News

In December, officials at a Sacramento-area high school suspended a student for posting to Facebook a message describing one of his teachers as a “fat ass who should stop eating fast food, and is a douche bag.” But this week, officials at the school moved quickly to expunge the suspension after a lawyer from the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California put forth this civics lesson: th... Read More

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) released 192 pages of records to the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California (ACLU-NC) in compliance with a Dec. 14, 2010 California Superior Court order. The documents, delivered on Jan. 4, reveal more damaging details about the Department's "secret mission" to acquire sodium thiopental, a controlled substance used a... Read More

The California affiliates of the American Civil Liberties Union announced a settlement today with the State of California that will establish a comprehensive monitoring and enforcement system to ensure school districts do not unlawfully charge fees to students for educational activities. Read More

A California state court ordered the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) Tuesday to produce records relating to its acquisition of sodium thiopental, a controlled substance used as part of California's lethal injection protocol for executing death row inmates. Read More

The American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California (ACLU-NC) is alerting travelers to their rights amid the uproar about new Transportation Security Administration (TSA) screening procedures. Some travelers are unaware that full-body virtual strip-search machines are already in place in several major California airports including San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Oakland. In this environment,... Read More

The American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California (ACLU-NC) filed a suit Wednesday to demand records from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) relating to the recent acquisition of sodium thiopental, a controlled substance used as part of California's lethal injection protocol for executing death row inmates. Read More

The American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California (ACLU-NC) has released a study showing that despite the racial and ethnic diversity of Alameda County, jurors are being selected from pools with insufficient representation from communities of color. The disparities identified are striking: while African Americans represent approximately 18 percent of the eligible jury pool in the county, t... Read More

Nearly 50 million people in the United States carry smartphones with capabilities to track and pinpoint their location. Roughly one-fifth of smartphone owners use mobile location-based services – like Google Maps, Foursquare, and Facebook Places – that generate specific information tied to the user's location. But consumers are rightfully concerned about the privacy implications: where we go and w... Read More

The California Supreme Court has unanimously ruled that students who attend at least three years of high school in California and who graduate from a California high school are eligible for in-state tuition rates at California public colleges and universities, regardless of their immigration status. The Court found that federal law did not bar California from offering tuition equality to students.... Read More

The ACLU has reached a settlement on behalf of a San Francisco condo resident who challenged an attempt by a homeowner's association to force him to remove political signs from his windows. Read More

The ACLU of California sent a letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and Gil Kerlikowske, Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), on Oct. 25, arguing that there would be no legal basis for the Department of Justice (DOJ) to sue to overturn Proposition 19 should it be approved next month by California voters, and urging the Justice Department not to change its current l... Read More

The California Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) has failed to provide a meaningful explanation for its illegal release of the names of some 5,000 HIV-positive Medi-Cal recipients to a third-party service provider, said attorneys at Lambda Legal, the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California (ACLU-NC), and HIV & AIDS Legal Services Alliance (HALSA). A letter delivered to the ag... Read More