If you ran a corporation or a 501(c)(3) non proft, the board of directors do whats best for the organization.
If the organization isn't willing to back up something in direct line with its own principles, it's not an organization worth associating with.
EFF had a different tune at first re: bitcoin:
Bitcoin - a Step Toward Censorship-Resistant Digital Currency, Jan. 2011.
When the issue of a "Censorship-Resistant Digital Currency" got too hot for them, they bailed.
Like the terminally hip, they're all style, little substance.
I understand what you are saying 100%. Correct me if I am wrong, as I read the press releases and this thread. But I don't think they are
totally abandoning bitcoin/censorship-resistant digital currencies. They are protecting themselves so they can later either defend bitcoin. I am pretty much theorizing here. But if the EFF gets indicted on felony counts of whatever the fed decides to charge them with or is subjected to a civil suit brought by the fed; well it is harder to defend. As the saying goes a lawyer who represents themselves has a fool for a client. The EFF is good at what they do, but who would represent the EFF if things were to turn for the worse on them because of bitcoin?
I believe my thinking of this comes from when I was a voting member of an LLC and having to make business decisios that I thought were for the greater good of the company.