Es información pública, y alguien la rastreará de todas formas
Sweeney utiliza información pública de la Administración Federal de Aviación para rastrear aviones privados de celebridades, políticos y multimillonarios, incluyendo estimaciones de emisiones de carbono. Swift emitió casi 8,300 toneladas de CO2 en 2022, aproximadamente 1,100 veces más que una persona promedio, generando escrutinio en redes sociales sobre su impacto ambiental.
- Jack Sweeney, estudiante de 21 años de la Universidad de Florida Central, rastrea jets privados usando datos públicos de la FAA
- Taylor Swift emitió casi 8,300 toneladas de CO2 en 2022, aproximadamente 1,100 veces más que una persona promedio
- Los abogados de Swift enviaron una carta de cese y desista el 22 de diciembre; Sweeney es representado por la Electronic Frontier Foundation
- Sweeney enfrentó previamente a Elon Musk en 2022 por rastrear su jet privado en Twitter
Los abogados de Taylor Swift enviaron una carta de cese y desista a Jack Sweeney, estudiante de 21 años que rastrea vuelos privados usando datos públicos de la FAA, argumentando que representa un riesgo de seguridad.
A cease-and-desist letter arrived at Jack Sweeney's inbox on December 22, signed by lawyers from the firm Venable LLP on behalf of Taylor Swift. The message was blunt: the 21-year-old University of Central Florida student had crossed a line. By publishing real-time location data about Swift's private jet, the letter argued, he was engaging in harassment and stalking—behavior that posed a genuine threat to the singer's safety. "If while this may be a game for you or a means you hope will provide you wealth or fame, it is a matter of life or death for our client," the attorneys wrote.
Sweeney's crime, in the eyes of Swift's legal team, was transparency. For months, the student had been running a tracking operation that pulled from publicly available data supplied by the Federal Aviation Administration. He monitored the private aircraft of the ultra-wealthy—politicians, celebrities, billionaires, Russian oligarchs, and other public figures—and paired his findings with estimates of their carbon emissions. The work was meticulous, the sources legitimate, the conclusions uncomfortable. Swift's jet had become a particular focus of online scrutiny, especially after a sustainability consultant's analysis ranked her among the world's worst carbon polluters in 2022. Her aircraft alone had released nearly 8,300 tons of carbon dioxide that year, roughly 1,100 times the annual emissions of an average person.
Sweeney's response to the threat of legal action was measured. He argued that he published nothing more than the cities Swift visited—information already widely known thanks to her billion-dollar tour and her highly publicized attendance at Kansas City Chiefs games throughout the season. "You should have a reasonable expectation that your airplane will be tracked, by me or by someone else," he said in a statement. "After all, it's public information." His legal representation came from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which characterized Swift's claims as baseless and suggested the timing was no accident. The cease-and-desist had arrived precisely when media outlets began scrutinizing the environmental cost of her travel plans. A route that would take her from Tokyo to Las Vegas for the Super Bowl—covering 31,200 kilometers aboard her Dassault Falcon 900LX—would generate more than 100 additional tons of carbon dioxide. Swift's team countered that she had purchased carbon offsets to compensate for her emissions, more than double what her travel would require.
This was not Sweeney's first encounter with powerful figures seeking to silence his work. In 2022, he had operated an account called @ElonJet on Twitter, tracking Elon Musk's private aviation. When Musk acquired the platform, he suspended Sweeney's accounts, triggering a fierce debate about free speech and corporate power. Musk had claimed at the time that Sweeney's tracking had enabled someone to stalk his young son, though police later found no connection between the student's posts and the alleged incident. Now, facing similar pressure from Swift's lawyers, Sweeney saw the pattern repeating. "This occurrence is disturbingly similar to December 2022, when Musk tweeted that he would take legal action against me," he noted.
James Slater, the Electronic Frontier Foundation attorney representing Sweeney, argued that Swift's legal maneuver was an attempt to suppress negative publicity rather than address a genuine security threat. "It appears the letters are an effort to silence negative press about her emissions," he said. The lawyers had not yet responded to his office. Meanwhile, Musk himself remained under environmental scrutiny—his own 2022 jet emissions totaled around 2,100 tons of carbon dioxide, according to Bloomberg's analysis. The question hanging over the case was whether public figures could use the law to keep their environmental footprints hidden, or whether the right to track and report on that information belonged to anyone with access to public data and the will to use it.
Notable Quotes
Debería tener una expectativa decente de que su avión será rastreado, por mí o por otra persona. Después de todo, es información pública.— Jack Sweeney
Parece que las cartas son un esfuerzo por acallar la publicidad negativa sobre sus emisiones.— James Slater, abogado de la Electronic Frontier Foundation
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
Why does a 21-year-old student tracking public flight data feel like such a threat to someone as powerful as Taylor Swift?
Because the data tells a story she can't control. It's not gossip or speculation—it's FAA records converted into carbon tonnage. When you can say "your jet emitted 8,300 tons of CO2 last year," that's harder to spin than a tabloid headline.
But doesn't she have a legitimate safety concern? Real people do get stalked.
That's what her lawyers claimed. But Sweeney says he only publishes the cities she visits, which are already public knowledge from her tour schedule and her very visible attendance at Chiefs games. The distinction matters legally and morally.
So this is really about environmental criticism, not safety?
That's what the Electronic Frontier Foundation argues. The letter arrived right when media outlets started calculating the carbon cost of her travel. The timing suggests the lawsuit is defensive—trying to shut down a conversation rather than address it.
Has Sweeney done this before?
Yes. He ran @ElonJet on Twitter, tracking Musk's flights. Musk suspended his accounts after acquiring the platform, claiming Sweeney had enabled someone to stalk his son. Police found no evidence of that connection. Now Swift is using a similar playbook.
What's the actual legal question here?
Whether publishing publicly available information about where someone travels—even if it's a celebrity—constitutes harassment. And whether that changes if you're also publishing the environmental cost of that travel.
What happens next?
Sweeney has legal representation and says he won't back down. Swift's team hasn't responded to the EFF's pushback. It could go to court, or it could become a public relations battle about who gets to talk about celebrity emissions.