Blog

Last week’s decision by a federal appeals court allowing an expensive and multi-year lawsuit to go forward against San Francisco is a reminder of the immense cost—both to civil liberties and the public fisc—that can follow a community’s failure to have a thorough public discussion about surveillance technology and adopt legally enforceable safeguards if it is going to be used. Read More

Over 50 LGBTQ youth activists with the GSA Advocacy and Youth Leadership Academy traveled to Sacramento to advocate for safe and supportive school environments for all students. This year, the youth met with legislators to talk about three important pieces of legislation that impact their lives. Read More

By Judy PendletonAs a long-time resident of Visalia – yes, that small town in the heart of California’s Central Valley – district attorney and sheriff elections have never excited me much. These races historically go uncontested, and candidates use the same old “tough on crime” rhetoric in their campaigns. But what does public safety really mean to these candidates? What about corrections spending... Read More

This Mother’s Day, I want to honor mothers of all ages—the young and old—including myself. As a seventeen year old mother, I know all too well both the joys and struggles of motherhood. When I became pregnant at 14, I knew my life would change dramatically but because of the way teen mothers are stigmatized, I never imagined I could be this happy. Read More

Exciting news. The White House Big Data Report, Big Data: Seizing Opportunities, Preserving Values, was released today. While it does not address all of the ACLU’s concerns, the report recognizes the importance of moving forward on several legal and policy areas that have been a focus of our work here in California for several years. Read More

If you’ve been reading the news at all this week, you’ve been inundated with some pretty gruesome news in the death penalty arena. News that has caused outrage and should give every person in this country pause. Read More

Last May Day, hundreds of Fresno residents took to the streets to ask for a path to citizenship for the 11 million people forced to live in the shadows by our broken immigration system. There was momentum in Congress for comprehensive immigration and the Senate later managed to approve a comprehensive immigration reform bill. We were all so hopeful.Fast-forward one year later: Congress has stalled... Read More

California has long been a leader in ensuring social safety net programs for poor families but the Maximum Family Grant (MFG) rule is hurting our reputation. The MFG rule says that if a parent or guardian has been receiving aid from CalWORKS for ten months consecutively, any child conceived within that timeframe is blocked for life from receiving the same assistance granted to their siblings. Read More

Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action is widely misunderstood as being a case about affirmative action. It is not. In fact, it leaves in place Supreme Court law recognizing diversity as a compelling governmental interest and permitting carefully constructed affirmative action programs. Today's decision has no effect on states that want to adopt or maintain affirmative action plans. Read More

At the ACLU, we frequently see historic civil liberties battles recurring in new guises. The cases on contraceptive coverage in employee health plans argued before the Supreme Court last week present a familiar scenario: in times of rapid social progress, those resisting equality claim a religious right to discriminate. Read More

Today the ACLU of Northern California announced plans to file a federal class-action lawsuit against the City of Berkeley for its ban on roosters within city limits. The ACLU pointed to a series of constitutional concerns that threaten us all.“The ACLU has always stood up for those who are voiceless, or in this case, too loud,” said Abdi Soltani, ACLU-NC Executive Director and Berkeley resident, w... Read More

It is no secret: California continues to waste enormous amounts of taxpayer money locking up far too many people for far too long who don’t need to be behind bars to keep the public safe. Read More