NEW: We filed an amicus brief asking the Supreme Court to ban police from using geofence warrants, which forces tech companies to hand over location data for everyone in a certain area during a certain time.
These invasive searches ensnare innocent people and violate our Fourth Amendment rights.
It's important that lawmakers are demanding answers here. Every user of social media (including our clients in the cases we've filed) deserves to know whether companies are stepping up to protect them or selling them out to a repressive government.
“With these subpoenas, the government is intimidating anonymous social media users who are documenting ICE in their communities. Companies are capitulating to demands instead of fighting illegal subpoenas in court,” said ACLU attorney @snowjake.bsky.social.
The ACLU (including my team) has filed multiple actions to block subpoenas sent by DHS to identify people speaking out against its abuses.
Today's NYT story shows that those cases are the tip of the iceberg: DHS has sent HUNDREDS of subpoenas to tech companies. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/13/t...
The Department of Homeland Security is abusing administrative subpoenas to terrorize people and stop them from speaking out. www.washingtonpost.com/investigatio...
WOW @nicoleozer.bsky.social, a brilliant privacy scholar and leader (and my former boss), has been appointed to the board of @calprivacy.bsky.social. This is ✨amazing news✨ for Californians' privacy. cppa.ca.gov/announcement...
Subscribe to my new ~biweekly newsletter, Tech Shadow Work, where I will write about the unspoken "shadow" behind tech policy discourse: rebeccawilliams.info/welcome-to-t...
It’s been quite a year. Here’s a look back at some of the work we’re most proud of in 2025.
When you must accept surveillance as a condition of receiving a service (including housing): “It’s not convenience; it’s coercion.”
BREAKING: @aclu-norcal.bsky.social, Lieff Cabraser, and Tobener Ravenscroft just sued San Francisco landlords over AI-powered surveillance in people's homes.
Our homes are the last refuge of privacy. What happens there is none of your landlord's business.
www.aclunc.org/news/aclu-su...
BREAKING: @aclu-norcal.bsky.social, Lieff Cabraser, and Tobener Ravenscroft just sued San Francisco landlords over AI-powered surveillance in people's homes.
Our homes are the last refuge of privacy. What happens there is none of your landlord's business.
www.aclunc.org/news/aclu-su...
VICTORY: DHS has withdrawn its subpoena demanding the identities of anonymous Instagram users who posted about ICE raids in LA. The First Amendment protects your right to record police, to share those recordings, and do so anonymously. @snowjake.bsky.social @aclu.org
Today @aclu-norcal.bsky.social and @eff.org filed a lawsuit on behalf of non-profit advocacy groups challenging San Jose’s warrantless searches as violating the California Constitution’s protections against unreasonable searches and right to privacy.
www.aclunc.org/news/lawsuit...
The San Jose PD regularly conducts warrantless searches through its massive license plate reader database, allowing it to reconstruct detailed maps of a person’s movements through the City going back as far as a year. This poses a serious threat to communities’ privacy and freedom of movement.
Your boy has plans, I have plans too.
The case challenged UCLA's decision to dismantle the Palestine Solidarity Encampment, arguing that it violated the plaintiffs' constitutional right to free expression and that the unlawful assembly declaration that caused the arrests of 200+ people at the Encampment was unconstitutional.
BREAKING NEWS: A judge this morning allowed the lawsuit by @aclusocal.bsky.social & Walkup Melodia against the UC Regents on behalf of Palestine solidarity activists from UCLA (2 students and 2 faculty members) to proceed, marking an important preliminary victory for student speech on CA campuses.
A man was arrested for playing Darth Vader's theme music, "The Imperial March," behind National Guard troops walking through Logan Circle.
Now the ACLU is suing on his behalf. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
Good to be a part of this litigation team.
We at @aclu-norcal.bsky.social and @aclupa.org filed this motion to protect people exercising their First Amendment rights to speak out anonymously. These summonses are intolerable abuses of power by DHS.
The court JUST ordered Meta not to reveal anything to DHS until further notice.
If you're going out to protest this weekend and wondering how to protect yourself from digital surveillance, @aclu-norcal.bsky.social has a video for you (featuring, yes, me).
We draw heavily from @eff.org's fantastic Surveillance Self Defense resource, available here: ssd.eff.org/module/atten...
📢 BREAKING NEWS 📢
EFF and co-counsel have filed a lawsuit against the Departments of State and Homeland Security for their viewpoint-based surveillance and suppression of First Amendment-protected speech online. (1/5)
The legendary parking pass for Nobel Laureates is both immense and hilarious.
Today, Prof. John Clarke at UC Berkeley (who is, full disclosure, my father-in-law) won the Nobel Prize in Physics!
He also spoke out about how the Trump administration's cuts would "cripple science" and take a decade to rebuild.
DHS subpoenaed Meta for information about an account that posts names and images of the ICE agents raiding our communities, but @aclu-norcal.bsky.social and advocates are pushing back.
Recording federal agents while on duty in public — and sharing that information — is our First Amendment right.
A HUGE WIN!
“From Day 1, Secretary Noem acted with a sole intent of stripping TPS holders of their legal status whether or not there was a basis for it. This decision recognizes the illegality of that. As a result, TPS protections should go back into effect immediately.”
— Emi MacLean, ACLU NorCal
"This decision is further confirmation that the administration's paramilitary invasion of Los Angeles violated the Constitution and caused irreparable injury across the region."
More on our win from this evening: www.aclusocal.org/en/press-rel...
"To them, if you are brown, they will hunt you down. To them, if you have dark skin, they will take you in." @mtajsar.bsky.social
laist.com/news/politic...
This is great — here in California, this change will help prevent out-of-state agencies and ICE from tracking drivers, including abortion-seekers and immigrants.
Flock points to a CA law that prohibits local/state agencies from sharing this info across state lines. A thread on how that came to be🧵
A fist rapidly made contact with a face, raising punching concerns.
