News & Commentary

Earlier today, state law enforcement officials sent a letter to Google re-emphasizing the importance of transparency and user control. We're glad to see more voices joining the call. The letter expresses concern about Google's 2012 decision to merge data from all of its services into a single collection.

Late last month, the ACLU of Northern California broke the news that California utilities were turning over the smart meter data of large numbers of customers to third parties—with San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) alone handing over the records of 4,062 customers in a single year. Based on SDG&E's responses to follow-up questions from the California Public Utility Commission (CPUC), we have now learned that records for 4,000 of those customers were disclosed to the government without a warrant.

A small silver lining to the PRISM scandal is that it has created the impetus for several large technology companies to finally start giving the public a glimpse into how the government is regularly dipping into their treasure trove of personal information. You may want to check out our handy new chart for a quick rundown of what's been said and done by which companies- from statements, to transparency reports, to more recent legal efforts by Google and Yahoo to push back against government secrecy (let us know if we're missing anything).

Amid recent revelations that the NSA has been secretly spying on phone records and the Internet activity of people in the United States, transparency reports filed by the California utilities companies and obtained by the ACLU of California show that a significant amount of data about the energy use of Californians is also ending up in the hands of third parties. In 2012, a single California utility company, San Diego Gas & Electric, disclosed the smart meter energy records of over 4,000 of its customers.

Today, we sent a letter to the Alameda County Sheriff asking him whether he plans to pursue his earlier-announced plans to acquire a drone. Budget documents we obtained through a Public Records Act request suggest that he is not planning to acquire a drone in Fiscal Year 2013-14. But a conclusive answer from his office would provide the public with the clarity and transparency it deserves.

The ACLU of California has joined 85 other leading privacy groups, academic institutions, and businesses to call on Congress to take immediate action to halt the secret spying by the National Security Agency (NSA) on phone records and Internet activity of people in the United States and provide a full public accounting of the NSA's and the FBI's data collection programs. See letter below and take action today!

In light of recent revelations that the Department of Justice secretly requested the telephone records of Associated Press (AP) journalists, we started thinking about newer calling services, like Google Voice. We know that some journalists also use these services. Are these records vulnerable too?

Today, a federal district judge in Arizona issued a very disappointing decision concerning the government's obligations to be candid with courts about new technologies they are seeking a warrant to use. The ACLU and the Electronic Frontier Foundation filed an amicus brief arguing that when the government wants to use invasive surveillance technology, it has an obligation to explain to the court basic information about the technology, such as its impact on innocent third parties. This is necessary to ensure that courts can perform their constitutional function of ensuring that the search does not violate the Fourth Amendment. Unfortunately, today's decision trivializes the intrusive nature of electronic searches and potentially opens the door to troubling government misuse of new technology.