Legal Docket

The issue raised in Barrett v. Rosenthal was whether the protection of the Communications Decency Act's Section 230 applies to individuals who frequently use the Internet to pass on information obtained elsewhere, whether by forwarding an email written by someone else or, as was the case in Barrett, posting an email from someone else to a newsgroup. The ACLU Foundation of Northern California filed... Read More

The Berkeley Police Association is seeking to shut down the open public hearing process that has made Berkeley's Police Review Commission (PRC) a model for the nation since its creation in 1973. In the wake of the recent Copley Press v. San Diego County decision (which severely limits public access to the disciplinary records of police officers), the police association is hoping to exclude the pu... Read More

The ACLU Foundation of Northern California has historically opposed civil gang injunctions because of their unfair impact on civil liberties, their potential for racial profiling, and due process concerns.In September 2006, the City Attorney of San Francisco sought the city's first civil gang injunction in the Bayview neighborhood.  On June 21, 2007, the city filed two new gang injunctio... Read More

In response to the City's first request for a civil injunction against an alleged gang in San Francisco's Bayview neighborhood, the ACLU Foundation of Northern California filed an amicus brief on October 17, 2006 asking the Court to deny the City Attorney's request for preliminary injunction at the scheduled October 30, 2006 hearing. The ACLU Foundation of Northern California asked the Court to c... Read More

The ACLU Foundation of Northern California filed League of Women Voters v. McPherson to restore the voting rights of over 145,000 Californians (mostly young men of color with non-violent felony convictions), who were recently disenfranchised by the Attorney General. The Attorney General's opinion challenged by the ACLU Foundation of Northern California states that individuals in jail as a conditi... Read More

The ACLU Foundation of Northern California filed an amicus brief arguing that the government violates the Sixth Amendment and attorney-client privilege when it records telephone calls between a pre-trial detainee and his lawyer and then provides the recordings to the prosecution team. Read More

A federal grand jury issued a subpoena seeking the unpublished portions of a journalist's videotape of a political demonstration. The journalist refused to hand over the material, asserting his First Amendment rights. The ACLU Foundation of Northern California filed amicus briefs arguing that a journalist does have a qualified First Amendment privilege in such circumstances and that a court must b... Read More

ACLU Foundation of Northern California efforts to support clemency for Mr. Clarence Ray Allen, a Native American elder with disabilities who was scheduled to be executed at San Quentin State Prison on January 17, 2006.Even though Mr. Allen suffers from coronary heart disease, is severely diabetic, and is legally blind, the Glenn County Superior Court set his execution date. If the execution is car... Read More

Is the US Government lawfully implementing its deportation program targeting non-citizen sex offenders? Read More

Baptized Sikh students permitted to wear symbolic ceremonial knives to school The ACLU Foundation of Northern California filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging restrictions on an asylum seeker's right to wear a religious head covering. The plaintiff, Harpal Singh Cheema, is a devout Sikh, imprisoned since 1997 while awaiting a decision on his asylum application. The lawsuit charges that ... Read More

Without any trial or due process, hundreds of West Sacramento residents of a predominantly Latino neighborhood were served a permanent "gang" injunction. In addition to challenging this injunction in a separate case, California v. Broderick Boys, the ACLU Foundation of Northern California is representing one such resident, a 28-year-old father, who was served by the injunction that imposes a life... Read More

This is an action under the Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”), for injunctive and declaratory relief, seeking expedited processing and release of agency records requested by plaintiffs ACLU Foundation of Northern California, the San Francisco Bay Guardian, University of California Santa Cruz Students Against War, and Berkeley Stop the War Coalition from defendants United Stat... Read More