News

The American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California (ACLU-NC) is alerting travelers to their rights amid the uproar about new Transportation Security Administration (TSA) screening procedures. Some travelers are unaware that full-body virtual strip-search machines are already in place in several major California airports including San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Oakland. In this environment,... Read More

The American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California (ACLU-NC) filed a suit Wednesday to demand records from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) relating to the recent acquisition of sodium thiopental, a controlled substance used as part of California's lethal injection protocol for executing death row inmates. Read More

The American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California (ACLU-NC) has released a study showing that despite the racial and ethnic diversity of Alameda County, jurors are being selected from pools with insufficient representation from communities of color. The disparities identified are striking: while African Americans represent approximately 18 percent of the eligible jury pool in the county, t... Read More

Nearly 50 million people in the United States carry smartphones with capabilities to track and pinpoint their location. Roughly one-fifth of smartphone owners use mobile location-based services – like Google Maps, Foursquare, and Facebook Places – that generate specific information tied to the user's location. But consumers are rightfully concerned about the privacy implications: where we go and w... Read More

The California Supreme Court has unanimously ruled that students who attend at least three years of high school in California and who graduate from a California high school are eligible for in-state tuition rates at California public colleges and universities, regardless of their immigration status. The Court found that federal law did not bar California from offering tuition equality to students.... Read More

The ACLU has reached a settlement on behalf of a San Francisco condo resident who challenged an attempt by a homeowner's association to force him to remove political signs from his windows. Read More

The ACLU of California sent a letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and Gil Kerlikowske, Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), on Oct. 25, arguing that there would be no legal basis for the Department of Justice (DOJ) to sue to overturn Proposition 19 should it be approved next month by California voters, and urging the Justice Department not to change its current l... Read More

The California Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) has failed to provide a meaningful explanation for its illegal release of the names of some 5,000 HIV-positive Medi-Cal recipients to a third-party service provider, said attorneys at Lambda Legal, the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California (ACLU-NC), and HIV & AIDS Legal Services Alliance (HALSA). A letter delivered to the ag... Read More

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Following developments in federal and state court, the Attorney General conceded that the execution scheduled to occur at 9:00 pm on September 30 cannot go forward. This came just 30 hours before the scheduled execution. Yet legal experts had predicted for weeks that the execution would not occur due to the many remaining legal challenges and uncertainties regarding the state's method of execution... Read More

"The Ninth Circuit got it right. We should take the time to make sure the serious issues and public concerns are addressed," said Natasha Minsker, Death Penalty Policy Director at the ACLU of Northern California. "We should also be considering the larger issue: our communities will not be any safer if Albert Brown is executed than if he were sentenced to life without possibility of parole." Read More