Facial recognition technology presents a serious risk to privacy and civil liberties because it can so easily be deployed covertly, from a distance, and on…
Sometimes In Class Action Settlements Plaintiffs Gain Nothing, But Risk Everything
When I refer to the Constitution’s “Double Jeopardy Clause,” people know what I mean. You can’t be tried twice for the same crime. Many have…
Offensive Cyber Operations and America’s Grand Strategy Mistake
The New York Times recently revealed a secret debate that has been taking place behind the scenes within the Obama Administration regarding whether or not to undertake…
New Reports Reveal Flaw in Government’s Justification for NSA Metadata Program
New reports from the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post reveal that the NSA’s collection of telephone call records under Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act is…
License Plate Readers – Will the FBI Ever Address Their Privacy Implications?
The FBI has been testing and using automatic License Plate Readers (LPRs) for years, yet recently received Freedom of Information Act documents indicate that they still haven’t…
Does the Fourth Amendment Protect International Packages?
According to a recent report by the German news site Der Speigel, the NSA’s elite hacking division, known as Tailored Access Operations or TAO, has worked with…
Failing Grade: Education Records and Student Privacy
Earlier this month at our Capitol Hill briefing entitled, “Failing Grade: Education Records and Student Privacy,” Senator Ed Markey announced plansto introduce new student privacy legislation. Senator…
Skipping Classified Briefings: Why Not Attending Makes Sense from a Functional Perspective
This past year, there has been a great deal of commentary, some of it derisive, regarding Representative James Sensenbrenner’s claim to have skipped relevant classified…
Reports of the Death of Consent Have Been Greatly Exaggerated
Consent in privacy law is dead, the victim of technological developments like Big Data and the Internet of Things–or so the new conventional wisdom goes.…
Barthes on FOIA
I recently revisited “The Death of the Author,” an essay about narrative voice by the poststructuralist critic Roland Barthes. In it, Barthes rejects the phenomenon often…