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 Catherine Crump, Staff Attorney, ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project at 3:25pm
Yesterday the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals issued an unfortunate and legally incorrect decision holding that the Fourth Amendment provides no protection against warrantless cell phone tracking. Although couched in language stating narrowly that the Constitution does not protect criminals’ “erroneous expectations regarding the undetectability of their modern tools,” the impact of the opinion sweeps far more broadly, holding that the innocent as well as the guilty lack Fourth Amendment protection in cell phone location information. This is wrong, for a number of reasons.
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.)
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 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 6:02pm
Apple has finally responded to the revelation that iPhone and iPads keep records of their users' whereabouts. We're glad that Apple has promised to change this practice. At the same time, nobody should think of this dust-up as some overblown quirk or mere bug, as Apple has portrayed it. This incident should be a wakeup call to Americans that we need to demand greater transparency and accountability from the companies that collect and use our personal information.
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 Jay Stanley, Senior Policy Analyst, ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project at 4:30pm
If we do not limit the use of automated license plate readers, it will represent a significant step toward the creation of a surveillance society in the United States.
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.
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.
