Brianna and I just returned from Hampden Academy where we spent the day teaching students about privacy and technology. Wherever we go, we hand out free copies of the Constitution to young people. We started out by asking students to find the word "privacy" in the Bill of Rights. That led to a discussion of the "penumbra" of rights that are not explicit but arise from one or more of the Amendments. After all, the Ninth Amendment is explicit in stating,
"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
We focused on how constitutional privacy rights apply to laptops and cell phones. Both issues have been a subject of much controversy lately. Schools in Lower Merion, Pennsylvania activated webcams on school laptops distributed to students, secretly snapping photos of a Harriton High School sophomore in his home. The sophomore sued, and the ACLU has joined him as a friend of the court. Students at Hampden today didn't think that schools should be taking photographs of students in their homes using Web cams through school laptop programs. (We agree!) It is our hope that the courts will too.
There was more debate about whether or not law enforcement should be able to track people using our cell phones. Many students did not realize that all cell phones contain technology -- radio transmittors or GPS -- that allows the cell phone company (or the government) to identify where the cell phone user is at any given time. The technology allows for looking back at a historical record of where a cell phone user has been or even tracking the cell phone user in real time. The ACLU thinks that law enforcement should at least have probable cause before accessing this location information. The Obama Administration is arguing in court that you don't have a reasonable expectation of privacy when using a cell phone. The Third Circuit Court of Appeals, also in Pennsylvania, heard arguments from privacy advocates versus the Justice Department last month. Meanwhile, here in Maine, we have asked the federal courts to invite us to submit legal arguments about the need for probable cause as a basis for cell phone tracking if law enforcement should make any new requests to do the tracking.
The debate with students today was similar to the ones being had all over the country in this still unsettled area of privacy and technology law. The ACLU of MAINE is always willing to visit Maine schools to lead these discussions. Call ACLU of MAINE Field Organizer Brianna Twofoot at 774-5444 to invite us to your school. And watch for the court decisions soon to come on these issues!