Blog

This week is the 32nd annual Banned Books Week, the celebration of the freedom to read. All week, ACLU-NC staff members will be blogging about the impact that banned books have had on their lives.To kick off the week, here’s an overview of the dangers of censorship and some of the books that have been banned in this country. Think censorship is a thing of the past? Read on.The following blog post,... Read More

New documents obtained by the ACLU of Northern California appear to show the Florida-based Harris Corporation misleading the Federal Communications Commission while seeking authorization to sell its line of Stingray cell phone surveillance gear to state and local police. The documents raise the possibility that federal regulatory approval of the technology was based on bad information. The ACLU to... Read More

Last week, two men who had been sentenced to death 30 years ago were proven innocent by DNA testing. Henry Lee McCollum and Leon Brown were teenagers when they were wrongly accused of the brutal rape and murder of a child in North Carolina. One of the most shocking parts of the story is that prosecutors hid evidence that linked a convicted rapist to the murder, a man who went on to kill another ch... Read More

As the former District Attorney of Los Angeles County, a county that sends more people to death row than the entire state of Texas, I know that the death penalty is deeply emotional, highly divisive, and very political. However, both sides of the death penalty debate can agree on one thing: California’s death penalty system is broken beyond repair. Read More

“BART Watch" is a new app designed to encourage users to report suspicious activities. But we’re calling out this app for its own suspicious activities - having no privacy policy that explains the sensitive information it collects and may be sharing with others, and for encouraging people to file potentially spurious complaints about innocent residents. Read More

This video contains all-too common stories in California: young students, even kindergartners, kicked out of school for minor incidents, conduct labeled “willful defiance.” Read More

Get a warrant -- that’s what I would say if the police showed up at my door asking to look around. Why? Because it’s my right. It’s one of the core principles that this country was founded on: the government, including local police, can’t come into my home unless they prove to a judge that they have a real reason to invade my privacy.If police want to search your house, they need to get a warrant.... Read More

AB 2350 would prohibit universities from requiring a graduate student to take a leave of absence, withdraw from the graduate program, or limit his or her graduate studies solely due to pregnancy or pregnancy-related issues. Read More

SB 1094, a bill that would strengthen the California Attorney General’s oversight of hospital mergers, will be voted on by the Assembly this Monday, August 18. Please look up and email your Assemblymember to urge them to vote YES on SB 1094. Read More

A coalition of advocacy groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, sent a letter this week to the San Jose City Council demanding that it have the necessary public debate of whether a drone should ever be used in San Jose well before it starts to consider how it could be used. Read More

Even though we live in a state where Medi-Cal dollars can be used for pregnancy care, including abortion, many people cannot take time off work to seek abortion care. That’s because 39% of the US workforce, including seven million Californians, earn no paid sick leave whatsoever. AB 1522 by Assemblymember Lorena Gonzalez addresses this problem in California. Read More

Abdi Soltani writes about the enduring power of the Bill of Rights, while on vacation in the Yellowstone and Grand Tetons national parks. Read More