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Sweeney’s accounts fueled a debate over free speech in late 2022 when X, formerly Twitter, banned Sweeney for sharing what the platform’s owner, Elon Musk, said were his “murder coordinates.” The accounts do not say who is on the plane or where they go once the planes land.
In December, Swift’s attorney at the Washington law firm Venable wrote Sweeney a cease-and-desist letter saying Swift “would have no choice but to pursue any and all legal remedies” if she did not stop her “behavior.” of stalking and harassment.”
Sweeney’s stories had caused Swift and her family “direct and irreparable harm, as well as emotional and physical distress” and had increased her “constant state of fear for her personal safety,” attorney Katie Wright Morrone wrote, according to a report. Copy of letter sent to Sweeney’s parents’ house. Sweeney shared the letter with The Washington Post.
“While this may be a game for you, or an avenue you hope will bring you wealth or fame, it is a matter of life and death for our Client,” Morrone wrote. He added that “there is no legitimate interest or public need for this information other than to stalk, harass and exert dominance and control.”
The pop star has routinely faced stalkers who appear in front of her homes, Morrone wrote, and a man now faces stalking and harassment charges after being arrested last month outside his Manhattan home.
When asked if Swift’s representatives were aware of any evidence that stalkers had used plane-tracking accounts, Tree Paine, a spokesperson for Swift, said: “We cannot comment on any ongoing police investigation, but we can confirm that the moment when stalkers suggest a connection. Her posts tell you exactly when and where she would be.”
Sweeney, 21, told The Post that he saw the letter as an attempt to scare him into not sharing public data. The accounts offer only an incomplete sketch of which cities Swift might currently be in, similar to public schedules for her concerts or any NFL games she might attend, she said. And the letters, she added, were sent to her at a time when she was facing criticism about the environmental impact of their flights.
“This information is already available,” he said. “His team thinks they can control the world.”
Private jet flights are routinely criticized for their “disproportionately high” impact on climate change, and Sweeney’s stories have often been used to name and shame his most famous passengers. In 2022, the accounts were cited in a analysis which estimated that Swift was the “biggest celebrity (carbon dioxide) polluter” of the year.
His publicist then told The Post that the analysis was flawed because his plane was often loaned to other people. Paine told The Post on Monday that Swift purchased more than double the “carbon credits” needed to offset her trip before her recent tour began.
Around the time of the December letter, Facebook and Instagram disabled accounts Sweeney had created to track Swift’s air travel, saying they violated the platforms’ privacy rules, he said. She began posting those updates on Facebook and Instagram accounts that she uses to record the trips of planes used by a variety of stars, called Celeb Jets. Then last month, Morrone sent a second letter saying his posts about Swift’s plane constituted “harassing conduct.”
The letters included the names of three other Venable attorneys with litigation experience, including one who says on LinkedIn that she is a founding member of the firm’s “digital crisis planning and response client solution” and that she helps “individuals from high profile” to manage crises of various types. magnitude, such as “celebrity misfortune events.”
Morrone did not respond to requests for comment. Meta, owner of Facebook and Instagram, also did not respond.
Planes in the sky periodically transmit their location using transponders so that air traffic controllers and other pilots can see where they are going. Anyone on the ground can pick up those signals using a cheap device, known as an ADS-B receiver, which is widely sold online.
The FAA allows aircraft owners to request that their flights be hidden from the federal data that underpins popular consumer flight-tracking websites such as FlightAware. Swift’s plane appears to be blocked by such a request.
But many aviation enthusiasts enter their raw data into independent websites, such as the ADS-B Exchange, that those FAA requests don’t cover. Criminal investigators, journalists and researchers have used those sites to search for historical flight routes or see who is flying over.
Swift, Time magazine’s “2023 Person of the Year,” made history Sunday as the only musician to win four Grammy Awards for best album, and her every move is closely watched by paparazzi and superfans. Her “Eras Tour” last year was credited with boosting the local economies of every city she stopped in; A study cited by The Post estimated that “Swifties” spent about $93 million per show.
Her travel plans have drawn increased attention in recent weeks when she flew to see her boyfriend, Travis Kelce, play for the Kansas City Chiefs, including from conservatives who used the trips to criticize her.
They have also become a key point of interest for their fans, especially since their upcoming concert in Tokyo is just hours before Kelce’s Super Bowl appearance scheduled for Sunday in Las Vegas. Even the Japanese embassy in Washington recognized the public’s interest, destination in
In recent months, Sweeney’s accounts have tracked two planes that were owned by Nashville-based companies and registered to be operated by a Swift company called Firefly Entertainment, according to FAA documents. They do not track who travels on the planes or any other chartered flights.
Swift’s spokeswoman told The Post that “there is only one plane.” One of the planes previously tracked by Sweeney’s accounts, a Dassault Falcon 900, was marked in FAA records last week as having been transferred to a real estate company. Each plane sells for about $25 million, according to brokerage estimates cited last month by The Post.
After X banned him and his accounts in December 2022, Sweeney opened new Facebook and Instagram accounts for Swift, the former president. donald trumpAmazon founder Jeff Bezosreality star kim kardashian and goal boss Mark Zuckerberg, among others. All of those accounts except Swift’s remain online, including the accounts of Zuckerberg, who runs both sites. (Bezos owns the Washington Post.)
Sweeney continues to post updates on the Swift Jet on other platforms, including Bluesky, Mastodon, and Telegram. To comply with X’s rule against real-time location tracking, he also created accounts that post Musk and Swift’s flight updates with a 24-hour delay.
The December letter from Swift’s attorney states that Sweeney’s actions “violate several state laws,” but does not specify them. However, the letter cites nine anonymous Instagram comments saying the account is “scary,” “pathetic,” “bizarre,” invasive” and “dangerous” “stalker behavior.”
The letter says Sweeney is “known for ignoring the personal safety of others in exchange for public attention and/or requests for financial gain” and cites a message he sent to Musk in 2021, during which he responded to Musk’s offer of 5,000 dollars to eliminate the Musk- jet account with a suggestion of $50,000, as a first reported by the now defunct technology blog Protocol. Sweeney said she never exchanged money.
After receiving the letters, Sweeney said he asked for help from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights group, which sent his request to a list of attorneys. James Slater, a Florida attorney who specializes in First Amendment and Internet speech issues, responded on Sweeney’s behalf to Venable’s letter.
Slater wrote that Morrone had not identified any legal claims, that the plane information posed “no threat” to Swift’s safety and that Sweeney’s account had “engaged in protected speech that does not violate any of the company’s legal rights.” Ms. Swift,” according to a copy reviewed by The Post. Slater said she has not yet received a response.
In an interview, Slater said he thought the letters from Swift’s lawyer were “hyperbolic and unfounded” and sent them in the hope that Sweeney would “just delete everything and do what they said.”
“This is not about putting a GPS tracker on someone and invading their privacy. “This is about using public information to track a public figure’s jet,” she said. “This is their means to try to quell a public relations problem and intimidate my client into making the bad coverage go away.”