The FBI is seeking bids for a smartphone app to enable agents to covertly record audio, store the data locally, automatically send the data to FBI headquarters, livestream recordings to other FBI agents, and display the GPS location of the agent recording...
In June, the Government Accountability Office released a report criticizing the FBI’s facial recognition programs as privacy invasive, untested, and secretive. The GAO report got a decent amount of coverage, particularly in the independent and tech press. Included in the report was a map...
Last week, Massachusetts State Police officials working in tandem with National Guard drug eradication agents flew a black helicopter above the Cape and Islands and then raided an elderly Martha’s Vineyard farmer’s property to seize his marijuana plants. The man, 81 year-old Paul Jackson,...
In conversations about civil liberties reform, we often come face to face with the inescapable fact that our world and our issues are interconnected. It’s not possible to fully address systemic racism in the criminal system without also addressing economic injustice. Drug...
According to documents disclosed to the ACLU, the Boston Police Department has never obtained a warrant to use controversial and highly invasive stingray cell phone tracking technology. The department claims that each time BPD officers used a stingray, it was in an...
There are two overarching goals in the fight for digital civil liberties: first, to establish privacy-protective legal rulings and statutes; and second, to make sure law enforcement and judges apply those standards throughout the criminal justice system. Oftentimes conversation about law reform...
Earlier this week, a New York federal judge became the nation’s first jurist to rule inadmissible evidence collected after Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) officials used a stingray, or cell site simulator, to locate a drug suspect’s phone, and by extension the man himself,...
The Boston Globe today released the internal policy that will govern the administration of the Boston Police Department’s body worn camera pilot program. The policy is pretty good, with the glaring exception of the BPD’s decision—most likely union driven—to allow officers to...
People across the country are protesting police violence and white supremacy. Over the past few days, hundreds have been arrested in cities across the nation, from San Francisco to New York City to Baton Rouge. Below are the two most important things protesters...
The Village Voice has published the results of an investigation into New York City’s ambitious new wifi system, called LinkNYC. Ultimately, there will be as many as 7,500 kiosks throughout New York’s five boroughs, providing passersby and residents with super fast wifi,...