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Supremes Update Fourth Amendment for Digital Era

Jun 25, 2014
The United States Supreme Court unanimously acknowledged what common sense tells us and everyone who owns a cell phone (yes, that would be just about everyone) already knows: Our cell phones have a whole lot of private information about us. The Court therefore held that cops need a warrant to search a cell phone.In one of the best references to extraterrestrial life to appear in a recent (or perha... Read More
Photo by kbrooks via flickr.
Blog

What the SCOTUS Buffer Zone Ruling Means for Californians

Jun 26, 2014
Today, the Supreme Court struck down a Massachusetts law creating a 35 foot buffer zone around abortion facilities. The Court balanced two fundamental rights: freedom of speech on public sidewalks and women’s right to access reproductive health care. At the ACLU, we care deeply about both rights, and believe that in balancing rights in conflict the goal is to safeguard both. In our view, the Court... Read More
shackled prisoners (staged at a protest in front of SF Federal Building)
Blog

Sleep-Deprived + Hungry + Degraded = Fair Hearing?

Jul 02, 2014
While immigration detention is supposed to be “civil” detention, as opposed to incarceration as punishment for a crime, the conditions that immigrants experience are anything but civil. People detained by ICE are bused daily to immigration court wearing jumpsuits and metal handcuffs, belly chains, and leg irons in San Francisco. Read More
Blog

Corporations Can’t Go to Church, but They Can Go to Court

Jul 03, 2014
This week’s unprecedented Hobby Lobby decision deserves the widespread criticism it has attracted: the Supreme Court decreed that corporations, which lack souls, have religious beliefs; even more jaw-dropping, it decreed that those anthropomorphic beliefs trump workers’ health, reproductive choices and equality. Read More
ACLU of Northern CA
Blog

Calaveras County Board of Supervisors Wrestles With Separation of Church and State

Jul 07, 2014
Calaveras County Board of Supervisors passed a law to praise a local organization not just for its work in the community but also for its mission of “inviting” women in the community to “see for themselves the many blessings that can come from living the teachings of Christ.” They also failed to allow community members - many of whom were at the meeting to oppose this resolution - to speak out abo... Read More
SAR photo
News

Lawsuit Challenges Government’s ‘Suspicious Activity Report’ Program

Jul 10, 2014
Civil rights groups filed a lawsuit today on behalf of five Americans who had their information entered into federal law enforcement databases for innocent things like taking pictures, buying computers, or standing in a train station, and were then subjected to investigation. The American Civil Liberties Union of California, the national ACLU, and Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Asian Law Caucus... Read More