Government Surveillance

09/24/2012

ECPA

Warrant for Email? An Update

By Chris Calabrese, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 4:22pm

Last Thursday we moved half a step closer to legislation requiring police to get a warrant before viewing personal email or other private electronic communications, such as documents and photos stored in the cloud (with Google, Yahoo or any other provider). For more background on the amendment see here; for explanation of why it’s a half a step and what comes next please keep reading.

09/18/2012

Cell Phones & Smartphones

Keeping the Government Out of Your Smartphone

By Chris Soghoian, Principal Technologist and Senior Policy Analyst, ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project at 11:48am

Smartphones can be a cop's best friend. They are packed with private information like emails, text messages, photos, and calling history. Unsurprisingly, law enforcement agencies now routinely seize and search phones. This occurs at traffic stops, during raids of a target's home or office, and during interrogations and stops at the U.S. border. These searches are frequently conducted without any court order.

Several courts around the country have blessed such searches, and so as a practical matter, if the police seize your phone, there isn't much you can do after the fact to keep your data out of their hands.

09/17/2012

FISA

Warrantless Wiretapping at the Supreme Court

By Ateqah Khaki at 7:07pm

Today, we filed our brief with the Supreme Court in our lawsuit challenging the FISA Amendments Act, the 2008 law that ratified and expanded the National Security Agency’s warrantless wiretapping program. (You can read our brief here.)

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act – FISA – is a post-Watergate statute that was meant to rein in and regulate domestic surveillance undertaken in the name of national security. In 2008, Congress amended the statute, giving the National Security Agency unprecedented power to conduct dragnet surveillance of Americans’ international communications. The ACLU immediately challenged the law, but the government has tried to keep our case out of court.

09/14/2012

Online Privacy

Twitter Forced to Hand Over Occupy Wall Street Protester Info

By Naomi Gilens, ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project at 5:28pm

This morning, faced with the threat of criminal and civil contempt, Twitter turned over information about Occupy Wall Street protester Malcolm Harris to a New York criminal court judge. This development follows Twitter’s months-long effort to challenge the Manhattan District Attorney Office’s subpoena for Harris’s information, which was issued as part of the D.A.’s disorderly conduct prosecution of Harris stemming from his participation at an Occupy event last fall.

09/14/2012

Civil Liberties in the Digital Age

Civil Liberties in the Digital Age: Weekly Highlights (9/14/2012)

By Anna Salem, ACLU of Northern California at 2:48pm

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.

09/14/2012

Freedom of Expression

FOIA Documents Show FBI Was Watching Occupy Protestors, Some Docs Still Secret on National Security Grounds

By Linda Lye, Staff Attorney, ACLU of Northern California at 10:23am

Just shy of the one-year anniversary of the inaugural Occupy Wall Street protests, the ACLU of Northern California obtained initial documents from the FBI about surveillance of Occupy demonstrations in the region (see the FBI’s response here).

The documents came after an ACLU-NC lawsuit filed after the FBI refused to release any documents in a Freedom of Information Act request. The documents are significant for two reasons:

09/12/2012

Warrantless Wiretapping

House Reauthorizes Warrantless Wiretapping Program

By Ateqah Khaki at 5:53pm

Today, the House of Representatives passed a reauthorization of the 2008 FISA Amendments Act, an unconstitutional domestic spying law that gives vast, unchecked surveillance authority to the government. The law, passed in July of 2008, authorizes the National Security Agency to conduct dragnet surveillance of Americans’ international emails and phone calls.

09/11/2012

ECPA

Email Privacy Faces a Key Test Next Week

By Chris Calabrese, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 12:14pm

Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) announced late yesterday that he will bring legislation before the committee requiring law enforcement to use a probable-cause warrant to access all non-public internet communications such as email. This legislation is a key piece of efforts to reform the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), first passed in 1986 and not substantially updated since.

09/10/2012

FISA Amendments Act

House to Vote on FISA Amendments Act Wednesday

By Michelle Richardson, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 5:39pm

It’s back. On Wednesday the House of Representatives is scheduled to vote on a five-year reauthorization of the FISA Amendments Act (FAA), the 2008 law that legalized the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping program and more. It permits the government to get year-long orders from the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court to conduct dragnet surveillance of Americans’ international communications—including phone calls, emails, and internet records—for the purpose of collecting foreign intelligence. The orders need not specify who is going to be spied on or even allege that the targets did anything wrong. The only guarantees that the FAA gives are that no specific American will be targeted for wiretapping and that some (classified) rules about the use of intercepted information will be followed.

09/10/2012

Location Tracking

New Results From Our Nationwide Cell Phone Tracking Records Requests

By Allie Bohm, Advocacy & Policy Strategist, ACLU at 2:04pm

It’s been over a year since 35 ACLU affiliates filed over 380 public records requests with state and local law enforcement agencies seeking information about their policies, procedures, and practices for tracking cell phones. And 13 months later (and in the wake of this front page article in the New York Times), we’re still handling responses. We’ve posted the latest batch of documents received on our interactive webmap; here are highlights:

American Civil Liberties Union