Archive

SACRAMENTO – Today, the ACLU of California, faith-based organizations, police reform advocates, labor unions, and families who have lost loved ones to police violence called on the legislature to pass AB 392: The California Act to Save Lives. The bill was introduced by Assemblymember Shirley Weber (D-San Diego) to bring California’s deadly use of force law in line with best practices to avoid dead... Read More

SACRAMENTO — Voting rights groups, the California Secretary of State, and the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) have filed a joint request for a stipulated federal court order outlining several steps the Secretary and DMV will take to correct errors related to the delayed transmission of voter registrations submitted to DMV, and to prevent such errors in the future. The League of Women Voters ... Read More

SAN FRANCISCO — Before 1995, the state of California considered young people under the age of 16 as children by law. With the advent of the “tough on crime” era of the late 1990s, the law changed to allow for the adult prosecution of 14-and 15-year-old children who were shamefully described as “super predators”. Youth of color bore the brunt of this draconian law. Between 2007-2016, compared to... Read More

San Francisco — The following complaint has been filed against the city of Berkeley, California on behalf of the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California and Berkeleyside, an online publication, in response  to the city’s assertion that Berkeley Police Department records related to police misconduct predating January 1, 2019 are exempt from disclosure, despite the passage of the histo... Read More

SACRAMENTO — The ACLU Foundation of Northern California along with the law firm Rogers Joseph O’Donnell today filed suit on behalf of Black Lives Matter leaders who were unlawfully blocked from Sacramento Sheriff Scott Jones’ official Facebook page. Tanya Faison and Sonia Lewis, co-leaders of Black Lives Matter Sacramento, have been vocal critics of the sheriff and other law enforcement officia... Read More

A top Google executive recently sent a shot across the bow of its competitors regarding face surveillance. Kent Walker, the company's general counsel and senior vice president of global affairs, made it clear that Google — unlike Amazon and Microsoft — will not sell a face recognition product until the technology's potential for abuse is addressed. Face recognition, powered by artificial intell... Read More

The ACLU Foundation of Northern California filed suit against Sacramento Sheriff Scott Jones on behalf of Black Lives Matter leaders who were unlawfully blocked from the sheriff's official Facebook page. Tanya Faison and Sonia Lewis, co-leaders of Black Lives Matter Sacramento, have been vocal critics of the sheriff and other law enforcement officials. Both had comments deleted and were blocked... Read More

Since the U.S. Supreme Court issued the landmark decision affirming the constitutional right to an abortion in Roe v. Wade, we’ve seen states pass over one thousand restrictions that make it harder for women to have an abortion. In just the first six months of 2018, 11 states enacted 22 new medically unnecessary restrictions on abortion. A Kentucky lawmaker recently introduced a bill that bans abo... Read More

In recent years, the federal government has significantly ramped up its efforts to monitor people on social media. The FBI, for one, has repeatedly acknowledged that it engages in surveillance of social media posts. So it was surprising when the bureau responded to our Freedom of Information Act request on this kind of surveillance by saying that it “can neither confirm nor deny the existence of r... Read More

SEATTLE — A group of Amazon shareholders announced today that they have filed a shareholder resolution echoing widespread calls for Amazon to stop sales of facial recognition to the government. The shareholder resolution, which asks Amazon’s board of directors to prohibit sales of facial recognition technology to government agencies unless the board concludes that the technology does not pose actu... Read More