News & Commentary

In March of this year, Peoria resident Jon Daniel set up a satire Twitter account using the name of the town’s elected mayor, Jim Ardis. Using slang and swearwords, Daniel then tweeted a series of jokes. No one in their right mind would have thought this naughty, unprofessional account was actually that of the elected Mayor. That’s why it was funny.

Cell site simulators, also known as "stingrays," are devices that trick cellphones into reporting their locations and identifying information. They do so by mimicking cellphone towers and sending out electronic cues that allow the police to enlist cellphones as tracking devices, thus revealing people's movements with great precision. The equipment also sends intrusive electronic signals through the walls of private homes and offices, learning information about the locations and identities of phones inside. Initially the domain of the National Security Agency (NSA) and other intelligence agencies, the use of stingrays has trickled down to federal, state and local law enforcement. In one Florida case, a police officer explained in court that he "quite literally stood in front of every door and window" with his stingray to track the phones inside a large apartment complex.

In a tremendous step forward for our right to privacy under the Fourth Amendment, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals has held in United States v. Quartavious Davis that police need a warrant to obtain historical cell phone location information from a cell service provider. The ACLU filed an amicus brief in the case, along with the ACLU of Florida, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Center for Democracy & Technology, and National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. In April, I argued the cell phone tracking issue before a three-judge panel of the court.

This piece originally ran at The Huffington Post.

It was spring of 1997. After being introduced by a mutual friend, my sorority sister, during our sophomore year of college, April and I found ourselves inseparable. There was an immediate strong emotional connection. This bond was the beginning of a friendship that soon turned into a loving relationship.

In an era of too-big-to-fail banks, we should have known it was coming: An intelligence agency too big to rein in — and brazen enough to say so.

Today's signing of a Florida law allowing young undocumented immigrants and U.S. citizen children of immigrant parents to pay the same tuition rate as every other Florida resident represents a truly remarkable achievement. It will change the lives of young immigrants like Carlos, who is twenty years old, undocumented, and comes from a family of agricultural workers.

This blog was posted on The Washington Post.
The new ro

The housing price tide may be rising, but it's failing to lift up many in our communities of color.