Time Magazine reported the complete cease-and-desist letter that lawyers representing Taylor Swift sent to the college student tracking the singer's private jet flights has just been made public.
US singer-songwriter Taylor Swift arrives for the 65th Annual Grammy Awards at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles on February 5, 2023.
The legal measure implemented shows the lengths the global superstar is willing to go to protect her privacy.
The letter from law firm Venable LLP, dated Dec. 22, 2023, garnered traction after it was posted on Reddit on Tuesday. Jack Sweeney, a junior at the University of Central Florida, confirmed to media outlets that the letter in the post was what he had received.
The letter from Swift's lawyers stressed the critical nature of the situation, describing it as a "life-or-death matter" for the pop star, who has been a frequent target of stalkers and online harassment over the years.
Sweeney told The Associated Press 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."
The legal letter 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."
Despite Sweeney using publicly available data from the Federal Aviation Administration for his automated tracking, Venable attorneys demand he immediately stop providing information about their client's location to the public.
However, this is not Sweeney's first run-in with invasion of privacy.
According to AP, Sweeney had more than 30 such accounts on Twitter, now known as X, after Elon Musk purchased the site for $44 billion in 2022.
Musk has also had his battles with Sweeney, tweeting at one point that his commitment to free speech required him not to ban Sweeney's @elonjet account even though he considered it "a direct personal safety risk."
What Do The Swifties Have To Say?
Sweeney's explanation behind his actions did little to nothing for Swift's fans, commonly known as "Swifties."
The star's fans swarmed X (formally Twitter) after Sweeney's recent posts regarding Swift's private jet travel turned into a trending topic.
Newsweek published Sweeney's post, "Look what came in the mail today from the FAA, the registration documents for N898TS and N621MM. It includes Taylor Swift signing off on N898TS," Sweeney wrote, alongside photos of the documents he received from the FAA via the Freedom of Information Act.
"Hope you rot in jail," one X user shot back in response to the post.
"You're obsessed with [Swift]," another told Sweeney. "On your page, you track planes that are not even in her name to speculate if she is there.
"Fun fact, with other celebrities you just track what's in their names ... STALKER. You hide with your environmentalism but the truth is that you are a stalker."
Another expressed that it's "indefensible to post Taylor Swift's location in real-time knowing full well she has dangerous stalkers. Jack could track carbon [emissions] without sharing Taylor's location."
While Sweeney has maintained certain flight information accounts on other social media platforms, he has worked around X's ban on live tracking celebrity jets by posting updates on Swift and Musk's travels on a 24-hour delay.
