Friend,
There’s currently nothing blocking NYPD from tracking nearly limitless numbers of New Yorkers’ location and keyword search data. With geofence warrants, police can require tech companies to identify every person in a specified place during a specified period, covering a geographic area as small as a studio apartment or as large as a city. The reverse keyword search warrant is a related and equally harmful tool, allowing police to compel search engines to reveal everyone who searched for a given term or phrase.
Despite their growing use, both geofence and keyword warrants violate the Constitution and have been weaponized to track political protests, religious services, and other sensitive sites. That’s why last week, S.T.O.P. joined our friends from NYCLU and Google in Albany to meet with New York State lawmakers and urge them to pass historic legislation banning geofence and keyword warrants. With Trump in office, our state must do everything in its power to protect immigrant New Yorkers, queer and transgender communities, abortion seekers, and all other groups targeted by the president’s hateful agenda.
Join us in our fight to ban geofence and keyword warrants in New York State by sharing on social media and contacting your state representatives.
Check out S.T.O.P.’s social media toolkit on the Reverse Location and Reverse Keyword Search Prohibition Act to learn more about how you can help to spread the word and tell NYPD to #StopGeofencing in New York State.
Reach out to your state senator and assembly member today to ask that they co-sponsor the Reverse Location and Reverse Keyword Search Prohibition Act (A.407 Solages/S.404 Myrie), which would ban geofence and keyword warrants. With your help, this is the year NY can finally ban geofence and keyword warrants once and for all.
|
|
|
In solidarity,
Will Owen
Communications Director
|
|
|
|
|
