A university student named Jack Sweeney has responded defiantly to legal warnings from Taylor Swift’s attorney regarding his tracking of the pop star’s private jets. The cease and desist letters, issued in December 2023 and January 2024, urged Sweeney to cease publicizing the whereabouts of Swift’s aircraft, emphasizing the potential life-threatening implications for Swift due to past encounters with stalkers.
In a bold move on February 19, Sweeney shared his lawyer Ethan Jacobs’ reply on X (formerly Twitter), incorporating a reference to Swift’s song “Look What You Made Me Do.” The 21-year-old, attending the University of Central Florida, defended his company GRNDCTRL’s use of publicly available information to monitor private jets, citing similar tracking of Russian oligarchs and Elon Musk.
Jacobs challenged Swift’s legal team for not specifying any legal grounds for their claims, except for a stalking allegation under California law mentioned in a footnote. He clarified that the term “stalker” implies making a credible threat, asserting that Sweeney’s team has never made such threats against Swift.
Highlighting the lack of basis for alarm in Swift’s letters, Jacobs emphasized that the publicly accessible information posed no safety threat to Swift. He labelled the cease and desist letters as an unjustified attempt to intimidate and censor Sweeney’s clients, expressing confidence in defending their rights if legal action is pursued by Swift.
In summary, Jack Sweeney stands firm against Taylor Swift’s legal warnings, asserting the legality of tracking publicly available information and challenging the lack of a legal foundation for the cease and desist letters.