Blog

The ACLU of California has joined 85 other leading privacy groups, academic institutions, and businesses to call on Congress to take immediate action to halt the secret spying by the National Security Agency (NSA) on phone records and Internet activity of people in the United States and provide a full public accounting of the NSA's and the FBI's data collection programs. See letter below and take ... Read More

The Supreme Court's 5-4 decision upholding Maryland's arrestee DNA testing law is a serious blow to genetic privacy. The ruling allows the police to seize the DNA of innocent Americans who have never been convicted of any sort of crime, without a search warrant. And as Justice Scalia makes clear in his scathing dissent, the majority opinion goes against decades of precedent that makes it clear tha... Read More

In light of recent revelations that the Department of Justice secretly requested the telephone records of Associated Press (AP) journalists, we started thinking about newer calling services, like Google Voice. We know that some journalists also use these services. Are these records vulnerable too?Google Voice can be handy, allowing people on the move like journalists to send and receive calls or t... Read More

Today, a federal district judge in Arizona issued a very disappointing decision concerning the government's obligations to be candid with courts about new technologies they are seeking a warrant to use. The ACLU and the Electronic Frontier Foundation filed an amicus brief arguing that when the government wants to use invasive surveillance technology, it has an obligation to explain to the court ba... Read More

Assemblymember Bonnie Lowenthal (D-Long Beach) announced this morning that the California Right to Know Act (AB 1291) will not be voted on this year but she will keep working to pass it next year.It's no secret that tech industry groups have been trying to use their political muscle to trample the Right to Know Act. The fact that companies are lobbying so hard to keep us in the dark about what's r... Read More

Tonight, the Redding City Council will consider whether to put the City on the path toward becoming a drone testing site. The ACLU of Northern California has urged the City Council not to approval the proposal at this juncture. (You can read our letter to the City Council here.) The proposal currently before the City Council is nothing more than a blank check. It offers the community no assurances... Read More

Tech companies like Facebook, Google and Microsoft publicly proclaim their support for user transparency. And data broker Acxiom has recently announced plans to let consumers see what data the company collects about them. So why are the industry groups that represent these companies lobbying against AB 1291, the California Right to Know Act, a bill to give consumers transparency about how their da... Read More

When you search online, shop, or use a mobile app, do you know what personal information is being collected about you and your family? Any idea just how much sensitive information about your location, health, finances, religion, sexual orientation, buying habits, and more is ending up in the hands of data brokers, online advertisers, applications, and other third parties? And how it is being used ... Read More

A Justice Department document obtained by the ACLU of Northern California shows that federal investigators were routinely using a sophisticated cell phone tracking tool known as a "stingray," but hiding that fact from federal magistrate judges when asking for permission to do so.Stingrays and similar devices essentially impersonate cell phone towers, allowing them to pinpoint the precise location ... Read More

Did you know that Google Play, the company's app store for Android users, sends sensitive information to app developers every time you purchase an app? News reports have recently revealed that Google sends your name, email addresses, city and ZIP Code to the app developer each time you buy an app – but you wouldn't know that from reading the company's privacy policy or the policy for its payment s... Read More

In the months since Alameda County Sheriff Gregory Ahern made known his desire to acquire and deploy a surveillance drone, the ACLU has consistently warned that such a plan carries serious privacy implications, that it is imperative the advertised benefits of a drone be weighed against the costs and that strict privacy safeguards be put into place to ensure that drones are not used for warrantless... Read More

These days, more and more people turn to the Internet to find true love – and in the process share some of their most personal information with companies looking to act as matchmakers. And while the ACLU may not help you find your soulmate on Valentine's Day, the latest edition of Privacy and Free Speech: It's Good for Business, our guide for companies, can help online dating services and other co... Read More