Privacy & Surveillance
Protecting the privacy vital to free thought and expression
Our laws restricting surveillance and data collection are struggling to keep pace with new technology that can track and reveal our expressive lives in ever more detail, and with new business models that rely on the aggregation and exploitation of this information.
Our work is meant to illuminate the scope and impact of surveillance by government and private corporations, promote stronger legal protections for privacy, and enrich public understanding of the interplay between privacy and the freedoms of inquiry, speech, and association.
Featured
Analysis
Targeting Journalists Under FISA: New Documents Reveal DOJ’s Secret Rules
Records suggest U.S. government is using FISA court orders to monitor journalists
LATEST NEWS & ANALYSIS
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Press Statement
Knight Institute Responds to Deportation of Incoming Harvard Student based on Friends’ Social Media Posts
Underscores chilling effect of invasive border searches on intellectual freedom
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Press Statement
Legal Journalist Cristian Farias Joins Knight Institute as Writer-in-Residence
Farias will undertake a major investigative project focused on freedom of expression and the U.S. border
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Analysis
Warrantless Device Searches at the Border Will Threaten Privacy in the U.S. Heartland
Unless agents are required to get a warrant, the ‘border exception’ will be a window into the private lives of Americans and a means of stifling dissent
By Daniela Nogueira
LITIGATION & ADVOCACY
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Lawsuit
Freedom of the Press Foundation v. DOJ
A FOIA lawsuit for records concerning the surveillance of journalists
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Lawsuit
Knight Institute v. DHS
A FOIA lawsuit seeking records on ideological screening at the border
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Lawsuit
Knight Institute v. DHS
A FOIA lawsuit seeking records relating to searches of electronic devices at the U.S. border
Events
New York
Protecting Privacy in the "Golden Age" of Surveillance
Joan Feigenbaum and Robert S. Litt discuss encryption, surveillance, law enforcement, and privacy with Knight Institute Senior Staff Attorney Alex Abdo
New York
Measuring the "Chilling Effect"
Knight Institute and Yale Law School's Information Society Project co-host an event examining the impact of surveillance on First Amendment freedoms
New York
Freedom of Expression in an Age of Surveillance: Measuring the "Chilling Effect"
The second in a series of events examining the role of the First Amendment in assessing the lawfulness of government surveillance