Archive

The American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation filed a lawsuit today urging a federal court to order the Department of Justice to turn over records related to the government's use of people's cell phones as tracking devices.The ACLU filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the records in November 2007 following revelations that federal officials are using Americans... Read More

In a victory for civil liberties and responsible government spending, the Budget Committee of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted Thursday to cut $300,000 from its invasive, intrusive, and ineffective video surveillance camera program.The Budget Committee's decision is an important first step, but will not be finalized until the full Board approves the budget next month. Please contact yo... Read More

The first comprehensive study of California’s death penalty was released today by the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice (CCFAJ), a nonpartisan statewide advisory board. The 116 page report highlights a myriad of problems, including the failure to adequately fund defense counsel for poor people facing death sentences, a decades-long appeals process, and the risk that inno... Read More

The ACLU of Northern California (ACLU-NC) has reached a settlement with the Upper Lake Union Elementary School District that contains a comprehensive series of steps the District will undertake to protect students from anti-gay harassment and discrimination. The agreement is on behalf of a student who was persistently subjected to verbal taunting and physical abuse throughout elementary and middl... Read More

The memory of another monumental day in court, 60 years earlier, hung over the March 4 hearings on marriage equality, and not just because the famous Perez v. Sharp decision was invoked repeatedly by lawyers.Stuart Gaffney, half of one of the couples who sued for the right to marry, said on the day of the hearing that he wouldn't have been there were it not for the 1948 California Supreme Court's ... Read More

In a recent victory for employee privacy and free speech, the Ninth Circuit told employers to stop snooping on email and text messages.The case:Quon v. Arch WirelessThe facts:The City of Ontario Police Department gave two-way pagers to its employees. Officer Quon, a Department employee, used his pager to send personal messages. Quon exceeded his messaging limit and the Department decided to audit ... Read More

The ACLU Foundation of Northern California reached a settlement with a Lake County school district that contains a series of steps the district will undertake to protect students from anti-gay harassment and discrimination. The agreement is on behalf of a student who was persistently subjected to verbal taunting and physical abuse based on his sexual orientation.The ACLU Foundation of No... Read More

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) set off a minor firestorm in the blogosphere over its new ID policy, which went into effect this past Saturday. At least one passenger has reported that he was asked which political party he is registered to vote for, as part of TSA's new authentication process.TSA's new rules relate to passengers who attempt to fly without ID — itself a relatively ... Read More

Apart from the ceremonial naming of post offices, it has become an increasingly rare thing in Washington for Republicans and Democrats to band together on an issue. However, the effort by telecom lobbyists to steamroll retroactive immunity for AT&T, Verizon and Comcast is being met with stiff resistance by a broad coalition of activist groups.The "compromise" legislation, which has been widely... Read More

The ACLU of Northern California has written extensively about the privacy and free speech implications of video surveillance.A video surveillance firm is now trying to make its technology a bit more privacy friendly by developing technology to blur most people's faces.With the rapid expansion of governmental video surveillance, the introduction of photographic services like Google Street View, and... Read More