Tag: ACLU

The ACLU and other civil liberties groups can continue their legal battle against a federal wiretapping law, now that a New York appeals court has reinstated their lawsuit. At issue is a 2008 federal law known as the FISA Amendments Act, which empowered the U.S. government to conduct widespread electronic surveillance on suspected terrorists. The ACLU's challenge had been previously thrown out ...

According to the ACLU (and most rational human beings), The Maryland Department of Corrections crossed a line when it demanded that Officer Robert Collins (who tells his story in the video after the break) turn over his Facebook password during a job interview. As part of the department's background check procedures, all new applicants and those seeking recertification are required to turn over ...

Share A California teenager who called his teacher a "fat ass" on Facebook has avoided punishment from his high school, thanks to the ACLU. In December, 10th-grader Donny Dunlap received an unusually large amount of homework from his biology teacher, so he decided to vent about it on Facebook. In a status update, the teen announced that the teacher is a "fat ass who should stop eating fast ...

If you were to record an encounter with the police, you might call it covering your ass. In Illinois, it's called a felony. The Midwestern state is one of three, along with Massachusetts and Oregon, to have passed eavesdropping laws that make it a crime to record a conversation without the consent of all parties involved. In Chicago, the law is drawing significant attention because, there, ...

Last week, a 17-year-old Pennsylvania student received $33,000 in settlement money from the Tunkhannock Area School District, which the student (and her lawyers, from the American Civil Liberties Union) accused of illegally searching her cell phone. The lawsuit was initiated in May, after the student -- named in court documents only as "N.N." -- had her phone confiscated while using it in class ...

The American Civil Liberties Union has recently launched 'Spy Files', a new website focused on illegal domestic surveillance. The site aims to make the extent of the government's spying on its own citizens public information. The information will include, "Freedom of Information Act requests, ACLU lawsuits and reports, and news accounts." The ACLU debuted the website along with a report showcasing ...

A high school in Allentown, Pennsylvania -- in the same district that originated the first criminal sexting case ever to reach a federal appeals court -- is now embroiled in yet another sexting lawsuit. A female student claims that Tunkhannock Area High School Principal Gregory Ellsworth confiscated her cell phone in January of last year, found nude photos that the girl had taken of herself and ...

digg_url ='http://www.switched.com/2010/03/23/tsa-wants-to-use-bluetooth-at-checkpoints-to-follow-fliers-phon/'; Share In an effort to make air travel more efficient, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is looking into tracking travelers' cell phones. Naturally, this has privacy advocates up-in-arms. According to USA Today, the TSA would install a small chip at the entrance and ...

After a teenage girl from Pennsylvania was caught sending topless photos of herself to her fellow classmates, then-District Attorney George Skumanick offered her the chance to avoid court time by taking a class on sexual harassment. When the 16-year old called his bluff, Skumanick threatened her with felony charges. The student, in turn, filed her own lawsuit against the D.A.'s office, eventually ...

Two teenage Indiana girls have sued their high school after the administration punished them for posting sexually suggestive photos of themselves on MySpace, the Associated Press reports. The ACLU, which is representing the two sophomores, argues that the school overstepped its bounds by handing down the punishment and, in so doing, violated the girls' rights to free speech. Attorneys with the ...

Yesterday, the Department of Homeland Security promised to introduce reforms to its practice of searching laptops at U.S. Customs checkpoints, reports the Wall Street Journal. At present, policy allows checkpoint agents to randomly search the electronic devices of anyone passing through customs -- U.S. citizen or no -- without probable cause, or the traveler's permission. Powerful entities like ...

Update: In response to Canada's Office of the Privacy Commisioner's yearlong investigation of Facebook's privacy policies, Facebook has announced that it will improve privacy controls for users. More after the break. In a surprising bit of news from CNET, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has taken issue with Facebook's treatment of its users' privacy. As anybody who's spent time on ...

The Child Online Protection Act (COPA) was passed in 1998 following a similar law that was struck down as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. COPA, which never went into effect, would have made it illegal for Web sites to make sexual or objectionable content available to minors. The challenge was handled by the ACLU on behalf of a coalition of writers, artists, educators, and the Salon Media ...

It was disturbing enough when the government was just listening in. Now privacy advocates are afraid the government may be tracking our every move through our cell phones. In November of 2007, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the Department of Justice (DOJ) to find out how widespread such tracking is. The DOJ didn't hand over the data, so ...