Privacy

The ACLU protects our personal privacy from government use of cutting-edge technologies to build a surveillance society. Too often, government uses new technologies in new ways, without first creating new safeguards necessary to protect our privacy. To protect genetic and biometric privacy, we have opposed legislation that would expand government DNA databases, and supported legislation that would limit government use of genetic and biometric data. In courts and the legislature, we have sought limits on when government can create, maintain, and disseminate name-retrievable files containing sensitive private information. We lobbied for a state legislative resolution against the federal REAL ID Act, which would invade our privacy by creating a national identification card. We seek limits on government video surveillance cameras, and “fusion centers” (which fuse under one roof massive amounts of personal information). We filed a lawsuit challenging the collaboration of the phone companies with the National Security’ Agency’s seizure of the phone records of millions of consumers, in violation of a federal privacy statute.

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