Blog

For the past six years, Sonoma County's code enforcement section has run an ever-expanding drone surveillance program. They’ve launched more than 700 low-altitude flights that monitor and record residents, their homes and the areas surrounding them. Read More

California applies the death penalty disproportionately to people of color, especially when the victim is white. A recent, rigorous statewide study found that Black people are up to 8.7 times as likely to be sentenced to death as similarly situated non-Black defendants, Latino people are up to 6.2 times as likely to be sentenced to death, and defendants of all races are up to 8.8 times as likely t... Read More

The ACLU Foundation of Northern California has filed a lawsuit to block Sonoma County code inspectors from using drones to conduct surveillance of people's homes without a warrant. Read More

Every summer, California legislators step away from their official duties and return to their home districts for Summer Recess, which this year runs from July 18 to August 18. This is our opportunity to meet with them in their local offices—before they cast their final votes on key bills. Read More

The U.S. Supreme Court granted the Trump administration's request to stay a federal district court's order that had preserved Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for more than 350,000 Venezuelan immigrants. What happens next? Read More

California is home to more immigrants than any other state in the country. To limit cooperation between local law enforcement and federal immigration authorities during the first Trump administration, the legislature passed the California Values Act (SB 54) which prohibits sheriffs and police departments from using resources to aid immigration enforcement, with some exceptions. Read More

This constitutional crisis is unfolding on many fronts, and all of it demands our unrelenting vigilance and courage. Working together and using all the strategies available to us, Americans are mounting our own defense of freedom and the constitution.  Read More

When Donald Trump was sworn in as president, he lost no time launching Project 2025­—a right-wing policy agenda rooted in white supremacy that he had claimed to know nothing about. The ACLU stands ready—as we have for more than a century—to defend our vision of an inclusive democracy based on fundamental principles of equality. Read More

The ACLU has released a new video educating Californians about their rights during encounters with the police. Previous videos highlight the rights of protesters and immigrants. Read More

"Stopping the Flood Waters: A Call to Transform California's Schools in Support of Native American Students" documents how California schools consistently fail to provide Native American students with an equitable and inclusive education. Here, two students share their educational experiences in their own words. Read More

When police seek access to information about people exercising their First Amendment rights, they must meet a much higher legal standard to justify that intrusion. That’s what a court ruled in a case where the UC Santa Barbara Police Department attempted to force Instagram to surrender detailed records associated with two activist Instagram accounts. Read More

A San Francisco judge has ruled that the California Department of Justice can no longer indefinitely store the DNA of people who were never convicted of a crime. Read More