Archive

Is the federal government gearing up to spy on Internet users who visit .gov websites? That was one of the concerns at a hearing on the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) cybersecurity program called "EINSTEIN".The goal of EINSTEIN is to track and detect attacks on federal networks, whether those attacks are meant to disable network nodes, or actually penetrate and steal information. The prog... Read More

The ACLU Washington Legislative Office, the Technology and Liberty Program, and the ACLU of Northern California submitted written comments on net neutrality today to the Federal Communications Commission in preparation for this Thursday's public hearing at Stanford.Click here to read the comments.We will also be at the meeting to submit oral testimony.We hope that you will join us at the event and... Read More

In response to a March 3, 2007, letter from the ACLU Foundation of Northern California, the Linden Unified School District has agreed not to read private text messages stored on students’ cell phones unless there is good reason to believe that the search will provide evidence that the student was violating the law or breaking a school rule. The district’s new policy also limits the scope of the ... Read More

Last week, a coalition of consumer and public-interest groups in the U.S. and Europe presented a resolution to U.S. government representatives that called for policies to promote net neutrality on the Internet.The Trans Atlantic Consumer Dialogue [TACD] has some 65 members, including the ACLU, Public Knowledge, the European Public Health Alliance and the European Consumers Organization.In order to... Read More

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is holding a hearing on internet freedom and net neutrality in Palo Alto next Thursday, April 17. With the future of the internet at stake, it is absolutely critical that those who support freedom of expression show up in force.Your comments in person will send a strong message to Washington that Americans will not tolerate private corporate Internet gat... Read More

The ACLU Foundation of Northern California has serious concerns about the city's decision to change the route of the Olympic torch relay in an apparent attempt to avoid protestors. On April 10, the day after relay, we filed a request under the Sunshine Ordinance for records on the city's relay route planning and crowd control policies.Leading up to the torch relay, we worked to guarantee that... Read More

Two Southern California fair housing organizations sued Roomate.com, an Internet-based roommate matching service, arguing that the website must be held responsible for postings on the site that violate federal fair housing laws. Roommate.com argued that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which protects websites from liability for content posted by third parties, gives it complete immu... Read More

SAN FRANCISCO – A new process that allows people who have been placed on a gang injunction enforcement list to petition to have themselves removed by showing that they are no longer active gang members is a positive step, say ACLU of Northern California and LCCR attorneys, who today signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the San Francisco City Attorney.    The agreement... Read More

The ACLU Foundations of California has sued telecommunications giants AT&T and Verizon to stop them from continuing to provide the National Security Agency (NSA) with the personal phone records of millions of California customers.Since September 11, 2001, the telephone companies have been providing the NSA with customers' records, including phone numbers for incoming and outgoing calls, and ti... Read More

San Jose and Sacramento are currently debating whether to censor access to internet information at their libraries. The internet has become a pivotal means of accessing information at the library and with its growth in importance, the age-old issues of library censorship have followed.To Kill a Mockingbird, The Color Purple, and Heather Has Two Mommies are just a small selection of material that s... Read More