With an increasing number of police departments across the country turning to unregulated, untested, and flawed facial recognition technology to identify suspects, it is vital defenders understand the technology, its limitations, and how to challenge its use in their cases.

Predictive policing encompasses the surveillance technologies, tools, and methods employed to visualize crime, target “at-risk” individuals and groups, map physical locations, track digital communications, and collect data on individuals and communities.

With protections in place, body cameras have the potential to better document encounters between police officers and citizens while mitigating competing concerns about their potential for misuse or abuse.

Nearly every case involves a cell phone or an online account. Laws on device and account searches are continuing to evolve, as courts reconsider old doctrines that do not fit with the realities of the digital age. Below, find sample motions on suppressing emails, passcodes, and other electronically stored information.

Case law generally requires law enforcement officers to get a warrant before they search a cellphone, track someone’s location, or obtain sensitive records from service providers. The question whether a warrant is necessary is only the first step. The next question: What does a warrant require? Jennifer Granick reveals the three ways current search warrant practice falls short. She lays out the legal arguments favoring narrow, tailored searches and seizures.

THE GOVERNMENT HAD MY WIRES TAPPED: Litigating Title III Wiretaps

NACDL Spring Meeting & Seminar Search, Seizure & Criminal Litigation, April 18-21, 2018, New York City.

Snapchat's Guide for Law Enforcement regarding the required legal processes for obtaining information for users' accounts.

Dog Sniffs and the Fourth Amendment at the Supreme Court Early This Term -- Washington, DC (September 27, 2012) – On October 31, 2012, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in two important personal privacy cases concerning drug dogs and the Fourth Amendment. Both cases come to the U.S. Supreme Court from the Supreme Court of the State of Florida. The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) filed joint amicus curiae (friend-of-the-court) briefs in both cases. 

Brief of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, Electronic Frontier Foundation, American Civil Liberties Union, American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee, Libertarian National Committee, and Hon. Bob Barr in Support of Rehearing En Banc.

Brief Amici Curiae of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and the Electronic Frontier Foundation in Support of Appellant’s Petition for Panel Rehearing and Rehearing En Banc

Supreme Court Breathes Life into Fourth Amendment -- Washington, DC (Jan. 23, 2012) – The Supreme Court today decided one of the most important liberty and privacy cases in decades, ruling unanimously that government's installation and use of a GPS tracking device on a defendant's vehicle constitutes a search that presumptively requires a warrant under the Fourth Amendment. 

U.S. Supreme Court to Hear Warrantless GPS Surveillance Case -- Washington, DC (June 27, 2011) – In a much anticipated ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court today agreed to hear the Obama administration’s appeal of a federal court decision that the government’s use of a GPS tracking device on a defendant’s vehicle for a month was a search that required a warrant.

Civil Liberties and Defense Groups Seek to Require Warrants for Police GPS Surveillance -- Washington, DC (Oct. 5, 2011) – This week marks the opening of the United States Supreme Court’s 2011-12 term. In what is widely expected to be one of the most important liberty and privacy cases in decades, on Nov. 8, the court will hear argument on whether the government’s secret use of a GPS tracking device on a defendant’s vehicle for a month was a search that required a warrant.

Fourth Amendment Protects E-Mail From Warrantless Government Surveillance, Federal Court Rules - Washington, DC (December 15, 2010) – The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers praised the federal appeals court decision protecting email privacy. For the first time, a federal court has ruled that law enforcement must obtain a search warrant before it can search and seize a subscriber’s email that is stored on the computers of his Internet service provider (ISP).