What do EFF staffers Sarah Chen ,  Javier Morales , Caitlin Chin , Emma Rodriguez , and Mikko Kopponen have in common?   For one thing, they don’t exist.   For another, all have been quoted as EFF experts in articles published in the past two months on a site called News-USA Today , which describes itself as “an independent news publisher focused on clear, accurate, and useful journalism.”   Uh…   (Please don’t confuse this site with USA Today , in which real EFF experts are accurately quoted on a regular basis.)   News-USA Today is hardly the only slagheap that’s hallucinating or fabricating EFF personnel and quotes; as we wrote last September , media companies large and small are using AI to generate news content because it’s cheaper than paying for journalists’ salaries, but that savings can come at the cost of the outlets’ reputations— assuming they care about reputation at all.   But this many fake EFF sources in two months? That’s making a play for the championship title of bogus news content.   News-USA Today’s site proclaims , “Our goal is simple: give readers the facts and the context they need to make informed decisions.” It then defines its mission: “Deliver timely, factual reporting grounded in verifiable sources and public documents.” “Make complex topics understandable without losing nuance or accuracy.” “Serve the public interest by surfacing stories that affect lives, institutions, and communities.” “Maintain a clear separation between news, analysis, opinion, and sponsored content.”   Attempts to reach contacts listed on the site went unanswered. In fact, after we reached out to them, they published a story on June 9 with quotes from Electronic Frontier Foundation Executive Director Jared Cohen — who also doesn’t exist.  As we noted last year, EFF is all about having our words spread far and wide. Per our copyright policy , any and all original material on the EFF website may be freely distributed at