Our Mission

Unsurveilled defends the right of ordinary people to live free of warrantless government surveillance. We support targeted, lawful investigation of suspected wrongdoing — and we oppose systems that collect, retain, or search the lives of innocent people simply because technology makes it possible. We also support privacy by default and meaningful, affirmative consent when consumer technology collects sensitive data. Our standard does not change with the technology, the administration, or the person being watched: Investigate suspects. Don’t surveil everyone.

The foundation

Eight foundational principles

These principles guide Unsurveilled regardless of the technology involved, the political party in power, the agency using the technology, or the identity or activity of the person being watched.

1. Investigate suspects. Do not surveil everyone.

   Unsurveilled supports law enforcement investigating crime and using modern technology when constitutionally and legally appropriate. Powerful investigative tools can be legitimate when directed at people or evidence connected to suspected wrongdoing through lawful process.

   What Unsurveilled opposes is the indiscriminate collection, retention, aggregation, or searching of information about people who are not suspected of wrongdoing simply because a technology makes such surveillance possible.

2. Technology does not create an exception to constitutional rights.

   The fact that a surveillance capability is inexpensive, automated, scalable, or useful does not erase limits on government power. Constitutional protections should become more important — not less — as technology makes it possible to observe more people, retain more information, combine more datasets, and reconstruct more of a person’s life.

3. Privacy is not evidence of wrongdoing.

   People should not have to justify wanting privacy. Ordinary activities — driving, worshipping, visiting family, seeing a doctor, meeting an attorney, attending a political gathering, shopping, traveling, or simply being at home — do not become suspicious merely because technology can record them.

4. The standard must survive a change in power.

   Surveillance powers should be evaluated based on what they allow any future government, agency, official, contractor, or employee to do — not merely on whether current officials are trusted. A durable constitutional system relies on enforceable limits rather than permanent confidence in the people who currently hold access.

5. Public life is not blanket consent to government tracking.

   Using a public road, walking through a community, attending an event, or otherwise participating in ordinary public life should not be treated as consent to the government creating a persistent, searchable history of a person’s movements or associations.

   The fact that some people voluntarily use smartphones, smart speakers, connected vehicles, or other consumer electronics that may collect data does not constitute consent to government surveillance. Consumer devices are choices with varying degrees of control and privacy; government monitoring of ordinary public activity generally provides no meaningful ability to decline.

6. Privacy by default; meaningful consent for consumer tracking.

   Although warrantless government surveillance remains Unsurveilled’s primary mission, the same respect for individual autonomy supports a strong privacy-by-default principle for consumer technology. For sensitive location, biometric, identifying, and behavioral data, consumer products and services should make collection off by default where reasonably possible; require affirmative opt-in rather than buried opt-outs; explain in plain language what is collected, why, for how long, and who receives it; make consent specific, informed, voluntary, and revocable; collect only what the chosen feature actually needs; avoid silently repurposing or sharing sensitive information; prefer local, on-device processing when practical; and back privacy promises with real technical restraints.

   A policy promise that data will not be misused is weaker than a system designed so unnecessary data is never collected, cannot be retained indefinitely, or cannot be accessed without appropriate authorization.

7. Government surveillance and consumer consent require different safeguards.

   Government: individualized justification and lawful authority before intrusive surveillance. Private consumer technology: clear, informed, affirmative consent before sensitive tracking or secondary use. Both: privacy should be the default rather than a burden placed on individuals to recover after collection has already occurred.

8. These principles apply equally to everyone.

   Unsurveilled’s position does not depend on whether surveillance is being used against immigrants, gun owners, abortion seekers, protesters, religious groups, political organizations, criminal suspects, unpopular speakers, or any other class of people. Those cases may illustrate the consequences of surveillance power, but the underlying principle is universal.

Scope

What we are — and what we are not

Consumer privacy and meaningful consent are supporting principles that reinforce the broader idea that people — not governments or technology companies — should control access to sensitive information about their lives.