Archive

Today Oakland released a report it commissioned from the Frazier Group that reviewed police tactics in response to Occupy Oakland demonstrations. (The ACLU of Northern California widely criticized OPD for excessive force and violence against protesters, and along with the National Lawyers Guild, sued OPD. That lawsuit is ongoing.) The report is widely critical of the Oakland Police Department's ta... Read More

The ACLU of Northern California has been named the Community Organization Grand Marshal for San Francisco Pride 2012. The ACLU has a decades-long history advocating equality for LGBT people. It brought its first LGBT rights suit in 1936 and over many decades helped what became a strong movement for LGBT equality. Today, the ACLU remains in the thick of the battle, fighting for the recognition of s... Read More

The ACLU Foundation of Northern California filed suit on behalf of two concerned taxpayers against the West Contra Costa Unified School District, over conditions at district's Community Day School Program. The lawsuit seeks to compel the district to relocate its Community Day School Program (CDSP) and to provide adequate staffing, instructional materials, and legally required services to its stude... Read More

A commentator on my recent post about the DEA installing license plate scanners on the nation's interstate highways asks, "If you aren't doing anything illegal why would you care if someone captures your license plate number?"Another commentator countered: "If I'm not doing anything illegal, why do the police need to record my license plate number?"It's a great response. In essence, it points to o... Read More

When a number of bars in San Francisco agreed to install facial detection cameras to collect and broadcast demographic information about the bar's patrons, the local community lashed out – not only at SceneTap, the developer of the service, but also at the bars who agreed to use it. Outraged patrons wrote scathing reviews on sites like Yelp and threatened to boycott bars that installed the service... Read More

The ACLU Foundation of Northern California has long been fighting against a provision of a 2004 California initiative (Prop. 69) that requires anyone arrested for a felony - including for crimes such as simple drug possession or joyriding - to provide a DNA sample that will be stored in a criminal database. Read More

Today, parents and teachers in Dinuba, CA filed suit against the Dinuba Unified School District and the State of California, charging that the school district and state are violating students’ fundamental right to equal educational opportunity. The lawsuit seeks to stop this Central Valley school district from denying basic instruction in reading to 1st and 2nd grade English learners and from usin... Read More

Three organizations concerned with civil rights and civic participation are asking the California Supreme Court to clarify and protect the voting rights of 85,000 Californians before the October 22, 2012 voter registration deadline. Read More

Social media and other emerging technologies are fundamentally altering how students interact and express themselves in school. Staff Attorney Linda Lye explains the history of student free speech, and discusses technology's modern twist on the First Amendment. Read More

Today, the California State Assembly unanimously approved AB 2530 authored by Assembly member Toni Atkins. A straight-forward bill that would prohibit the most dangerous forms of shackling of pregnant incarcerated women, AB 2530 has garnered support from Republicans and Democrats alike. Read More