Blog

Today, the Supreme Court struck down a Massachusetts law creating a 35 foot buffer zone around abortion facilities. The Court balanced two fundamental rights: freedom of speech on public sidewalks and women’s right to access reproductive health care. At the ACLU, we care deeply about both rights, and believe that in balancing rights in conflict the goal is to safeguard both. In our view, the Court... Read More

The United States Supreme Court unanimously acknowledged what common sense tells us and everyone who owns a cell phone (yes, that would be just about everyone) already knows: Our cell phones have a whole lot of private information about us. The Court therefore held that cops need a warrant to search a cell phone.In one of the best references to extraterrestrial life to appear in a recent (or perha... Read More

Growing up in any city it is easy to see the inequalities that permeate every-day life. Growing up in the Bay Area has provided me with so many opportunities to become aware and involved in challenging those inequalities. My time as an intern at the ACLU of Northern California helped me understand how to better do that. Read More

Today is Juneteenth and the United States just executed three black men from three southern states in 24 hours. This is outrageous.Here’s a Throwback Thursday for you. June 19, 1865: African American men, women, and children in Galveston, Texas, rejoiced and celebrated in the streets after hearing these words, “The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Execu... Read More

Barely a generation ago, California’s schools were the greatest in the nation. Now, the state’s education is abysmal, ranking 49th in the nation on how much it spends on students.California is taking steps to change the way it invests in schools and students to turn this tide.The Local Control and Funding Formula is one of the ways that the state is supporting the students who need it the most. It... Read More

While we await much-needed federal immigration reform, dozens of counties are refusing ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) requests to detain immigrants in local jails. Read More

Angelica Salceda, an 2013 Equal Justice Works Fellow with the ACLU of Northern California, is helping implement the Pregnant and Parenting Student Project for teen parents to receive the adequate resources they need to succeed in their academics. Read about her important work in the community with Equal Justice Works. Read More

If you think "Orange Is the New Black" shows it all, you're about to find out a disgusting truth. While the women in OITNB face miserable conditions and abuse, it's nothing compared to what real people experience in the jail where they film as well as other jails in Suffolk County, New York. Read More

One year ago today, whistleblower Edward Snowden confirmed that the NSA was secretly engaged in a massive program of warrantless surveillance of the American people. Since then, the ACLU has worked both in the courts and in Congress to halt the agency’s abuses of power and violations of our constitutional rights. But the NSA isn’t the only agency guilty of dragnet surveillance without oversight. S... Read More

The Oakland Unified School District last week took the latest in a series of steps aimed at reducing interaction between district students and school district police officers that too often leads to overly-harsh discipline that pushes kids out of school and into the criminal justice system. Read More

You’ve seen police uniforms on TV. Some have medals, some have stripes, some are blue and some are tan, but they always have a badge, and a little nameplate on the chest bearing the officers name. In California, officers are required by state law to wear that nameplate identifying them. Why? Accountability. Read More

As technology advances and it becomes easier to amass consumers’ personal information, these state-driven solutions will be essential to ensuring our privacy is not left behind. Read More