Archive

The ACLU Foundation of Northern California and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area submitted a demand letter to the City of Sacramento this morning urging the City to drop all charges against individuals for violating the City’s June 1 curfew order. Seventy-two individuals were arrested and charged for violating the order, which imposed a sweeping ban on public as... Read More

In January 2019, the ACLU led a coalition of over 80 civil rights groups calling on Amazon, Google, and Microsoft to stop selling face recognition technology to law enforcement. Google heeded these calls early on. Microsoft instead responded with a legislative effort in multiple states to legitimize law enforcement use of the technology. The ACLU, together with a coalition of groups, earlier this ... Read More

Amazon today announced a one-year moratorium on its sale of face recognition technology to law enforcement. The American Civil Liberties Union two years ago revealed that the company is secretly selling this technology to police, and has since led a coalition effort calling on the company to stop fueling police abuses and civil rights violations with the sale of this technology to law enforcement. Read More

As major tech companies rush to claim solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement, they’re being rightfully called out for the ways their products and workplace conditions actively undermine the rights and safety of Black people. IBM has listened and stopped development of face recognition, a technology that supercharges police surveillance and has repeatedly been shown to disproportionately m... Read More

This afternoon a federal judge granted a preliminary injunction in response to a class action legal challenge by immigrants detained at two California immigration detention centers where conditions are rife for the spread of COVID-19. Read More

The California Court of Appeal ruled that the Department of Motor Vehicles cannot suspend the licenses of drivers who fail to appear in court unless the DMV receives a notification of a willful failure to appear. Read More

Today, the ACLU Foundation of Northern California sent a letter to the counties of Alameda, Contra Costa, San Mateo, and Napa as well as the cities of Palo Alto and San Francisco, demanding that they immediately rescind or substantially restrict the curfew orders that they imposed over the last three days. These sweeping measures, allowing police to arrest anyone outside from the early evening hou... Read More

Santa Cruz Mayor Cummings and Police Chief Mills are hosting an online community meeting to discuss police policies in the wake of national protests over the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and many others at the hands of the police. Read More

Today, Governor Newsom issued an executive order to ensure that Californians can exercise their right to vote in a safe, secure and accessible manner during the upcoming election. Read More

The killing of George Floyd on May 25 has returned the spotlight on racist policing and the dehumanization of African Americans in the criminal legal system. We share the grief and anger that’s spilling into the streets calling for justice. Read More