News & Commentary

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.