Fourth Amendment
A Bad Day at SCOTUS for Government Accountability
The Supreme Court looks ready to further insulate rights-violating federal officers from facing civil liability.
As Chief of Staff, Stephen Miller Will Reinforce Trump's Worst Instincts
His elevation does not bode well for anyone who hoped that Trump would moderate the policies that alienated voters in the midterm elections.
Houston Voters Approve Restrictions on Marijuana Arrests and a Ban on No-Knock Police Raids
The first provision might curtail local pot busts, but the second one is unlikely to have a meaningful impact.
CBP Really Doesn't Want To Reveal What It Does to Americans' Phones
A judge ruled that the border agency has to give a clearer explanation for why it seized a traveler’s phone without a warrant.
Free Speech Unmuted: Flock Cameras and the Fourth Amendment, with Orin Kerr
Not quite free speech, but free speech adjacent, and I think of interest to many of our regular Free Speech Unmuted listeners.
Gorsuch and Sotomayor Unite in Another Civil Liberties Case
Plus: How a conservative Supreme Court justice ushered in “the birth of modern zoning.”
Connecticut's New Restrictions on Flock Cameras Highlight the Dearth of Meaningful Privacy Protections
Until recently, the state imposed no limits at all on automated license plate readers, which track the travels of innocent motorists across the country.
Iowa Voters Don't Want Police or Flock Tracking Their Cars. Politicians Are Still Catching Up.
Opposition to license plate surveillance is crossing party lines in Iowa, where police departments have built an extensive camera network with limited public oversight.
Border Cops Seize Nurse's Phone Filled With Psychiatric Patient Information
CBP allegedly told the nurse that “your lawyer cannot do anything” and agents can take the data “the easy way or the hard way.”
The Feds Took $460,000 From This Arizona Convenience Store Owner and Never Explained Why
Mario Ayala is seeking the return of his property, which federal agents seized more than a year and a half ago for reasons that remain mysterious.
Homeland Security Lied About Child Porn To Search Activist's Phone
The feds are charging Samuel Tunick for destroying his phone at the border. Court documents show that they refused him a lawyer and lied about why he was searched.
2 Recent Cases Illustrate the Limits of a Doctrine That Often Blocks Civil Rights Claims
Federal appeals courts rejected qualified immunity for cops and a judge who flouted longstanding constitutional principles.
Georgia Cop Who Shot a Miniature Donkey Says Body Camera Footage Shows an 'Imminent Threat'
HeeHaw's owner argues that “no reasonable officer…would have believed that such force was necessary or justified.”
The 8th Circuit Rejects Qualified Immunity for a Judge Who Jailed 2 Kids for 'Refusing To Follow Directions'
Frustrated by the children's resistance to a parental custody decision, Judge Eric Eighmy locked them in cells until they became more cooperative.
Other Courts Should Heed a Federal Judge's Warning About Flock-Enabled Mass Surveillance
Car-tracking cameras, like cellphones, generate vast amounts of sensitive data.
Are Warrantless Phone Searches at the Border Constitutional? The Supreme Court May Soon Decide.
The case of George Anibowei, a U.S. citizen who has had his phone searched at least five times at the border, shows just how invasive border agents have become.
Despite a Notable Victory in Oklahoma, Legal Challenges to Flock Cameras Still Face Long Odds
State and federal courts have almost uniformly ruled that searches of ALPR databases do not implicate the Fourth Amendment.
North Carolina Woman Doesn't Have First Amendment Right to Publish Video of Cop Shooting Her Dogs, Court Rules
A North Carolina state trooper shot Lydia Nikac's two dogs, but an appeals court ruled she doesn't have a right to publish body camera footage of the shooting under the state's restrictive public records laws.
Judge Says Warrantless Flock Search Violated Driver's Fourth Amendment Rights
The automated license plate reader system is “a type of indiscriminate mass surveillance," says a federal judge.
A Visit to a Gun Store Shouldn't Put You on a Government List
Gun registry bans might not be enough to protect gun owners from lists built from license-plate data.
Minneapolis Activists Used Encrypted Group Chats To Outmaneuver ICE. Now the Feds Want To Prosecute Them.
"I think courts are going to be very suspicious of how broad this is," one Minnesota lawyer tells Reason.
2 Lawsuits Cast Further Doubt on the Claim That ICE Agent Jonathan Ross Killed Renée Good in Self-Defense
According to complaints filed by Good's family, Ross was not in any danger when he fired three shots into her car.
Border Agents Nabbed Their Phones. These Two Floridians Are Fighting Back.
A former assistant state attorney and an immigrant rights activist both had their phones seized, despite having attorney-client privilege. They're suing to protect their data.
Cops Used AI Surveillance To Detain an Innocent Texas Driver. His Lawsuit Just Got the Program Struck Down.
AI-powered license plate readers flagged an abnormal driving pattern. Then officers made up reasons to pull him over and interrogated him, and they faked a K-9 alert to justify a nonconsensual search.
You Can Now Sue Federal Agents in California. Good Luck Getting Past Qualified Immunity.
Californians can now sue federal officers for civil rights violations, but cops can still claim qualified immunity as a bona fide defense for official misconduct.
Your Right to Privacy Doesn't Disappear When You're in Public
Defenders of Flock-style surveillance systems argue that people “have no reasonable expectation of privacy in public.” They're wrong.
AI Facial Recognition Didn't Put This Tennessee Grandma in Jail for 6 Months. Bad Policing Did.
Angela Lipps is suing for $10 million after a Fargo police detective ignored evidence that she was innocent and arrested her anyway.
The 5th Circuit Rejects Qualified Immunity for Cops Who Searched a Driver After a Bogus Traffic Stop
"It is clearly established that an officer cannot pull someone over without reasonable suspicion and thereafter concoct a fabricated traffic violation," the appeals court says.
Border Agents Search Phones Without Warrants. This Case Asks the Supreme Court if That's Constitutional
Federal appeals courts differ on whether the Fourth Amendment protects your cellphone at the border. A Texas lawyer is asking the Supreme Court to settle it.
Banning Flock Won't Be Enough Without Police Reform
It was Flock that led cops to the wrong woman. It was police who ignored the other evidence and jailed her.
Flock's Gunfire Alerts Raise a New Fourth Amendment Question
Gun owners should be paying attention to how police use gunfire microphones in conjunction with license plate cameras.
Judge Blocks Warrantless ICE Construction Site Raids After Agents in Alabama Arrested a U.S. Citizen 3 Times
Being on a construction site "does not open the floodgates to warrantless government intrusion," a federal judge ruled in a lawsuit filed by a construction worker who has been detained three times by ICE.
No Warrant, No Suspicion, No Problem: Flock and Border Cellphone Searches Excluded From 4th Amendment Rules
Cops keep carving out tech exceptions to the Fourth Amendment—and courts are giving them their blessing.
The Shaky Evidence That Flock Cameras Reduce Crime Rates
Flock has been promoting a recent study of its cameras' impacts on car theft. But the paper didn't demonstrate a causal effect.
Court Upholds Suspicionless Cellphone Searches at the Border
A federal appeals court says it's legal for federal agents to scroll through your phone and take pictures of its contents without a warrant or suspicion of criminal activity.
Strip Searches Generally Aren't Allowed as Searches Incident to Arrest, Third Circuit Holds,
thus deepening a circuit split. (Note that strip searches are generally allowed when and if the arrestee is placed in the general population of the jail.)
Appeals Court Grants Immunity to Texas Cops Who Held Handcuffed Woman Face Down in a Fire Ant Hill
The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Taylor Rogers didn't show that it was clearly established that it was excessive force to be held down on a pile of fire ants while handcuffed.
Why Conservative Republicans Are Worried About License Plate Cameras
Recent comments by Greg Abbott and Ron DeSantis reflect a bipartisan backlash against warrantless surveillance.
A Federal Indictment Charges an ICE Officer With Lying About a Shooting That DHS Eagerly Defended
The habitually dishonest department uncritically accepted a story that was immediately contradicted by video footage and physical evidence.
This U.S. Citizen Is Suing ICE for Arresting Him 3 Times. His Lawsuit Is Moving Forward.
Despite carrying a REAL ID, Leo Garcia Venegas has been repeatedly detained by immigration agents. Now he’s suing to block immigration raids targeting Latinos on private construction sites.
A New Bill Reflects the Bipartisan Backlash Against Flock-Enabled Mass Surveillance
Criticism from Trump allies and recent survey results show that resistance to widespread deployment of automated license plate readers spans the political spectrum.
Georgia Cop Claimed Petting Zoo Donkey Was Charging at His Team When He Shot It
In an incident report, the officer who shot the donkey wrote that he had to shoot the donkey to save himself and a K-9 team from injury.
Wisconsin Cops Used Flock Over 100 Times To Track a Navy Veteran After He Lawfully Recorded a Traffic Stop
A federal lawsuit claims the Waukesha County Sheriff’s Office used the Flock cameras without a legitimate government purpose and in retaliation against the vet for exercising his First Amendment right.
The Belated Backlash Against Flock Cameras
Americans are starting to recognize the dangers of pervasive surveillance by automated license plate readers.
A Tale of Two Tech Revolts
What the simultaneous revolts against Flock and data centers can tell us about the power and risks of populism
