Blog

Quick quiz: where did a government agency shut down cell service yesterday to disrupt a political protest? You wouldn't expect the answer to be San Francisco, but that's exactly what happened on Aug. 12, 2011. BART blocked cell service on trains and platforms in San Francisco after notifying riders that there might be demonstrations near Civic Center.All over the world people are using mobile devi... Read More

This morning, Facebook announced its latest set of changes to its privacy controls that will start rolling out on August 25. The upcoming changes are intended to make it easier for you to understand and choose who can see both content you post yourself and tags created by other users. Allowing you to pre-approve tags and giving you better tools to manage your own profile is a positive step, and we... Read More

Sentencing Reform Key to 'Realignment'In May, in Brown v. Plata, the U.S. Supreme Court spoke definitively: California must stop imprisoning so many people. The High Court concluded that California's prison system is so bloated that it poses extreme risks to prisoners and to staff, and that reducing the number of people in state prisons is the only way to end grossly inadequate health care and "ne... Read More

The Golden State has a problem. An addiction problem. California is addicted to incarceration. We've hit rock bottom, and it's time for an intervention. To help the state break the addiction, yesterday the ACLU of California sent a 12-step plan to every county in the state, as part of a larger ACLU comprehensive public safety realignment report. The report urges a fundamental shift in criminal jus... Read More

BART is the first known government agency in the United States to block cell service in order to disrupt a political protest. In this case the demonstration was to protest the recent fatal shooting of a passenger by BART police. Pulling the plug on cell phones is the wrong response to political protests, whether it's halfway around the world or right here at home.On Thursday, August 11, BART shut ... Read More

The Develop for Privacy Challenge, organized by the ACLUs of Northern California and Washington, the Tor Project, and the Information & Privacy Commissioner's Office of Ontario, was launched to highlight some of the best privacy-enhancing mobile apps out there—apps that improve, rather than erode, our ability to protect and control our own private information. After our judges evaluated many q... Read More

If you're using LinkedIn, you're probably doing so to connect with peers and colleagues, explore new business relationships, or even network for your next career move. Chances are you didn't join LinkedIn so you could tell your boss or your colleagues which products or brands you like. But LinkedIn's new "social advertising" feature does exactly that: it takes your name or photo and connects that ... Read More

July 2010 to Present (in reverse chronological order)Aug. 11, 2011 – The ACLU and the SF Bay Guardian filed a Federal Lawsuit, asking the court to order the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to disclose records regarding the worldwide scramble for execution drugs by state prison officials. View court papers.April 28, 2011 – The ACLU and the SF Bay Guardian file a preliminary injunction motion, as... Read More

By Allie BohmACLU National OfficeToday, 34 ACLU affiliates are filing 379 public records requests in 31 states around the nation, seeking information about how our local law enforcement agencies are using our cell phone location information to track us.Chances are you're walking around with a tracking device in your purse or pocket – a cell phone. Location data from your cell phone can m... Read More

Today, the House Judiciary Committee is voting whether to approve legislation that would create a sweeping new provision requiring Internet companies (email, cloud, social networking, and more) to collect and retain hundreds of millions of records about the identity of online users. The bill, HR 1981, the "Protecting Children From Internet Pornographers Act of 2011," – if only it were that narrow!... Read More

By Jay StanleyACLU National OfficeGeorge Washington University Law School professor Dan Solove is one of the preeminent law scholars working on privacy issues today. In his latest book, Nothing to Hide: the False Tradeoff between Privacy and Security, Solove translates his research and thinking into a succinct analysis intended for a general audience. Via e-mail, I recently asked Solove about... Read More

Google released its new transparency report this week, revealing that U.S. government demands for the personal information of Google's users, like chat records or emails, continue to rise. The report serves to emphasize the heightened importance of increased transparency about how often the government is accessing sensitive information about who we are, where we go, what we do and why. Read More