Archive

On June 23, 2010, the National ACLU intervened in a lawsuit filed by Amazon.com against the North Carolina Department of Revenue (NCDOR) for its unreasonable demand for customer purchase information.In December 2009, as part of a tax audit, the NCDOR requested the records of Amazon.com customers in that state for purchases made between August 1, 2003, and February 28, 2010. Amazon compli... Read More

Today, ten of the nation's top privacy organizations, including the ACLU of Northern California, EFF, EPIC, and CDT, sent a joint letter to Facebook calling for the social networking giant to fix remaining issues concerning user privacy and control.Facebook recently took a step in the right direction and addressed some of its privacy issues. But Facebook users' personal information is still visibl... Read More

Today the ACLU of Northern California (ACLU-NC) and a lineup of ten of the nation's top privacy groups sent an open letter to Facebook calling for the social networking giant to fix remaining issues concerning user privacy and control. Facebook recently took steps to address some privacy problems, but the groups contend more needs to be done. They are urging Facebook to demonstrate commitment to i... Read More

SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge in San Francisco issued an order Friday that an American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California (ACLU-NC) lawsuit charging unlawful collaboration between the Sonoma County Sheriff's Department and the U.S. Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to unlawfully target, arrest, and detain Latinos in Sonoma County can move forward. ... Read More

The ACLU of Northern California is deeply disturbed following reports that staff at the San Jose Independent Police Auditor's (IPA) Office leaked inside information about complaints of misconduct to the local police union. If true, this breach of confidence severely undermines the City's already weak system of independent oversight. Longstanding structural problems at the IPA office limit its abil... Read More

Yahoo is making another attempt to move into the social networking space this week with the launch of "Pulse." It encourages users to share "Updates," including comments on news items, pictures posted to Flickr, and other content shared on various Yahoo services with others–and makes it easy for anyone to track these updates. Here's our quick take on Pulse's plusses and minuses for privacy.PlusYah... Read More

Update! The judge in two movie industry lawsuits against BitTorrent users has ordered the plaintiffs to explain why they lumped thousands of users into only two lawsuits. U.S. District Judge Rosemary M. Collyer of the District of Columbia issued orders in each of the cases yesterday requiring the plaintiff to show in writing by June 21 why all of the defendants except one in each case (that's defe... Read More

Time Warner Cable recently asked a federal court to quash subpoenas it received seeking the identities of thousands of its customers. The subpoenas came as part of several lawsuits filed by members of the movie industry who allege the individuals downloaded certain movies using BitTorrent.The lawsuits were all filed by the Washington, D.C., law firm "U.S. Copyright Group" (USCG). Six virtually ide... Read More

Today, an Alameda County judge granted a preliminary gang injunction in North Oakland. The ACLU of Northern California opposed the injunction, and filed a brief outlining civil liberties concerns. Read the response of Jory Steele, Managing Attorney at the ACLU of Northern California... Read More

California's sex education policies are the envy of most other states. California is alone in having never accepted Title V federal abstinence-only-until-marriage funds, and state laws require that sex education in schools and state-funded community programs be comprehensive and bias-free. California's laws have served as models for other states and the federal Responsible Education About Life (RE... Read More