Federal Judge Rules City of Fresno Violated the Rights of Homeless Residents FRESNO -- A U.S. District Judge for the Eastern District of California has ruled that the City of Fresno’s practice of immediately seizing and destroying the personal possessions of homeless residents violates the constitutional right of every person to be free from unreasonable search and seizure. Full story»

FBI Withdraws Unconstitutional National Security Letter After ACLU and EFF Challenge
SAN FRANCISCO - The FBI has withdrawn an unconstitutional national security letter (NSL) issued to the Internet Archive after a legal challenge from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). As the result of a settlement agreement, the FBI withdrew the NSL and agreed to the unsealing of the case, finally allowing the Archive's founder to speak out for the first time about his battle against the record demand.
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ACLU Lawsuit on Behalf of Native American Students Advances
SAN FRANCISCO - A class action lawsuit on behalf of Native American middle schoolers will move forward as a result of a federal judge’s rejection of the school district’s motion to have the suit dismissed. The lawsuit, filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California (ACLU-NC), charges that the Del Norte County Unified School District discriminated against Native American students on the basis of race when it decided to close grades 6-8 of Margaret Keating School in Klamath, California.
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State widens DNA scanning in cold cases
San Francisco Chronicle (April 26, 2008)
The California Department of Justice will help crime investigators identify new suspects in cold cases by scanning its DNA database for near-matches to crime-scene samples after an attempt to find an exact match fails. ...

Michael Risher, an attorney at the ACLU of Northern California, said police might pressure relatives who have never been in trouble with the law to give DNA samples to clear themselves. Civil rights advocates call this approach a "DNA dragnet" that could undermine the constitutional shield against government searches of individuals without a reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing. The civil rights advocates say law enforcement agencies would be tempted to keep those samples for future genetic investigations.

Linden school district limits its searches of students' cell phones
The Sacramento Bee (April 18, 2008)
In schools across the country, cell phones go on and cell phones get confiscated, often on a daily basis.

Students may lose their beloved phone for the rest of the school day. But they don't expect to lose their privacy.

In a small town east of Stockton, that is what happened to a senior named Justin Tomek at Linden High School last October. Several months later, the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California weighed in. ...

"Schools need to understand that just because a student uses a cell phone when he or she is not supposed to doesn't mean the school has a license to go in and read their private messages," said Ann Brick, an ACLU staff attorney in San Francisco who got involved in the Linden situation after learning of Tomek's experience.

"It's like rummaging through their private letters," she said.

Crime cameras not capturing many crimes
San Francisco Chronicle (March 21, 2008)
San Francisco's 68 controversial anti-crime cameras haven't deterred criminals from committing assaults, sex offenses or robberies - and they've only moved homicides down the block, according to a new report from UC Berkeley.

They've been controversial from the start. Representatives from the American Civil Liberties Union say they're a violation of privacy, and some members of the Board of Supervisors and Police Commission, as well as the city's public defender, say they're ineffective in fighting crime.