The Boston Police Department bought three drones without informing the City Council or the people of Boston. Officers were seen testing a drone in a low-income, community of color in Jamaica Plain. The Department doesn’t have a privacy policy to govern the...
Where do the candidates for Boston Mayor and City Council stand on policing, surveillance, and immigration? We asked them. On September 27, the ACLU—along with our coalition partners Muslim Justice League, Families for Justice as Healing, Digital Fourth, Council on American-Islamic Relations – Massachusetts, Jewish Voice...
Who needs local laws to require a transparent, democratic process before local police can buy new surveillance technologies? After a mysterious drone flight over a Jamaica Plain housing project, and the ensuing confusion among officials about exactly what happened, it’s clear Boston...
In mid-August, Donald Trump offended much of the country when he appeared to equate anti-fascist protesters with neo-Nazis. Last week, he pardoned the notorious Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who was convicted of criminal contempt after refusing to follow a federal judge’s order to...
The small town of Hanover, Massachusetts, population ~13,000, has become the first in the state to obtain a license from the FAA to fly a drone. According to media reports, the police and fire department plan to use it. I’m curious to...
The vast majority, or about 86%, of the over two million people locked up behind bars in the United States are under state or local control. They were arrested by state or local police, prosecuted by state or local prosecutors, sentenced by...
Tomorrow is Election Day—finally. There’s a lot at stake in this contest, but no matter who wins, those of us who care about civil rights and civil liberties will continue to have our work cut out for us. Here are three...
A breathtaking new report from the Center for Privacy and Technology at Georgetown Law School finds that one in two American adults is in a face recognition database. The numbers are so huge in large part because states are increasingly allowing the...
We’ve long known that the war on drugs is a major driver of not only mass incarceration but also excessive government surveillance and other Fourth Amendment violations. Here in Massachusetts, the latest example of government overreach in the war on drugs astounds:...
Police departments across the country have gone to great lengths to keep secret information about cell phone tracking and wiretapping devices known as “stingrays.” These devices, technically called cell site simulators or IMSI catchers, trick cell phones into communicating with the cops,...