For Immediate Release: Jul 17, 2014
Media Contact: press@aclunc.org, (415) 621-2493
Panhandling is not a crime
The ACLU of Northern California and the Law Office of Mark E. Merin today charged that an ordinance adopted in May by the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors banning panhandling is unconstitutional. A lawsuit filed today in U.S District Court for the Eastern District of California in Sacramento on behalf of the Sacramento Homeless Organizing Committee and two individuals alleges the ordinance violates the First Amendment rights of anyone seeking to panhandle or solicit for donations and to distribute literature within the unincorporated areas of Sacramento County.
Jul 15, 2014

A black canvas near Gate 18 in the Sacramento airport’s Terminal B sits in place of a billboards intended to promote healthcare access for immigrants in California. Why? The airport has refused to use the original ads, claiming that they are too political in nature.

That, my friends, is exactly what censorship looks like.

Jul 11, 2014
My name is James Prigoff. I am 86 years old and a retired senior corporate executive. I am also a professional photographer – in fact, I have been a photographer for most of my life. My specialty is photographing murals, graffiti art, and other community public art. Why have my artistic pursuits landed me in a national database potentially linking me to "terrorist" activities?
Jul 11, 2014
One year ago Matthew Barrett was offered a job as a food services director at Fontbonne Academy, a college prep high school in Milton, Mass. With 20 years of work in the food services industry, Matthew was clearly well qualified.
Jul 03, 2014
This week’s unprecedented Hobby Lobby decision deserves the widespread criticism it has attracted: the Supreme Court decreed that corporations, which lack souls, have religious beliefs; even more jaw-dropping, it decreed that those anthropomorphic beliefs trump workers’ health, reproductive choices and equality.
Jul 02, 2014
While immigration detention is supposed to be “civil” detention, as opposed to incarceration as punishment for a crime, the conditions that immigrants experience are anything but civil. People detained by ICE are bused daily to immigration court wearing jumpsuits and metal handcuffs, belly chains, and leg irons in San Francisco.
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