Blog

Information about where you go is valuableLocation data from your cell phone or portable device can make it easy to get directions or locate the closest coffee shop. But that location data also says a lot about you – where you go, what you do, and who you know. And outdated privacy laws, written before GPS and other location-aware technologies even existed, mean that all this personal information ... Read More

Yesterday, the House Intelligence Committee released proposed changes to the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act of 2011, also known as CISPA that, according to its sponsors, represent "huge progress" towards addressing the privacy and internet freedom community's concerns.But, many privacy advocates, including the ACLU, and groups including the Center for Democracy and Technology, Free ... Read More

When we stop spending millions of dollars a year to incarcerate Californians whose only crime is addiction, we will free up funding that can be used to help more people get the treatment they need.This is the logic behind Senate Bill 1506 (D-Leno), which passed its first hurdle yesterday when it won a majority of votes in the Senate Public Safety Committee. SB 1506 proposes to revise the state's p... Read More

The ACLU of Northern California (ACLU-NC) and San Francisco Bay Guardian (Bay Guardian) have filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to try to uncover how United States Attorneys in the Northern District of California are seeking and accessing sensitive location data. (Read the FOIA request here)Location data from your cell phone or portable device can make it easy to get directions or l... Read More

The ACLU, along with several other groups, is launching a weeklong campaign called "Stop Cyber Spying Week" to draw attention to the massive civil liberties problems in H.R. 3523, the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act of 2011, better known as CISPA. CISPA is scheduled to be voted on by the House of Representatives next week. Read More

Across the country we're seeing ongoing attacks on access to reproductive health care. Massive attacks. The Guttmacher Institute released data today detailing that, just a few months into 2012, hundreds of provisions to restrict abortion access have been introduced in state legislatures around the country. Several have already been enacted. Now, more than ever, it's vitally important that Californ... Read More

The long-awaited report on the infamous incident of UC Davis police pepper-spraying non-violent, seated student protesters has been released. It concludes what we all know from watching the shocking videos: "The pepperspraying incident that took place on November 18, 2011 should and could have been prevented." That's the opening to the report, which outlines the various ways that Chancellor Katehi... Read More

The California Location Privacy Act (SB 1434) authored by State Senator Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) and co-sponsored by the ACLU of California and the Electronic Frontier Foundation updates California privacy law to reflect the modern mobile world by providing needed protection against warrantless government access to a person's location information.Most Californians are now carrying tracking devi... Read More

November 9, 2011 The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is writing to ask that you make a greater commitment to protecting very personal information about your customers. In particular, we are writing to ask that you stop routinely retaining data about your customers' location history that you happen to collect as a byproduct of how mobile technology works. Documents t... Read More

An Online Privacy Fact Sheet from the ACLU The more email you send, the more digital footprints you leave behind. The information in your email messages is valuable. Online email services make it easy to keep in touch with friends and family. But all those emails say a lot about your interests, habits, beliefs, and concerns. And outdated privacy laws, written before the I... Read More

An Online Privacy Fact Sheet from the ACLU The more you connect online, the more digital footprints you leave behind. The information you share on social networking sites is valuable. Social networking sites are an amazing way to connect with friends and family. But the information that these sites collect about you – not just what's on your profile but also the rec... Read More

An Online Privacy Fact Sheet from the ACLU The more you search online, the more digital footprints you leave behind. The information in your search records is valuable. Searching online is an amazing way to find information about anything and everything. But when you browse those online stacks of information, you leave a trail that reveals a lot about you: your interests,... Read More