
High Res Photo of Jennifer Granick
Photo credit: Michael Sugrue
Government Hacking: Evidence and Vulnerability Disclosure in Court
By Jennifer Granick and Riana Pfefferkorn on May 23, 2017 at 10:48 am
On April 5, CIS and Mozilla
CIS Progress in Unsealing Surveillance Records
By Jennifer Granick and Riana Pfefferkorn on May 9, 2017 at 10:57 am
In September 2016, we filed a Petition in the Northern District of California (the federal district court for the Bay Area and much of Northern California) asking the court to unseal years’ worth of surveillance matters filed there. We had our first hearing before the court on May 4.
Points of Consensus on Rule 41
By Marshall Erwin and Jennifer Granick on November 17, 2016 at 4:44 pm
Senator Chris Coons, Democrat from Delaware, offered a bill today that would delay implementation of proposed changes to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 41 for six months. Stanford’s Center for Internet and Society and Mozilla have been studying issues related to government hacking including the Rule 41 changes.
Stanford Researchers Seek Court Documents Ordering Companies to Help Government Defeat Encryption
By Jennifer Granick and Riana Pfefferkorn on September 29, 2016 at 9:56 am
Researchers at the Stanford Center for Internet and Society (CIS) filed a petition yesterday seeking to unseal judicial records in San Francisco federal district court. Their goal is to reveal how the federal government uses U.S. law to obligate smartphone manufacturers and Internet companies to decrypt private user data, turn over encryption keys, or otherwise assist law enforcement with digital surveillance.
Reflections on the FBI's Attempt to Dragoon Apple Into Subverting iPhone Security
By Jennifer Granick on February 24, 2016 at 11:37 am
On Monday, I wrote a post for Just Security where I reflected on last week's news concerning the FBI's attempts to coerce Apple into creating a forensic bypass to the iPhone passcode lockout. I wrote that we live in a software-defined world. In 2000, Lawrence Lessig wrote that Code is Law — the software and hardware that comprise cyberspace are powerful regulators that can either protect or threaten liberty. A few years ago, Mark Andreessen wrote that software was eating the world, pointing to a trend that is hockey sticking today. Software is redefining everything, even national defense.
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Motion to Unseal Court Records Concerning US DOJ Motion to Compel Facebook
Encryption helps human rights workers, activists, journalists, financial institutions, innovative businesses, and governments protect the confidentiality, integrity, and economic value of their activities. However, strong encryption may mean that governments cannot make sense of data they would otherwise be able to lawfully access in a criminal or intelligence investigation.
In Re: Petition of Jennifer Granick and Riana Pfefferkorn
Jennifer Granick and Riana Pfefferkorn are petitioning the federal court for the Northern District of California to unseal years' worth of sealed surveillance matters filed in that court.
U.S. v. Auernheimer
Arguing that a defendant’s conviction for website hacking should be overturned because legitimate, highly valuable security and privacy research commonly employs techniques that are essentially identical to what the defendant did and that such independent research is of great value to academics, government regulators and the public even when – often especially when — conducted without a website owner’s permission.
Apple v. FBI
Arguing that if the court should not compel Apple to create software to enable unlocking and search of the San Bernardino shooter’s iPhone, it will jeopardize digital and personal security more generally.
Shloss v. Estate of Joyce
After the Estate of James Joyce refused to allow a scholar to quote Joyce in her book, we successfully defended her right under the fair use doctrine to use the quotes she needed to illustrate her scholarship. After we prevailed in the case, the Estate paid $240,000 of our client’s legal fees.
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Objections to Magistrate Judge's Report and Recommendation
Objections to Magistrate Judge's Report and Recommendation to deny the Petition, plus supporting documents (supporting declaration of Jennifer Granick, administrative motion, proposed orders).
Government Hacking Makes Everyone Less Safe
Last week, the Justice Department filed criminal charges against a North Korean operative for a malware attack that endangered hospital systems and crippled the computers of businesses, governments, and individuals around the world. Americans might be surprised to learn that the software used for this 2017 attack — known as “WannaCry” — was based on a hacking tool created by the U.S. government itself.
Petitioners' Notice of Motion and Motion for Leave to File Motion for Reconsideration
Included in this PDF are:
- Petitioners' Notice of Motion and Motion for Leave to file Motion for Reconsideration
- Exhibit A Petitioners' [Proposed] Notice of Motion and Motion for Reconsideration of the May 1, 2018 Order
- Declaration of Jennifer Stisa Granick in Support of Petitioners' Motion for Leave to File a Motion for Reconsideration
- [Proposed] Order Granting Petitioners' Motion for Leave to File Motion for Reconsideration Pursuant to Local Rule 7-9.
New Bill That Would Give Foreign Governments a Fast Track to Access Data
For decades, U.S. policies on international data sharing have balanced privacy, principles of comity (respect for the jurisdiction of other countries), and respect for Congress’ power to regulate foreign affairs. Foreign countries seeking data held by U.S. companies generally must follow a process laid out in Mutual Legal Assistance Treaties, or MLATs, which are agreements between governments that facilitate cooperation in investigations. Increasingly, however, countries have complained that the MLAT process in the U.S. is slow and that it allows the U.S.
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A Man Sent 1,000 Men Expecting Sex And Drugs To His Ex-Boyfriend Using Grindr, A Lawsuit Say
"Some cyberlaw experts fear a ruling against Grindr will put the creativity of the internet as we know it at risk. They say that requiring platforms to more closely monitor users would give an advantage to tech giants like Facebook, Twitter, and Google while hindering smaller startups with niche audiences, including Grindr. It would be more expensive to start new businesses online because of the cost of hiring watchdogs, said Jennifer Granick, surveillance and cybersecurity counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union.
When can the feds hack into your computer? Case involving scam targeting Wegmans could decide.
""So far, we've likely only seen the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the government’s use of hacking in criminal and immigration investigations,” Jennifer Granick, the ACLU's surveillance and cybersecurity counsel, said in a statement after the suit was filed."
ACLU asks court to release a secret order forcing Facebook to wiretap Messenger
"Jennifer Granick, the ACLU’s surveillance and cybersecurity counsel, said the public “deserves to know why the government thought it could dismantle measures that protect their right to privacy online.”
Amazon's Accent Recognition Technology Could Tell the Government Where You're From
"If voice-based accent detection can determine a person’s ethnic background, it opens up a new category of information that is incredibly interesting to the government, said Jennifer King, director of consumer privacy at Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society.
“If you’re a company and you’re creating new classifications of data, and the government is interested in them, you’d be naive to think that law enforcement isn’t going to come after it,” she said.
Facebook wins court battle over law enforcement access to encrypted phone calls
"“The question in these cases often is, ‘What’s the minimum of interference?’ ” said Jennifer Granick, surveillance and cybersecurity counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union."
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Information Security Summitt (Past Event)
Jennifer Granick, Director of Civil Liberties, will speaking at the ISSA-LA Summitt.
More information: https://issalasummit9.wpengine.com/?page_id=285/#Granick
Title: American Spies, Modern Surveillance, and You
Session Description:
Air Mozilla: American Spies: Modern Surveillance and What We Can Do Speaker: Jennifer Granick (Past Event)
TEDx Stanford - Seize the Moment: Jennifer Granick (Past Event)
CIS Director of Civil Liberties Jennifer Granick will talk about the ideas in her book American Spies with other panelists at the TEDx Stanford Seize the Moment Session.
View full TEDx Stanford program.
More info about Jennifer Granick.
Modern Surveillance Under the Trump Administration (Past Event)
Join Just Security for a fireside chat on the current state of U.S. surveillance and a celebration of Jennifer Granick‘s new book, American Spies: Modern Surveillance, Why You Should Care, And What to Do About It. Opening remarks by Senator Ron Wyden.
Speakers:
American Spies - Modern Surveillance, Why You Should Care, And What to Do About It (Past Event)
US intelligence agencies - the eponymous American spies - are exceedingly aggressive, pushing and sometimes bursting through the technological, legal and political boundaries of lawful surveillance. Written for a general audience by a surveillance law expert, this book educates readers about how the reality of modern surveillance differs from popular understanding.
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American Spies
May 19, 2017
If you attended a recent march to protest, wrote a check to the ACLU, or recently visited a politically leaning website, consider yourself an activist, says Stanford legal scholar Granick. Not only might the government be watching you, but your digital footprint could end up being visible to people and organizations you never imagined would care. Know your risks and take safety precautions, advises Granick, or don’t be surprised at the troubling outcome.
Techdirt Podcast Episode 120: The Surveillance State
May 2, 2017
In the post-Snowden era, we don't have to tell you how important it is to stay engaged with (and vigilant about) the surveillance state in America. Jennifer Granick is the Director of Civil Liberties at the Stanford Center for Internet and Society, and author of the new book American Spies — and this week she joins us for an in-depth discussion about the surveillance sta
Mozilla April Speaker Series: American Spies: Modern Surveillance and What We Can Do Speaker: Jennifer Granick
April 26, 2017
Intelligence agencies in the U.S. (aka the American Spies) are exceedingly aggressive, pushing and sometimes bursting through the technological, legal and political boundaries of lawful surveillance.
How Many Times Has the Government Spied on You Today?
February 27, 2017
The Snowden revelations, while dramatic, have done little to amp up public concern about personal surveillance.
After all, thanks to technology, electronic spying is cheap — so cheap the government can’t afford not to do it.
'American Spies' author Jennifer Granick on privacy in the age of surveillance
February 21, 2017
The internet makes access to information incredibly easy, and we normally see that as a good thing. But what if the information being accessed is details of our private lives? And what if the person accessing them is a government intelligence agency? This week we speak with Jennifer Granick, author of "American Spies" and director of civil liberties at the Stanford Center for Internet and Society, about the quest for privacy in the age of surveillance.