Government Surveillance

12/20/2012

Adding Audio Recording to Surveillance Cameras Threatens A Whole New Level of Monitoring in American Life

By Jay Stanley, Senior Policy Analyst, ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project at 11:06am

There has been a lot of attention recently to the issue of audio recording being added to surveillance cameras on public buses. This issue first came onto our radar in 2009, but resurfaced again in Maryland in October (see this October Baltimore Sun article). In December the Washington Post and The Daily reported that the practice is spreading widely across the United States.

02/08/2013

Border Search

ACLU Files FOIA Request for Unreleased DHS Privacy Report on Laptop Searches at the Border

By Katie Haas, ACLU Human Rights Program at 10:07am

Aiming to determine the impact of border searches on Americans’ civil liberties, the Department of Homeland Security has produced a report on its policy of combing through and sometimes confiscating travelers’ laptops, cell phones, and other electronic devices—even when there is no suspicion of wrongdoing. The report was completed sometime between October 2011 and September 2012, and last week DHS quietly posted only the executive summary on its website, without many people noticing.

06/07/2012

Civil Liberties in the Digital Age

Plenty to Hide

By Jay Stanley, Senior Policy Analyst, ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project at 1:57pm

A commentator on my recent post about the DEA installing license plate scanners on the nation’s interstate highways asks, “If you aren't doing anything illegal why would you care if someone captures your license plate number?”

Another commentator countered: “If I'm not doing anything illegal, why do the police need to record my license plate number?”

03/16/2012

Patriot Act

Government Confirms That It Has Secret Interpretation of Patriot Act Spy Powers

By Alexander Abdo, Staff Attorney, ACLU National Security Project at 12:59pm

The government has just officially confirmed what we've long suspected: there are secret Justice Department opinions about the Patriot Act's Section 215, which allows the government to get secret orders from a special surveillance court (the FISA Court) requiring Internet service providers and other companies to turn over "any tangible things." Just exactly what the government thinks that phrase means remains to be seen, but there are indications that their take on it is very broad.

10/15/2012

FISA Amendments Act

Does Surveillance Affect Us Even When We Can’t Confirm We’re Being Watched? Lessons From Behind the Iron Curtain

By Jay Stanley, Senior Policy Analyst, ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project at 2:16pm

During the Cold War, as I argued last week, the totalitarian governments of the Soviet bloc functioned as a standing warning to Americans of the dangers of unchecked surveillance—lessons that we would do well to remember despite the fall of the Iron Curtain.

07/19/2012

Freedom of Expression

Spying on Occupy?

By Linda Lye, Staff Attorney, ACLU of Northern California at 10:43am

Originally posted by the ACLU of Northern California

Why is the FBI spying on Occupy protesters? The ACLU-NC is determined to find out.

The ACLU of Northern California and San Francisco Bay Guardian today filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the FBI to find out whether and to what extent the feds have been spying on members of the Occupy movement. Although the right to protest goes to the heart of our democracy, and the FBI exists to keep us safe, the FBI has a perverse history of interpreting its mission to mean that it can spy on political activists, including Martin Luther King, Jr.

Last fall, the grassroots protest movement Occupy Wall Street - or simply "Occupy" - swept the nation. Originating in New York, prominent Occupy movements sprung up all over Northern California. But the law enforcement response was swift and brutal, as police showered protesters with exploding projectiles, batons, and pepper spray. (The ACLU-NC is currently suing UC Davis over its pepper spraying of peaceful student protesters, and is also partnering with the National Lawyers Guild in suing the City of Oakland over the violent crackdown on Occupy Oakland.)

10/22/2012

Stingray tracking devices

In Court: Uncovering Stingrays, A Troubling New Location Tracking Device

By Linda Lye, Staff Attorney, ACLU of Northern California at 12:42pm

The ACLU and Electronic Frontier Foundation have filed an amicus brief in what will be the first case in the country to address the constitutional implications of a so-called “stingray,” a little known device that can be used to track a suspect’s location and engage in other types of surveillance. We argue that if the government wants to use invasive surveillance technology like this, it must explain the technology to the courts so they can perform their judicial oversight function as required by the Constitution.

02/28/2013

E-Verify

E-Verify: Immigration Reform Cannot Come at the Expense of the Right to Privacy

By Sandra Fulton, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 10:13am

The House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security held a hearing yesterday on E-Verify...

11/27/2012

Warrantless Wiretapping

Does Using Certain Privacy Tools Expose You to Warrantless NSA Surveillance? ACLU Files FOIA to Find Out

By Chris Soghoian, Principal Technologist and Senior Policy Analyst, ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project at 1:04pm

Can using privacy-enhancing tools (such as Tor or a Virtual Private Network) actually expose you to warrantless surveillance by the National Security Agency? This week, the ACLU sent off four FOIA requests to federal agencies in order to try and answer this question.

To understand why we think that may be the case, we have to go back to the passage of the FISA Amendments Act (FAA) in 2008. That act was not a high-point for civil liberties or the rule of law. It included a provision giving immunity to the telecom companies that violated the law by assisting the NSA with its warrantless wiretapping program. Although the get-out-of-jail-free card given to the phone companies is the most well-known aspect to the FAA, there is much more to the law, and many other things that give privacy advocates reason to worry.

04/26/2012

CISPA

Cyber Protection Act Too Broad, Infringes on Our Privacy Rights

By Michelle Richardson, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 11:12am

This week is “Cybersecurity Week” in the House of Representatives, and members will vote on a handful of bills intended to protect cybersecurity — the ability to prevent and respond to threats from foreign governments, terrorists and criminals over the Internet. Some of the bills are civil-liberties-neutral but, as usual when addressing a security issue, Congress is considering a bill that overreaches — this time by allowing companies to share private and sensitive information with the government without a warrant and without much oversight.

American Civil Liberties Union