News & Commentary written by Nathan Freed Wessler

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Nathan Freed Wessler

Deputy Director, 桃子视频Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project

Bio

Nathan Freed Wessler () is a deputy director with the ACLU鈥檚 Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, where he focuses on litigation and advocacy around surveillance and privacy issues, including government searches of electronic devices, requests for sensitive data held by third parties, and use of surveillance technologies. In 2017, he argued Carpenter v. United States in the U.S. Supreme Court, a case that established that the Fourth Amendment requires law enforcement to get a search warrant before requesting cell phone location data from a person鈥檚 cellular service provider.

Nate was previously a staff attorney in the Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project and legal fellow in the 桃子视频National Security Project. Prior to that, he served as a law clerk to the Hon. Helene N. White of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Nate is a graduate of Swarthmore College and New York University School of Law, where he was a Root-Tilden-Kern public interest scholar. Before law school, he worked as a field organizer in the ACLU鈥檚 Washington Legislative Office.


Featured work

Mar 21, 2025

Can Border Agents Search Your Electronic Devices? It鈥檚 Complicated.

Can Border Agents Search Your Electronic Devices? It鈥檚 Complicated.

Apr 30, 2024

Police Say a Simple Warning Will Prevent Face Recognition Wrongful Arrests. That's Just Not True.

Police Say a Simple Warning Will Prevent Face Recognition Wrongful Arrests. That's Just Not True.

Jan 18, 2023

How the Arizona Attorney General Created a Secretive, Illegal Surveillance Program to Sweep up Millions of Our Financial Records

How the Arizona Attorney General Created a Secretive, Illegal Surveillance Program to Sweep up Millions of Our Financial Records

Nov 23, 2022

Warrantless Pole-Camera Surveillance by Police is Dangerous. The Supreme Court Can Stop It.

Warrantless Pole-Camera Surveillance by Police is Dangerous. The Supreme Court Can Stop It.

May 17, 2022

Impending Threat of Abortion Criminalization Brings New Urgency to the Fight for Digital Privacy

Impending Threat of Abortion Criminalization Brings New Urgency to the Fight for Digital Privacy

Dec 2, 2020

The U.S. Government Is Secretly Using Cell Phone Location Data to Track Us. We鈥檙e Suing.

The U.S. Government Is Secretly Using Cell Phone Location Data to Track Us. We鈥檙e Suing.

Sep 28, 2020

Wi-Fi is Another Way We Can Be Tracked 24/7

Wi-Fi is Another Way We Can Be Tracked 24/7

May 28, 2020

We鈥檙e Taking Clearview AI to Court to End its Privacy-Destroying Face Surveillance Activities

We鈥檙e Taking Clearview AI to Court to End its Privacy-Destroying Face Surveillance Activities

Nov 13, 2019

Federal Court Rules That Border Officers Can鈥檛 Arbitrarily Search Our Electronic Devices

Federal Court Rules That Border Officers Can鈥檛 Arbitrarily Search Our Electronic Devices

Aug 9, 2019

A Federal Court Sounds the Alarm on the Privacy Harms of Face Recognition Technology

A Federal Court Sounds the Alarm on the Privacy Harms of Face Recognition Technology