News & Commentary

A lawsuit pertaining to the use of license plate readers in San Francisco illustrates how dangerous it can be when police officers turn off their eyes, ears, and brains, and mistakenly rely on imperfect technologies to tell them who’s up to no good.

The ACLU has been working in states across the country on a variety of laws pertaining to law enforcement agencies and their power to gather and access information about us—including location tracking, drones, automatic license plate readers, and access to our electronic communications content. From my vantage point in the ACLU national office working with our state affiliates to advance legislation, I have a unique view of legislative battles taking place across the nation. And what I have seen is that regardless of the issue or the state, there has been one common theme in law enforcement opposition to the bills: they don’t want you to know what they’re doing.

At the urging of the Department of Justice, the U.S. Courts’ Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure is considering whether to bless procedures that would allow law enforcement to hack into computers, including by the use of controversial “zero-day exploits.” As Bloomberg News reported this morning, the proposed rule change raises privacy concerns. It has the potential to threaten internet security and to facilitate violations of the Fourth Amendment.

(Updated below)

Yesterday John Podesta, the president’s senior adviser, released a highly anticipated report addressing how the administration should tackle the challenges of big data in coming years. So how’d he do? Pretty well, actually. The report recognizes some important new realities and recommends some positive policy solutions for “a world of near-ubiquitous data collection where that data is being crunched at a speed increasingly approaching real-time.”

Updated 4/24/14

SPOILER WARNING: This post discusses major plot points of the new Captain America movie.

The ACLU of Arizona today sent a letter to the U.S. Border Patrol demanding that the agency immediately stop interfering with the First Amendment rights of the residents of Arivaca, Arizona, to protest and to photograph government activities that are in plain view on a public street.

Today, the ACLU and ACLU of Utah filed an amicus brief in support of a Utah paramedic whose Fourth Amendment rights were violated when police swept up his confidential prescription records in a dragnet search. Law enforcement’s disregard for basic legal protections in the case is shocking.