In late December, Swift’s camp hit Jack Sweeney, a junior studying information technology at the University of Central Florida, with a cease-and-desist letter that blamed his automated tracking of her private jet for tipping off stalkers as to her location. In the letter, attorneys from the law firm Venable accused Sweeney of effectively providing “individuals intent on harming her, or with nefarious or violent intentions, a roadmap to carry out their plans.”
Sweeney provided the link to that letter in an email to the Associated Press. In that message, he emphasized that while he has never intended to cause harm, he also believes strongly in the importance of transparency and public information.
“One should reasonably expect that their jet will be tracked, whether or not I’m the one doing it, as it is public information after all,” he wrote.
A spokesperson for Swift echoed the legal complaint, saying that “the timing of stalkers” suggests a connection to Sweeney’s flight-tracking sites. The spokesperson did not respond to questions seeking elaboration of that charge, such as whether stalkers have been seen waiting for Swift at the airport when her plane arrived or, alternatively, if there is evidence that stalkers have somehow inferred Swift’s subsequent location from the arrival time of her flight.
The legal letter likewise accuses Sweeney of “disregarding the personal safety of others”; “willful and repeated harassment of our client”; and “intentional, offensive, and outrageous conduct and consistent violations of our client’s privacy.”
Such statements are difficult to square with the fact that Sweeney’s automated tracking accounts merely repackage public data provided by the Federal Aviation Administration, a government agency. That fact did not dissuade the Venable attorneys, who demanded that Sweeney “immediately stop providing information about our client’s location to the public.”
But like, shouldn’t she be taking it up with the FAA then? I’m sure you can apply for delay or exemption in extraordinary situations like this one undoubtedly is?
That is the source of the data after all. If you don’t actually stop the data source from publishing your data, others will continue to use it.
It’s a dumb approach that makes it look like a hurt ego thing rather than a legitimate concern.
It’s a lot cheaper to have your lawyers lean on a college student than it is to have them negotiate with the federal government.
Who’s easier to convince to change, the FAA or a college student?
FAA LADD and PIA programs are just there. Swift has no excuse outside of her getting called out for CO2.
This was a non issue when Musk did it. It continues to be a non issue whilst Swift does it. Aircraft enrolled in both programs do not prevent lookup databases from third parties from getting the data eventually, but prevents in most cases real-time tracking unless there’s literal people standing at the airport watching and reporting.
No, she’s just being petulant about this issue because she’s embarrassed that she’s being told her flying around in a private jet is destroying this planet we’re all living on.
The FAA. Have you met college students?
The FAA obviously. It’s publically available data, so it’s totally useless to keep one person from publishing the data when anyone can take over and continue.