The ACLU Is Arming Lawyers to Expose State Surveillance Secrets
The American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts says it’s releasing an online toolkit this week for criminal defense attorneys designed to uncover whether police used surveillance technologies—facial recognition, automatic license plate readers, gunshot detection systems, and more—to build the cases against their clients in secret.
The toolkit, which the group describes as the first of its kind, is built around handcrafted legal motions that, when granted by a judge, will force prosecutors to reveal whether surveillance technology was used against a defendant. It covers an array of technologies, from “stingray” phone trackers and location data sold by commercial brokers to AI-drafted police reports and forensic tools that crack phones and siphon data from car infotainment systems.
It also includes preservation motions—demands that surveillance data be saved before it is deleted automatically—aimed at government agencies and private vendors alike. The filings rest on a bedrock rule of American criminal law,...
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