Archive

The next time a cop sees a picture of you, that picture may not have been taken by a person at all. Unmanned flying drones can allow their operators to remotely - and cheaply - monitor and record individuals, groups, or locations. These drones pose significant threats to privacy when police can use them to peer into homes or track an individual's actions from afar. While law enforcement agencies a... Read More

The U.S. Supreme Court announced today that it will grant review in Hollingsworth v. Perry, the challenge to California’s Proposition 8, and in Windsor v. United States, the ACLU’s challenge to the so-called Defense of Marriage Act. The ACLU of California was co-counsel with Lambda Legal and the National Center for Lesbian Rights in In Re Marriage Cases, the case that legalized marriage for Calif... Read More

For the first time yesterday, California Attorney General Kamala Harris publicly weighed in on the hotly-contested federal immigration program, Secure Communities (S-Comm).In an information bulletin to local law enforcement agencies, she provides much needed clarification to these agencies about the parameters of their cooperation with federal immigration enforcement. Her statement should finally ... Read More

The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) and the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California today demanded an investigation into the unlawful and systemic targeting of Latinos for traffic stops and vehicle impoundments by the California Highway Patrol (CHP) in the Central Valley. Read More

Buried on the Board of Supervisor's 66-item agenda for its December 4, 2012 hearing was a surprising request by the Alameda County Sheriff's Office for approval to "apply for, accept and administer" funds from the California Emergency Management Agency (Cal-EMA) to buy a drone.This was very troubling for a number of reasons.The Sheriff to date has not been forthcoming about his intentions and act... Read More

The American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California will charge the Alameda County Sheriff's Office with secretly proceeding with plans to unleash a surveillance drone on Alameda County during a press conference TOMORROW, Dec. 4., at 10 a.m. outside the Alameda County administration building. Read More

The Defense Department's longstanding policy barring women from thousands of ground combat positions was challenged today in a federal lawsuit by four servicewomen and the Service Women's Action Network. Read More

Think Facebook is only interested in your online activity? Think again. The company recently announced a partnership with information broker Datalogix, which operates many of the loyalty card programs we use to get a discount at stores like CVS. The partnership — one of Facebook's three new advertising programs —allows Facebook to gauge the effectiveness of its ads by learning about the offline pu... Read More

You don't surrender your constitutional rights based on who you work for. That's why the ACLU of Northern California sued on behalf of a deputy sheriff in Trinity County who was censured at work after publishing letters to the editor in the local paper.A judge agreed, and has issued a permanent injunction in behalf of our client, protecting his free speech rights. The injunction means that the Tri... Read More

This morning, 26 individuals and organizations including the ACLU of California sent an open letter to new Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer asking her to add HTTPS security to Yahoo! Mail. Without secure connections, the email sent and received by Yahoo! users around the world — from dissidents living under repressive regimes to Americans communicating about sensitive topics — is vulnerable to interceptio... Read More