Jonathan Hofer is a Research and Marketing Associate at the Independent Institute. A recent Political Science graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, his interests include information privacy law, municipal surveillance, and the impact of emerging technologies on civil liberties

On April 21, investigative reporter Jana Winters broke the news that the United States Postal service was running a “covert operations program” that was monitoring American’s social media. She found that the United States Postal Inspection Service (USPIS) Internet Covert Operations Program (iCOP) was trawling posts and online activity pertaining to a number of...
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[This post is co-authored by Dominick Van Cleve.] In 2014, Aaron Harvey, a 26-year-old studying for his real estate license, was met by U.S. Marshals outside his Las Vegas, Nevada, residence. Not until three weeks after his arrest did Harvey learn he would be charged with crimes in connection with nine murders in San...
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“Yes, compelling someone to reveal information on how to decrypt data is compelling testimony from that person. But obtaining information from a person’s mind is not what happens when agents pick a finger to apply to the sensor.” —Judge Edmond E. Chang, qtd. in In re A white Google Pixel 2019 began with digital...
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California Governor Gavin Newsom in September signed the Body Camera Accountability Act, a law prohibiting the use of facial recognition and other biometric tracking software in police body cameras. Following similar measures in San Francisco and Oakland, the law is the first statewide ban of its kind in the country.