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📝 Page Status: Draft — sourced but not yet reviewed

  • Status: draft
  • Sources: 2
  • Relationships: 4
  • Research debt items: 3

Nathan Freed Wessler

Summary

Nathan Freed Wessler is deputy director of the ACLU Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, focusing on surveillance and privacy litigation. In 2017, he argued Carpenter v. United States before the U.S. Supreme Court, establishing that law enforcement must obtain a warrant before requesting cell phone location data from a cellular provider.

Verified Facts

  • The official ACLU biography describes Wessler as deputy director of the Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project.1
  • He focuses on litigation and advocacy around surveillance and privacy, including government searches of electronic devices, requests for sensitive data held by third parties, and use of surveillance technologies.1
  • In 2017, he argued Carpenter v. United States in the U.S. Supreme Court.12
  • Carpenter established that the Fourth Amendment requires law enforcement to obtain a search warrant before requesting cell phone location data from a person's cellular service provider.2
  • He was previously a staff attorney in the Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project and a legal fellow in the ACLU National Security Project.1
  • He clerked for Judge Helene N. White on the Sixth Circuit.1
  • He is a graduate of Swarthmore College and New York University School of Law, where he was a Root-Tilden-Kern public interest scholar.1
  • Before law school, he worked as a field organizer in the ACLU Washington Legislative Office.1

Relevance to Open Source and Software Companies

Wessler's work on third-party data requests, device searches, facial recognition, and location tracking is relevant to mobile app developers, cloud service providers, and software companies holding user data subject to government demands or surveillance technology disputes.

Relationships

  • PERSON-NATHAN-FREED-WESSLER cites SRC-WESSLER-ACLU.
  • PERSON-NATHAN-FREED-WESSLER cites SRC-CARPENTER-LII.
  • PERSON-NATHAN-FREED-WESSLER affiliated_with ORG-ACLU.
  • PERSON-NATHAN-FREED-WESSLER argued CASE-CARPENTER-V-US.

Sources

  1. SRC-WESSLER-ACLU: Nathan Freed Wessler ACLU Staff Biography.
  2. SRC-CARPENTER-LII: Carpenter v. United States, 585 U.S. 296 (2018) (Cornell LII).

Research Debt

  • Document Clearview AI and border search litigation details.
  • Corroborate self-reported biography or about-page claims with independent sources (institutional profile, court docket, case page, or reputable journalism).
  • Add primary or secondary sources for major litigation and impact claims (dockets, case pages, official court records, or reputable journalism).

Document metadata

  • Last verified: 2026-07-04

  1. SRC-WESSLER-ACLU — Nathan Freed Wessler ACLU Staff Biography. Self-reported profile; corroboration pending. ↩↩↩↩↩↩↩

  2. SRC-CARPENTER-LII — Carpenter v. United States, 585 U.S. 296 (2018) (Cornell LII). Primary authority. ↩↩