Archive

Last week the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals said it would rehear the ACLU of Northern California's lawsuit challenging a California law that mandates that DNA is collected from anyone arrested on suspicion of a felony. This suit is the only civil suit in the country challenging a disturbing trend toward invasive DNA collection of people who haven't been convicted of crime. The federal class-ac... Read More

Today, the ACLU of Northern California went to court in two separate cases with the same goal: shedding light on the government's use of controversial and arguably unconstitutional surveillance techniques. In the first, we filed a motion to unsealsecret court papers authorizing the government to use a device called a "stingray" to track an individual's location. In the second, we filed a... Read More

The ACLU-NC filed suit against the City of Milpitas today over its overly-restrictive and vague sign ordinance that is curtailing free speech in the city.Milpitas resident Rob Means put up a 26" x 16" lawn sign in his front yard that said "We are the 99%" to make a statement about economic inequality and to show support for the Occupy movement. Not long after that, the city sent him an abatement n... Read More

As state legislators accept deep cuts to education and the safety net, the ACLU is challenging Californians to acquire a real-time sense of how the state's bottom line would fare if prisons and jails were placed at the center of the chopping block.

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On Wednesday, July 18th the ACLU and community members gathered to support Juana Reyes, who is facing deportation after an arrest for selling tamales outside of the Florin Rd. Walmart in Sacramento and to urge the passage of the TRUST Act.Juana Reyes is your neighbor, your friend, or your family member. The food vendor and mother of two was recently arrested, chained and held in immigration detent... Read More

Why is the FBI spying on Occupy protesters? The American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California is determined to find out. Read More

Download the Summer 2012 ACLU of Northern California Newsletter and read about our latest events and initiatives. Read More

Mayor Ed Lee shocked the city when he suggested bringing New York's failed stop-and-frisk policy to San Francisco. The ACLU of Northern California sent a letter to Mayor Lee yesterday explaining why it's such a bad policy.We're not sure what Mayor Lee was thinking, but stop-and-frisk is a bad idea all around. Not only is it a civil liberties nightmare and toxic for police-community relations, it r... Read More

This morning's New York Times features a front-page story about an "uptick" in demands for information from cell carriers by law enforcement. As the ACLU's Chris Calabrese writes, the numbers are staggering: 1.3 million requests for information, possibly many times that many users affected, hundreds of full-time employees whose sole job is to process incoming demands, and reports that these demand... Read More

Yesterday afternoon, the California State Senate approved the TRUST Act (AB 1081-Ammiano) with a vote of 21-13. Assemblymember Tom Ammiano is the bill's author; Sen. Kevin de León served as floor manager for the vote and presented the bill to the Senate. Read More