Archive

San Francisco, CA — A San Francisco judge has held that California elections officials must notify voters before rejecting their mail-in ballots over signature concerns.State law was allowing elections officials — who may not be handwriting experts — to reject vote-by-mail ballots if they felt the signature on the ballot envelope didn’t match the signature on file for the voter, without givin... Read More

Companies developing facial-recognition software need to consider how their products enable dragnet surveillance, discriminatory enforcement, and abuse. Read More

45,000 ballots were discarded - without notice - in California's November 2016 election. This ACLU Foundation of Northern California lawsuit asks that future voters be given an opportunity to fix any signature match problems before their votes are thrown away. Read More

In California, the broad “disruption or willful defiance” category is a legit reason to suspend students from school. This subjective category must be abolished - here's why. Read More

In January 2017, Trump issued his first Muslim ban, an unconstitutional executive order which sent countless lives into disarray. What happened next? Read More

Increased ICE activity has been reported throughout the Bay Area, the Central Coast, and in the Central Valley. Local rapid response hotlines have confirmed that ICE has arrested at least 37 people over the past few days in cities including Monterey, Oakland, Fresno, Napa, San Francisco, Sacramento, Santa Clara, and Salinas.Contrary to statements provided by ICE, agents are aggressively intimidati... Read More

Given recent threats of large scale ICE raids, the ACLU of Northern California wants to make sure you know your rights, and provide information on rapid response hotlines set up in the Bay Area. Read More

The County of Madera and the ACLU of Northern California settled a lawsuit today regarding California’s open meeting law, the Ralph M. Brown Act. The ACLU filed suit in July of last year, alleging the County violated the Brown Act during a closed session item at a Board of Supervisor’s meeting on March 7, 2017. The lawsuit was prompted in part by statements the Madera County District Attorney made... Read More

Douglass’s life and words continue to illustrate the struggle of being Black in America. In honor of his legacy and the movement he helped lead, we have asked members of our staff to read passages from his work and reflect on the meaning of his words. Read More

Last night, the Bay Area city of Alameda unanimously rejected a proposed $500,000 contract to purchase license plate reader technology from Vigilant, a company that recently sold ICE access to its nationwide database. This is a win for the rights of all residents. Read More