Archive

As of this week, Twitter has made sure that federally funded fusion centers can no longer use a powerful social media monitoring tool to spy on users. After the ACLU of California discovered the domestic spy centers had access to these tools, provided by Dataminr (a company partly owned by Twitter), Dataminr was forced to comply with Twitter’s clear rule prohibiting use of data for surveillance.&n... Read More

Sometimes the trucks arrive early. Sometimes they come with no notice at all. Sometimes, while workers from the California Department of Transportation make their way down the row of tents—seizing property and cherished belongings—people have mere minutes or seconds to grab everything they can carry before their bedding, clothes, tools, bikes, medicine, food, shelter, and other property are thrown... Read More

A lawsuit filed today by civil rights groups charges the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) with violating the constitutional rights of homeless people by confiscating and destroying their property in ongoing sweeps. On multiple occasions, Caltrans has failed to give proper notice before raiding encampments—refusing plaintiffs an opportunity to move their belongings before destroyi... Read More

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The California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) is violating the constitutional rights of homeless people by confiscating and destroying their property in ongoing sweeps. The class-action suit seeks a permanent injunction to stop this illegal practice throughout California. 

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The ACLU Foundations of California filed a lawsuit challenging the federal government’s Suspicious Activity Reporting program - a vast expansion of the federal government’s domestic intelligence network. The SAR program targets First Amendment-protected activity, encourages racial and religious profiling, and violates federal law. The plaintiffs are five U.S. citizens whose information has been en... Read More

A coalition of community groups recently announced a groundbreaking partnership with Facebook and the cities of East Palo Alto and Menlo Park to address affordable housing, displacement, and economic opportunity in the region. Read More

Almost 30 years ago, a study showed that people of color were more likely to live near incinerators.  Since then, the dangerous conditions and exposure to environmental dangers have  gotten worse. In California, CalEnviroScreen data recently demonstrated that race and environmental harms are directly correlated. Considering this, it’s alarming to think that a California agency that has t... Read More

At a time when the internment of Japanese-American citizens has been cited as precedent for creating a Muslim-American registry, flag burning is mentioned casually as something that might strip Americans of citizenship, and the Constitution feels under attack, want to know more about the history of the ACLU? Read More

Today, California lawmakers introduced Assembly Bill 3 and Senate Bill 6 to provide legal representation to the state’s immigrant communities who will be targeted by the federal government’s efforts to ramp up deportation programs and go after new classes of people for deportation. Read More