Archive

Your life, your data. Or is it?When we update our status on Facebook, post those photos on Flickr, or shop for holiday gifts on Amazon, a whole lot happens behind the scenes. The more we do online, the more digital footprints we leave behind. Many sites we visit collect detailed information about us–our politics, hobbies, relationships and more.Outdated privacy laws often fail to keep your persona... Read More

On Saturday, we wrote that the amended Google Book Settlement fails to answer the core privacy problems raised by the ACLU, the EFF and the Samuelson Clinic.Last night, at a debate at the Commonwealth Club on the future of books, U.C. Berkeley Professor Pamela Samuelson asked Google Books Engineering Director Dan Clancy why the settlement neglected to address privacy. Clancy's response? "We didn't... Read More

The Amended Google Book Search Settlement, filed with the Court on Friday, November 13, does not resolve the privacy concerns.The ACLU, along with EFF and the Samuelson Clinic, have been working to ensure that Google Book Search does not become a one-stop shop for government surveillance into the reading habits of millions of Americans and pushing for robust privacy and free speech safeguards to b... Read More

New Directives Address Inappropriate Searches Like The One Ron Paul Campaign Treasurer Endured Following a lawsuit filed by American Civil Liberties Union, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has revised its policies governing airline passenger screening to make clear that TSA agents are authorized to conduct searches related to safeguarding flight safety, not to engage in general la... Read More

The American Civil Liberties Union today released a new report recommending steps Congress should take to create the vigorous privacy oversight institutions that are desperately needed in the United States to counterbalance the rush of new technologies and expanding government powers, and called for the Obama administration to move quickly to fill the seats on the Privacy and Civil Liberties Overs... Read More

The ACLU Facebook Quiz and its developer, Technology and Civil Liberties Fellow Chris Conley, were recently featured on NPR's radio show, All Things Considered. If you missed it, you can listen to it here.So far, more than 115,000 people have taken the ACLU's Facebook Quiz to see what happens behind-the-scenes to their personal information when they - or a friend - take a quiz on Facebook.The ACLU... Read More

Download the Fall 2009 ACLU-NC Newsletter and read about our latest events and initiatives. Read More

San Francisco – A lawsuit filed today by the ACLU of Northern California seeks to stop California's policy of mandating that DNA is collected from anyone arrested for a felony, whether or not they are ever charged or convicted. The ACLU opposes this law because it violates constitutional guarantees of privacy and freedom from unreasonable search and seizure, and because of the rmful impact on comm... Read More

The ACLU Foundation of Northern California submitted an amicus brief in The People of the State of California vs. Norteño, urging the Solano County Superior Court to limit the overly broad scope of a gang injunction proposed by the City of Fairfield. The ACLU of Northern California brief expressed concerns with several aspects of the injunction, including the potential for racial profiling an... Read More

Dear Marriage Allies:We are writing as partners in the fight for LGBT equality because we believe that too much of the conversation about getting rid of Proposition 8 is focusing on the wrong question.As you probably know, the ACLU has been involved in the fight on virtually every important civil rights initiative at least since Proposition 14 in 1964. We fought against the death penalty, "three s... Read More