Archive

The American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California (ACLU-NC) is alerting travelers to their rights amid the uproar about new Transportation Security Administration (TSA) screening procedures. Some travelers are unaware that full-body virtual strip-search machines are already in place in several major California airports including San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Oakland. In this environment,... Read More

The American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California (ACLU-NC) filed a suit Wednesday to demand records from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) relating to the recent acquisition of sodium thiopental, a controlled substance used as part of California's lethal injection protocol for executing death row inmates. Read More

Need to get directions when you are lost? Want to know if your friends are in the neighborhood? Location-based services–applications and websites that provide services based on your current location–can put this information and more in the palm of your hand. But navigating the complex web of privacy policies and settings for these services can be far more difficult. Read More

The American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California (ACLU-NC) has released a study showing that despite the racial and ethnic diversity of Alameda County, jurors are being selected from pools with insufficient representation from communities of color. The disparities identified are striking: while African Americans represent approximately 18 percent of the eligible jury pool in the county, t... Read More

Nearly 50 million people in the United States carry smartphones with capabilities to track and pinpoint their location. Roughly one-fifth of smartphone owners use mobile location-based services – like Google Maps, Foursquare, and Facebook Places – that generate specific information tied to the user's location. But consumers are rightfully concerned about the privacy implications: where we go and w... Read More

The California Supreme Court has unanimously ruled that students who attend at least three years of high school in California and who graduate from a California high school are eligible for in-state tuition rates at California public colleges and universities, regardless of their immigration status. The Court found that federal law did not bar California from offering tuition equality to students.... Read More

California voters came out in droves to support Proposition 19 this November. More than 4.1 million people voted for Prop. 19, which would have allowed adults 21 and older to possess and grow small amounts of marijuana for personal use and allow cities and counties to tax and regulate commercial sales. That's more votes than Meg Whitman or Carly Fiorina garnered. Though the measure didn't pass, th... Read More

Facebook and other online services evolve at a breathtaking pace. But these new tools and technologies can make it harder than ever to control our own information. We need to understand how our personal information is collected, used, and shared, and we need real control over that information—especially when it might be shared with many different parties.Today's Facebook announcements highlight th... Read More

The ACLU has reached a settlement on behalf of a San Francisco condo resident who challenged an attempt by a homeowner's association to force him to remove political signs from his windows. Read More

Seattle – A federal judge ruled late Monday that government requests for detailed information about Amazon.com customers violate Internet users' rights to free speech, anonymity and privacy. The ruling came in a lawsuit originally brought by Amazon to stop the North Carolina Department of Revenue (NCDOR) from collecting personally identifiable information about customers that could be linked to th... Read More