Jack Sweeney, a junior at the University of Central Florida, says the First Amendment gives him the right to publish publicly available information about the flight paths of private jets owned by the rich and famous, including Taylor Swift.
Swift’s legal team — and many of her fans — say that Sweeney posting the comings and goings of the singer’s private plane on social media is technological stalking.
Sweeney also tracks the private planes owned or used by Elon Musk, Ron DeSantis, Mark Zuckerburg, Bill Gates, several Russian oligarchs and others, using public data from a global flight tracking website, TheAirTraffic.com.
As an attorney and a scholar who has written about the boundaries of the First Amendment, my advice to Mr. Sweeney: The First Amendment is a valuable ally, but its protections might not be available to you in this situation.
The arguments, explained