@alanindc.bsky.social
Privacy dad. DC denizen. Director at epic.org and attorney working on all things privacy, cybersecurity, and digital human rights.
A Minnesota woman observing ICE agents in her car was cornered on one-way streets. An agent approached, called her by name—citing facial recognition. Days later, her Global Entry and TSA privileges were revoked, with no explanation.
30.01.2026 11:55 — 👍 16431 🔁 10028 💬 842 📌 1363BIG IN THE 4A WORLD: The Supreme Court has granted cert in Chatrie, the geofence warrant case, to decide the following Q: "Whether the execution of the geofence warrant violated the Fourth Amendment." (I assume this includes both whether a "search" happened and whether the warrant was lawful.)
16.01.2026 19:57 — 👍 82 🔁 29 💬 11 📌 2That would be @lizagoitein.bsky.social
15.01.2026 18:13 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 1It’s been clear for years now that anonymized cellphone location data could produce this kind of information, so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised someone made a tool to sell this capability to LEOs.
08.01.2026 16:45 — 👍 174 🔁 55 💬 4 📌 1
Big Tech firms have been complaining about the “patchwork” of state laws ever since Californians adopted their landmark privacy law in 2020, Alan Butler writes. Trump's AI executive order is thus an escalation of a fight that has been brewing for years.
16.12.2025 03:30 — 👍 12 🔁 10 💬 0 📌 1President Trump's Executive Order attempting to stop states from regulating AI is "exactly the opposite of what our country needs right now," said EPIC Executive Director @alanindc.bsky.social.
12.12.2025 16:56 — 👍 13 🔁 3 💬 1 📌 0A Trump supporter started murdering his way through an assassination list of Democratic law makers FIVE MONTHS AGO. He murdered my colleague Melissa Hortman, and her husband Mark — and attempted to assassinate my dear friend John Hoffman and his wife Yvette. I was also on the hit list. WTF
20.11.2025 17:56 — 👍 10421 🔁 3945 💬 147 📌 82
It’s a sign of the times that the only Americans who will be able to obtain damages for constitutional violations are these corrupt Senators whose rights weren’t violated at all.
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/10/u...
And anyone curious to read more should see Judge Hollander’s decision from April in the SSA / DOGE case: www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/u...
07.11.2025 19:50 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0Total nonsense and also that’s not what SCOTUS said in Spokeo or in Transunion! Invasion of privacy is a concrete harm at common law, they even mention it specifically!
07.11.2025 19:48 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0Why do you assume that a wrongful death action against an officer would have to be based on a violation of constitutional rights? Can’t they file an FTCA wrongful death claim?
30.10.2025 17:35 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
My biggest concern about TikTok being sold to Trump-aligned American investors is that, at this point, there is far more cause for alarm from domestic surveillance than from foreign adversaries.
www.theatlantic.com/technology/2...
Listen to EPIC Executive Director Alan Butler's (@alanindc.bsky.social's) full testimony: www.judiciary.senate.gov/committee-ac...
#DataPrivacy #DataProtection #Congress
This afternoon, EPIC Executive Director Alan Butler (@alanindc.bsky.social) will testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing on the importance of strong federal data regulations to protect the privacy of American consumers.
➡️ Tune in at 2:30 pm ET: www.judiciary.senate.gov/committee-ac...
The Senate just passed my bill by UC to release this report to the public, to end this cover-up by CISA. Now the House needs to pass my bill so the public can see how shockingly insecure our phone system is. Then the government must hold phone companies accountable for failing cybersecurity 101.
29.07.2025 00:23 — 👍 558 🔁 140 💬 18 📌 4Interested in the First Amendment, the FCC, and telecom law? The new edition of Jerry Kang's, @alanindc.bsky.social's, and my Communications Law and Policy casebook is freely available. It's aimed at students, but may be of interest to practitioners, profs, journalists, and others too!
18.07.2025 17:18 — 👍 7 🔁 4 💬 0 📌 0lifetime suspects without any basis of suspicion
16.07.2025 17:42 — 👍 19 🔁 10 💬 1 📌 0
Brandi Collins-Dexter, an intellectual and an activist, will be missed first and foremost by her family and friends, but also by overlapping communities of scholars and advocates. Her work was brilliant, sharp, funny, empathetic, prescient. I regret that we won't benefit from more of it.
15.07.2025 15:34 — 👍 43 🔁 15 💬 3 📌 1There must be zero compliance with this. Patient confidentiality is the heart and soul of care. Care without confidentiality isn’t care at all. No “but our hands are tied, we need federal funding.” There must be a brick wall. Confidentiality is a no-compromise zone.
11.07.2025 03:10 — 👍 842 🔁 177 💬 11 📌 2🗓️⚠️ Happening TODAY, join us here: epic.zoom.us/webinar/regi...
16.06.2025 13:25 — 👍 6 🔁 5 💬 1 📌 0Our latest “Digital Authoritarianism” in @uchilrev.bsky.social Online. @ariezra.bsky.social and I explore the two-step destructive dance to silence and terrorize critics. We need to see this damage to democracy for what it is. lawreview.uchicago.edu/online-archi...
06.06.2025 13:37 — 👍 59 🔁 30 💬 2 📌 5This Senate proposal advanced by Sen Cruz would cancel new and existing State laws on any aspect of tech use including civil rights, consumer protection, privacy, fraud, safety for kids, accessibility, and more. In short, we’d lose the few laws we have that ensure responsible AI use. #killthebill
06.06.2025 04:29 — 👍 665 🔁 394 💬 19 📌 21
After records requests from The Washington Post, officials paused the first known, widespread live facial recognition program used by U.S. police.
www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...
Important investigative work by @douglasmac.bsky.social & @aaronschaffer.com:
Yesterday, EPIC—represented by Harvard's Cyberlaw Clinic—filed an amicus brief in Kohls v. Bonta, a case about an important issue: How to balance free speech with regulating misleading elections-focused deepfakes that threaten election integrity? 🧵
epic.org/documents/ko...
No, you really don't "have to ask yourself" this.
The right to criticize the government, even for *lawful* policies (let alone what Trump is trying to do), is not just central to the First Amendment's protection of free speech; it is one of the most critically important features of *any* democracy.
“A couple days later, on March 6, I was working from home at around 11:30 when I got a notice that my VPN had gone down,” he says. “I didn’t think much about it. It can cut out from time to time. About 10 minutes later, I got a knock at the door.” Two men were outside Jackson’s door, dressed in slacks and polos. They were not wearing badges. “I first thought they were going to try to sell me something. But as soon as I opened the door they said, ‘Are you Clayton Jackson?’ I think I shook my head or said ‘yeah,’ and then I heard, ‘We have information that you are obstructing an ongoing immigration investigation.’” Jackson says alarms went off in his head. “My first instinct was to want to know what this was about. That it must be a misunderstanding. So I started to tell them about how I’ve been involved in some pro bono work. Then this voice in my head kicked in and just said, you need to shut the fuck up — don’t say anything.” The officers never identified themselves. They did ask if they could come inside. “I said absolutely not,” Jackson says. “I asked for their names and badge numbers. They said they didn’t have to provide that information at this time. So I told them I’d be calling my lawyer and I shut the door behind me.” Jackson says his mind started racing. “I needed to know who they were, what agency they were with. Then I remembered that I have the Ring camera. Maybe I could watch the video of the incident and figure out who they were from that.” There was no video. “That’s when I learned why my VPN had gone down. It wasn’t the VPN. Someone had shut off my Wifi.” About 15 minutes after the interaction at his front door, Jackson’s Wifi was up and running again.
It's a high bar, but this from @radleybalko.bsky.social might be one of the most fucked up things I've read in the new Trump era. For context, this TX lawyer had just had an informal conversation with a family caught up in ICE raids.
Seriously. Read this. radleybalko.substack.com/p/the-courag...
