Pleased to share my essay on the role of state privacy law with Cal. law & its Cal. Privacy Protection Agency as a central example. State protections are always important; today they are a critical bulwark against federal overreach.
Many thanks, Yale J. Law Tech team!
yjolt.org/governing-da...
“Ambient AI listening in the hospital” what could go wrong
I'd be interested!
The case is still sealed on ECF, but: bsky.app/profile/jake...
Law school and university "leaders must realize that attempting to appease hostile powers will never buy permanent security, and that caving under political pressure will only undermine their institutions rather than save them." Well said, @gshans.bsky.social! ballsandstrikes.org/legal-cultur...
Portion of Bruce Fein's Response to Motion to Strike Appearance. It says: "Counsel does not dispute Mr. Pollack’s declaration or question the accuracy or good faith of his representations to the Court. Counsel makes no allegation of misrepresentation, improper motive, or professional misconduct by Mr. Pollack. Counsel fully accepts that Mr. Pollack has represented to the Court that, as of January 8, 2026, he believes President Maduro has not authorized Counsel to appear on his behalf. Counsel sought admission and entered an appearance in good faith based upon information received from individuals credibly situated within President Maduro’s inner circle or family indicating that President Maduro had expressed a desire for Counsel’s assistance in this matter. Counsel offers this information not as a factual contradiction of Mr. Pollack’s declaration, but solely to explain the basis for Counsel’s good-faith belief that an appearance was warranted to protect the Defendant’s right to counsel of choice and to ensure that the Court, not interested parties, definitively determines the Defendant’s wishes regarding representation. Counsel does not request the Court to adjudicate any dispute regarding the reliability or provenance of communications with President Maduro. Instead, Counsel moves the Court to conduct and in camera inquiry to definitively ascertain President Maduro’s representation wishes. Counsel has had no telephone, video, or other direct contact with President Maduro. Counsel respectfully notes, however, that President Maduro was apprehended under extraordinary, startling, and viperlike circumstances, including deprivation of liberty, custodial restrictions on communications, and immediate immersion in a foreign criminal process in a foreign tongue, fraught with the potential for misunderstandings or miscommunications."
The response is also 👀 storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
For what it's worth, the best gift I gave myself this year was becoming a paid subscriber to @404media.co. The team there is doing incredible journalism on a host of tech/surveillance/privacy/etc. topics. If you're interested in these topics or work on them in any way, it's an invaluable resource.
🫂 and 🥪
To be clear, I am a fan of government transparency and we should have more of it than we do. The people deserve to know what the government is doing. But asserting that the courts and Congress are part of the Executive Branch is not how to get the info. That's an argument for totalitarianism.
I really recommend folks read the opinion. It talks about the importance of the separation of powers and sketches out the history of how we got and why we have a Judicial Conference and an Administrative Office of the Courts. It explains the need and importance of each.
Today, we got an order in the case against the Judicial Conference and Administrative Office. I'm happy to say that (unsurprisingly) the court held that the Judicial Branch is not part of the Executive Branch. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
Image displaying 5 U.S.C. § 551(1), which says: "§ 551. Definitions. For the purpose of this subchapter (1) "agency" means each authority of the Government of the United States, whether or not it is within or subject to review by another agency, but does not include (A) the Congress; (B) the courts of the United States; (C) the governments of the territories or possessions of the United States; (D) the government of the District of Columbia; or except as to the requirements of section 552 of this title (E) agencies composed of representatives of the parties or of representatives of organizations of the parties to the disputes determined by them; (F) courts martial and military commissions; (G) military authority exercised in the field in time of war or in occupied territory; or (H) functions conferred by sections 1738, 1739, 1743, and 1744 of title 12; subchapter II of chapter 471 of title 49; or sections 1884, 1891–1902, and former section 1641(b)(2), of title 50, appendix."
Image of 5 USC § 552(f)(1), which says, "(f) For purposes of this section, the term (1) "agency" as defined in section 551(1) of this title includes any executive department, military department, Government corporation, Government controlled corporation, or other establishment in the executive branch of the Government (including the Executive Office of the President), or any independent regulatory agency."
The cases are odd because FOIA only covers "agencies," which is defined in 5 USC § 551 and 5 USC 552(f)(1). It doesn't even cover the entire Executive Branch, though it does cover most of it. And regardless, Congress and the courts are explicitly outside the definition.
I've been following a pair of odd FOIA cases in D.D.C. brought by America First Legal. The cases argue that the Government Accountability Office (which is part of Congress) and the Judicial Conference and Administrative Office for the Courts (which are in the Judicial Branch) are subject to FOIA.
It wouldn't have been possible without the students' tireless and hard work. I'm so proud of them and grateful for all they did this semester!
Automated license plate readers present a host of concerns about pervasive surveillance and drivers' privacy rights. But the issues are also complicated. We hope this report helps break things down so Iowans can better understand what is happening in their communities.
In the search logs we could locate, law enforcement justified searches by writing things like "sus," "suspicious activity," "terrorism," "snitch," "unwanted person," "Romanian scammers," and "Operation Homeless Intel," among others.
Between Nov. 7 and Dec. 8, those 19 jurisdictions alone have detected/taken pictures of more than 4.2 million vehicles.
In our research, we identified 19 public transparency portals from agencies in Iowa that have Flock cameras. Over the last month, those 19 agencies have shared their ALPR data with 62 agencies in Iowa alone. They've shared their data with dozens of agencies outside the state too.
Of the agencies that responded to our request, Cedar Rapids has the largest number of ALPR cameras with 76. West Des Moines has 64 cameras. Clinton County has 58.
Flock Safety is the largest vendor of ALPRs (at least to government agencies) in the state. They sell ALPRs to 27 of the agencies we surveyed. Axon has contracted with 7 of the agencies and Motorola with another 4.
Most of the agencies we sent requests to shared information with us, though a small group did not. And we learned a ton from what was disclosed.
The students requested records about automated license plate readers from 48 agencies across Iowa. Cities, towns, counties, rural areas. They wanted to get a better sense of what is happening on the ground across the state.
I am so incredibly proud of the work my students did on this @acluofiowa.bsky.social report about automated license plate readers in Iowa. www.aclu-ia.org/publications...
We are launching a Justice Initiatives Division within Free Law Project focused on turning open law into real-world impact.
Our goal is to fill the voids in the legal system that lead to gaps in fair justice.
This is a big one. 🧵 free.law/2025/12/01/j...
@chrisgeidner.bsky.social pulled the key parts of the opinion from earlier this week out.
NEW: DHS secretly obtained Chicago police data on 900 residents accused of gang ties. It was quietly deleted after intelligence officers violated rules against domestic spying.
The handoff came well after city inspectors formally announced CPD's gang data was deeply flawed and infected w/ bias.
I don’t know, man. Why are we baking this into legal practice like we’ve established it’s better than the world we have now
"[T]he innocence of basic questions around criminal propensity is only skin deep."
Sitting with @cbo.bsky.social's excellent reflections on the legacy of the "Crime Gene Conference" this morning. I encourage you to do the same.
undark.org/2025/10/16/o...
We are thrilled to announce that our NEW Large Language Model will be released on 11.18.25.
FAA has issued MASSIVE temporary flight restriction which prohibits drones (i.e., photography) over Chicago.
They did similar around federal buildings in Los Angeles since June protests, but really no comparison...
Chicago's TFR covers 900x more area than ones in LA! 🧵👇
tfr.faa.gov/tfr3/?page=d...
