ACLU

Court: Suspicionless Searches of Travelers’ Phones and Laptops Unconstitutional

Government Must Have Reasonable Suspicion of Digital Contraband Before Searching Electronic Devices at the U.S. Border

One of the FBI’s Major Claims in the iPhone Case Is Fraudulent

“We have enormous computing power in the US government, but we need to be able to bring it to bear without the phone killing itself.” – FBI Director James Comey, March 1 , 2016.

New documents reveal scale of US Government’s cell phone location data tracking

Thousands of previously unreleased records illustrate how government agencies sidestep our Fourth Amendment rights.

Flock Credibility Lost as It Repeatedly Lies to City Councils, Police, & Public

ACLU documents how surveillance camera company Flock has lied to local officials about its operations

FBI: If you knew what your phone company tells us, you'd probably sue

The Government is Silencing Twitter and Yahoo, and It Won't Tell Us Why

The government is using shaky legal arguments to silence major Internet companies without giving them – or the public – the opportunity to respond. In three separate recent cases, the government has sent a grand jury subpoena to Yahoo or Twitter and requested a gag order from a magistrate judge, attempting to bar…

Mysterious Planes Over Baltimore Spark Surveillance Suspicions

It all started with a simple Twitter query from a Baltimore man: “Anyone know who has been flying the light plane in circles above the city for the last few nights?” This was several days after the death of Freddie Gray in police custody, and the subsequent riots and protests. Pete Cimbolic, an aviation buff and…

Police Documents on License Plate Scanners Reveal Mass Tracking

Automatic license plate readers are the most widespread location tracking technology you’ve probably never heard of. Mounted on patrol cars or stationary objects like bridges, they snap photos of every passing car, recording their plate numbers, times, and locations. At first the captured plate data was used just to…

Meet Jack. Or, What The Government Could Do With All That Location Data

We now know that the NSA is collecting location information en masse. As we’ve long said, location data is an extremely powerful set of information about people.

Court Rules No Suspicion Needed for Laptop Searches at Border

Decision Dismisses ACLU Lawsuit Challenging DHS Search Policy as Unconstitutional...

New NSA Documents Shine More Light into Black Box of Executive Order 12333

What is arguably the most powerful of the U.S. government’s surveillance authorities is also the most secretive, and it operates with the least amount of oversight.

The FBI Is Breaking into Encrypted Devices – We’re Suing

We can't let the FBI keep the public in the dark about its ability to gain access to information stored on our personal mobile devices.

Judge Releases Information about Police Use of Stingray Cell Phone Trackers

A Florida judge has sided with the ACLU to order release of information about police use of “stingrays,” which are invasive surveillance devices that send out powerful signals to trick cell phones into transmitting their locations and identifying information. The Tallahassee judge’s pro-transparency decision stands in…

FBI: If We Told You . . . (Part II)

Yesterday, we posted a troubling explanation from the FBI of why it doesn’t want you to know whether your phone and internet providers are cooperating in the most expansive surveillance program that Congress has ever enacted: You might sue.

SCOTUS declines to hear challenge to warrantless pole camera surveillance

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court today declined to hear Moore v. United States, leaving in place a patchwork of lower court decisions on an...

The Privacy Lesson of 9/11: Mass Surveillance Is Not the Way Forward

Congress must ensure that the next generation of Americans is able to speak and associate freely, without fear of surveillance.

ACLU and EFF Sue Over Warrantless Phone and Laptop Searches at U.S. Border

Lawsuit on Behalf of 11 Travelers Challenges Searches of Electronic Devices as Unconstitutional

Amazon’s Disturbing Plan to Add Face Surveillance to Your Front Door

Recently, a patent application from Amazon became public that would pair face surveillance — like Rekognition, the product that the company is aggressively marketing to police and Immigration and Customs Enforcement — with Ring, a doorbell camera company that Amazon bought earlier this year.

Trying to Keep the Internet Safe from Warrantless NSA Surveillance

Next month, President-elect Trump will be handed the keys to the NSA’s vast spying apparatus. As a candidate, he supported mass surveillance of Americans’ phone calls, called for expanded spying on American Muslims, and even invited Russia to hack the emails of his political opponent. With these threats to privacy and…

Drone ‘Nightmare Scenario’ Now Has A Name: ARGUS

The PBS series NOVA , “ Rise of the Drones ,” recently aired a segment detailing the capabilities of a powerful aerial surveillance system known as ARGUS-IS, which is basically a super-high, 1.8 gigapixel resolution camera that can be mounted on a drone. As demonstrated in this clip , the system is capable of…

Pump the Brakes on Your Police Department's Use of Flock Safety

Even if you can’t stop Flock’s use entirely, you can still help protect civil liberties in your community.

Documents Shed Light on Border Laptop Searches

The case of David Miranda got a lot of attention around the world after UK authorities were accused of abusing an anti-terrorism law to evade the normal constitutional restrains on police power and question someone because of their political associations. Well, a very similar abuse of power appears to have happened…

The NSA Continues to Violate Americans' Internet Privacy Rights

A federal court will be scrutinizing one of the National Security Agency’s worst spying programs on Monday. The case has the potential to restore crucial privacy protections for the millions of Americans who use the internet to communicate with family, friends, and others overseas.

New TSA Policy May Lead to Increased Scrutiny of Reading Material

The TSA is testing new requirements that passengers remove books and other paper goods from their carry-on baggage when going through airline security. Given the sensitivity of our reading choices, this raises privacy concerns .

ACLU: ICE and CBP Are Secretly Tracking Us Using Stingrays. We’re Suing

The public has a right to know if and how often ICE and CBP are using Stingrays.

NSA Interception Infographic

Late Friday afternoon , the government asked the Supreme Court to dismiss our lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of a 2008 law gives the government unprecedented authority to monitor Americans ’ international emails and phone calls.

5 Problems with National ID Cards

The terrorist attacks of September 11have revived proposals for a national identity card system as a way to verify the identity of airline passengers and prevent terrorists from entering the country. For example, the Chairman and CEO of Oracle Corp., Larry Ellison, recently called for the creation of a national ID…