Municipalities: Beware of Changes in Flock’s Legal Terms if You’re Using or Considering License Plate Readers | ACLU A flurry of Flock contract changes disempower customers

More reasons cities & towns should be waring of embracing driver mass-surveillance technology...
www.aclu.org/news/privacy...

Utah Passes Nation’s Strongest Digital Identity Bill | ACLU Legislation includes a “duty of loyalty” of participants in an ID system to individuals

Other states need to give this issue the thought and care it deserves before creating digital ID systems that will be used by big tech and other companies to track and control individuals
www.aclu.org/news/privacy...

All the Ways Palantir is Assisting Trump’s Abusive Removal Campaign | ACLU How culpable is the company for the constitutional and human rights violations of the deportation drive?

Ultimate responsibility for the Trump Administration’s immigrant kidnapping campaign lies with the Trump Administration itself. But just how involved is Palantir, and how should we judge its culpability?
www.aclu.org/news/privacy...

Drones for Intimidation | ACLU Despite talk of "drones for good" from boosters, we're seeing a new, darker law enforcement “use case” for the technology

We're hearing more examples of the use of drones for intimidation. That's exacerbated by an ongoing lack of transparency about drone flights.
www.aclu.org/news/privacy...

Ring Superbowl Ad Shows Americans How Powerful Surveillance Systems Have Become, Freaks Them Out | ACLU Think twice about sending video from your home to companies, and possibly police and hackers

Ring is just one piece of a larger picture: data collection devices owned by both government and private entities, centralized by private companies through cloud services, and subject to AI analysis that makes them far more powerful than they would have been even in the recent past.

America's 2 biggest taco chains have roots in this little-known Calif. spot Before Taco Bell or Del Taco, there was Taco Tia.

I grew up *near* the original -- and sometimes when I'm back home eat at proto outlet Taco Tia. But I do consider Cal-Mex my native cuisine and no, can't remember ever sighting an olive in any establishment in the region...
www.sfgate.com/la/article/f...

We’ve seen plenty of “show me the man, I’ll find you the crime” kind of abuse at the hands of the Trump Administration. But here's a reminder that such abuse can rear its head anywhere — and when it does, license plate reading programs are a natural tool for that...
www.aclu.org/news/privacy...

Airspace over Homeland Security Dept. vehicles is to be designated “national defense airspace.” How drone operators are supposed to comply with the changes @jaystanley.bsky.social reports is one question. But another…. “national defense airspace”? Over DHS vehicles? Via @faineg.bsky.social

Excellent point

Trump Administration Claims Sweeping New Power to Take Down Any Drone it Doesn’t Like | ACLU Baffling order is likely a move to block drone photography of DHS operations in violation of First Amendment

Under this ridiculous order, if ICE decides to drive underneath/near your drone with no notice, you could be liable for criminal charges and/or a $10,000 fine.
www.aclu.org/news/privacy...

Retailers Secretively Using Face Recognition to Spot “Persons of Interest” — Including For the Government | ACLU Are Wegmans and other retailers participating in the Trump war on immigrants?

Retailers using face recognition against their customers are taking government suggestions on who to alert against. This raises 2 questions:
A) Is this leading to construction of a nationwide look-out infrastructure?
B) Are these companies helping Trump's brutal and lawless immigration campaign?

Flock CEO Goes Ballistic on Critics as More Americans Question Mass Driver Surveillance | ACLU CEO attacks motives of people who care about privacy, says they are trying to “normalize lawlessness” and “let murderers go free”

Flock charges its critics with wanting to "see murderers go free" and "normalize lawlessness." But at this moment in history, it's not privacy advocates who are wanting those things...

www.aclu.org/news/privacy...

How to Give the Government New Power to “Un-Person” Someone, in Three Easy Steps | ACLU States That Adopt Digital Driver’s Licenses Need to Rethink How IDs are Revoked

The big push for state digital driver's licenses is effectively a movement to increase the power of big companies and government to control individuals.

Secure Messaging and AI Don’t Mix | ACLU A Privacy Failure Waiting to Happen

Using an LLM with your secure messaging service, as Meta proposes, brings new risks to the architecture that protects privacy and security.
www.aclu.org/news/privacy...

Agree it would be good if it expands the time law enforcement thinks about compliance. Let's just hope AI doesn't become a cheap shortcut that is used to justify *lessening* training time, as the ex-officer I spoke with worried would happen...

The AI Trapdoor Lying in Wait for Workers | ACLU “The pilots were well aware of which lever to pull. It was ‘human error’ that caused the mistake. But laying the blame on the pilots wasn’t ever going to solve the problem.”

We can debate the moral complexities of individual responsibility for the misuse of LLMs, but policymakers need to be realistic that lapses are inevitable and take steps to limit certain uses of AI.
www.aclu.org/news/privacy...

Another Police Use of AI | ACLU Axon’s “Policy Chat” product seeks to give officers guidance on department policies and procedures

"Basically, he said that it’s a tool that isn’t going to be used — and if it is used, then 'you’re failing in the training department, big time.'"
www.aclu.org/news/privacy...

Immigration Agents are Retaliating Against People Who Record Them | ACLU We’re filing a FOIA to find out how deep the problem goes

@ACLU demanding more information on violations of photographer's rights, including DHS policy directives, training materials, legal analyses, and communications
www.aclu.org/news/free-sp...

New Report Highlights How CBP and Border Patrol are Becoming a Repressive Internal Intelligence Agency | ACLU AP report reveals how the agency uses AI and mass surveillance across the nation to target, detain, and seize money from innocent drivers

Perspective on AP report revealing how DHS uses AI and mass surveillance across the nation to target, detain, and seize money from innocent drivers
www.aclu.org/news/privacy...

Your Smartphone, Their Rules: How App Stores Enable Corporate-Government Censorship | ACLU Big Tech Oligopoly helps the Trump Administration crack down on free speech

What happens when your device can only run what the government decides is OK? How we have gotten dangerously close to this kind of totalitarian control

Face Recognition and the ‘Trump Terror’: A Marriage Made in Hell | ACLU ICE and CBP are smashing their way not only through car windows but also through any constraints on the use of face recognition

A breakdown of the new “Mobile Fortify” face recognition program, including lists of
a) The reasons it’s problematic,
b) The vast array of data that the agencies can connect to
c) Some of the unanswered questions that remain about the program.

There’s Only One State That is Asking the Right Questions About Digital Identity | ACLU A digital ID system involves value-laden choices that should be made through explicit political discussion and debate

Utah is the only state where political leaders are thinking through the potentially disastrous effects of the current effort to create a national digital ID through the driver's license system.

Exciting news: you can now subscribe to an ACLU newsletter to keep up with with ACLU technology policy blog posts and other news! Subscribe here:
action.aclu.org/signup/free-...

Digital Driver’s Licenses Threaten to Create a “Great Internet Lockdown” | ACLU Two trends threaten the creation of an online identity infrastructure that would transform the internet

A bureaucratic wall is being built between Americans and the information they have a right to access
www.aclu.org/news/privacy...

Surveillance Supporters Tout Police Audit Logs But They’re Not an Effective Check and Balance | ACLU If an officer had just left the word "abortion" out of an audit log, a vital national story would never have come to light

We shouldn't get rid of police audit logs but we also shouldn't think they're worth more than they are

Biometric bracelets for prisoners | ACLU Invading privacy as well as "barking up the wrong tree"

Some US prisons and jails have started using non-consensual, non-removable biometric wrist straps on prisoners to monitor their pulse, blood oxygenation level, skin temperature, activity level, and location.

What does the ACLU think of this? I look at the issue in a post on our Free Future blog

Gun-Toting Police Swarm, Handcuff Young Black Man After AI Mistakes Doritos Bag For a Gun | ACLU Deploying AI in Inappropriate Ways Can and Does Get People Hurt

Appalling... apparently "military grade" AI has fallen short...

Flock Can Share Driver-Surveillance Data Even When Police Departments Opt Out, And Other Flock Developments | ACLU The company’s default agreement with police departments grants the company license to share people’s license plate data

News about the driver-surveillance company Flock just keeps coming in: findings from Massachusetts and Virginia, new deals with big companies, and more:

State Barcode Laws | ACLU State regulation of who may scan barcodes from driver’s licenses and what scanners can do with the data point the way toward vital protections against abuses of digital IDs

Digital driver’s licenses — now being built in many states — have a big problem that almost nobody is addressing: the threat of an explosion of ID demands from all quarters. There is a body of existing state laws that points toward a solution.

Sweeping Ban on Drone Flights Across Chicago Looks Suspiciously Like an Attempt to Ban Press Coverage | ACLU We can’t let government block drone photography of newsworthy events simply by claiming a need to fly their own aircraft in an area or claiming the existence of vague “security threats”

Generally people should have privacy from government, and the government should be an open book to the people — not the other way around.