According to summary data provided to journalist and FOIA ninja Jason Leopold, federal prosecutors’ warrantless surveillance of phone location and internet records grew sevenfold in just the past three years in the District of Columbia. The demands, called “d orders,” were made under...
Imagine the following scenario: Your favorite pizza delivery place is a mom and pop local joint, but you have a really hard time ordering pizza from them. That’s because your phone company has an exclusive deal with Pizza Hut. Under the terms...
Russian-American journalist Masha Gessen has a must-read essay in the latest Harpers Magazine. Her final paragraph sums up our predicament nicely, and points us in the direction we need to go. The problems that are now impossible to ignore didn’t begin with...
Yesterday the ACLU of Massachusetts and attorney Jeffrey Pyle of Prince Lobel Tye LLP filed a complaint in Suffolk Superior Court seeking access to court records that have been under seal for over five years. The secret court documents pertain to a...
Mayor Marty Walsh and Police Commissioner Bill Evans have spoken out in defense of Boston’s immigrant community, pushing back against the xenophobic and racist rhetoric coming from our nation’s highest political office. Boston, our leaders want the world to know, is a...
The Salem News and Gloucester Times want state lawmakers to pass a law to regulate the government’s use of unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones. In an editorial published in both papers, the editors write: The possibilities for surveillance are endless with this...
This morning the Massachusetts state legislature’s Joint Committee on Public Safety and Homeland Security heard testimony in support of bipartisan proposals to regulate the government’s use of surveillance drones. The Vice Chair of the committee, Senator Michael Moore, introduced one of the measures,...
In early April 2017, the Trump administration killed Obama-era FCC regulations that would have prevented internet service providers like Comcast from selling sensitive customer information without explicit opt-in consent. In response, legislators in states across the country have introduced bills to fill...
A MassINC poll out today confirms that two-thirds of Massachusetts residents support treating substance use as a public health—not criminal justice—problem. An even larger margin supports ending mandatory minimum sentencing; only 8% of people polled said they preferred mandatory minimums to other...
A new report by the Fair Punishment project at Harvard Law School, along with the Immigrant Defense Project and the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, identifies concrete policy changes cities and states can take to protect immigrants and other oppressed communities, looking beyond ‘Sanctuary...