Archive

First, the good news: over the course of the day yesterday, thousands of people demonstrated in Oakland without any violent response from police. And the Oakland Police Department reportedly relied on its own officers to manage the crowd of protesters rather than bringing in other law enforcement agencies on mutual aid agreements. Read More

We've heard it all over the country, that Occupy encampments must come down because of "health and safety concerns."That was the justification offered by UC Davis Chancellor Katehi in a statement issued on Friday, November 18, 2011, calling for tents at the fledging Occupy UC Davis encampment to "be peacefully removed" by 3 pm that afternoon. Later that day, brave students sat cross-legg... Read More

Catherine CrumpACLU National OfficeIn a victory for the privacy rights of everyone with a cell phone, a court has held that law enforcement agents must get a warrant to access cell phone location records. The ACLU, ACLU of Texas and Electronic Frontier Foundation submitted a brief urging the court to adopt exactly this position. The Constitution requires nothing less.In the case, the government as... Read More

The American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California (ACLU-NC), the Asian Law Caucus (ALC), and the San Francisco Bay Area office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-SFBA) have sent a joint letter to FBI Director Robert Mueller in advance of his visit to San Francisco today asking him to address issues of racial profiling and Islamophobia. Read More

Today the ACLU of Northern California and the National Lawyers' Guild filed a lawsuitin federal court against the Oakland Police Department (OPD) for its egregious constitutional violations against Occupy Oakland demonstrators. The lawsuit asks for an emergency temporary restraining order to stop police violence against political protesters. The restraining order is urgent because another police e... Read More

The Oakland Police Department oversaw the use of excessive force against Occupy Oakland demonstrators, and now the department is refusing to hand over information about what really happened. Read More

The day after an enormous peaceful demonstration, and the first general strike this country has seen since the 1940s, some of the focus has turned to bonfires and tear gas. But as we continue looking into what happened during late-night clashes between demonstrators and the police, let's not forget the voices of the thousands upon thousands of people who peacefully came together and marched throug... Read More

In response to the Oakland Police Department’s (OPD) transformation last week of downtown Oakland into this battle zone-like scene, the ACLU of Northern California and the National Lawyers’ Guild demanded that OPD conduct a full and independent investigation of the recent enforcement actions on Occupy Oakland.On October 31, we received a letter from OPD informing us that it had opened up an Intern... Read More

Picture this. In response to a peaceful anti-war protest, the Oakland Police Department uses large wooden bullets, sting ball grenades and shot-filled bean bags, as a result of which at least 58 protesters are injured. That was 2003, and unfortunately sounds eerily similar to reports of OPD's response to an Occupy Oakland demonstration yesterday evening, in which bean bags or other projectiles app... Read More

Today's early morning raid by the Oakland Police Department on Occupy Oakland raises a number of questions. Read More