Blog

Public-records laws are designed to ensure that constituents and journalists have access to information on public affairs. They protect a bedrock value of our democracy: transparency. Read More

For communities of color, surveillance isn't just an invasion of personal privacy, it’s a tool for high tech racial profiling that can have disastrous and fatal consequences. Read More

According to documents recently obtained by The Intercept in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, the government is surveilling the #BlackLivesMatter movement. Read More

A federal district court held that the government must obtain a warrant to obtain historical cell phone location data. This important ruling makes it clear that we don’t have to give up privacy to participate in modern society. Read More

Sandra Bland had a constitutional right to give her arresting officer the middle finger. She could have even told him to f*** off. Nothing in the law prevented her from being rude. Read More

The ACLU of Northern California has joined the Federal Public Defender’s Office and the Electronic Frontier Foundation in supporting a warrant requirement for access to cell phone location information. Read More

Trans women’s lives are endangered when renting hotel rooms, driving cars, walking down the street. How much longer will we sit idly by while they are murdered for having the audacity to exist? This must stop. Read More

The ACLU of Southern California sued LAUSD, asking that the school district be required to invest the appropriate amount of money to develop new or improved services for the high need students targeted under LCFF. Read More

Whatever your immigration status, you should not be arrested without proper justification. You should not have your home entered or searched without a warrant or other cause. You should not be treated differently because of your race or ethnicity. You should not have a gun pointed at your head for no reason. Read More

This piece originally appeared at PostEverything on washingtonpost.com.The ACLU joined calls this month for the state of South Carolina to unhook the “Southern Cross”—a Confederate battle flag—from the flagpole at the state capitol and permanently remove the flag from the seat of its government. When the flag came down, we applauded. South Carolina, its governor, legislatu... Read More

While the criminal justice system’s primary aim is to further public safety, all too often it is co-opted to perpetuate the history of racial inequality and economic injustice in the United States. Conscious and unconscious racial bias can impact every part of the criminal justice system, from initial stops and arrests, to bail decisions, charging practices, plea bargaining, sentencing, and time i... Read More

The tragic shooting of Kate Steinle in San Francisco has focused national attention on why her accused assailant, Francisco Lopez-Sanchez, was released from the San Francisco Sheriff’s Department’s custody in April and not deported. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and others have rushed to cast blame on the sheriff’s department for Ms. Steinle’s death. But this horrible and apparently ran... Read More