Jay Stanley

Surveillance Supporters Tout Police Audit Logs But They’re Not an Effective Check and Balance | ACLU If an officer had just left the word "abortion" out of an audit log, a vital national story would never have come to light

We shouldn't get rid of police audit logs but we also shouldn't think they're worth more than they are

Biometric bracelets for prisoners | ACLU Invading privacy as well as "barking up the wrong tree"

Some US prisons and jails have started using non-consensual, non-removable biometric wrist straps on prisoners to monitor their pulse, blood oxygenation level, skin temperature, activity level, and location.

What does the ACLU think of this? I look at the issue in a post on our Free Future blog

Gun-Toting Police Swarm, Handcuff Young Black Man After AI Mistakes Doritos Bag For a Gun | ACLU Deploying AI in Inappropriate Ways Can and Does Get People Hurt

Appalling... apparently "military grade" AI has fallen short...

Flock Can Share Driver-Surveillance Data Even When Police Departments Opt Out, And Other Flock Developments | ACLU The company’s default agreement with police departments grants the company license to share people’s license plate data

News about the driver-surveillance company Flock just keeps coming in: findings from Massachusetts and Virginia, new deals with big companies, and more:

State Barcode Laws | ACLU State regulation of who may scan barcodes from driver’s licenses and what scanners can do with the data point the way toward vital protections against abuses of digital IDs

Digital driver’s licenses — now being built in many states — have a big problem that almost nobody is addressing: the threat of an explosion of ID demands from all quarters. There is a body of existing state laws that points toward a solution.

Sweeping Ban on Drone Flights Across Chicago Looks Suspiciously Like an Attempt to Ban Press Coverage | ACLU We can’t let government block drone photography of newsworthy events simply by claiming a need to fly their own aircraft in an area or claiming the existence of vague “security threats”

Generally people should have privacy from government, and the government should be an open book to the people — not the other way around.

Surveillance, AI, and airline ticket prices:

hasbrouck.org/blog/archive...

@jaystanley.bsky.social

Surveillance Businesses Have Human Rights Responsibilities | ACLU The Trump Administration's immigration abuses are human rights violations

There are a growing number of companies that are engaging in mass surveillance that could prove useful to the Trump Administration’s efforts to target immigrants. They have human rights responsibilities.

Digital Driver’s Licenses Could Make “Surveillance Pricing” Much Easier for Companies | ACLU The coming battles over being identified versus not being identified

The coming battles over being identified versus not being identified

“Surveillance Pricing” Hurts Consumers, Incentivizes More Corporate Spying on Them | ACLU Those hurt the most are those who can least afford it

We are certainly not the ones whose power increases when companies crunch data with AI to individually set the prices they charge us.

Open vs. Closed: The Battle for the Future of Language Models | ACLU Will Language Models Foster Freedom or Authoritarianism? (part 4 in a series)

A look at the prospects for, and reasons to support, open source LLM models and research
www.aclu.org/news/privacy...

Autonomous Drone Patrols Start to Become a Thing | ACLU Edging toward police drone dystopias

It's not hard to imagine police departments deploying fleets of self-docking, self-navigating patrol drones over communities. We're starting to see that in the commercial space now.

What's the Future of AI Language Models as a Decentralized Technology? | ACLU Many assume that LLMs will always be provided by big tech companies through the cloud, but is that true? (LLMs and power series part 3)

A look at the possible future of local AI models, and what that might mean for the question of how much of a centralizing force the technology will be.
www.aclu.org/news/privacy...

I’m Hearing About More Pushback Against Flock, Fueled by Concern Over Anti-Immigrant Uses | ACLU Policymakers are beginning to recognize that the boundaries between local surveillance and the Trump Administration are hard to maintain

Policymakers are beginning to recognize that you can't count on surveilling your local residents while keeping that data out of the hands of ICE and the Trump Administration
www.aclu.org/news/privacy...

Will Giant Companies Always Have a Monopoly on Top AI Models? | ACLU Part 2 of my dive into how likely LLMs are to either centralize or distribute power

What are the chances that the ability to train a frontier LLM will become more democratized? That's a key question in evaluating whether this tech will become yet another source of tech leverage over ordinary people.
www.aclu.org/news/racial-...

Flock’s Aggressive Expansions Go Far Beyond Simple Driver Surveillance | ACLU Build it (an authoritarian tracking infrastructure) and they (expanded uses) will come

There's a lot going on with Flock and license plate recognition; here's an overview of how this authoritarian technology is expanding. Latest post on @ACLU Freefuture blog
www.aclu.org/news/privacy...

Many Are Focused on the Wrong Questions When it Comes to AI | ACLU Do large language models have an inherent politics?

Large language models have been evolving in dramatic — and, for those who care about freedom — suspenseful ways.

Thanks Rachel!

My first post on my new newsletter: If your local police start using Flock, they could target you just because some algorithm has decided your movement patterns suggest criminality, under new AI capabilities that the company has created.
ourfreefuture.substack.com/p/surveillan...

About - Free Future Who will technology serve? Technology and Privacy by Jay Stanley of the ACLU. Click to read Free Future, a Substack publication. Launched 6 days ago.

Dear all, today I'm announcing "Free Future" a newsletter/blog that I'm launching on Substack, where I'll be publishing my writing for the ACLU on privacy and technology policy topics. I hope you will find it of interest!
ourfreefuture.substack.com/about

Noteworthy endorsement from the American Enterprise Institute's Jim Harper of the ACLU's efforts to require that smartphone digital-ID systems operate on a decentralized basis--no location tracking, no phoning home, no kill-switch functionality--and support authorization short of identification.

I think Harper is correct in endorsing the work of folks like @jaystanley.bsky.social. He's also literally walked the walk on these issues, having accepted and completed a challenge in 2006 to fly from SFO to D.C. without showing any ID to airport screeners.

Digital Identity Leaders and Privacy Experts Sound the Alarm on Invasive ID Systems | American Civil Liberties Union Signatories, including the ACLU, warn officials of “Phone Home” feature of digital IDs that allows the government to track people’s daily lives

Press release from @jaystanley.bsky.social here: www.aclu.org/press-releas...

How a new type of AI is helping police skirt facial recognition bans Adoption of the tech has civil liberties advocates alarmed, especially as the government vows to expand surveillance of protesters and students.

Not a great moment in history to let our law enforcement agencies adopt new authoritarian tracking technologies.
www.technologyreview.com/2025/05/12/1...

We don't know for sure that the imagery being collected includes things on the US side of the border; that would be illegal and let's hope not. But seems like that's what the agencies would want, especially given the history of their prior attempt.

Machine Surveillance is Being Super-Charged by Large AI Models | ACLU Limits and guardrails are vital to protect our privacy and liberty — as well as our sanity — against omnipresent AI surveillance.

Given the power of AI today in the mass-processing of images this could be an enormously powerful surveillance program.
www.aclu.org/news/privacy...

ACLU Testifies on Spy Satellites, Calls for Moratorium on Domestic Use | American Civil Liberties Union ...

My former boss testified before Congress on this at the time for the ACLU.
www.aclu.org/press-releas...

The Bush Adminstration tried to do this in 2007 through a blandly named "National Applications Office" but Congress was alarmed by the idea even in the post-9/11 environment and shut it down.
www.wsj.com/articles/SB1...

Trump administration re-directing the nation's spy satellites from foreign countries onto US border communities.
www.reuters.com/world/us/tru...

How the US could sleepwalk into a dystopian digital ID system Tech born in the crypto community could ward off a privacy nightmare—but only if people actually use it.

Excellent piece on the danger we face of getting locked into a decisively bad new ID tracking infrastructure:
www.projectglitch.xyz/p/how-the-us...