By Kade Crockford, Director, ACLU of Massachusetts Technology for Liberty Project at 3:36pm
Yesterday Andy Greenberg of Forbes published some shocking information, courtesy of a FOIA project done by our friends over at the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC): US Customs and Border Protection is sharing our license plate information with private insurance companies, without any public debate or even forthright public disclosure.
The South by SouthWest Panel Picker has launched for the 2013 festival, and we need your help!
The ACLU has submitted two panel pitches (one and two) for SXSW Interactive, which will take place March 8-12, 2013 in Austin, Texas. (Wondering why the ACLU is going to SXSW? We work with policymakers, business and community members every day on issues related to privacy, free speech and emerging technology. And as we’ve done for the past several years, we’ll be at SXSW this year to make sure that privacy is on the agenda!)
By Adrienne Lucas, Legal Intern, Speech, Privacy & Technology Project at 3:32pm
Today the ACLU filed a lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act to force the FBI to release two memos guiding the bureau’s policy on GPS tracking. The memos were written in the wake of the Supreme Court’s January decision in U.S. v. Jones, which held that the Fourth Amendment applies when the government secretly attaches a GPS device to a car and tracks its movements. (See today’s legal complaint, our original FOIA request (made July 18), and a blog post we wrote about that request).
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 4:10pm
Today the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued a disappointing but fortunately narrow decision in a case involving warrantless tracking of a vehicle with a GPS device. The three-judge panel refused to exclude GPS tracking evidence under what’s known as the “good faith” exception, ruling that when the tracking took place, law enforcement agents reasonably relied on binding circuit court precedent in concluding that no warrant was necessary. The tracking happened before the Supreme Court issued its decision in United States v. Jones that GPS device tracking triggers Fourth Amendment protections.
Maryland may be positioned to lead the nation in tracking the location and movements of innocent people through Automatic License Plate Readers (ALPRs). That is why the ACLU of Maryland joined with ACLU affiliates in 38 other states to file public records requests seeking information about the law enforcement collection and retention of ALPR data. Maryland seems to be (or claims to be) one of the national leaders in the troubling centralized aggregation and storage of ALPR data, which raises significant privacy concerns.
By Linda Lye, Staff Attorney, ACLU of Northern California at 4:51pm
Today, the ACLU of Northern California went to court in two separate cases with the same goal: shedding light on the government's use of controversial and arguably unconstitutional surveillance techniques.
By Kade Crockford, Director, ACLU of Massachusetts Technology for Liberty Project at 12:31pm
Today the ACLU is launching a nationwide effort to find out more about automatic license plate readers (ALPR). By snapping photographs of each license plate they encounter—up to three thousand per minute—and retaining records of who was where when, license plate readers are fundamentallythreatening our freedom on the open road.
By Bennett Stein, ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project at 12:51pm
On Sunday, the New York Times published an extensive piece surveying the ways American universities are using their access to students’ information to tailor their college experiences. Universities collect a huge amount of data on their students—course selection and grades, past educational experience and standardized test scores, and other personal information. Austin Peay University analyzes a student’s data and suggests classes in which the student is likely to “succeed.” Arizona State University uses its data to identify students who are “off track” based on course selection and course results. ASU is also experimenting with using information on student swipes of ID cards around campus—at the gym, at the dining hall, at the dorm, at the library, etc.—to understand social ties. (Last week, my colleague Catherine Crump also wrote about universities experimenting with monitoring students’ internet usage to assess mental health.)
By Jay Stanley, Senior Policy Analyst, ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project at 3:30pm
The New York Times and Propublica jointlypublished an editorial last week entitled, “That’s Not My Phone, It’s My Tracker.” The authors review the sorry state of cell phone location privacy, raise and dismiss privacy-protecting options such as regularly removing the battery, or living without a phone, and conclude that what we should fight back linguistically at least, by calling these devices “trackers” rather than phones.
