Blog

In honor of Privacy Enhancing Technology (PET) and "James Bond Man from U.N.C.L.E. type spy stuff" being the themes of this year's DEFCON 19, the ACLU is serving up some special activities. Hope you will join us if you are in Vegas for DEFCON!Develop4Privacy Challenge Award Celebration- Friday Night, August 5, 6 p.m. – Main Event StageCome see whose mobile privacy app reigned supreme and won the D... Read More

By Allie BohmACLU National OfficeToday, 34 ACLU affiliates are filing 379 public records requests in 31 states around the nation, seeking information about how our local law enforcement agencies are using our cell phone location information to track us.Chances are you're walking around with a tracking device in your purse or pocket – a cell phone. Location data from your cell phone can m... Read More

Today, the House Judiciary Committee is voting whether to approve legislation that would create a sweeping new provision requiring Internet companies (email, cloud, social networking, and more) to collect and retain hundreds of millions of records about the identity of online users. The bill, HR 1981, the "Protecting Children From Internet Pornographers Act of 2011," – if only it were that narrow!... Read More

By Jay StanleyACLU National OfficeGeorge Washington University Law School professor Dan Solove is one of the preeminent law scholars working on privacy issues today. In his latest book, Nothing to Hide: the False Tradeoff between Privacy and Security, Solove translates his research and thinking into a succinct analysis intended for a general audience. Via e-mail, I recently asked Solove about... Read More

Google released its new transparency report this week, revealing that U.S. government demands for the personal information of Google's users, like chat records or emails, continue to rise. The report serves to emphasize the heightened importance of increased transparency about how often the government is accessing sensitive information about who we are, where we go, what we do and why. Read More

Catherine CrumpACLU National OfficeToday the Supreme Court announced it will consider whether the government may plant GPS devices on vehicles to track people without judicial supervision. In the case, United States v. Jones, the FBI and Washington, D.C., police attached a GPS device to Antoine Jones's car and tracked his movements continuously for a month. This case provides an excellent opportun... Read More

Yesterday, California lawmakers took an important step towards updating reader privacy for the digital age. The California Assembly Judiciary Committee passed the Reader Privacy Act of 2011 (SB 602) with a bipartisan vote of 8-2.The Reader Privacy Act is authored by Senator Leland Yee (D-San Francisco/San Mateo), co-sponsored by the ACLU of California and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and su... Read More

Yasir Afifi, a 20-year-old U.S.-born citizen, found a strange device attached to his car. When he posted a photo of it online, the FBI showed up at his home and wanted their GPS tracking device back. The FBI had been tracking Afifi's movements without a warrant. Read More

A Fact Sheet from the ACLU of California, Drug Policy Alliance and The Ella Baker CenterIt's time to reform California's sentencing laws. Californians are fed up with misguided policies that have packed our prisons & jails, drained our state bud­get and led to one of the highest rates of recidivism in the country.The recent Plata v. Brown decision from the U.S. Supreme Court requires the D... Read More

Catherine CrumpACLU National OfficeOn Friday, the ACLU of Delaware filed a brief with the Delaware Supreme Court arguing that law enforcement agents should not be permitted to attach a GPS device to a car without getting a search warrant. The brief explains that because GPS tracking is an invasive form of surveillance capable of revealing many private facts about a person, a lower court was correc... Read More

Students have a right to be free from unreasonable searches, and a right to keep their personal information private. This means that school officials rarely, if ever, have a right to search the contents of a student's cell phone or other electronic device.But that's just what happened at the Saint Lawrence Academy in Santa Clara. A student at the academy was recently suspended and placed on discip... Read More

By Christopher CalabreseWashington Legislative OfficeToday Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) took an important step toward giving all of us who live our lives online a measure of true digital privacy. He announced (via Twitter — not bad for one of the senior members of the Senate!) that he was filing the Electronic Communications Privacy Act Amendments Act of 2011. It may not roll off the tongue, bu... Read More