Divided Court Rules Baltimore’s Continuous Aerial Surveillance is Constitutional

17 11 2020
EPIC
Nov. 10, 2020
A divided federal appeals court has ruled that Baltimore’s use of spy planes to continuously surveil the city does not violate the Fourth Amendment. The technology, known as wide-area aerial surveillance, allows police to capture high-definition video and track the movements of pedestrians and vehicles over a 32-square mile area. Although the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals acknowledged “that there are aerial surveillance programs that would transgress basic Fourth Amendment protections,” the court concluded that Baltimore’s program “does not violate the Constitution” and “burdens privacy substantially less than a well-established staple of existing surveillance: security cameras.” Chief Judge Roger L. Gregory dissented, concluding that the Supreme Court’s decision in Carpenter v. United States requiring a warrant for cell phone location data also requires police to obtain a warrant for persistent aerial surveillance. Gregory explained that “Long-term, recorded surveillance of public movements uncovers more than temporary trailing by a suspecting officer; it reveals a person’s most intimate associations and activities.” EPIC filed an amicus brief in Carpenter v. United States and has long fought to limit drone surveillance and other forms of aerial spying.

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EPIC, Coalition Release Data Protection Plan for Biden Administration

17 11 2020
EPIC
Nov. 10, 2020
EPIC and a coalition of privacy, civil rights, and consumer organizations have released a policy framework for the Biden Administration to protect privacy and digital rights for all Americans. “Without laws that limit how companies can collect, use, and share personal data, we end up with an information and power asymmetry that harms consumers and society at large,” the groups said. “Individual, group and societal interests are diminished, and our privacy and other basic rights and freedoms are at risk.” The ten recommendations include: 1) recognizing privacy and surveillance as racial justice issues; 2) establishing algorithmic governance and accountability to advance fair and just data practices; 3) encourage enactment of a baseline comprehensive federal privacy law; 4) the establishment of a U.S. Data Protection Agency; and 5) bringing consumer, privacy, and civil rights experts into key government positions.

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DOJ Releases 2019 FOIA Litigation and Compliance Report

29 09 2020
EPIC
March 19, 2020
The Department of Justice has released the 2019 FOIA Litigation and Compliance Report which details the DOJ’s efforts to encourage agency compliance with the FOIA across federal agencies. DOJ updated the Guide to the Freedom of Information Act, with recent court decisions. The DOJ report also summarizes agency guidance, including the application of Exemption 4 after the Supreme Court expanded the definition of “confidential” information. On that issue, EPIC filed an amicus brief in Food Marketing Institute v. Argus Leader Media telling the Supreme Court that access to commercial records is critical for government oversight. EPIC celebrated Sunshine Week with the 2020 EPIC FOIA Gallery, highlighting important EPIC FOIA work from the past year, including EPIC’s case for the release of the Mueller Report, EPIC v. Department of Justice.

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CBP Failed to Protect Sensitive Biometric Information in Test of Facial Recognition Program

29 09 2020
EPIC
Sept. 24, 2020
In a report, the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General found that Customs and Border Protection failed to safeguard pictures of travelers obtained for a facial recognition pilot program, the Biometric Entry-Exit Program. The pictures were exposed in a data breach of a CBP subcontractor, Perceptics, LLC. OIG found that the CBP failed to undertake sufficient information security practices to prevent Perceptics from obtaining the data. At least 17 of the images were ultimately released on the dark web. EPIC leads an ongoing campaign to Ban Face Surveillance. In 2018 EPIC urged CBP to suspend its Biometric Entry-Exit Program. EPIC previously obtained documents on that program through a FOIA lawsuit.

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Appeals Court: NSA Call Metadata Program Was Illegal, Likely Unconstitutional

10 09 2020
EPIC
September 2, 2020

The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled today that the NSA’s bulk collection of phone call metadata violated the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and was likely unconstitutional. EPIC and a coalition of groups filed an amicus brief in the case, United States v. Moalin, arguing that call metadata is protected under the Fourth Amendment. “We hold that the telephony metadata collection program exceeded the scope of Congress’s [FISA] authorization,” the Ninth Circuit wrote. The court rejected the argument that individuals lack a Fourth Amendment expectation of privacy in call metadata simply because the data is held by phone companies. The public is “likely to perceive as private several years’ worth of telephony metadata collected on an ongoing, daily basis—as demonstrated by the public outcry following the revelation of the metadata collection program,” the court explained. The court cited to the coalition amicus brief and to the work of EPIC advisory board member Laura K. Donohue. However, the court declined in this particular case to exclude the unlawfully collected metadata as evidence. In In re EPIC, EPIC petitioned the Supreme Court to end the NSA’s bulk phone record collection program, which occurred with the 2015 passage of the USA Freedom Act.

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GAO Report: CBP Needs to Address Privacy Issues with Facial Recognition Deployment

10 09 2020
EPIC
September 3, 2020
A report by the Government Accountability Office found that Customs and Border Protection needs to address privacy issues with the agency’s deployment of facial recognition technology at ports of entry. CBP currently deploys facial recognition at 27 airports as part of their Biometric Entry-Exit Program. The GAO found that CBP has not provided adequate privacy notices or information on opting out of facial recognition to the public. Additionally, the agency has failed to implement a plan to audit privacy compliance by airline partners involved in the program. EPIC has previously explained to Congress and the CBP that its Biometric Entry-Exit program unfairly burdens travelers exercising their rights to opt-out of facial recognition. EPIC has called on Congress to suspend facial recognition at airports and earlier this year urged the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board to recommend the suspension of face surveillance systems across the federal government.


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What’s a Palantir? The Tech Industry’s Next Big I.P.O.

26 08 2020

Cade Metz, Erin Griffith and Kate Conger
New York Times
August 26, 2020

“Offering software — and, crucially, teams of engineers that customize the software — Palantir helps organizations make sense of vast amounts of data. It helps gather information from various sources like internet traffic and cellphone records and analyzes that information. It puts those disparate pieces together into something that makes sense to its users, like a visual display.”

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DHS Seeks to Transfer Personal Data to Census Bureau in Violation of Privacy Act

26 08 2020
Epic
January 7, 2020
The Department of Homeland Security has announced a plan to transfer detailed personal data collected from immigrants to the Census Bureau—an apparent violation of the Privacy Act. In a privacy impact assessment, published over the holiday break, the DHS revealed that it would provide names, addresses, social security numbers, and other highly sensitive data to the Census Bureau. Yet the DHS admitted that individuals weren’t aware their personal data would be obtained by the Census Bureau, that the data may be inaccurate, or used for purposes unrelated to the census survey. The proposed data transfer follows a July executive order by President Trump, who vowed that the government “will leave no stone unturned” when seeking citizenship information from every person in the United States. EPIC previously warned Congress that the executive order could undermine Privacy Act safeguards. In EPIC v. Commerce, EPIC challenged the failure of the Census Bureau to conduct privacy impact assessments before adding the (later withdrawn) citizenship question to the 2020 Census.

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How My Boss Monitors Me While I Work From Home

20 08 2020

New York Times
Adam Satariano
May 6, 2020

On April 23, I started work at 8:49 a.m., reading and responding to emails, browsing the news and scrolling Twitter. At 9:14 a.m., I made changes to an upcoming story and read through interview notes. By 10:09 a.m., work momentum lost, I read about the Irish village where Matt Damon was living out the quarantine.

All of these details — from the websites I visited to my GPS coordinates — were available for my boss to review.

Here’s why: With millions of us working from home in the coronavirus pandemic, companies are hunting for ways to ensure that we are doing what we are supposed to. Demand has surged for software that can monitor employees, with programs tracking the words we type, snapping pictures with our computer cameras and giving our managers rankings of who is spending too much time on Facebook and not enough on Excel.

The technology raises thorny privacy questions about where employers draw the line between maintaining productivity from a homebound work force and creepy surveillance. To try to answer them, I turned the spylike software on myself.

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https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/06/technology/employee-monitoring-work-from-home-virus.html

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Senate Amends FISA Reauthorization Bill, Sends Back to the House

19 08 2020
Epic
May 15, 2020

The Senate voted today to pass an amended version of the USA FREEDOM Reauthorization Act of 2020, which was passed by the House in March. The bill would end the NSA’s bulk telephone metadata program and make further reforms to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The Senate agreed this week to further amendments by Senators Lee and Leahy that expand FISA protections, but rejected amendments proposed by Senators Wyden and Daines that would have protected Americans’ internet browsing and search histories. The adopted Leahy/Lee amendment strengthens the role of “amici curiae,” who are independent, expert advisors to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, by increasing their access to information, their power to raise issues with the Court, and the number of cases they are appointed in. Since amendments were adopted, the bill now returns to the House of Representatives for consideration. Members of both parties have expressed support for reform of the controversial NSA surveillance program. EPIC closely tracks the use of FISA authority. EPIC has advocated for significant FISA reforms, and recently advised Congress to limit Section 702 surveillance and to allow Section 215 to expire.

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