The Stranger Unsealing
Update: As a result of the petition, the federal court and prosecutors agreed in 2018 to implement new docketing and reporting procedures that will allow for greater public access to the judicial records sought by The Stranger.EFF is representing The Stranger, a Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper, in a petition...
State of Maryland v. Kerron Andrews
State of Maryland v. Andrews is the first case in the country (that we know of) where an appellate court has held the Fourth Amendment precludes using a cell-site simulator (commonly known as a Stingray) without a warrant.
In the case, Baltimore Police used a Hailstorm—a device from...
In re Telephone Info (Koh)
A federal magistrate judge in San Jose, California denied a government request for historical cell site records, ordering the government to seek a search warrant for the information. The government appealed this order to U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh who requested the Federal Public Defender argue why the Fourth Amendment...
California's Electronic Communications Privacy Act (CalECPA) - SB 178
The California Electronic Communications Privacy Act (CalECPA), S.B. 178, requires state law enforcement to get a warrant before they can access electronic information about who we are, where we go, who we know, and what we do. Introduced by California State Senators Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) and Joel Anderson (R-Alpine),...
State v. Granville
Along with EFF-Austin, the Texas Civil Rights Project and the ACLU of Texas, EFF urged the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals to rule that a person has an expectation of privacy in the contents of their cell phone even when the phone is out of their control or custody.
...
Commonwealth v. Augustine
EFF filed an amicus brief with the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, asking it to rule police must get a search warrant in order to access historical cell site information. We argued that as cell phones and especially smartphones become prevalent, and the number of cell towers and cell sites increases,...
Washington state text message privacy cases
EFF urged the Washington State Supreme Court to recognize that text messages are “the 21st Century phone call” and require that law enforcement obtain a warrant before reading texts on someone’s phone.
In this case, police seized a cell phone during a drug investigation, and monitored incoming messages. Officers...
United States v. Andrew Auernheimer
Andrew “Weev” Auernheimer was convicted of violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act ("CFAA") in New Jersey federal court and sentenced to 41 months in federal prison in March of 2013 for revealing to media outlets that AT&T had configured its servers to allow the harvesting of iPad owners’ unsecured...
Commonwealth v. Rousseau
EFF urged the high court of Massachusetts to protect the rights of passengers in cars that law enforcement are tracking with GPS surveillance technology, arguing that both the driver and the passenger of a car have legal standing to challenge the collection of sensitive location data gathered by the GPS...
In re Appeal of Application of Search Warrant (Vermont)
In May 2011, EFF partnered with the ACLU and the ACLU of Vermont to urge the Vermont Supreme Court to authorize courts to impose limitations on the police's ability to search computers and other forms of electronic evidence.
In connection with an investigation into identity theft, Vermont investigators applied...