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Facebook and other online services evolve at a breathtaking pace. But these new tools and technologies can make it harder than ever to control our own information. We need to understand how our personal information is collected, used, and shared, and we need real control over that information—especially when it might be shared with many different parties.Today's Facebook announcements highlight th... Read More

Seattle – A federal judge ruled late Monday that government requests for detailed information about Amazon.com customers violate Internet users' rights to free speech, anonymity and privacy. The ruling came in a lawsuit originally brought by Amazon to stop the North Carolina Department of Revenue (NCDOR) from collecting personally identifiable information about customers that could be linked to th... Read More

Your Rights, Your School was the ACLU in California's video contribution to the Make it Better Project, which was launched in response to tragic suicides by LGBTQ youth in recent weeks. Youth have the right to a safe and supportive school environment. No one should suffer through bullying and harassment. Don't just wait for it to get better - let's make it better together!Watch the videoLearn more... Read More

This past weekend, the Wall Street Journal reported that the most popular Facebook apps consistently share information about you and your friends with advertisers and other third parties, no matter what your privacy settings are. This isn't the first time a significant and ongoing privacy invasion and violation of Facebook's own rules has been uncovered not by internal Facebook oversight but by an... Read More

If you have an Android phone, you've probably downloaded a few apps. And when you installed those apps, you were told a bit about what information those apps might access about you, things like your location information, phone number, contact and call lists, and more. That's a good start towards transparency… but wouldn't you also like to know what information your apps are actually accessing, how... Read More

Today, the ACLU will be in a federal court in Seattle arguing that the North Carolina Department of Revenue's (NCDOR) demands for detailed purchase information made by Amazon.com customers is an unconstitutional violation of those customers' rights to free speech, anonymity and privacy.The NCDOR asserted it needed this information for tax collection purposes, so Amazon responded by furnishing a li... Read More

On Wednesday, Facebook announced a set of changes to its user experience. Overall, these changes are clearly positive, addressing some of the issue we raised in an Open Letter to Facebook in June and re-emphasizing the company's principles of giving users control of their own information. We hope that Facebook will extend these changes to help address the "app gap" and further improve privacy and ... Read More

In California, we shackle pregnant women in prison.And despite widespread opposition, we will continue to do so.On Sept. 27, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed a bill that would have ordered county jails and prisons to stop shackling pregnant women. The bill, AB1900, required new guidelines on restraining pregnant women and would have encouraged counties to adopt these policies. It had o... Read More

The Social Network biopic that opened in theaters last week chronicles Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and the beginnings of Facebook. The social network behemoth and its young and oft-embroiled founder and CEO are ripe fodder for Hollywood. But looking beyond the manufactured drama and snappy dialogue, we are right to be concerned about this company that knows and collects so much information ab... Read More

Did you hear about this? The Obama administration is seeking to expand the U.S. government's ability to conduct invasive surveillance online.1This outrageous proposal would mandate that all online communications services use technologies that would make it easier for the government to collect private communications and decode encrypted messages that Americans send. This includes communications sen... Read More

Good news today for the location privacy of all California FasTrak users.Legislation authored by State Senator Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto) to protect the privacy of drivers using the FasTrak payment system for toll bridges and roads was signed into law today by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.As Simitian points out, "your travel history is a road map to your personal life. Where you've been, and when, d... Read More

Executive Branch Spying Powers Already Too Broad, Says ACLUWashington – The Obama administration is seeking to expand the government's ability to conduct invasive surveillance online, according to a report in The New York Times today. According to the report, the administration is expected to submit legislation to Congress early next year that would mandate that all online communications services ... Read More