Imagine bringing a date home for dinner. You put the laptop away and mute your phone. You prepare a gourmet home-cooked meal for two, queue up a selection of romantic songs and pick out a movie to watch after dinner. As the evening winds down, your heart races a bit as you go in for a kiss and wonder how your night will end.
Now, imagine that someone is monitoring each and every event of your evening. Oh, don’t worry, they’re not actually watching you or listening in on your conversation. They just know who you emailed or called just before you put your computer away. They know what you bought for dinner and how you prepared it. They know who came over, where he or she came from and how long he or she stayed. They know what time you started the movie and which songs you listened to. They even know what time you turned off the lights — and whether or not the music was still playing when you did.
And they know all of this without ever getting a search warrant.
Unfortunately, this scenario is all too real. Government agencies from the NSA to local law enforcement have taken advantage of weak protections for “metadata” — including records about your phone calls, emails, purchases, location and more — to build huge databases about ordinary Americans. In thousands of cases, this information has been inappropriately accessed, potentially exposing a vast array of information about individuals: their attendance at a gay rights rally or addiction support group, their purchase of a home pregnancy test or a dating service subscription, or their calls to a suicide hotline or a job recruiter.

In response, the ACLU of California released Metadata: Piecing Together a Privacy Solution, a new policy paper that offers a way forward. It explains why lawmakers might have originally decided to give metadata less protection than content — and why the reasons for doing so are no longer valid in the modern world. It highlights the sensitive information that metadata can expose and provides evidence of actual abuses that have occurred in past years. Drawing from recent court cases, state laws, and analysis, it provides a simple roadmap for courts and lawmakers looking to enhance protections for metadata and ensure that our right to privacy remains alive and well in the modern era. Among other things, it is clear that we must:

• Protect all sensitive information, whether it is “content” or “metadata”
• Protect sensitive information held by third parties
• Protect sensitive information derived by aggregating and analyzing other data
• Provide law enforcement and other government agencies with clear rules and guidance
• Ensure that any collection or use of metadata is transparent and subject to independent oversight

The distinction between content (which receives stronger protection) and metadata might have made sense decades ago when technology to collect and analyze data was virtually nonexistent. But in the modern world, non-content does not mean non-sensitive. Indeed, the explosion of data mining, targeted advertising and other new technologies is driven by the realization that companies and the government can learn a great deal about an individual simply be recording their actions. We hope this paper will help make sure that all sensitive information receives the protection it deserves.
Chris Conley is the Technology and Civil Liberties Fellow with the ACLU of Northern California. Follow Chris on Twitter.

When is a promise not a promise? That's what Luciano Sandoval is asking after Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) broke its pledge to stop arresting individuals at Kern County, California courthouses.
In January, ICE agreed to stop enforcement actions at courthouses, after the American Civil Liberties Union of California raised concerns with federal officials over the abusive enforcement tactics. The ACLU provided documented cases of individuals who were detained after they went to a Bakersfield court to pay a fine or obtain a marriage license.
Yet despite ICE's guarantee to cease the sweeps, immigration agents renewed their enforcement efforts less than a month later. This time, however, agents arrested people after they left the courthouse grounds.
Among those detained in February is Sandoval, a father of six U.S.-born children, who went to the Kern County courthouse to pay a traffic ticket. Three days later, he was stopped by immigration officials while on his way to work. He now faces permanent separation from his family if he is deported.
Sandoval's arrest is not an isolated incident. Rodrigo Arenas of Bakersfield was arrested two days after he paid a traffic fine. Arenas was deported, leaving behind his family. There have also been reports of similar courthouse arrests across the country, including very recently in Wisconsin.
Surely, ICE officials understand that such misguided tactics at courthouses only serve to undermine public safety, not improve it.
In fact, a 2013 study by the University of Illinois at Chicago concluded that increased involvement of law enforcement in immigration has significantly heightened the fears that many Latinos have of police. The report found that 44 percent of those surveyed said they were less likely to report a crime because they are afraid the police would ask them or people knew about their immigration status. Likewise, because of ICE's courthouse arrests, many Kern County residents will be deterred from appearing at court to testify as witnesses or access critical life-saving services like restraining orders.
But the reality is that ICE doesn't need a study to alert officials to the harmful impact that certain enforcement actions have on public safety. Federal officials already know that certain locations should never be targeted for immigration enforcement because they undermine public safety and interfere with constitutionally protected rights.
In 2011, ICE issued a memo that designated certain places, known as "sensitive locations," as off limits to immigration agents, except for exigent circumstances. In that memo, ICE wisely recognized that allowing immigration agents to go into schools, churches and hospitals would create fear among local communities, who would then be less likely to cooperate with law enforcement or seek medical attention.
ICE should move swiftly to add state courthouses to the list of sensitive locations. Clearly, the same compelling reasons that led federal officials to designate hospitals and schools apply to courthouses. And ICE should immediately terminate the removal proceedings of Sandoval and the many others who have been arrested while accessing the courts. Only by living up to its promise can ICE ensure that the state courts remain safe and accessible to all.
This was originally published on Huffington Post. Michael Kaufman is staff attorney at the ACLU of Southern California.

Growing up gay in the South wasn’t easy. But what kept me striving for my own rights and the rights of my community were stories about countless civil rights leaders who faced their own seemingly insurmountable struggles. I was astounded to discover the sacrifices so many people had made in exchange for the rights future generations like mine enjoy. While the list of LGBTQ leaders I look up to is long, it includes:

• Bayard Rustin, the behind-the-scenes organizer of the March on Washington;
• Deborah Batts, the first LGBTQ person to be appointed as a federal judge, and
• Marsha Johnson, the transgender community leader pivotal in the defense against police attacks during the Stonewall Rebellion.

But one of my favorite LGBTQ heroes is less known. As we celebrate Black History Month, I want to honor Tyrone Garner—the other man involved in the unconstitutional sodomy arrest that led to the landmark Lawrence v. Texas ruling more than a decade ago.
Even the case’s name erases Tyrone’s role in the matter. John Lawrence is certainly a hero, too. After all, he did stand up to the authorities in Texas and refused to be treated like a second-class citizen, which resulted in a victory that elevated the LGBTQ community’s status under the law. Despite the nature of his case (over and over again he would have to sit through recitations of his sex life in front of countless strangers), John was willing to become the face of the movement at that time. But so was Tyrone. Yet, so often, it seems Tyrone and his bravery get lost in the story.
Tyrone’s courage is magnified by the fact that he did all of this despite the struggles he also faced as an African-American man born into and living in poverty in Texas. Indeed, race played a role in the arrest—police busted into John’s home after an anonymous, false tip alleging that a Black man was wielding a gun at the apartment.
Unfortunately, Tyrone didn’t have the opportunity to experience much of the new era of equality his case created; he passed away just three years after the ruling. For Tyrone and many of our other heroes, we must honor their memories by continuing to advance justice in their absence. Let us all do just that as we pause to remember their spirits.
James Gilliam is deputy executive director of the ACLU of Southern California. Follow him on Twitter.