Fourth-Amendment

Institute for Justice Files Lawsuit Challenging Flock Safety Mass Surveillance as Unconstitutional

| Importance: 8/10

The Institute for Justice files a federal lawsuit on behalf of Norfolk residents Lee Schmidt and Crystal Arrington, challenging the city’s deployment of 172 Flock Safety automated license plate recognition (ALPR) cameras as an unconstitutional violation of the Fourth Amendment’s …

Institute for Justice Lee Schmidt Crystal Arrington Norfolk Police Department Flock Safety surveillance alpr fourth-amendment civil-liberties warrantless-surveillance +1 more
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Ring admits providing police with warrantless access to user footage 11 times in 2022

| Importance: 9/10

In response to questions from Senator Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Amazon vice president Brian Huseman disclosed in a July 1 letter that Ring had provided police with user camera footage on 11 occasions during 2022 without obtaining user consent or court warrants. Amazon justified these warrantless …

Ring Amazon Brian Huseman Ed Markey ring warrantless-surveillance police-access fourth-amendment amazon +2 more
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FBI Orders Apple to Break iPhone Encryption in San Bernardino Case

| Importance: 9/10

A federal magistrate judge ordered Apple to create special software to bypass security features on an iPhone 5C used by San Bernardino terrorist Syed Rizwan Farook, triggering the most public battle over encryption in U.S. history. The FBI sought to unlock the device after the December 2015 attack …

Apple Tim Cook FBI James Comey Department of Justice encryption privacy-rights tech-resistance apple fbi +2 more
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Apple Announces iOS 8 Encryption Makes iPhones Unlockable Even by Apple

| Importance: 9/10

Apple announced that iOS 8 implements encryption so strong that the company itself cannot unlock iPhones or iPads, even when presented with a valid search warrant. This represented a dramatic escalation in the encryption debate and a direct response to NSA surveillance revelations, fundamentally …

Apple Tim Cook NSA FBI encryption privacy-rights tech-resistance apple nsa-surveillance +1 more
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Supreme Court Rules Warrantless Cell Phone Searches Unconstitutional in Riley v. California

| Importance: 9/10

The United States Supreme Court unanimously rules in Riley v. California that police generally may not, without a warrant, search digital information on a cell phone seized from an individual who has been arrested. Chief Justice John Roberts writes the landmark opinion, declaring that “cell …

Supreme Court John Roberts fourth-amendment privacy surveillance mobile-forensics civil-liberties
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Federal Judge Rules NSA Bulk Phone Data Collection Likely Unconstitutional

| Importance: 9/10

U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon ruled in Klayman v. Obama that the National Security Agency’s bulk collection of American telephone metadata likely violated the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures. In a strongly-worded 68-page opinion, Judge Leon …

Richard Leon NSA Larry Klayman nsa-surveillance fourth-amendment judicial-oversight constitutional-law privacy-rights
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Guardian Publishes First Snowden Leak on NSA Verizon Phone Records Collection

| Importance: 10/10

Glenn Greenwald published the first article in The Guardian based on documents leaked by Edward Snowden, revealing a top-secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA) order requiring Verizon to hand over all telephone metadata to the National Security Agency on an “ongoing, daily …

Edward Snowden Glenn Greenwald NSA Verizon nsa-surveillance whistleblowing edward-snowden mass-surveillance telecom-surveillance +1 more
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FISA Court Finds NSA Surveillance Programs Systematically Unconstitutional

| Importance: 9/10

Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court issues classified ruling finding NSA’s warrantless surveillance programs violated the Fourth Amendment and FISA statute on a systematic basis. The court documented that intelligence agencies had misled judges about the scope and nature of surveillance …

FISA Court NSA Department of Justice Michael Hayden Keith Alexander +1 more fisa-court-ruling constitutional-violation nsa-surveillance warrantless-surveillance fourth-amendment
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FISA Court Judge Rejects NSA Warrantless Surveillance Expansion

| Importance: 8/10

FISA Court Judge Roger Vinson delivered a significant rebuke to the Bush administration by rejecting the government’s attempt to rewrite FISA statutes to permit expanded warrantless surveillance inside the United States. The government sought to stretch FISA’s definition of a …

Roger Vinson FISA Court NSA Bush Administration Department of Justice fisa-court judicial-rebuke warrantless-surveillance fourth-amendment constitutional-law +1 more
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New York Times Exposes Total Information Awareness Surveillance Program, Sparking Public Outcry

| Importance: 9/10

The New York Times publishes an investigative piece by John Markoff exposing the full scope of the Pentagon’s Total Information Awareness (TIA) program, a $240 million initiative that aims to create unprecedented mass surveillance capabilities by mining personal data from financial …

New York Times John Markoff DARPA John Poindexter Information Awareness Office +2 more surveillance privacy media investigative-journalism tia +3 more
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