“Reverse searches” are a novel surveillance technique where the police can obtain records reflecting everyone who used a search engine to look up a particular word or phrase. In this case, the lower court approved the police using a reverse search, ruling that people do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy for any query they enter into a search engine. The ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project and State Supreme Court Initiative along with the ACLU of Pennsylvania filed an amicus brief in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court urging the court to reverse the lower court’s decision and hold that search history data is protected by the state and federal Constitution.

This amicus brief highlights the constitutional defects of a California law that purports to protect consumer privacy but is actually an impermissible, content-based regulation of online speech. The brief urges that this law should be struck down while emphasizing that the court should rule narrowly and leave paths open for other consumer privacy laws to withstand First Amendment challenge.

On January 9th, 2024, the American Civil Liberties Union filed its opening brief on behalf of the National Rifle Association (NRA) in National Rifle Association v. Vullo, a key First Amendment case before the Supreme Court this term. The brief argues that a New York state regulator’s attempts to blacklist a nonprofit advocacy group and deny it access to financial services because of its controversial viewpoint violated the First Amendment. This is a critically important First Amendment fight: if government officials can pressure the businesses they regulate to blacklist the NRA in New York, then officials in other states can punish other advocacy organizations in the same way–including the ACLU itself.

In a prominent defamation suit, the ACLU is urging a trial court to rigorously apply the First Amendment rule that statements of opinion are protected, so long as speakers share the facts that led to them. Without this First Amendment protection, unchecked defamation lawsuits would silence the critics of more powerful speakers, and stifle scientific discussions and academic inquiry.