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This week, when the San Joaquin County Board of Supervisors rejected an enormously expensive proposal to double the size of the county's jail, it made the county a shining example of local government favoring "smart on crime" policies that enhance public safety and reduce incarceration over the dusty old "tough on crime" platitudes of the past.Rather than commit the cash-strapped county to buildin... Read More

The California Assembly’s Committee on Public Safety approved a bill Tuesday that would reform California’s drug sentencing laws for simple possession, significantly reduce incarceration costs for counties and help the state end its ongoing incarceration crisis. S.B. 649, the Local Control in Sentencing Act, authored by Sen. Mark Leno, now moves to the full Assembly for consideration, the final hu... Read More

If a lengthy jail sentence kept people from becoming addicted, we wouldn't have any drug problems. But California knows from experience that lengthy jail sentences for possession of a small amount of drugs for personal use just makes things worse – wasted lives, overcrowded jails, and devastating budget deficits. Fortunately, California may be about to turn the corner toward commonsense reform.The... Read More

The ACLU of California has joined 85 other leading privacy groups, academic institutions, and businesses to call on Congress to take immediate action to halt the secret spying by the National Security Agency (NSA) on phone records and Internet activity of people in the United States and provide a full public accounting of the NSA's and the FBI's data collection programs. See letter below and take ... Read More

Today, the California Senate Education Committee passed AB 1266 (Ammiano), the School Success and Opportunity Act, a bill that provides crucial support for transgender students, by a vote of 5-2. The bill will ensure that California public schools understand their responsibility for the success and well-being of all students, including transgender students, and will allow transgender students to f... Read More

Parents are asking the Clovis Unified School District to reject a proposed high school sex education curriculum, saying that it is inadequate and still contains dangerous misinformation about sexual health. The school board is scheduled to vote this evening on whether to adopt or reject the proposed curriculum. Read More

Today, we sent a letter to the Alameda County Sheriff asking him whether he plans to pursue his earlier-announced plans to acquire a drone. Budget documents we obtained through a Public Records Act request suggest that he is not planning to acquire a drone in Fiscal Year 2013-14. But a conclusive answer from his office would provide the public with the clarity and transparency it deserves.Last Dec... Read More

The Pentagon revealed plans today that will allow women to move into select combat positions following the repeal of the ban on women serving in combat units. Women will be able to start training for certain positions as soon as next month and will be required to meet the same physical and mental standards as men. Read More

Amid recent revelations that the NSA has been secretly spying on phone records and the Internet activity of people in the United States, transparency reports filed by the California utilities companies and obtained by the ACLU of California show that a significant amount of data about the energy use of Californians is also ending up in the hands of third parties. In 2012, a single California utili... Read More

Abstinence-only-until-marriage instruction is still taught in a surprising number of Northern California school districts, despite a state law that prohibits it in public schools. Reproductive Justice Policy Director Phyllida Burlingame discusses the challenges of enforcing the law and what the ACLU is doing to help young people get the information they need to protect their sexual and r... Read More