Archive

In late February, Aaron Gach was returning to the United States from Brussels. An artist and activist, he had been abroad exhibiting works about mass incarceration, government control, and political dissent. In his pocket was a smartphone.    During a customs inspection at San Francisco International Airport, officers with Customs and Border Protection forced Aaron to submit to an i... Read More

Facing opposition from over 60 groups including the ACLU of California, AB 165 is dead, for now. The unnecessary, harmful bill would've exposed millions to invasive digital searches at California schools.

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Facebook now clearly prohibits the use of company data for surveillance. These updates respond to demands from a coalition that includes the ACLU of California, the Center for Media Justice, and Color of Change. As a next step, the coalition is pushing the companies to establish robust systems to ensure that important rules protecting users against surveillance are followed.

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It’s essential for people to be able to communicate about issues that they care about. That’s why it's alarming that AB 165 has been introduced in the CA Legislature that would gut essential protections in public schools.

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Donald Trump told the American public, repeatedly, that upon taking office his policy agenda will include efforts to identify and immediately deport millions of undocumented immigrants, to track and surveil Muslims throughout the country, and to push for even more aggressive policing against communities of color. He may play fast and loose with facts, but when it comes to his&n... Read More

When Donald Trump takes the oath of office, he will inherit an unprecedented surveillance state that includes expansive powers and databases filled with information on millions of people. Read More

As of this week, Twitter has made sure that federally funded fusion centers can no longer use a powerful social media monitoring tool to spy on users. After the ACLU of California discovered the domestic spy centers had access to these tools, provided by Dataminr (a company partly owned by Twitter), Dataminr was forced to comply with Twitter’s clear rule prohibiting use of data for surveillance.&n... Read More

The ACLU Foundations of California filed a lawsuit challenging the federal government’s Suspicious Activity Reporting program - a vast expansion of the federal government’s domestic intelligence network. The SAR program targets First Amendment-protected activity, encourages racial and religious profiling, and violates federal law. The plaintiffs are five U.S. citizens whose information has been en... Read More

On January 20, President Obama will hand Donald Trump the keys to the surveillance state. What can you do to protect against government spying? Read More

The ACLU of California filed suit Monday against Secretary of State Alex Padilla challenging two statutes that prohibit voters from sharing ballot selfies. Read More