News & Commentary

Judge Walker of the Northern District of California heard arguments yesterday on the ACLUs of California case against Verizon for allegedly providing the NSA with California customers' phone records without their consent and without a warrant, court order, or legal process.

The online social networking service Facebook is a popular way to build and maintain groups of friends, family, and colleagues online. Many of the site's users post photo albums of their lives for friends and family. Even more include significant personal information on their own individual profile page- information such as age, relationship status, hobbies, job information, and even address and phone number.

In May and June of this year, we had several blog posts about privacy concerns associated with the new Google Street View service. See here.

The Street View photographs included identifiable people and license plates and the procedures for requesting take-down of that information was more difficult than it should have been.

There was not a direct link from the image to request take-down and Google asked for a significant amount of personal information in order to complete the process and show that you were the actual person or owner of the car that was photographed. See here.

San Francisco – California cities are moving quickly to install video surveillance cameras on public streets and plazas without regulations, with little or no public debate, and without an evaluation of their effectiveness, according to an ACLU report released today.

The public overflowed the courtroom and late-comers filed into an adjoining video room, members of the press hovered around the courthouse, and oral argument lasted an hour and forty five minutes- that was the scene yesterday afternoon as the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals heard the government's appeal in Hepting v. AT&T.

The outcome in the lawsuit Hepting v. AT&T, being heard today by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, will be important to the various challenges to illegal spying of Americans.

Under the Watchful Eye: The Proliferation of Video Surveillance Systems in California (Full Report)Under the

EarthLink announces halt on new municipal wireless build-outs- San Francisco plan may be delayed.

Washington, DC - The American Civil Liberties Union today applauded the failure of an amendment offered to the Department of Homeland Security appropriations bill that would have authorized $300 million of federal funding for states to implement the Real ID driver's license program, which has been estimated by DHS to cost $23.1 billion. The ACLU deemed the proposal "sucker money" because it aimed to entice states to accept a paltry amount of funding for a flawed program that would ultimately cost millions more in state taxes and licensing fees.