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In a case with chilling privacy implications, the California Supreme Court recently held that police officers can search the entire contents of a cell phone whenever they arrest someone, no matter how small the suspected crime or how relevant the cell phone contents might be. Why? Because it's just like a backpack, according to the Court, and previous cases have stated that backpacks can be search... Read More

ACLU And Others Publish Open Letter To Public Officials Addressing Proposed Legislation And CensorshipNEW YORK – The American Civil Liberties Union and a coalition of free speech organizations today sent an open letter to public officials cautioning against the prosecution of third party publishers for publishing leaked government documents and efforts to limit the rights of individuals to view th... Read More

Your online activities say a lot about you: what you like, where you go, and even who you know. And companies are often eager to collect this kind of detailed information about you. So we're pleased that the FTC has joined the chorus calling for companies and lawmakers to give us all greater control over our own personal information.One of the key elements of the FTC's proposal is a "do not track"... Read More

Need to get directions when you are lost? Want to know if your friends are in the neighborhood? Location-based services–applications and websites that provide services based on your current location–can put this information and more in the palm of your hand. But navigating the complex web of privacy policies and settings for these services can be far more difficult. Read More

California voters came out in droves to support Proposition 19 this November. More than 4.1 million people voted for Prop. 19, which would have allowed adults 21 and older to possess and grow small amounts of marijuana for personal use and allow cities and counties to tax and regulate commercial sales. That's more votes than Meg Whitman or Carly Fiorina garnered. Though the measure didn't pass, th... Read More

Facebook and other online services evolve at a breathtaking pace. But these new tools and technologies can make it harder than ever to control our own information. We need to understand how our personal information is collected, used, and shared, and we need real control over that information—especially when it might be shared with many different parties.Today's Facebook announcements highlight th... Read More

Seattle – A federal judge ruled late Monday that government requests for detailed information about Amazon.com customers violate Internet users' rights to free speech, anonymity and privacy. The ruling came in a lawsuit originally brought by Amazon to stop the North Carolina Department of Revenue (NCDOR) from collecting personally identifiable information about customers that could be linked to th... Read More

Your Rights, Your School was the ACLU in California's video contribution to the Make it Better Project, which was launched in response to tragic suicides by LGBTQ youth in recent weeks. Youth have the right to a safe and supportive school environment. No one should suffer through bullying and harassment. Don't just wait for it to get better - let's make it better together!Watch the videoLearn more... Read More

This past weekend, the Wall Street Journal reported that the most popular Facebook apps consistently share information about you and your friends with advertisers and other third parties, no matter what your privacy settings are. This isn't the first time a significant and ongoing privacy invasion and violation of Facebook's own rules has been uncovered not by internal Facebook oversight but by an... Read More

If you have an Android phone, you've probably downloaded a few apps. And when you installed those apps, you were told a bit about what information those apps might access about you, things like your location information, phone number, contact and call lists, and more. That's a good start towards transparency… but wouldn't you also like to know what information your apps are actually accessing, how... Read More

Today, the ACLU will be in a federal court in Seattle arguing that the North Carolina Department of Revenue's (NCDOR) demands for detailed purchase information made by Amazon.com customers is an unconstitutional violation of those customers' rights to free speech, anonymity and privacy.The NCDOR asserted it needed this information for tax collection purposes, so Amazon responded by furnishing a li... Read More

On Wednesday, Facebook announced a set of changes to its user experience. Overall, these changes are clearly positive, addressing some of the issue we raised in an Open Letter to Facebook in June and re-emphasizing the company's principles of giving users control of their own information. We hope that Facebook will extend these changes to help address the "app gap" and further improve privacy and ... Read More