I should give some credit to leftist conspiracy twitter, but that might be problematic. Still, the proof is not hard to find, which just makes it all rather depressing.

Obviously connection number one is they still are nonprofits. People live at the mercy of the state to a greater degree than they realize.

Connection number two is that Morris Ernst was J. Edgar Hoover's close friend, or so he thought. Rather Hoover tasked an FBI agent to reply to correspondence to him, so effectively Hoover had an informant within the ACLU. There has been very little said on this topic.

Connection number three is that J.P. Barlow, founder of the EFF was contacted by Robert Steele in 1992 (currently believes there is a child sex slave colony on Mars) to speak at an intelligence conference.
https://archive.is/87bXM http://www.forbes.com/asap/2002/1007/042.html (but it was pretty prescient "Nonetheless, I sallied forth, confidently telling the gray throng that power lay not in concealing information but in distributing it, that the Internet would endow small groups of zealots with the capacity to wage credible assaults on nation-states, that young hackers could easily run circles around old spies.")

Connection number four is that Morton Halperin negotiated with the CIA to support the passage of Intelligence Identities Protection Act. Morton Halperin was suspected of leaking that the US was bombing Cambodia, although clearly we should've used drones then. Morton Halperin has served a few roles with Open Society Institute. 

https://pando.com/2015/02/07/how-the-aclu-ron-paul-and-a-former-eff-director-helped-jail-a-cia-whistleblower/ 
Page 85 of Secrets: The CIA's War at Home ( https://books.google.com/books?id=67XBXqSP9KgC&lpg=PA85&ots=z5R0N8QnH4&pg=PA85#v=onepage&q&f=false )

These are not exceptional or new allegations. https://www.wired.com/1996/02/digitel/ 


 
The Electronic Frontier Foundation went to Washington to "reverse-engineer government, hack politics down to its component parts, and fix it." Then it helped pass the FBI's loathsome "let's-just-wiretap-everyone" Digital Telephony Bill. And discovered it was Washington that had reverse-engineered the EFF, driving it into dissension, debt, disgrace - and right out of town. .



P.S. interesting in context to the times we live in
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/03/flying_without.html
Flying Without ID
According to the TSA, in the 9th Circuit Case of John Gilmore, you are allowed to fly without showing ID -- you'll just have to submit yourself to secondary screening.

P.P.S https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13182120 this might be related to cloudbleed
i have seen a lot of nonsensical explanations for various bugs and issues, including that for those that I am a user of, but I do not think compelled speech exists, so I don't know.

P.P.P.S. I am open to the possibility that there is a child sex slave colony on Mars, but unlike that guy who stormed Comet Ping Pong, I can't quite go over there to investigate. (fortunately the failed actor, Edgar Maddison Welch, was not a black man, so he was not shot on sight, as would be typically expected)



It does seem clear though that the world is set up to benefit people who realize everything is rigged, and they could rise to a middle-management or equivalent lofty position perpetuating everything. Challenging power is difficult to impossible, one of major difficulties being that most people are just plain dumb. I would prefer it if they proved otherwise and I would prefer not being in the position I am in now. Anyone who thinks my position is advantageous is free to trade places.