open to all two women

Blog

We can be pretty sure that each new day will bring two things: new threats to our civil liberties, and new stories of people standing up for their rights and winning. Behind every court ruling is a person. Behind every landmark law is a movement. Read the stories and hear the voices that ground our work.

ACLU of Northern CA
Blog

Facebook Responds to Pressure and Changes Invasive Ad System

Nov 30, 2007
In response to pressure from privacy advocates and an online petition signed by 55,000 of its members, Facebook has made some changes to its invasive ad system that we blogged about yesterday.Facebook's new ad system silently collects information on the things you do on dozens of major websites and distills those action down into ads they show to your friends. Previously, these ads had appeared wi... Read More
ACLU of Northern CA
Blog

ACLU Seeks Government Records on Use of Cell Phones as Tracking Devices

Nov 30, 2007
The American Civil Liberties Union filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request yesterday with the Department of Justice (DOJ) to learn the details of the government's use of cell phones as tracking devices. The request follows on the heels of revelations that federal officials are using Americans' cell phones to pinpoint their location, sometimes without any court oversight.On November 23, t... Read More
ACLU of Northern CA
Blog

Facebook Turns Your Life Into a Sales Pitch

Nov 29, 2007
In August we blogged about privacy problems on the social networking site, Facebook, and its plans to unveil a new targeted advertising system. The system is now up and running. It not only analyzes your activity on Facebook , but also monitors your other Internet activities and reports them back to your Facebook friends in the form of advertisements.Buy a big-ticket holiday present at Sony for yo... Read More
ACLU of Northern CA
Blog

Muni WiFi May Not Be Solution

Nov 27, 2007
A recent ballot initiative asked San Franciscans to decide whether they want a citywide municipal WiFi network. Almost two thirds of the city voted yes on measure J, the Citywide Wireless & Internet Network initiative, but they are unlikely to get their wish any time soon. EarthLink, the internet service provider that had planned to partner with San Francisco to provide free and low cost Inter... Read More
ACLU of Northern CA
Blog

DHS Privacy Office Announces CCTV Public Workshop

Nov 26, 2007
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security Privacy Office has announced a public workshop, CCTV: Developing Privacy Best Practices, December 17-18, 2007, at the Hilton Arlington Hotel (Ballston Metro Stop) in Arlington Virginia.The workshop will provide a forum to discuss the impact on privacy and civil liberties of CCTV and begin to inform the development of best practices for the use of CCTV by go... Read More
ACLU of Northern CA
Blog

Google's Privacy: Would APEC Have An Impact?

Nov 20, 2007
The ranking members of the Senate Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy, and Consumer Rights, Democrat Herb Kohl from Wisconsin and Republican Orrin Hatch of Utah, have just sent a joint letter urging the FTC to thoroughly explore Google's planned $3.1 billion purchase of online marketing company, DoubleClick. Google has been taking substantial hits in the press for the last few months abo... Read More
ACLU of Northern CA
Blog

Playing Fair on YouTube

Nov 12, 2007
What happens when you mix political speech, clips of "The Daily Show" and self-styled YouTube video blogs? Last spring Allen Asch found out first hand when Viacom sent him takedown notices for copyright infringement.After several letters from the ACLU of Northern California and other fair use advocates, Asch's videos are back up and running. Asch's experience highlights the current tension between... Read More
ACLU of Northern CA
Blog

At Home and Abroad ISPs Turn Over User Information

Nov 09, 2007
Yahoo! executives faced harsh criticism this week from the House Foreign Affairs Committee for the company's role in the Chinese government's arrest of journalist and democracy advocate Shi Tao.After Shi Tao posted warnings to journalists about possible social unrest leading up to the anniversary of the Tiananmen Massacre, Yahoo supplied the government with the information needed to identify and a... Read More
ACLU of Northern CA
Blog

California Research Bureau Convenes RFID Advisory Panel

Nov 09, 2007
The California Research Bureau (CRB), the non-partisan government agency responsible for researching topics for the Governor and the State Legislature, has begun to tackle the thorny issue of RFID.Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags are tiny computer chips that can be encoded with any type of information. These chips are embedded within documents or objects to be used for monitoring or trac... Read More
ACLU of Northern CA
Blog

Fair Use Advocates Create Much Needed Video Content Guidelines

Nov 09, 2007
Last week, the ACLU of Northern California, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and several other public interest groups released a set of fair use guidelines for user-generated content (UGC).With the rise of YouTube and other video-sharing sites, the phenomenon of UGC has exploded, and with it, ambiguity over what constitutes fair use has also grown.The fair use doctrine provides that individuals... Read More
ACLU of Northern CA
Blog

Bit By Bit Comcast Chips Away At Net Neutrality

Oct 19, 2007
Today's news story that Comcast is blocking customer use of peer-to-peer program, BitTorrent, provides yet another glimpse into a future without net neutrality. According to several sources, Comcast disrupts communications between users of the peer to peer file sharing protocol. Comcast's block can be analogized to dropping a telephone call between two people and has been called "the ... Read More
ACLU of Northern CA
Blog

Net Neutrality Supports a Free and Open Internet

Oct 17, 2007
On September 27, we blogged about Verizon’s attempt to discriminate based on content when it announced that it would block the text messages of NARAL. After a firestorm of bad press, Verizon quickly retreated and said that it had all been a misreading of their policy. But, whether or not companies will be able to function as a bottleneck on protected speech is at the heart of the debate over net n... Read More