PRIVACY + SECURITY BLOG

News, Developments, and Insights

high-tech technology background with eyes on computer display

Should Celebrities Have Privacy? A Response to Jennifer Lawrence

by Daniel J. Solove In a recent AP story, actress Jennifer Lawrence had some rather extensive and passionate quotes about her loss of privacy. Not too long ago, Lawrence’s nude photos were stolen and leaked on the Internet by a hacker who hacked into her iCloud account. In her comments for the AP story, she […]

Does the U.S. Supreme Court’s Decision on the 4th Amendment and Cell Phones Signal Future Changes to the Third Party Doctrine?

by Daniel J. Solove Today, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a decision on two cases involving the police searching cell phones incident to arrest. The Court held 9-0 in an opinion written by Chief Justice Roberts that the Fourth Amendment requires a warrant to search a cell phone even after a person is placed […]

United States v. Jones and GPS Surveillance

Location Privacy 02a

The Supreme Court has long held that there is no expectation of privacy in public for the purposes of the Fourth Amendment.  Because the Fourth Amendment turns on the existence of a reasonable expectation of privacy, the Court’s logic means that the Fourth Amendment provides no protection to surveillance in public.  In United States v. Jones, the […]

GPS Surveillance and the Fourth Amendment: Thoughts on United States v. Jones

In United States v. Jones, FBI agents installed a GPS tracking device on Jones’ car and monitored where he drove for a month without a warrant.  Jones challenged the warrantless GPS surveillance as a violation of the Fourth Amendment.  The D.C. Circuit agreed with Jones.

Nothing to Hide: The False Tradeoff Between Privacy and Security

Nothing to Hide

I’m pleased to announce the publication of my new book, NOTHING TO HIDE: THE FALSE TRADEOFF BETWEEN PRIVACY AND SECURITY (Yale University Press, May 2011).  Here’s the book jacket description:

More Fun with the Airline Screening Playset: Body Imaging X-Ray Edition!

Airline Screening Playset Playmobil Set 01

I’ve been following the recent controversy over the TSA’s body imaging X-ray machines, otherwise known as the “backscatter” or “exhibit-yourself-in-the-nude” devices.  It made me reminisce about an old post I wrote about the Playmobil airline screening playset. I had not used the playset for a while.  Five long years have elapsed since my post, and […]

The New FISA Amendments and Immunity for Telecommunications Companies

NSA Surveillance

For the past several months, Congress has been wrangling over how to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to allow for the NSA warrantless surveillance program. The fact that the NSA surveillance program was clearly illegal — even under charitable creative dubiously-plausible fantastical interpretations of the law — seems to have quickly been forgotten. The […]