By Catherine Crump, Staff Attorney, ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project at 11:12am
Two key memos outlining the Justice Department’s views about when Americans can be surreptitiously tracked with GPS technology are being kept secret by the department despite a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the ACLU to force their release. The FBI’s general counsel discussed the existence of the two memos publicly last year, yet the Justice Department is refusing to release them without huge redactions. (You can see the heavily censored versions sent to the ACLU here and here, and our original FOIA request here.)
The Court held 9-0 that the government violated the Fourth Amendment when it placed a GPS tracking device to Antoine Jones's car to track his movements for a month.
By Sandra Fulton, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 10:22am
In an effort to rein in overreaching law enforcement practices, Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) yesterday re-introduced the GPS Act, which would require a warrant for location tracking and create a critical check on the growing use of these invasive searches.
By Catherine Crump, Staff Attorney, ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project at 2:05pm
On Monday the Supreme Court issued a landmark decision protecting privacy in the digital age. In U.S. v. Jones, a unanimous Supreme Court held that the police and FBI violated the Fourth Amendment when they attached a GPS device to Antoine Jones’s car and tracked his movements for 28 days. While the case turned on the fact that the government physically placed a GPS device on Mr. Jones’s car, the implications are far broader. A majority of the justices acknowledged that advancing technology, like cell phone tracking, gives the government unprecedented ability to collect, store, and analyze an enormous amount of information about our private lives.
By Catherine Crump, Staff Attorney, ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project at 4:10pm
Today the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued a disappointing but fortunately narrow decision in a case involving warrantless tracking of a vehicle with a GPS device. The three-judge panel refused to exclude GPS tracking evidence under what’s known as the “good faith” exception, ruling that when the tracking took place, law enforcement agents reasonably relied on binding circuit court precedent in concluding that no warrant was necessary. The tracking happened before the Supreme Court issued its decision in United States v. Jones that GPS device tracking triggers Fourth Amendment protections.
By Catherine Crump, Staff Attorney, ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project at 9:59am
Should law enforcement agents have to obtain a warrant based on probable cause to attach a GPS tracker to a vehicle and track its movements? Several months ago we asked the Third Circuit Court of Appeals to consider our argument that they should (you can read our amicus brief here). Today, we will be in court arguing that point in the case of Harry, Mark, and Michael Katzin.
By Catherine Crump, Staff Attorney, ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project at 1:17pm
The ACLU has released the results of our public records requests to hundreds of police departments asking about their cell phone tracking policies.What we have learned is disturbing.
By Jay Stanley, Senior Policy Analyst, ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project at 11:21am
Data from license plate readers in Minnesota was obtained by a St. Paul car dealer using open-records laws, and used to repossess at least one car, according to a recent article in the Minneapolis Star Tribune. The article included this amusing tidbit:
When the Star Tribune published data tracking Mayor R.T. Rybak's city-owned car over the past year, the mayor asked police Chief Tim Dolan to make a recommendation for a new policy about data retention.
By Sarah Roberts, Speech, Privacy and Technology Project at 12:55pm
After the Supreme Court ruled the police cannot attach a GPS device to a suspect's car to track them, law enforcement is trying to use cell phone location data to get the same information.
By Sarah Roberts, Speech, Privacy and Technology Project at 8:34pm
Even after January's landmark Supreme Court decision cast significant doubt on the government’s ability to electronically track a person’s location without a warrant, the Justice Department continues to defend this practice. On Friday, the ACLU, along with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Center for Democracy and Technology, and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, arguing that the government should be required to obtain a warrant based on probable cause before seizing 60 days’ worth of location information generated by an individual’s cell phone.
