The Supreme Court issued a decision Friday in the Carpenter v. U.S. case. The Court’s decision means that a warrant must now be obtained before being able to access cell site location information which is very similar, if not more accurate, than the Global Positioning System (GPS). This is a big victory for the American people and for privacy rights.

President Donald J. Trump has selected Neil Gorsuch, Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, as his nominee for the United States Supreme Court. Support for his choice seems to be unanimous among Republicans which is unsurprising. What is interesting, however, is that Democrats seem to be more divided about the issue.

The thing about civil asset forfeiture is it could affect anybody, at any time.

Section 213 of the PATRIOT Act creates what is known as “sneak and peek” warrant. Law enforcement is authorized to conduct a search without first notifying the subject of the search. After 9/11, law enforcement insisted that this measure was necessary to investigate and prevent future terrorist attacks “without tipping off the terrorists.”

Since June 2013, Americans have been aware the National Security Agency's domestic spying program, through which it collects the telephony metadata of virtually every person with a cell phone in the United States. Intelligence officials claim authority for this privacy violating program through Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act and a misinterpretation of a 1979 Supreme Court case, Smith v. Maryland. But what much of the public doesn't know about are violations of privacy occurring under Section 213 of the PATRIOT Act, the so-called "sneak-and-peek" provision.

In a troubling expansion of government snooping, a New York judge ruled Thursday that Microsoft has to open its servers to federal investigators. What’s concerning in this case is that the servers in question are not on U.S. soil—they are located in Ireland. In pursuit of information from Microsoft, the federal government pulled Microsoft into court to argue over the government's power to act through a warrant to access information stored on the company’s overseas servers.

I'll be honest. Being an activist for liberty can occasionally be downright depressing. Sometimes it feels like it’s just one bad news after another as the government continues to grow and take away our basic freedoms.

When you send a e-mail to your friends or family, you might think that it’s private. However, there are those in the federal government who have other ideas. Reports suggest that Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, is planning to introduce revisions to H.R. 2471 which would allow law enforcement officials from more than 22 different agencies to access online communications without a warrant.