News

Today, attorneys representing Adora Perez, a woman charged with murder for a stillbirth, filed a motion in the California Court of Appeal, arguing that she cannot be charged with murder for a pregnancy outcome. The ACLU of Northern California and Drug Policy Alliance filed amicus briefs in support. Read More

Local activists sued San Francisco today over the city police department’s illegal use of a network of more than 400 non-city surveillance cameras to spy on them and thousands of others who protested as part of the Black-led movement against police violence. Read More

The ACLU of Northern California is neutral on Prop. 25, which asks voters to uphold or repeal Senate Bill 10. SB 10 is deeply flawed. Although it would eliminate the predatory commercial bail industry, it would replace it with a risk assessment-based system that perpetuates racial disparities in pretrial detention, and it would grant judges and pretrial service agencies wide discretion to detain b... Read More

Today, the ACLU Foundation of Northern California is calling for Facebook to take responsibility and address disparities in the treatment of content by LGBTQ creators on its platform. Earlier this summer, Facebook repeatedly rejected a video advertisement for Unsung Lilly, Sera and Frankie Golding-Young’s band, which featured an image of the two women with their foreheads touching. Facebook called... Read More

Few people have had such a dramatic and lasting effect on a particular area of law as Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who directed the work of the ACLU Women’s Rights Project from its founding in 1972 until her appointment to the federal bench in 1980. Read More

The ACLU Foundation of Northern California and co-counsel Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP filed a lawsuit today to compel the city of Palo Alto to remove an unconstitutional residents-only restriction at Foothills Park—a legacy of the city’s history of racial discrimination. Read More

Today, the ACLU Foundation of Northern California released three new ‘Know Your Rights’ resources specifically designed to educate California voters. They contain important information about who is eligible to vote, how to register to vote, how to vote in person, and ways to return completed ballots during the COVID-19 pandemic. Read More

In recognition of this fact, today, the ACLU Foundation of Northern California released a Know Your Rights guide designed specifically for people of color. It contains critical information they need to know about their constitutional rights during a police stop. It further provides important tips for interacting with law enforcement, whether someone is stopped while they are on foot, in their vehi... Read More

A federal district judge issued an emergency order that requires U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to test all people detained and all staff at the Mesa Verde ICE Processing Center for COVID-19. Documents show the more than 50% of detainees tested are positive for COVID-19. Read More

This morning, a federal judge granted extraordinary relief -- weekly rapid testing, no new intakes, and a dorm for COVID-positive detainees -- for all immigrants detained at Mesa Verde Detention Facility in the wake of a COVID-19 outbreak that hospitalized two detainees and infected at least 7 others. Read More

California state law is clear: Secretary of State Alex Padilla has the discretion to take measures to ensure that the Arabic- and Somali-speaking voters of Fresno and San Diego Counties, respectively, can cast their ballots in the November 2020 election. Despite testimony from these communities showing that they have been unable to participate in elections due to language barriers, Secretary Padil... Read More

Today, the ACLU Foundation of Northern California sent a letter to Facebook demanding information about what caused Facebook to delete the Black Zebra Productions page, a Black-led independent journalism outlet that provides critical resources and information to thousands of people fighting state violence against Black people. The sudden and unwarranted removal of this page was an affront to the o... Read More