Renewed War on Drugs, harsher charging policies, stepped-up criminalization of immigrants — in the current climate, joining the NACDL is more important than ever. Members of NACDL help to support the only national organization working at all levels of government to ensure that the voice of the defense bar is heard.
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NACDL is committed to enhancing the capacity of the criminal defense bar to safeguard fundamental constitutional rights.
NACDL harnesses the unique perspectives of NACDL members to advocate for policy and practice improvements in the criminal legal system.
NACDL envisions a society where all individuals receive fair, rational, and humane treatment within the criminal legal system.
NACDL’s mission is to serve as a leader, alongside diverse coalitions, in identifying and reforming flaws and inequities in the criminal legal system, and redressing systemic racism, and ensuring that its members and others in the criminal defense bar are fully equipped to serve all accused persons at the highest level.
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This training program will aid those working to defend persons accused of homicide in drug-related overdose deaths. Each section of the program focuses on a different aspect of these cases. CLE is not available for this program.
Geofence warrants, a type of reverse search warrant, compel companies, like Google, to turn over substantial information about devices interacting with their technology within a particular geographic region. For this reason, geofence warrants mark an unprecedented increase in the government's ability to locate individuals without investigation. This primer will show you how geofence warrants are constructed and outline strategies to challenge these warrants when they appear in criminal cases.
NACDL frequently writes to members of Congress, the Department of Justice, and the president on fourth amendment issues. These letters have been collected and are available for download by clicking on the titles below.
We the undersigned consumer rights, human rights, technology, and civil liberties organizations, members of the EPIC Advisory Board, and members of the general public submit this Petition to the Federal Aviation Administration (“FAA”) to urge the Agency to conduct a rulemaking to address the threat to privacy and civil liberties that will result from the deployment of aerial drones within United States. The FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012 provides a timely opportunity for you to address this critical question.
We the undersigned organizations urge you to vote ‘no’ on H.R. 3523, the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act of 2011 (CISPA). We are gravely concerned that this bill will allow companies that hold very sensitive and personal information to liberally share it with the government, which could then use the information without meaningful oversight for purposes unrelated to cybersecurity. We understand this bill is scheduled to be considered on the House floor during “Cybersecurity Week,” the week of April 23rd.
We the undersigned organizations write in opposition to amendments that would strip privacy protections from Title VII, the information sharing title of S. 3414, the Cybersecurity Act of 2012. …we are in agreement that the current version of Title VII should be considered the privacy floor, and not the ceiling. To that end, we strongly oppose amendments that have been, or are expected to be offered that would substitute the information sharing provisions of SECURE IT or otherwise weaken privacy safeguards.
We, the undersigned companies and organizations, are writing to express our support for Chairman Leahy’s and Sen. Lee’s ECPA Amendments Act, S. 607, which the Committee will consider shortly. The bill would update the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) to provide stronger protection to sensitive personal and proprietary communications stored in “the cloud.” We urge all Members of the Committee to support the bill.
We write to urge you to ensure that any new cybersecurity information sharing bill considered in the Senate in 2013 at least maintains the privacy protections from Title VII, the information sharing title of S. 3414, the Cybersecurity Act of 2012. We agree that the protections in Title VII of S. 3414 last year should be considered the privacy floor, and not the ceiling for any cybersecurity legislation. To that end, we would strongly oppose any effort to bring to the Senate floor the information sharing provisions of last year’s SECURE IT bill, or otherwise weaken privacy safeguards.
We write to express our concerns about a proposal that would grant federal regulatory agencies authority to require web-based email service providers, cloud service providers and other Internet companies to disclose the contents of sensitive and proprietary communications or documents that they store on behalf of their customers.
NACDL respectfully submits the following comments to the Oklahoma House of Representatives in response to the Interim Study to address the privacy questions raised by the operation of unmanned aircraft systems, also known as drones, in Oklahoma. ... NACDL applauds the House of Representatives for taking the first step in studying the privacy implications raised by the use of domestic surveillance drones, and we look forward to ongoing conversations about the privacy and civil liberties impact of this new technology as you move forward with the study.
We write today to urge you to support reform of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) to guarantee that every American has full constitutional and statutory protections for the emails, photos, text messages, and other documents that they send and share online.
We the undersigned support ending the bulk collection of all types of data under all legal authorities, while preserving the requirement of prior court approval for surveillance under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. We recognize the substantial step in this direction the House Judiciary Committee and House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence took in unanimously passing the USA FREEDOM Act (H.R. 3361). The bill includes several components critical to meaningful reform... We respectfully urge you to oppose efforts to weaken these or other provisions in this historic bill.
We write today to urge the Department of Justice (DOJ) to quickly complete an updated Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA) for the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Next Generation Identification System (NGI) as part of a broader effort to examine the goals and impact of NGI. The previous PIA on NGI’s face recognition component dates back to 2008. Since that time the program has undergone a radical transformation—one that raises serious privacy and civil liberties concerns.
We represent a wide range of privacy and human rights advocates, technology companies, and trade associations that hold an equally wide range of positions on surveillance reform. Many of us have differing views on exactly what reforms must be included in any bill reauthorizing USA PATRIOT Act Section 215, which currently serves as the legal basis for the NSA’s bulk collection of telephone metadata and is set to expire on June 1, 2015. Our broad, diverse, and bipartisan coalition believes that the status quo is untenable and that it is urgent that Congress move forward with reform.
To Director of National Intelligence Coats: The undersigned organizations write to express our dismay at your decision to abandon the effort to estimate the number of Americans whose communications are incidentally collected pursuant to Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. We ask that you reconsider.
To Chair Goodlatte and Ranking Member Conyers: ... If Director Coats remains steadfast in his efforts to evade oversight by the public and this Committee, we urge you to use all powers at your disposal to obtain this number.