END DRAGNET WARRANTS THAT TRAP INNOCENT NEW YORKERS

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To prevent police from invading our privacy, warrants are supposed to be narrowly targeted, specific, and based on probable cause.

But law enforcement officers use digital dragnet warrants to invade people’s private information simply because they were at a particular place during a specific time frame, or because they entered certain keywords into a search engine. This practice places hundreds or even thousands of unsuspecting and innocent people in the crosshairs of law enforcement.

TELL YOUR LAWMAKERS: Our participation in digital life should not automatically open us up to pervasive police spying.

Message Recipients:
Governor Kathy Hochul
Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie
Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins
Your representatives

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Warrants are supposed to be narrowly targeted, specific, and based on probable cause, to keep police from invading our privacy and going on invasive fishing expeditions. But law enforcement officers use dragnet warrants – or reverse location and keyword warrants – to gain access to numerous people’s private information simply because they were at a particular place during a specific time frame, or because they entered certain keywords into a search engine.

These warrants can place hundreds or even thousands of unsuspecting and innocent New Yorkers in the crosshairs of law enforcement, threatening our rights to be free from unreasonable government searches.

Reverse warrants have led to multiple disturbing incidents including false arrests, and they were even used at First Amendment-protected protests against police brutality, ensnaring protesters in Minneapolis, Minnesota and Kenosha, Wisconsin.

A report by Google shows a staggering twelvefold increase of reverse location warrant requests by law enforcement across the country throughout 2018-2020, totaling 20,932 requests. These requests could easily implicate hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of user accounts and devices. That means potentially millions of innocent people came under law enforcement suspicion and had their location records searched for no good reason.

Given the omnipresent role that digital technologies play in all our lives, and the ever-more detailed data trails tech companies are collecting, it’s urgent that we ban these warrants. A bill in the state legislature (S296A / A84A) would prohibit both reverse location and reverse keyword searches and warrants, and it deserves your support.

Our participation in digital life should not automatically open us up to pervasive police spying. I’m counting on you to outlaw dragnet warrants and protect New Yorkers from invasive police spying.

Sincerely,

[First Name] [Last Name]

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END DRAGNET WARRANTS THAT TRAP INNOCENT NEW YORKERS

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