Taylor Swift comes down on a student tracking her private jet

The creator behind the insanely popular Elonjet has now fallen into the crosshairs of Taylor Swift's lawyers as the programmer created a website dedicated to tracking the location of musicians' private jet.

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The programmer is Jack Sweeney, a University of Central Florida student who quickly came into the public spotlight with his Elonjet X account that automatically posted the location of Elon Musk's private jet. The account gained so much attention that it sparked a response from Musk, who offered Sweeney $5,000 to delete the account, citing it as a security risk. Sweeney declined the offer and responded by saying, "Any chance to up that to $50k?".

Notably, the accounts Sweeney has created use public flight data available to anyone on the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) website. The programmer has received a cease and desist letter from lawyers representing Taylor Swift, with the letter labeling Sweeney's sharing of the FAA data as "stalking and harassing behavior." Furthermore, Swift's lawyers claim the musician has experienced "direct and irreparable harm, as well as emotional and physical distress" as a result of Sweeney's actions.

The letter adds there's "no legitimate interest in or public need for this information, other than to stalk, harass, and exert dominion and control." It should be noted that Sweeney's accounts share the FAA data post-flight locations on a 24-hour delay to satisfy any safety concerns. In a statement to The Washington Post, Sweeney said, "This information is already out there," he said. "Her team thinks they can control the world."

"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. This is their means to try to quash a PR issue and bully my client to have the bad coverage die down," added Sweeney's lawyer

Moreover, Sweeney's attorney responded to Swift's cease and desist letter by arguing his client is "engaged in protected speech that does not violate any of Ms. Swift's legal rights."