On Wednesday, the ACLU of Pennsylvania brought on behalf of a former high school student, known as "N.N.," whose cell phone was confiscated and unconstitutionally searched by school officials.
The (PDF) that school officials in Tunkhannock Area School District violated N.N.'s First and Fourth Amendment rights by searching her phone after confiscating it. A teacher had seized the device after the student was seen using it before classes started, but apparently after school rules allowed students to make calls. While seizing the phone for violating school-use policies was okay, what happened next was not.
The principal began pressing buttons on the cell phone to access the photo album on N.N's phone. The principal then viewed photos that the girl had taken the night before of herself naked. N.N. took these photos to share with her long-time boyfriend, who had graduated, and did not send (or “sext”) the photos to anyone else.
The ACLU filed a lawsuit in May charging the school district with violating the girl’s First and 14th Amendment rights. In Wednesday's agreement, the school district denied any liability or wrongdoing, but agreed to pay N.N. and her attorneys $33,000 to settle the case. This settlement resolves the claims against the school district.
But the case will continue against the county district attorney’s office and the former district attorney, George Skumanick. After the principal punished N.N. he referred the case to then-D.A. Skumanick for criminal prosecution. Skumanick threatened to bring felony child pornography charges against N.N. unless she consented to attend a five-week “re-education program.” N.N. opted to avoid a possible 10-year-prison sentence by taking the program, which included topics like "what it means to be a girl in today's society" and "non-traditional societal and job roles." It also required her to write an essay explaining why her actions were wrong (even if she didn’t think they were).
The threatened prosecution was the subject of another ACLU-PA lawsuit against Skumanick, which was brought on behalf of three of N.N.'s classmates, who were also threatened with felony child pornography charges unless they took his "re-education" course. Those girls opted to fight Skumanick's threat. One photo showed two girls from the waist up in their bras, and the second photo showed another girl topless. None of the girls was involved in distributing the photos. In March, the (PDF) that the district attorney's office had no grounds to threaten child-pornography charges and thus the D.A.’s actions to force the girls to take the course, and to force their parents to let them take the course, was unconstitutional. But N.N. was not part of that suit.
N.N. fought back with her own lawsuit — the one just settled on Wednesday. When the case was filed in May, N.N. said in a statement: "I was absolutely horrified and humiliated to learn that school officials, men in the DA's office and police had seen naked pictures of me." Even her parents had not seen her naked in many years and now strange men were seeing her. Mortifying.
The ACLU’s civil liberties concern is that too many school principals and officials fail to recognize the highly private and sensitive information that many people — and especially young people — store on their cell phones. As ACLU-PA Legal Director Witold Walczak said when the suit was filed, “School administrators have no more right to look through personal photographs stored on a student’s cell phone then they have the right to rummage through her purse, read her diary and mail, or view her family photo album.”
While the case was settled before a judge could issue an opinion establishing the law, the ACLU hopes that the hefty settlement will alert school officials to the important privacy rights at stake and prompt them to think before they start clicking through students’ cell phones.
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Press ReleaseDec 2024
Free Speech
National Security
ACLU and Partners Urge Supreme Court to Block TikTok BanACLU and Partners Urge Supreme Court to Block TikTok Ban
WASHINGTON — Today, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), and the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University filed an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to block the enforcement of a law that would effectively ban people in America from using TikTok as soon as January 19, 2025. Earlier this month, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit rejected TikTok’s challenge to the law. TikTok has asked the Supreme Court for a temporary injunction to prevent the app from being banned while the court considers whether to take the case, saying that unless the justices intervene, the law will “shutter one of America’s most popular speech platforms the day before a presidential inauguration.” “The Constitution imposes an extraordinarily high bar on this kind of mass censorship,”said Patrick Toomey, deputy director of ACLU’s National Security Project. “The Supreme Court should take up this important case and protect the rights of millions of Americans to freely express themselves and engage with others around the world.” The brief argues that the D.C. Circuit failed to fully address the law’s profound implications for the First Amendment rights of the 170 million Americans who use TikTok. While the lower court’s decision correctly recognized that the statute triggers First Amendment scrutiny, it barely addressed users’ First Amendment interests in speaking, sharing, and receiving information on the platform. The court also perplexingly attempted to cast the government’s ban on TikTok as a vindication of users’ First Amendment rights, which it is not. The rights groups also explain that the law was intended to suppress certain content and viewpoints that many legislators believe could be amplified on TikTok, including the risk of foreign “propaganda.” But under the First Amendment, the government must meet a very high bar to restrict speech based on concerns about its “motivating ideology” or “perspective,” and the government has not come close to meeting that bar here. “The government should not be able to restrict speech, especially to the extent here, based on guessing about the mere possibility of uncertain future harm,” said David Greene, civil liberties director at EFF. “The Supreme Court should put the TikTok ban on hold while it considers the DC Circuit’s erroneous ruling.” Finally, the brief underscores that the government can’t impose this type of sweeping ban unless it’s necessary to prevent extremely serious and imminent harm to national security. But the government has not provided evidence of impending harm, or evidence that banning TikTok is the only available way to address its concerns. As the brief explains, the D.C. Circuit improperly treated the government’s invocation of “national security” as a trump card and failed to hold the government to its burden. “Restricting citizens’ access to foreign media is a practice that has long been associated with repressive regimes, and we should be very wary of letting the practice take root here,” said Jameel Jaffer, executive director at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. “It would do lasting damage to the First Amendment and our democracy if the Supreme Court let this ban go into effect even temporarily.” You can find the brief online here: https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/24/24A587/335380/20241217144322392_24A587%20TikTok%20v%20Garland%20Amicus%20Brief%20pdfa.pdf -
MississippiJul 2024
Free Speech
Privacy & Technology
NetChoice v. FitchNetChoice v. Fitch
Whether a law that mandates age verification for all users of social media services violates the First Amendment. -
News & CommentaryDec 2024
Free Speech
Can you define pornography? Neither can the government.Can you define pornography? Neither can the government.
We break down the absurd-but-true history of trying to censor sexual speech under the guise of "keeping kids safe." -
Minnesota Supreme CourtNov 2024
Free Speech
Energy Transfer LP v. Greenpeace International, Unicorn RiotEnergy Transfer LP v. Greenpeace International, Unicorn Riot
This case in the Minnesota Supreme Court asks whether the MFFIA's protections apply to newsgatherers even if they are alleged to have engaged in trespassing while newsgathering. The ACLU’s State Supreme Court Initiative, alongside the ACLU of Minnesota and law firm Biersdorf & Associations, filed a brief representing Unicorn Riot, a media organization that covered protests of the Dakota Access Pipeline. The brief argues that MFFIA and constitutional reporter’s privileges, under both the U.S. and Minnesota constitutions, protect Unicorn Riot from having to comply with Energy Transfer’s subpoenas.