Archive

The ACLU of Northern California has been very active in highlighting the need for privacy and free speech safeguards in municipal wireless programs. Cities should not be deploying wireless networks that track who we are, what we are looking at, and where we are looking at it from. Once that information is collected, who knows where it will end up or how it will be used or abused? But ... Read More

Google To Anonymize. Google will begin removing one fourth to half of each IP address after 18 months to 2 years to anonymize user data. The government has been asking ISPs to hold data for a year or more. Read more about it here and here. My question is how long Google was actually keeping data before and is this new policy really a privacy enhancing move or... Read More

SAN FRANCISCO – The ACLU of Northern California, the San Francisco Bay Guardian, and Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request today seeking records relating to recent enforcement actions conducted by U.S. Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE). The ACLU-NC has requested expedited processing because of the urgency of this... Read More

Passengers in vehicles pulled over by the police have just as much right as drivers to challenge the legality of the traffic stop and its consequences, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled on June 18.In reversing the California Supreme Court, the high court essentially ruled that an unlawful traffic stop violates the rights of everybody in a vehicle – including passengers, not just the driver. Ever... Read More

The American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, today, called on lawmakers to push for a major overhaul of the Real ID Act, calling it a "real nightmare" for Californians. The Department of Homeland Security's recently proposed delay for implementing the act would do nothing to prevent a national identity card system that violates personal privacy and increases identity theft, all while... Read More

HID Global Corporation has threatened to sue IO Active, a computer security company based in Seattle, with patent infringement if it gives its planned presentation at the BlackHat Convention this Wednesday, February 28, 2007, in Washington D.C. The presentation discusses vulnerabilities of HID RFID cards and demonstrates a handheld RFID cloner developed by the company to highlight these vulnerabil... Read More

Download the Winter 2007 ACLU-NC Newsletter and read about our latest events and initiatives. Read More

The ACLU Foundation of Northern California, the ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project, the Asian Law Caucus and the Council on American-Islamic Relations filed a class action lawsuit challenging the United States Custom and Immigration Services' (USCIS) failure to process citizenship applications within a reasonable time period. The lawsuit is based on federal laws that require timely processing of imm... Read More

On Wednesday, January 31, the Montana House passed an anti-REAL ID bill on a vote of 99-1. The bill is expected to head to the Senate next week. The text of the bill can be found here. A number of other states, including Georgia, Hawaii, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Utah, Vermont, Washington, and Wyoming are also considering opting out of REAL ID, placing conditions on their participation in... Read More

Real ID Act and RFID The ACLU of Northern California has been calling on California legislators to take a stand to protect the privacy, personal safety, and financial security of Californians by asking hard questions about both the Real ID Act and the use of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology in government-issued identification documents. Real ID Act ... Read More