Taylor Swift threatens legal action against student who tracks her jet

Taylor Swift has threatened to take legal action against the Florida college student who runs social media accounts tracking her and other celebrities’ private jets — calling the issue a matter of “life or death.”

Katie Wright Morrone, the pop icon’s attorney, sent Jack Sweeney, 21, a cease and desist letter in December saying she would “have no choice but to all legal remedies” if he did not stop his “stalking and harassing behavior,” according to the Washington Post, which recently obtained a copy of the letter.

She claimed Sweeney’s accounts caused Swift and her family “direct and irreparable harm, as well as emotional and physical distress” and had heightened the “Fearless” singer’s “constant state of fear for her personal safety.

“While this may be a game to you, or an avenue that you hope will earn you wealth or fame, it is a life or death matter for our Client,” wrote Morrone, of the Washington law firm Venable.

She added that there is “no legitimate interest in or public need for this information, other than to stalk, harass and exert dominion and control.”

When asked whether there is any evidence that some of Swift’s stalkers used the jet-tracking accounts, her spokeswoman Tree Paine told the Washington Post: “We cannot comment on any ongoing police investigation, but can confirm the timing of stalkers suggests a connection.

“His posts tell you exactly when and where she would be.”

But Sweeney, a junior at the University of Central Florida, said the “information is already out there,” as he criticized the letter as a scare tactic.

“Her team thinks they can control the world,” he told the Washington Post.

Sweeney, who has been monitoring Swift’s private jet flights for more than a year, also told The Post that the situation is “eerily similar” to when Elon Musk threatened legal action against him for tracking the Tesla founder’s jet.

“Nowhere do I intend to harm,” he told The Post. “I actually think Swift has some good songs.

“I believe in transparency and public information.”

He went on to rip the attorney’s argument that “I have no legitimate interest in sharing the jet information,” saying it is “inherently wrong.

“Her fans [are] the ones who have grown the TaylorSwiftJets account and subreddit,” Sweeney claimed. “The tracking accounts routinely have more supporters and fans than otherwise.

“When the Embassy of Japan in the USA makes a statement saying they are ‘confident’ Swift can make it on a flight from Tokyo to the Super Bowl, I think the people are interested and that you should have a decent expectation that your jet will be tracked, whether or not I do it, as after all it is public information.”

The college junior uses publicly available data from the Federal Aviation Administration and volunteer hobbyists who track the aircrafts’ signals to report the takeoffs and landings of planes and helicopters owned by billionaires, politicians, Russian oligarchs and other public figures.

“This isn’t about putting a GPS tracker on someone and invading their privacy. It’s using public information to track the jet of a public figure,” said Sweeney’s attorney, James Slater.

“This is their means to try to quash a PR issue and bully my client to have the bad coverage die down,” he said of the pop sensation’s lawyers’ letter.

At the time the letter was sent, Swift was facing criticism for her flights’ environmental impact as she traveled around the country to visit her boyfriend Travis Kelce.

Just two years prior, Sweeney’s accounts were cited in an analysis that named Swift the “biggest celebrity [carbon dioxide] polluter” of 2022.

A rep for the Grammy winner said at the time that her “jet is loaned out regularly to other individuals.”

“To attribute most or all of these trips to her is blatantly incorrect.”

Her publicist Tree Paine also told the Washington Post that Swift bought more than double the “carbon credits” needed to offset her travel before the worldwide Eras Tour.

Also at the time of the letter, Sweeney said Facebook and Instagram disabled accounts he created to track Swift’s air travel, saying they broke the platforms’ privacy rules.

He then started posting updates about Swift’s flights on an account he uses to report the travel of several stars, called Celeb Jets.

But last month, Morrone sent Sweeney a second letter regarding his posts about Swift’s travel, saying they constituted “harassing conduct,” according to the Washington Post.

At that point, Sweeney said he reached out to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights group, which put him in contact with Slater.

The Florida-based attorney then wrote back to Morrone, noting that she had not identified any legal claim.

He also said the jet information Sweeney shares online pose “no threat” to Swift’s safety and that Sweeney’s account “engaged in protected speech that does not violate any of Ms. Swift’s legal rights.”

Slater said he has yet to receive a response.

The Post has also reached out to a representative for Swift, and to Slater for comment.