The Ninth Circuit has ruled that the police violated the Fourth Amendment when they asked a passenger to provide identification. The Court found that "a demand for a passenger's identification is not part of the mission of a traffic stop." As the court explained, "The identity of a passenger...will ordinarily have no relation to a driver's safe operation of a vehicle." EPIC filed a "friend of the court" brief in a similar case before the Supreme Court in 2004. In Hiibel v. Sixth Judicial District, the Supreme Court narrowly upheld a state identification law for the driver of a vehicle. EPIC argued in Hiibel that "A name is now no longer a simple identifier: it is the key to a vast, cross-referenced system of public and private databases, which lay bare the most intimate features of an individual's life." EPIC also filed amicus brief in Watchtower Bible v. Stratton, concerning the right of anonymity. In that case the Supreme Court ruled that an ordinance requiring door-to-door petitioners to obtain a permit and identify themselves violated the First Amendment.
EPIC is seeking a preliminary injunction to block the Census Bureau from adding a question about citizenship to the 2020 Census. EPIC alleges that the Census Bureau failed to complete privacy impact assessments, required by law, before it abruptly added the question to the census last year. EPIC explained that the "extraordinary reach of the Bureau into the private lives of Americans brings with it extraordinary risks to privacy." A federal court in New York recently blocked the citizenship question, but the Census Bureau has appealed that decision. EPIC filed an amicus brief in the New York case and has long advocated for robust protections for census data. EPIC has also filed numerous successful lawsuits to require privacy impact assessments, including EPIC's lawsuit that led a now-defunct Presidential Commission to delete state voter data it unlawfully obtained.
In a letter to the Federal Trade Commission, Senators Ed Markey and Richard Blumenthal pushed the Commission to take swift action against Facebook, despite the government shutdown. "While we have repeatedly expressed concerns about the pace of this investigation, we fear that the current government shutdown further threatens the FTC's ability to complete this investigation," the Senators wrote. "When Americans' privacy is breached, they deserve a speedy and effective response." The letter comes nearly ten months after the FTC announced it would reopen an investigation into Facebook after EPIC's urging. Since then, EPIC has urged the Commission to act and has repeatedly highlighted Facebook's violations of the 2011 consent order in statements to Congress. The 2011 consent order followed an extensive complaint filed by EPIC and a coalition of consumer privacy organizations in 2009.
