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A college student has no problem sharing Taylor Swift’s flight path.
Jack Sweeney, a student at the University of Central Florida, is refusing a cease-and-desist letter from Swift’s lawyer asking him to stop publicly posting about Swift’s jet flights. The 21-year-old ran the now-defunct Instagram page @taylorswiftjets, where she reported on her flying activities using data from a variety of publicly available sources.
Swift’s lawyer, Katie Wright Morrone, sent multiple letters to Sweeney demanding that she stop tracking and publicly sharing her flight information. In a negative response shared with X on Monday, Sweeney’s lawyer said the 22-year-old student and his company GRNDCTRL had done nothing illegal.
Sweeney captioned the post, “Look What You Made Me Do,” a reference to the title track from Swift’s 2017 album Reputation. He also shared two letters sent by Swift’s team.
“Simply put, there is nothing illegal in GRNDCTRL’s use of publicly accessible information to track private jets, including those by celebrities like Taylor Swift.” Sweeney ‘s attorney James Slater wrote.
Slater argued that Sweeney’s speech was protected and did not violate Swift’s legal rights. He added that GRNDCTRL also reports on the flight history of Russian oligarchs and Elon Musk.
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Lawyers reject claim that Swift posed ‘credible threat’
Swift’s lawyers argue that Sweeney’s actions put the pop star at risk by providing up-to-date location information accessible to potential stalkers and harassers.
Mr. Slater rejected these claims, making it clear that Mr. Sweeney was using information that was already publicly available. He added that the language in Morrone’s letter defines a stalker as someone who poses a “credible threat” to the victim.
“None of our clients ever made any threats against Ms. Swift, and your letter does not suggest that they did so,” Slater said. “Furthermore, the tone of your letter is baseless.”
USA TODAY has reached out to Swift’s representatives for comment.
How is Taylor Swift’s jet being tracked?
Sweeney has multiple social media accounts that track aircraft owned by celebrities, billionaires and politicians, including one that analyzes the carbon footprint of jet owners’ travel.
This information does not come from a single source, but rather combines data gathered from several different sources of publicly available information, including registration information from the Federal Aviation Administration and broadcast signals from the aircraft itself. used. These signals are known as Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast (ADS-B) data.
ADS-B technology is required by the Federal Aviation Administration for aircraft to share real-time location, altitude, and other information important to air traffic controllers. This data also allows sites like FlightAware.com to display real-time commercial aircraft locations.
Contributors: Jeanine Santucci and Christopher Cann
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