Blog

There are some things you won't be able to avoid when the new school year starts up. Homework. Pop quizzes. Final exams.But one thing you shouldn’t have to do is let your school search your phone.Under California law, school officials cannot search your phone, tablet, or laptop unless they have a search warrant, there is a legitimate emergency (like a bomb threat), or you say it’s OK. No snooping ... Read More

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has launched a “Traveler Verification Service” (TVS) that envisions applying face recognition to all airline passengers, including U.S. citizens, boarding flights exiting the United States. This system raises very serious privacy issues.

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We’re suing the Justice Department to disclose when the government tells people it electronically spied on them. 

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ICE obtained a warrant to track and locate the cell phone of an immigrant from El Salvador who the government believed to be removable from the country. This is the first evidence we’ve seen of ICE using a Stingray in a specific immigration enforcement operation, but we’ve known for some time that the agency possesses the technology.

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In late February, Aaron Gach was returning to the United States from Brussels. An artist and activist, he had been abroad exhibiting works about mass incarceration, government control, and political dissent. In his pocket was a smartphone.    During a customs inspection at San Francisco International Airport, officers with Customs and Border Protection forced Aaron to submit to an i... Read More

It’s essential for people to be able to communicate about issues that they care about. That’s why it's alarming that AB 165 has been introduced in the CA Legislature that would gut essential protections in public schools.

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Donald Trump told the American public, repeatedly, that upon taking office his policy agenda will include efforts to identify and immediately deport millions of undocumented immigrants, to track and surveil Muslims throughout the country, and to push for even more aggressive policing against communities of color. He may play fast and loose with facts, but when it comes to his&n... Read More

When Donald Trump takes the oath of office, he will inherit an unprecedented surveillance state that includes expansive powers and databases filled with information on millions of people. Read More

As of this week, Twitter has made sure that federally funded fusion centers can no longer use a powerful social media monitoring tool to spy on users. After the ACLU of California discovered the domestic spy centers had access to these tools, provided by Dataminr (a company partly owned by Twitter), Dataminr was forced to comply with Twitter’s clear rule prohibiting use of data for surveillance.&n... Read More

On January 20, President Obama will hand Donald Trump the keys to the surveillance state. What can you do to protect against government spying? Read More

The ACLU of California has obtained records showing that Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram provided user data access to Geofeedia, a developer of a social media monitoring product that we have seen marketed to law enforcement as a tool to monitor activists and protesters.We are pleased that after we reported our findings to the companies, Instagram cut off Geofeedia’s access to public user posts, a... Read More

It goes without saying that speaking out against police violence or government overreach shouldn’t land you in a surveillance database. But it can, and it does.The ACLU of California has received thousands of pages of public records revealing that law enforcement agencies across the state are secretly acquiring social media spying software that can sweep activists int... Read More