This week we're talking to Ben Wizner from the American Civil Liberties Union about what the ACLU have been doing in the first year of Trump's second term, what the difference is between this time and last time, and how an earth they can keep up.

Links

ACLU report: ⁠https://www.aclu.org/campaigns-initiatives/aclu-vs-trump⁠

Kyllo case: ⁠https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyllo_v._United_States⁠Underground

Empire book: ⁠https://henryfarrell.net/underground-empire-2/

⁠Swift work between PI and ACLU: ⁠https://privacyinternational.org/blog/1355/pi-and-aclu-show-swift-auditor-has-extensive-ties-us-government

Yale lectures on National Security law: ⁠https://epe.yale.edu/videos/above-law-or-beneath-it-how-national-security-law-subverts-accountability-and-weakens-0

Asylum for White South Africans: h⁠ttps://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/30/us/politics/trump-refugee-admissions-white-south-africans.html

FISA reauth: ⁠https://theintercept.com/2026/01/29/nsa-702-fisa-surveillance/

Freedom of Information (FOI) requests have revealed the rapidly increasing scale of police mass facial recognition searches against the passport and immigration databases. New figures reveal that the number of searches of the passport database has “skyrocketed” from 2 in 2020 to 417 in 2023, and an almost sevenfold increase from 16 searches of the immigration database in 2023, to 102 in 2024. The Home Office and police forces are conducting these searches against over 150 million photos of the public without a clear legal basis, and without informing the public or parliament.

Privacy advocates from Big Brother Watch, Silkie Carlo, and Privacy International, Nuno Guerreiro de Sousa, have issued pre-action correspondence to the Home Office and Metropolitan Police and are calling for a moratorium on facial recognition searches of the passport and immigration databases.

Learn more by going to https://privacyinternational.org/news-analysis/5635/revealed-skyrocketing-scale-uk-polices-secret-facial-recognition-searches

Privacy International has launched a new guide for civil society organisations to enhance their their policy engagement on data protection. It is available at https://privacyinternational.org/data-protection-guide. Published in 2019.

Join us, and tell Capita PLC: stop profiting from the hostile environment. https://pvcy.org/capitalsurveillance

In the UK, asylum seekers are detained - often for a long time - while their claims are processed. If they’re not deported, they get released, but many have to wear an ankle tag which the Home Office can use to follow their movements 24 hours a day.

But there don’t seem to be any rules about who does and doesn’t get tagged, and how the data these tags collect is used by the Home Office.

So we bought some tags from the open market and tested them, to see how they work.

Tell Capita PLC: stop profiting from the hostile environment. https://pvcy.org/capitalsurveillance

Migrants in the UK are forced by the Home Office to wear GPS tracking devices - humiliated, controlled, spied on, stigmatised - even if they’ve lived in the UK for years.

Capita PLC is one of the companies outsourced by the UK Home Office to deliver this inhumane policy - earning £38 million a year for it.

They’re profiting from the hostile environment.

We’re appalled at this treatment. With BID and MO, we’re calling on Capita PLC to stop providing services to the Home Office.

#dignitynotdata #privacy #surveillance #gpstracker

Tell Capita PLC: stop profiting from the hostile environment. https://pvcy.org/capitalsurveillance

Migrants in the UK are forced by the Home Office to wear GPS tracking devices - humiliated, controlled, spied on, stigmatised - even if they’ve lived in the UK for years.

Capita PLC is one of the companies outsourced by the UK Home Office to deliver this inhumane policy - earning £38 million a year for it.

They’re profiting from the hostile environment.

We’re appalled at this treatment. With BID and MO, we’re calling on Capita PLC to stop providing services to the Home Office.

#dignitynotdata #privacy #surveillance #gpstracker

Clarice Tavares, Head of Research: Inequalities and Identities, InternetLab

“A privacidade é um tema muito importante para mim porque ela é um pilar que garante outros direitos”

We’re celebrating the amazing women who are fighting to protect privacy and create a better world.

Get inspired ✨ #IWD2023

Alexandrine Pirlot de Corbion, Director of Strategy, Privacy International

“I became acquainted on the issues of privacy when working on the protection of undocumented migrants in Europe”

We’re celebrating the amazing women who are fighting to protect privacy and create a better world.

Get inspired ✨ #IWD2023 #Shorts

Julieta Cravero, Strategic Communication Leader, @ADCderechos

Read more of ADC's work in their report "Quién revisa tu teléfono?' part one available here: https://adc.org.ar/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/ADC-Quien-revisa-tu-telefono.pdf and part two available here: https://adc.org.ar/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/ADC-Quien-revisa-tu-telefono-Parte-2-2022.pdf

We’re celebrating the amazing women who are fighting to protect privacy and create a better world.

Get inspired ✨ #IWD2023

Bárbara Simão, Head of Research, Privacy and Surveillance, Internet Lab

“Como é o caso do reconhecimento facial, que podem afectar em espcial pessoas pertencentes a grupos historicamente marginalizados, como mulheres”

We’re celebrating the amazing women who are fighting to protect privacy and create a better world.

Get inspired ✨ #IWD2023 #Shorts