Blog of Rights
Chris
Calabrese
Christopher Calabrese is the legislative counsel for privacy-related issues in the American Civil Liberties Union’s Washington Legislative Office (WLO). Prior to joining the WLO, Calabrese served as project counsel to the ACLU Technology & Liberty Project (TLP).  As legislative counsel, Calabrese leads the office's advocacy efforts related to privacy and the responsible use of technology, developing proactive strategies on pending federal legislation and executive branch actions concerning data collection, surveillance, and identification systems.
10/18/2011
GPS Act

Location Privacy: Anyone Sensing a Theme Here?

By Chris Calabrese, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 2:00pm

The goal of the GPS Act is to protect privacy by preventing cell phones and other mobile devices from becoming portable tracking devices.

Read More»
06/14/2011

The Battle Over Immigration is About to Affect All of Us in a Big Way

By Chris Calabrese, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 5:51pm

Many of us have strong opinions about immigration, but few feel the direct impact from the injustices of immigration law. That’s about to change.

Despite a significant error rate, pleas from multiple sectors of American business, and the heightened risk of identity theft, Congressman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) is dead-set on pushing legislation that would make the flawed E-Verify system mandatory for every U.S. worker and today he introduced H.R. 2164, the Lawful Workforce Act, which would do just that. This initiative is one of the top Republican priorities for this Congress.

Read More»
12/03/2010

The Single Greatest Chart Ever (At Least if You Want to Know Where Your Personal Information Goes)

By Chris Calabrese, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 5:46pm

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) released a report (PDF) on Wednesday that provides an outstanding start on describing the problems of data collection both on and offline.

Buried in that FTC report is a small gem: On pages 107 and 108 is Appendix C, a chart prepared by technologist Richard Smith which conveys all of the personal information collected about all of us and where it goes.

Read More»
03/30/2010
ECPA

Electronic Privacy Law is Older Than the World Wide Web — It’s Time for An Upgrade

By Chris Calabrese, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 12:23pm

In 1986, there was no World Wide Web, nobody carried a cell phone, and the president was a man born in 1911. That was the year that the statute that protects the privacy of your electronic life — email, search terms, cloud computing, cell phone location records, postings to Facebook — was passed into law. Even then, Congress recognized that computerized record-keeping would pose privacy issues as information that had formally resided in the home (and been protected by the Fourth Amendment) moved to the hands of businesses.

Read More»
02/20/2013
Anti-Immigrant Laws

Not the Usual Suspects: E-Verify Worries a Motley Crew

By Chris Calabrese, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 5:39pm

Today the ACLU and a wide variety of other organizations sent a short letter to the Hill describing our concerns with the E-Verify program. These types of letters aren't unusual – in DC groups frequently try to showcase the breadth of support or opposition to particular programs. But what is surprising is how many groups that have little or nothing to do with immigration are worried about E-Verify.

Read More»
10/04/2012
Consumer Online Privacy

Corporate America: We Want to Track You

By Chris Calabrese, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 5:44pm

On Monday an extraordinary letter went out from a who’s who of major corporations claiming a mandate to track all of us on the internet.  In tone and substance, it is an amazing, over-the-top screed against efforts to give consumers even modest controls over who watches us as we surf online.

The letter was triggered by Microsoft’s announcement in May that when it ships its new browser, IE 10, the browser’s default setting will be Do Not Track.  Microsoft heard the vast preference of its users and is giving them the default setting they want—no tracking of their movements and habits online. Consumers who want to get targeted ads will still be able to do so—and in fact will get a chance to turn that preference on when the program loads. As we said at the time, this is exactly the right decision, a powerful tool for giving back American’s their privacy online.

Read More»
07/30/2012
Cybersecurity

Crucial Amendment Added to Cyber Bill Would Improve Federal Agency Handling of Personal Information

By Chris Calabrese, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 12:11pm

Later Thursday night Sen. Daniel Akaka (D-HI) filed an important amendment to the Senate cybersecurity legislation to begin to reign in the information the federal government collects on all of us. We don’t think about it much but the federal government collects an enormous amount of personal information on a regular basis: in order for citizens to receive benefits and services, to exercise fundamental rights like voting or petitioning the government, for licensing everything from guns to businesses, for employment, education and for many types of health care. In short this information collection is nearly ubiquitous in American life.

Read More»
05/10/2012
Location Tracking

DOJ Cell Phone Tracking: Excellent questions, Senator

By Chris Calabrese, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 4:51pm

Sen. Al Franken (D- MN) is trying to get some answers to straightforward questions about cell-phone location tracking. Today, using our recent nationwide FOIA as a jumping off point, he sent a letter to the Department of Justice asking them to provide basic information about a practice that, in the words of Justice Sonia Sotomayor, “generates a precise, comprehensive record of a person’s public movements that reflects a wealth of detail about her familial, political, professional, religious, and sexual associations.”

Read More»
03/27/2012
Consumer Online Privacy

FTC Report: A Roadmap for Future Success?

By Chris Calabrese, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 2:21pm

The FTC's newly released privacy report is a roadmap to success on consumer privacy — now it's up to Congress to follow the directions

Read More»
02/23/2012
Consumer Online Privacy

Time to Get Down to Business on Privacy

By Chris Calabrese, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 12:16pm

Today, the White House released a new policy paper on consumer privacy which may mark an important turning point in the effort to return control over how our online information is handled.

The report contains two main elements. The first is a detailed description about what the administration believes are the core principles that should underpin consumer privacy. The principles go beyond familiar subjects like privacy policies and recommend additional rights for online users, including limitations on collection and use of their information, additional consumer access and accountability for use and misuse of information. These principles closely mirror existing best practices in data privacy law as well as the legal regimes in Europe and Canada.

Read More»
Statistics image