Digital rights advocacy is the use of litigation, legislative work, and public education to protect privacy and free expression online. The ACLU and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) are the two best-known U.S. organizations in the field. Their work helped produce Carpenter v. United States and the border-search challenge in Alasaad v. Mayorkas.
Key Takeaways
- The ACLU joined Timothy Carpenter’s defense as co-counsel, and the Supreme Court held in 2018 that the government generally needs a warrant for historical cell-site location records.
- EFF and the ACLU brought Alasaad v. Mayorkas on behalf of 11 travelers whose phones and laptops were searched at the border. The First Circuit upheld the government’s policies in 2021.
- In Chatrie v. United States (2026), the Supreme Court extended Carpenter‘s logic to location history obtained through geofence warrants.
- The federal TAKE IT DOWN Act, Pub. L. No. 119-12 (May 19, 2025), criminalizes publishing nonconsensual intimate images, including AI-generated forgeries, and requires platforms to remove them within 48 hours of a valid request.
How Does the ACLU Approach Digital Rights Advocacy in Carpenter v. United States?
The ACLU’s digital privacy work focuses on government surveillance and the Fourth Amendment. Its most important recent victory came in Carpenter. According to the ACLU’s case page, the organization first filed an amicus brief with EFF, the Center for Democracy & Technology, and others, then joined Carpenter’s defense as co-counsel after a divided Sixth Circuit panel held that no warrant was required.
The Supreme Court reversed. It held that people have a legitimate expectation of privacy in the record of their physical movements captured through cell-site location information, and that the third-party doctrine does not by itself defeat that interest. The Court’s instruction to the government was direct: get a warrant.
How Does EFF Defend Digital Privacy in Alasaad v. Mayorkas?
EFF combines impact litigation with technical tools and public education. Its case page for Alasaad explains that EFF and the ACLU filed suit in federal court in Boston in September 2017 on behalf of 10 U.S. citizens and one lawful permanent resident, including a NASA engineer, journalists, and a former Air Force captain. The plaintiffs argued that searching travelers’ devices without a warrant violates the Fourth and First Amendments.
The First Circuit ruled against them in February 2021, holding that basic border searches of devices require no suspicion and that advanced searches need no warrant. The organizations then petitioned the Supreme Court. Even in defeat, the case built a detailed public record of how Customs and Border Protection and ICE search devices, which has been cited in later litigation. Darren Chaker covers the current state of that issue in border phone search law.
What Did Chatrie v. United States Add in 2026?
On June 29, 2026, the Supreme Court decided Chatrie v. United States. The Court held that police conduct a Fourth Amendment search when they obtain a person’s cell-phone location history from a technology company, even for a short period. It rejected the argument that ordinary phone use amounts to voluntarily sharing private information with third parties. The Court did not decide whether the geofence warrant in the case was valid and sent that question back to the Fourth Circuit. Darren Chaker’s analysis of the decision is in geofence warrants after Chatrie.
What Is the TAKE IT DOWN Act?
The TAKE IT DOWN Act, Pub. L. No. 119-12, was signed on May 19, 2025. (Earlier versions of this post gave an incorrect public law number.) It amends the Communications Act to make it a federal crime to knowingly publish intimate images of an identifiable person without consent, including digital forgeries created with AI. It also requires covered platforms to set up a notice-and-removal process within one year of enactment and to remove reported content within 48 hours of a valid request.
Civil liberties groups supported the goal of addressing nonconsensual imagery but raised concerns that the 48-hour removal rule, without strong safeguards against false reports, could lead platforms to remove lawful speech. That tension between privacy and free expression runs through much of digital rights advocacy.
How Can Individuals Support Digital Rights?
- Learn your rights during police encounters and at the border, including the difference between consenting and complying.
- Use device encryption and strong passcodes. Darren Chaker explains the legal stakes in compelled decryption.
- Follow the ACLU and EFF for litigation updates and calls for public comment on surveillance rules.
- Support state privacy laws such as California’s Electronic Communications Privacy Act, which requires a warrant for many types of electronic data.
Key Authorities
- Carpenter v. United States, 585 U.S. 296 (2018), slip op. at 11 (“Given the unique nature of cell phone location records, the fact that the information is held by a third party does not by itself overcome the user’s claim to Fourth Amendment protection.”).
- Id., slip op. at 19 (“Before compelling a wireless carrier to turn over a subscriber’s CSLI, the Government’s obligation is a familiar one—get a warrant.”).
- Alasaad v. Mayorkas, 988 F.3d 8 (1st Cir. 2021), slip op. at 17 (“We too hold that neither a warrant nor probable cause is required for a border search of electronic devices.”).
- Chatrie v. United States, No. 25-112, slip op. at 28–29 (U.S. June 29, 2026) (“A cell-phone user is not to be viewed as sharing private information with third parties—which then can be freely passed on to the government—just by doing the ordinary things cell-phone users do.”).
- TAKE IT DOWN Act, Pub. L. No. 119-12, § 3(a)(3), 139 Stat. 55 (2025) (platform must act “as soon as possible, but not later than 48 hours after receiving such request”).
How Does AI Forensics Threaten Digital Rights?
Digital rights advocacy now has a new front: artificial intelligence. Police use AI to match faces, summarize seized phones, and even draft police reports. Each tool can speed up an investigation. Each can also put an innocent person in handcuffs when no one checks the machine’s work. Darren Chaker, an EnCase Certified Examiner (EnCE) with an Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT) certification, counterintelligence studies at American Public University, and ongoing training in AI forensics (see his Google Developer profile), tracks these tools because the forensic record is where civil liberties are won or lost.
What happened when facial recognition led to a wrongful arrest?
Detroit police arrested Robert Williams after a facial recognition search wrongly matched him to a shoplifting suspect. His case ended in a 2024 settlement that the ACLU described as the nation’s strongest police policy on the technology. Under it, “Police will be prohibited from arresting people based solely on facial recognition results, or on the results of photo lineups directly following a facial recognition search.” That is the core digital rights lesson: an AI match is a lead, not probable cause.
Can a defendant learn how the AI reached its result under State v. Pickett?
Courts are split on how far a defendant can look inside the software. In Florida, an analyst conceded she did not know how her face-matching program scored its results, and the conviction still stood. New Jersey’s appellate court went the other way for DNA software and ordered source code produced under a protective order. New York’s high court held that an AI-assisted program is not a witness that must be cross-examined. These rulings frame the transparency fight that the ACLU and EFF are waging.
Are AI-written police reports a digital rights issue under California S.B. 524?
Yes. The EFF’s investigation of one AI report tool found that it “does not save the draft it generates, nor any subsequent edited versions” (EFF, July 10, 2025). California answered in 2025 with S.B. 524. That law requires a disclosure on AI-assisted reports and requires agencies to keep the first AI draft for as long as the official report is kept.
What should a defense team ask for?
- The name and version of every AI tool used, plus its known error rate.
- The raw output, such as candidate lists, confidence scores, and first drafts, not just the final summary.
- The human reviewer’s notes showing independent corroboration.
- Validation studies and, where needed, source code under a protective order.
Federal evidence rules may soon require more. The Advisory Committee’s proposed Rule 707 would apply the Rule 702 expert-reliability test to machine-generated evidence; as of its May 2026 meeting, the committee had revised the draft to address “evidence produced by artificial intelligence” and set it for further study (Advisory Committee report, May 2026). The same issues arise when AI touches a phone search warrant or a border phone search.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is digital rights advocacy?
Digital rights advocacy is the use of litigation, policy work, and education to protect privacy, free expression, and due process in the digital world. The ACLU and EFF are leading examples.
What case did the ACLU win on cell phone location data?
Carpenter v. United States (2018). The ACLU served as co-counsel, and the Supreme Court held that the government generally needs a warrant to obtain historical cell-site location records.
What does the TAKE IT DOWN Act require?
It makes knowingly publishing nonconsensual intimate images, including AI-generated forgeries, a federal crime and requires covered platforms to remove such content within 48 hours of a valid request.
This article is for general information only and is not legal advice. Learn more about Darren Chaker. Last reviewed November 2026.
