Legal Docket

Community activists are suing Marin County Sheriff Robert Doyle for his practice of illegally sharing millions of local drivers’ license plate numbers and location data with hundreds of federal and out-of-state agencies Read More

Two students, two parents of former students, and a current teacher, filed a claim in Contra Costa County Superior Court, against the State Board of Education, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, the State of California, and Pittsburg Unified School District. The complaint alleges the state and district’s unlawful practices harm thousands of its most marginalized students, pr... Read More

The ACLU Foundation of Northern California and Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Asian Law Caucus filed a class-action lawsuit demanding that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement stop its illegal practice of using third-party contractor G4S Secure Solutions to arrest people at jails and prisons to transfer them to ICE for deportation. Read More

The ACLU Foundation of Northern California has filed a lawsuit to protect the constitutional rights of defendants with psychiatric and intellectual disabilities in California.

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On July 6, 2021, the ACLU Foundation of Northern California joined the legal team defending the free speech rights of a Sacramento City Councilmember’s representative, Skyler Henry—a case with important First Amendment implications. Read More

In September 2020, the City of San Francisco filed a series of shockingly unprecedented lawsuits against 28 Bay Area residents. The City is seeking to use California’s public nuisance and Unfair Competition Law (“UCL”) statutes to banish individuals from the San Francisco's Tenderloin District for allegedly engaging in a few instances of street-level drug dealing. Read More

The ACLU of Northern California, the Immigrant Defense Project, Just Futures Law, and Mijente sued the Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and Customs and Border Protection under the Freedom of Information Act seeking records of their use of Clearview AI’s face surveillance system. Read More

Five residents of Pacifica are suing the city for attempting to banish RV dwellers from its jurisdiction. Read More

Advocates filed damages claims against Governor Newsom and California prison officials on behalf of four people who were transferred to the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR), instead of being released back to their loved ones and allowed to reenter society after serving their time. Read More

In late May and early June 2020 during mass demonstrations of the George Floyd protests, the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD), in defiance of a 2019 city ordinance backed by the ACLU and other civil rights organizations, illegally tapped into a sprawling private camera network to conduct live mass surveillance of protesters. SFPD did so without first going through a legally re... Read More

Foothills Park is a 1,400-acre public green space located in the city of Palo Alto. For decades, the city has kept the park exclusive to Palo Alto residents under an ordinance that threatens non-residents who enter the park with jail time and a hefty fine unless they enter as guests of a city resident. This ordinance is a vestige of Palo Alto's history of racial discrimination. The ACLU Foundation... Read More

Renting an electric scooter should not give the government the right to trace your every move — where you start, where you end, and all stops, twists, and turns in between. But that's the situation in the City of Los Angeles where electric scooter rental companies are required to provide real-time and historic GPS tracking data to city officials. Beginning in late 2017, communities across Calif... Read More