Court Cases

In June of 2024, we filed a motion to unseal court records and preserve public access to hearings in the class action lawsuit that survivors of sexual assault at Federal Correctional Institution, Dublin brought against the federal Bureau of Prisons.

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.

The ACLU of Northern California filed suit against the city of Berkeley on behalf of Berkeleyside, an online publication that was denied police records under the police transparency bill SB 1421. On Jan. 2, 2019, Berkeleyside requested records now available under the historic new law. On Jan. 18, the Berkeley City Attorney responded and refused to release any records created before Jan. 1. The suit argues Berkeley is violating the Public Records Act and calls on the city to release all the records requested in its possession, regardless of when they were created, except the portions that the current law protects from disclosure.

ACLU Foundation of Northern California lawsuit seeking information about the federal government’s use of location tracking technologies. Specifically, how the government seeks or obtains location information and whether this surveillance practice is constitutional.

The City of San Jose claims that that electronic messages dealing with official business that its employees send to one another are not public records if the employees send them using their personal accounts or devices. The ACLU Foundations of California and the Electronic Frontier Foundation are asking the California Supreme Court to grant review in the interest of an open and transparent government. 

The ACLU Foundations of California filed a lawsuit challenging the federal government’s Suspicious Activity Reporting program - a vast expansion of the federal government’s domestic intelligence network. The SAR program targets First Amendment-protected activity, encourages racial and religious profiling, and violates federal law. The plaintiffs are five U.S. citizens whose information has been entered into counterterrorism databases for engaging in lawful conduct.

The ACLU Foundation of Northern California filed a suit under the California Public Records Act to demand records from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation related to lethal injection. The ACLU Foundation of Northern California issued this request for documents in advance of the department's promulgation of a new, one-drug lethal injection protocol, so that the ACLU Foundation of Northern California and the public would have access to information that sheds light on the proposed regulations.