Civil Liberties in the Digital Age

In the digital age that we live in today, we are constantly exposing our personal information online. From using cell phones and GPS devices to online shopping and sending e-mail, the things we do and say online leave behind ever-growing trails of personal information. The ACLU believes that Americans shouldn’t have to choose between using new technology and keeping control of your private information. Each week, we feature some of the most interesting news related to technology and civil liberties that we’ve spotted from the previous week.
04/18/2013
Civil Liberties in the Digital Age

Newest Word to Take on Orwellian Overtones in Internet Age: “Trust”

By Jay Stanley, Senior Policy Analyst, ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project at 5:44pm

What could be warmer and fuzzier than “trust”? Between two human beings, it’s a hard-won bond that binds them together. In society, it is a currency that helps create a prosperous and efficient economy and culture, as thinkers such as Francis Fukuyama and Bruce Schneier have argued. But recently the word has taken on a new cast of ambiguity, and seems to be fast becoming the newest entry in the lexicon of Orwellian formulations, along with such once purely warm and positive words such as “security,” “defense,” and “intelligence.”

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04/12/2013
CISPA

CISPA Remains Fatally Flawed After Secret Committee Markup

By Michelle Richardson, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 12:20pm

The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence on Wednesday marked up CISPA, the controversial cybersecurity bill that allows companies to share their customers' sensitive internet information with each other and the government. The bill's sponsors and corporations are not only declaring victory, but aggressively arguing that all privacy and civil liberties problems have been solved.

This couldn't be further from the truth.

We have flagged four general categories of problems in CISPA that have to be fixed before it is passed, and the markup only substantially fixed one of them:

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03/06/2013
Civil Liberties in the Digital Age

Visit the New and Improved dotRights.org, and Demand a Privacy Upgrade

By Josh Bell, Media Strategist, ACLU & Noa Yachot, Communications Strategist, ACLU at 5:04pm

You shouldn’t have to trade your privacy rights for the ability to use digital technology. But with technological advances coming so quickly, privacy protections are having trouble keeping up. That’s why the ACLU created the dotRights campaign – to let Americans know about what’s really going on with digital privacy, and to press corporations and the government to respect our rights.

You might switch off the GPS function on your cell phone – but that doesn’t mean that your wireless carrier can’t still track your location, store it for long periods, and hand it over to the government on request (it can and does). You might think that you control who can see what you do on the internet – but tightening your Facebook privacy settings or deleting your browser’s tracking cookies won’t change the fact that your online activities are being recorded and sold for profit to the highest bidder.

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02/13/2013
Civil Liberties in the Digital Age

The ACLU’s Pizza Video: 10 Years Later

By Jay Stanley, Senior Policy Analyst, ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project at 2:48pm

In 2004, the ACLU produced a satiric video called “Ordering Pizza in 2015” that has become the single most-downloaded piece of content we’ve ever produced (at least we believe in the absence of complete stats). I won’t describe it—you can watch it here if you haven’t seen it—but like many successful viral products, it combined humor with a biting commentary on an all-too-real set of trends. 

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02/01/2013
Employee Rights

Enterprise Omniscience

By Jay Stanley, Senior Policy Analyst, ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project at 2:35pm

NBC’s Bob Sullivan published a very nice piece of reporting Wednesday on an Equifax company called The Work Number, which collects detailed information about the paychecks of 30 percent of the U.S. workforce and then uses it for various purposes, including selling it to debt collectors and financial services firms wanting to do “risk management” of their customers.

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01/09/2013
Philosophy of privacy

Is Privacy a Modern Phenomenon?

By Jay Stanley, Senior Policy Analyst, ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project at 1:02pm

I recently came across this piece by the author William Deresiewicz (from his consistently insightful “All Points” blog), in which he comments on the observation that privacy and solitude are privileges of the modern era that are “rare both historically and globally,” with most people in the world today and in the past being “too poor to even have the space to be alone.” Members of the medieval household, for example,

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11/30/2012
Civil Liberties in the Digital Age

Civil Liberties in the Digital Age: Weekly Highlights (11/30/2012)

By Anna Salem, ACLU of Northern California at 3:21pm

Senate panel strengthens e-mail, cloud privacy law [CNET – Declan McCullagh]
"A U.S. Senate panel this morning approved a landmark privacy bill that would curb law enforcement's warrantless access to the contents of e-mail, private Facebook posts, and other data that Americans store in the cloud."

Lawmakers: Lax FAA rules on drone surveillance will put privacy at risk [The Hill – Brendan Sasso]
"Reps. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Joe Barton (R-Texas) slammed the Federal Aviation Administration on Thursday for failing to ensure that domestic drones will not invade the privacy of Americans."

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11/29/2012
Online Privacy

ACLU Lens: Get Off My Cloud! Senate Bill Requires Warrants for Government to Spy on Email, Digital Communications

By Steve Gosset, ACLU at 5:00pm

The Senate Judiciary Committee today passed an amendment to the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA). Among its provisions, is a requirement that law enforcement agencies obtain a warrant before they can take a peek at your email, private social network posts and other information stored in the cloud.

ECPA would replace legislation dating back to 1986—when the Internet was still taking baby steps and privacy considerations were not paramount. Any way you slice it, it’s an analog measure in a digital world and badly in need of replacement.

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11/16/2012
Civil Liberties in the Digital Age

Civil Liberties in the Digital Age: Weekly Highlights (11/16/2012)

By Anna Salem, ACLU of Northern California at 2:47pm

Petraeus Case Raises Fears About Privacy in Digital Era [New York Times – Scott Shane]
"The F.B.I. investigation that toppled the director of the C.I.A. and now threatens to tarnish the reputation of the top American commander in Afghanistan underscores a danger that civil libertarians have long warned about: that in policing the Web for crime, espionage and sabotage, government investigators will unavoidably invade the private lives of Americans."
See Also Email Location Data Led FBI to Uncover Top Spy’s Affair [Wired– Kim Zetter]
See Also Petraeus and the Perils of Federal Cyber-Stalking Laws [ACLU – Gabe Rottman]

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11/15/2012
Background checks

Data Breach Raises Questions About NASA Policy At Issue in Recent Supreme Court Case

By Jay Stanley, Senior Policy Analyst, ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project at 4:35pm

We hate to say “I told you so.”

In 2010, the Supreme Court heard a case called NASA v. Nelson, which involved the government’s right to carry out highly intrusive background checks. NASA decided to require its employees—many of whom had already been working for the agency for many years in what the government conceded were “low-risk” and “non-sensitive” positions—to fill out a form in which they were required to disclose any illegal drug use or possession within the previous year, along with details on any treatment or counseling received for such use. These employees were also required to sign an authorization permitting NASA’s security people to obtain

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