative is active on a European political level. Executive director Joe McNamee explains: “The rapid changes in the online world put pressure on basic freedoms. We want to protect those freedoms as well as privacy.”

McNamee recognizes similarities between his organization and the Democracy and Media Foundation: “The history of the foundation is very similar, philosophically, to our aims. Like the foundation, we strive to transfer information under the toughest of conditions.”