Archive

"The Hidden Death Tax" is a comprehensive report on the costs of California’s death penalty, analyzing for the first time records of actual costs in California death penalty trials.  The report demonstrates that while California tax payers spend well over $100 million every year on the death penalty, it is unclear just how much money is being spent. At the post-conviction level, California taxp... Read More

'tis the season for private browsing, or so it seems. Apple's Safari Web browser led the pack in introducing a "private browsing mode" in 2005; in recent months, the other browsers on the market have finally followed suit, with Google's recently-released Chrome and beta versions of Mozilla Firefox and Microsoft Internet Explorer adding similar features.What does "private browsing" mean, however? F... Read More

Seeking to address years-long delays in the processing of citizenship applications, the ACLU Foundation of Northern California and other civil rights organizations filed a class-action lawsuit against the federal government for its violation of the Constitution and federal law. Ahmadi v. Chertoff sought to enforce federal laws that require the government to decide a citizenship application within ... Read More

The San Francisco Superior Court today struck down a state law requiring that low-income working women must have resided in California for at least six months before they can be eligible to receive prenatal and other medical care services through California's Access for Infants and Mothers (AIM) insurance program. Read More

The San Francisco Superior Court today struck down a state law requiring that low-income working women must have resided in California for at least six months before they can be eligible to receive prenatal and other medical care services through California's Access for Infants and Mothers (AIM) insurance program. Read More

On Dec. 16, 2008, the San Francisco Superior Court struck down a state law requiring that low-income working women must have resided in California for at least six months before becoming eligible to receive prenatal and other medical care services through California's Access for Infants and Mothers (AIM) insurance program. Read More

The ACLU of Northern California (ACLU-NC), in cooperation with national law firm Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP, has filed a lawsuit on behalf of students in the Shasta Union High School District, challenging the District’s newly adopted random and suspicionless drug testing policy. In August 2008 the District adopted a policy requiring that all students who participate in non-athletic compet... Read More

The Berkeley City Council has adopted a resolution calling on the District Attorney of Alameda County to stop pursuing the death penalty and to focus instead on investing public resources in solving homicides, preventing violence, and expanding public safety programs. Read More

YouTube has been making news this week, mostly about its recently-announced policy that makes "sexually suggestive" or "profane" content harder to access on the site. These new censorship policies which impact access to protected speech have triggered significant backlash among the YouTube user community as well as concerns that YouTube is suppressing some forms of content simply in order to "clea... Read More

By Rachel MyersACLU NationwideThe ACLU and Electronic Frontier Foundation have received several batches of Justice Department documents in response to our Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request (and subsequent lawsuit) for records relating to the government's use of cell phones as tracking devices. What they tell us is that the government doesn't even need the help of a cell phone service provi... Read More