Swift’s Legal Warning to Student
Taylor Swift, after making headlines for her iconic Grammys win, finds her name in the news again for issuing a legal warning letter to a University of Central Florida student.
Jack Sweeney, the recipient of the letter, handles a social media account which tracks and posts the movements of Swift’s private jet. 
His target list extends beyond the American Songwriter and singer and was also in the news for monitoring flights of various high-profile celebrities like Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates and Tom Cruise.
On Tuesday, 6th February 2024, Taylor’s lawyer, led by Katie Morrone of Venable LLP, sent Jack a cease-and-desist letter ultimating him to stop the privacy-breaching behaviour.
The legal document convicted Jack for ‘stalking and harassing’ Swift by publicising her precise time and location on a social platform. It is an ‘imminent threat to Taylor’s safety and well-being’ the letter stated.
‘Sweeney is an awful human being.’ : Musk
Billionaire Elon Musk handled this ‘security risk’ by shitting down Sweeney’s X account in December 2022. Musk initially offered Sweeney $5,000 to delete the stalking Twitter account. Sweeney replied by rejecting and demanding $50,000 to use for college or buying a Tesla.
“Sweeney is an awful human being. Taylor is right to be concerned.’ said Elon Musk’s comment.
Jack Sweeney was later, allowed back on the platform and now operates the account using publicly accessible data from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), aircraft’s broadcast signals and updates from flight enthusiasts.
The reason behind Sweeney’s monitoring is to calculate the carbon emissions of every flight. Sweeney assures that he meant no harm to anyone and was just publishing publicly available information. In fact, Sweeney himself is an admirer of the singer’s songs and he monitors her flights only for ‘transparency’ saying that its normal for public figures to expect people tracking their whereabouts.
Stalking or being Transperent?
Being no stranger to stalkers and attackers, Swift’s letter threatens the kid that she’d resort to legal remedies if he doesn’t stop. This may be a game to you, to earn wealth or fame, but for our client, it is a matter of life-or-death, conveys the letter.
Responding back to the letter, Sweeney, assisted by attorney James Slater says that Swift’s letter was ‘unfounded’ and that Jack does not violate any of Ms. Swift’s legal rights. Sweeney holds that the letter is a stunt by a scared team of the Singer owing to the fact that Taylor being among the celebrities whose private jets emit most carbon in 2022, with over 166 hours in air.
This bad publicity resulted in the team targeting people who tracked her flight activity and even induced people to make their travels discreet by blocking data on aviation platforms FlightAware and Flightradar24.
Addressing Sweeney’s allegation, Taylor’s spokesperson reverts that the ‘Midnights-chanteuse’ often lends her aircraft to other people and that she purchased twice the amount of carbon credits than the ones her jet emitted.
Fans Support Sweeney
Taylor’s letter faced criticism from her fans, calling her team’s stringent action as “cruel”.
They argue that the information published by the college student is already public. Threatening the kid is a diabolic move, said a Reddit comment.
Another comment, in agreement wrote “Good luck suing someone for a public information.”
Sweeney’s accounts on Facebook and Instagram have been deactivated owing to this latest controversy and privacy violation.
