News & Commentary

I received an email from AT&T today. Did you? It turns out that AT&T is revising its privacy policy to make it "easier to understand" and by the way, also to let us know that they want us to pay them with our money and our privacy, too. Unless we opt out, the company is going to start selling information about where we go, what we search for, what apps we use, and what we watch, to other businesses. On top of that, they want to send us advertisements based on our location, too.

Today, the ACLU of Northern California filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the Department of Justice to find out more about the federal government's use of a sophisticated surveillance tool used to track people's cell phones and commonly known as a "stingray."

You may not be familiar with companies like Datalogix or Acxiom, but you can bet they're familiar with you. These companies and other "data brokers" operate behind the scenes, collecting and selling information about almost every American household including employment history, recent purchases, and more. But while these companies are happy to sell and share your personal information with other companies and even the government, they aren't so interested in being upfront with you. We've supported the California Right to Know Act to address this information disparity, and we are glad to hear that FTC Commissioner Julie Brill is joining the call for transparency by proposing a new campaign called "Reclaim Your Name."

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.

This week, the United States District Court for the Northern District of California issued a terrific decision in our lawsuit against the FBI for records about surveillance of the Occupy movement. We hope that this decision will lead to the shining of some much-needed light on the FBI and its surveillance of political protest movements.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California this week was forced to file a lawsuit against Sacramento County officials after they failed to respond to requests for public documents. It's a case that underscores why it was so important that the state legislature last month backed off plans to weaken the California Public Records Act: the fact is that even with the law intact, it often takes going to great lengths to get access to information that should be readily available to the public.

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).

Marriage for same-sex couples is returning to California. Nearly five years after California voters, through Prop. 8, stripped same-sex couples of their freedom to marry, today the U.S. Supreme Court has restored that very same freedom. In Hollingsworth v. Perry, the Court ruled that opponents of same-sex marriage lacked standing to appeal a decision that struck down Prop. 8. Meanwhile, in the ACLU's case Windsor v. United States the Court struck down part of the Defense of Marriage Act, paving the way for married same-sex couples in California to receive all federal benefits, rights, and responsibilities.