News & Commentary

Today, June 5, is the anniversary of Edward Snowden's dramatic revelations concerning the National Security Agency's (NSA) massive surveillance programs. On this and succeeding days, Snowden released formerly secret NSA records. These records contradicted the Obama Administration's benign assurances that NSA surveillance initiatives were confined to advancing legitimate security interests. Snowden's revelations, however, have left unanswered two questions: how valuable were these massive surveillance initiatives in uncovering terrorist plots and what uses were made of the intercepted information. Snowden's actions, moreover, were not unprecedented. In March 1971, anti-Vietnam war activists in the Philadelphia area broke into the Media, PA residence agency of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and stole thousands of pages of FBI records. That and in succeeding weeks these activists photocopied and released the pilfered FBI records to the media. These records documented the scope and illegality of FBI surveillance activities and how FBI officials exploited acquired information to "harass, disrupt, and discredit" targeted civil rights and anti-war activists (contradicting FBI officials heretofore benign characterization of their actions).  The break-in, preceding the so-called Watergate affair of 1972-1973, combined with further revelations of FBI (but also Central Intelligence Agency, CIA) abusive practices, triggered investigations conducted by House and Senate special committees in 1975-1976--investigations based on unprecedented access to not only FBI but also NSA and CIA records. The investigations confirmed how secrecy had enabled intelligence agency officials and the White House to abuse power, moving beyond a claimed "national security" purpose to contain political activists and their liberal and radical critics. This now-known history, and the unprecedented opportunity (a seemingly foolhardy burglary of an FBI office) highlights the need once again for an independent inquiry to ascertain the validity of Administration claims that NSA surveillance programs are legal and confined to advancing legitimate security interests.    

Congress finally had enough. Almost one year after the first disclosure about the NSA's abusive surveillance programs, the House Judiciary Committee made history on Wednesday when it

  The ACLU has long opposed the spread of government video surveillance in American public life. We published this piece,

The City of Greenfield Common Council approved a ordinance in April that puts the civil liberties of sellers of books and CDs to resale shops in jeopardy. While it may be well-intentioned, Greenfield's ordinance threatens the privacy rights of anyone trying to sell a long list of used items, including books and CDs, at commercial, resale establishments.

On Tuesday July 20th, the Wisconsin Supreme Court sidestepped the question of whether there are any constitutional limits on police use of global positioning system devices to track people in their cars. Instead, the Court decided that a court order obtained by the police in the case of State v. Sveum satisfied the warrant requirement of the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the Wisconsin Constitution.

The American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Wisconsin and the Electronic Frontier Foundation filed a friend-of-the-court brief with the Wisconsin Supreme Court on Friday urging the justices to find that, when the police place a global positioning system tracking device on a car to obtain information on its location and movements without a valid warrant, they violate the Wisconsin constitution.

There has never been a more urgent need to preserve fundamental privacy protections and our system of checks and balances than the need we face today, as illegal government spying and government-sponsored torture programs transcend the bounds of law in the name of national security. The ACLU's National Security Project (NSP) advocates for national security policies that are consistent with the Constitution, the rule of law, and fundamental human rights.

The ACLU has established the Technology and Liberty program which monitors the interplay between cutting-edge technology and civil liberties, actively promoting responsible uses of technology that enhance privacy and freedom, while opposing those that undermine our freedoms and move us closer to a surveillance society. While the issues of privacy rights and rapidly expanding technological innovations are very broad, the ACLU addresses the need for privacy protections in internet use, medical records and for workers, consumers and students. We also work to address ethics in biological technologies and scientific freedom. And the ACLU is historically best known for confronting government surveillance and wiretapping.