By Aden Fine, Senior Staff Attorney, ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project at 12:59pm
Twitter has filed a motion in state court in New York seeking to quash a court order requiring it to turn over information about one of its users and his communications on Twitter. This particular case involves a Twitter user, Malcolm Harris, who is being prosecuted by the District Attorney’s Office in Manhattan for disorderly conduct in connection with the Occupy Wall Street protest that occurred on the Brooklyn Bridge last year.
A week ago, on a Friday afternoon, a reporter called us with news that the Seattle Police Department (SPD) had received permission from the Federal Aviation Administration to employ two unmanned aerial drones it had purchased. The news came not from city officials, but via the fruits of a public records request by our friends at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
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 Jameel Jaffer, Deputy Legal Director, ACLU at 6:09pm
"Contrary to core principles of American democracy." That's how two U.S. senators describe the Justice Department's refusal to release a secret legal interpretation of the Patriot Act.
Last year, we filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act for records about the government's use and interpretation of one of the Patriot Act's most controversial provisions: Section 215. Some members of the Senate Intelligence Committee had suggested that the provision was being abused. "When the American people find out how their government has secretly interpreted the Patriot Act," Colorado Sen. Mark Udall said, "they will be stunned and they will be angry."
By Allie Bohm, Advocacy & Policy Strategist, ACLU at 12:00am
In April, ACLU of Colorado filed public records requests seeking to learn about their local law enforcement agencies’ policies, procedures, and practices for tracking cell phones, bringing the total count of ACLU-filed cell phone location tracking public records requests to over 400. (We’ve written about what we’ve learned nationwide here, here, here, here, and here, and our findings were featured in a front page story in the New York Times in April). What Colorado learned is particularly interesting because a remarkable number of law enforcement agencies in Colorado are getting probable cause warrants before tracking cell phone location information—Arvada, Boulder, Colorado Springs, Denver, and El Paso County always get warrants in investigative circumstances—and because Denver’s practices pretty much follow existing legislative proposals, proving these bills totally workable.
The next time you send an email or make a phone call to a friend outside the country, consider this: the National Security Agency could be making a copy of your communication and storing it.
By Kara Dansky, Senior Counsel, ACLU Center for Justice at 2:35pm
Last week, the Senate Homeland Security Committee’s Subcommittee on Investigations issued a report criticizing the Department of Homeland Security for its failure to ensure proper oversight over state and local “fusion centers.” Shortly thereafter, the committee issued a statement denouncing the report and lauding fusion centers as playing a “significant role in many recent terrorism cases.”
By Alexander Abdo, Staff Attorney, ACLU National Security Project at 2:27pm
Google's transparency report reveals that the U.S. government asked Google for data on its users 6,321 times during the second half of 2011—a 75% increase from two years ago.
By Devon Chaffee, Legislative Policy Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 11:37am
Yesterday 22 Members of Congress sent a letter to the Inspector General of the Department of Justice urging him to launch an investigation into the Federal Bureau of Investigation's improper recording and dissemination of information about the First Amendment-protected activities of American Muslims. Several of the members who joined the letter-including Representatives Pete Stark (D-CA-13), Anna Eshoo (D-CA-14), Sam Farr (D- CA-17), Mike Honda (D- CA-15), Zoe Lofgren (D-CA-16), and Barbara Lee (D-CA-09) -represent districts in Northern California in which FBI memoranda document the use of community outreach for intelligence purposes.
By Michelle Richardson, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 10:28am
Remember the George W. Bush warrantless wiretapping program? The one that was so illegal that Congress had to pass a special law to ensure that no one was prosecuted for it or sued by their customers for facilitating it? And was found by independent reviewers to be pretty pointless anyway? And was then brilliantly codified and written into stone by Congress? And which almost immediately went off the rails, being used to collect all sorts of stuff it wasn’t supposed to? It’s back!
