Blog

Back in 2012, the LA County Sheriff commissioned a small Cessna plane filled with cameras and had it secretly fly over the City of Compton for nine days. The Sheriff did not tell that city’s residents – many of whom are Black and Hispanic – they were being watched, that their private lives were being recorded, or that a private company would control their data. This story of surveillance... Read More

At least 10 transgender women of color have been murdered in the United States since June.Today, on the Transgender Day of Remembrance & Resilience we honor their lives and mourn their deaths. These women - Kandy Hall, Zoraida Reyes, Yaz’min Shancez, Tiff Edwards, Mia Henderson, Alejandra Leos, Aniya Parker, Ashley Sherman, and another yet to be identified person ... Read More

Apps like Uber and Lyft have access to a wide array of data on our smartphones, chief of which is the precise GPS location that each company uses to connect drivers and passengers. Read More

People deserve a voice in making informed community choices about the use of surveillance. One of the biggest roadblocks is that there is very little public information about the state of surveillance. Read More

"There ain't no such thing as a free lunch." The saying has been around for decades, but it has never been truer in an era where technology so often seems to promise something for nothing. Read More

Nov. 10 is the celebration of the Marine Corps birthday. Nov. 11 is Veterans Day, and Nov. 14 was my first day of Boot Camp, the beginning of my journey as a U.S. Marine. Read More

Californians want smart criminal justice strategies and recognize that longer sentences, especially for low-level, nonviolent crimes, have not made our communities any safer. The question is whether our political leaders in Sacramento are listening. Read More

On Election Day in 2013, I took my four children with me to watch me register to vote and cast my ballot in a city election in my small town in Iowa. Earlier that day, my daughter's class learned about the meaning of democracy and the importance of elections.Two months after I cast my ballot as a civics lesson for my daughter, the Iowa Department of Criminal Investigation agents parked across the ... Read More

We've seen a wave of voter suppression laws across the country in recent years, which many have rightly characterized as a cynical attempt by politicians to manipulate the rules of the game.Yesterday, however, we heard directly from voters in three states, who overwhelmingly voted in favor of a system free from barriers, fairly administered, and equally accessible to all.Montanans faced a ballot m... Read More

It appears the Federal Aviation Administration may have fallen into the "constitutional sinkhole" that is Ferguson, Missouri. Earlier this week, the Associated Press released an alarming set of documents revealing the FAA's decision to approve a no-fly zone over Ferguson – a no-fly zone requested by local police in order to muzzle media coverage of protests in the wake of the killing of unarmed bl... Read More

As the 2014 California legislative session came to an end, you may have seen headlines about California passing a “first-in-the-nation law.” While these headlines covered issues such as the statewide plastic-bag ban, they also applied to landmark civil liberties and civil rights legislation sponsored by the ACLU of California. Read More

Accessing medicine prescribed by a doctor should never be a crime, but Shasta County’s Measure A would make some medical marijuana cultivation a misdemeanor offense. Sick people should not be criminalized for their efforts to grow the medicine necessary to deal with the pain of debilitating diseases. Read More