Blog

In early June, the popular location based service foursquare overhauled its mobile app. As a result of these changes, users can now see all of their friends' check-ins from the last two weeks. Many users may not understand how much of their location history is visible to their friends, and even those users aware of the details have no practical way to opt out. And while forcing users to share that... Read More

The fight for LGBT equality in the Bay Area has faced plenty of challenges. Meet Matt Coles, who has been fighting for them from the beginning. The rainbow flag is known all over the world as a symbol of LGBT rights and acceptance. Here in San Francisco, a huge rainbow flag waves over the Castro District. But that flag came close to being a trademarked symbol that could have kept it from public... Read More

As Facebook has grown from a dorm room project to a publicly-traded company, its users have repeatedly challenged the service on privacy issues, drawing attention from the media and governments as a result. And while Facebook is often perceived as acting like some constitution-less nation doing whatever it wants without regard to user concerns, its very existence as a social networking site depend... Read More

Daniel Galindo reflects on the similarities between DREAM Act youth and the LGBT community – especially where "coming out" is concerned.As we prepare to celebrate Pride by marching in the SF Pride Parade as this year's Community Organization Grand Marshal, I'm reminded of what it means to be able to walk down a public street with thousands of people watching me strut my stuff, free of shame or jud... Read More

ACLU of Northern California's Associate Director tells the story of how she responded when her 8-year-old daughter asked if lesbians were going to be banned and what would happen to their family.Recently, I was at home making dinner with my eight-year-old daughter Kaden. As I cooked, she flipped through the mail on the kitchen counter with the curiosity that only eight-year-olds possess. One of th... Read More

Today Oakland released a report it commissioned from the Frazier Group that reviewed police tactics in response to Occupy Oakland demonstrations. (The ACLU of Northern California widely criticized OPD for excessive force and violence against protesters, and along with the National Lawyers Guild, sued OPD. That lawsuit is ongoing.) The report is widely critical of the Oakland Police Department's ta... Read More

A commentator on my recent post about the DEA installing license plate scanners on the nation's interstate highways asks, "If you aren't doing anything illegal why would you care if someone captures your license plate number?"Another commentator countered: "If I'm not doing anything illegal, why do the police need to record my license plate number?"It's a great response. In essence, it points to o... Read More

When a number of bars in San Francisco agreed to install facial detection cameras to collect and broadcast demographic information about the bar's patrons, the local community lashed out – not only at SceneTap, the developer of the service, but also at the bars who agreed to use it. Outraged patrons wrote scathing reviews on sites like Yelp and threatened to boycott bars that installed the service... Read More

Social media and other emerging technologies are fundamentally altering how students interact and express themselves in school. Staff Attorney Linda Lye explains the history of student free speech, and discusses technology's modern twist on the First Amendment. Read More

The DEA wants to capture the license plates of all vehicles traveling along Interstate 15 in Utah, and store that data for two years at their facility in Northern Virginia. And, as a DEA official told Utah legislators at a hearing this week (attended by ACLU of Utah staff and covered in local media), these scanners are already in place on “drug trafficking corridors” in California and Te... Read More

The big news in the business world this week is Facebook's ongoing Initial Public Offering, where the company is selling shares to the public based on an estimated value of around one hundred billion dollars. [Or, as Dr. Evil would say: one hundred billion dollars.]Where does that kind of valuation come from?Certainly, some of it comes from Facebook's infrastructure and employees. But most of that... Read More

By Aden FineACLU National OfficeTwitter has filed a motion in state court in New York seeking to quash a court order requiring it to turn over information about one of its users and his communications on Twitter. This particular case involves a Twitter user, Malcolm Harris, who is being prosecuted by the District Attorney's Office in Manhattan for disorderly conduct in connection with the Occupy W... Read More