News

Today, the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California (ACLU-NC) and the San Francisco Bay Area Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild demanded that the Oakland Police Department explain if it plans to abandon its Crowd Control Policy, in favor of vague standards that fail to provide specific guidance to officers in the field and that invite a repetition of last fall’s botched handling of... Read More

Download the Spring 2012 ACLU of Northern California Newsletter and read about our latest events and initiatives. Read More

Download the ACLU-NC 2011 Year in Review.

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While other states and Congress are moving to restrict reproductive health care, in California nursing and medical organizations, reproductive health advocates and women's rights groups have come together to support legislation that would increase access to comprehensive reproductive health care in this state. Read More

For several years, the FBI's San Francisco office conducted a "Mosque Outreach" program that collected and illegally stored intelligence about American Muslims' First Amendment-protected beliefs and religious practices, according to government documents released today by the American Civil Liberties Union from a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit brought by the ACLU of Northern California, Asian L... Read More

The decisions counties are making right now about how to implement realignment will have dramatic and long-lasting impacts on public safety and on local taxpayers. In a new 100-page report, Public Safety Realignment: California at a Crossroads, the ACLU of California finds that many counties have yet to embrace a central charge of the realignment legislation: to implement evidence-based ... Read More

Three organizations concerned with voting rights have filed a lawsuit in the First District Court of Appeal to clarify that people who have been sentenced for low-level, non-violent offenses under the state’s historic reform of criminal justice known as Realignment are entitled to vote in the 2012 elections and beyond. The suit asks the Court of Appeal to clarify the voting rights of more than 85,... Read More

Sacramento -- While the nation moves to limit women's access to reproductive health services, California is set to write a different story by removing barriers to abortion care. SB 1501, authored by Sen. Christine Kehoe, D-San Diego, would ensure women receive safe and early access to comprehensive reproductive health care by allowing Nurse Practitioners, Certified Nurse Midwives, and Physician As... Read More

With an eye towards ending punitive drug policies that have made the United States the world’s largest incarcerator and cost taxpayers billions of dollars a year, Senator Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) on Friday introduced legislation to reduce the penalty for Californians who possess small amounts of drugs for their own personal use. The bill, SB 1506, co-sponsored by the ACLU of California, Drug Po... Read More

Today nineteen students and alumni filed a federal lawsuit against UC Davis over the University’s treatment of protesters during a Nov. 18 demonstration in which campus police were caught on video dousing seated protesters with pepper spray. The lawsuit seeks to determine why the University violated the demonstrators’ state and federal constitutional rights and seeks to result in better policies t... Read More

A federal appeals court today issued a historic decision upholding a lower court ruling that Proposition 8, the California ballot initiative that excluded same-sex couples from marriage in the state, violates the U.S. Constitution. Read More

Supervisor Jane Kim introduced legislation before the Board of Supervisors today that would prohibit members of the San Francisco Police Department working with the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) from collecting intelligence on San Franciscans unless there is reasonable suspicion that they are involved in significant criminal activity. Read More