Archive

For the past 20 years, protections for First Amendment activity have been robust in San Francisco. In other words, no spying on San Franciscans without hard evidence of criminal wrongdoing. Read More

Last fall UC Berkeley police cracked down on student and faculty protesters involved in Occupy Cal demonstrations with baton blows and other serious force. Now, UC Berkeley demonstrators are facing criminal prosecution by the Alameda County. The circumstances are fishy and raise questions that demand answers.The Alameda County District Attorney is planning to prosecute at least 11 students and one... Read More

Three organizations concerned with voting rights have filed a lawsuit in the First District Court of Appeal to clarify that people who have been sentenced for low-level, non-violent offenses under the state’s historic reform of criminal justice known as Realignment are entitled to vote in the 2012 elections and beyond. The suit asks the Court of Appeal to clarify the voting rights of more than 85,... Read More

With an eye towards ending punitive drug policies that have made the United States the world’s largest incarcerator and cost taxpayers billions of dollars a year, Senator Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) on Friday introduced legislation to reduce the penalty for Californians who possess small amounts of drugs for their own personal use. The bill, SB 1506, co-sponsored by the ACLU of California, Drug Po... Read More

UC Davis students filed a federal lawsuit over the University's treatment of protesters during a demonstration in which campus police doused seated protesters with pepper spray. Read More

Today nineteen students and alumni filed a federal lawsuit against UC Davis over the University’s treatment of protesters during a Nov. 18 demonstration in which campus police were caught on video dousing seated protesters with pepper spray. The lawsuit seeks to determine why the University violated the demonstrators’ state and federal constitutional rights and seeks to result in better policies t... Read More

The war on drugs has failed, and people are ready for a change. The United States has the highest documented incarceration rate in the world. One in every 31 adults is on probation, in jail or in prison. FBI figures show that over 800,000 people in the U.S. are arrested for marijuana offenses each year. The vast majority of these arrests are for low-level, nonviolent simple possession offenses. Read More

The right to vote is a fundamental right and all eligible individuals must be allowed to exercise their right. The California Constitution disenfranchises individuals on the basis of criminal conviction only if they are "imprisoned in state prison or...on parole as a result of the conviction of a felony." League of Women Voters of California v. McPherson, 145 Cal. App. 4th 1469 at 1486 (2006).Afte... Read More

Supervisor Jane Kim introduced legislation before the Board of Supervisors today that would prohibit members of the San Francisco Police Department working with the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) from collecting intelligence on San Franciscans unless there is reasonable suspicion that they are involved in significant criminal activity. Read More

On Nov. 17, 2010, the ACLU Foundation of Northern California filed a suit under the California Public Records Act to demand records from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) about its recent acquisition of sodium thiopental, a controlled substance used as part of California's lethal injection protocol for executing death row inmates.In late September, the CDCR as... Read More