Court Cases

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.

Lawsuit Seeks Information on FBI Activities in Northern CA Muslim Communities; Demand to comply with FOIA request stems from reports of community anxiety and fear over surveillance tactics. Following reports of anxiety and fear over FBI surveillance tactics in Muslim communities, the ACLU Foundation of Northern California joined with the Asian Law Caucus and the San Francisco Bay Guardian in 2010 to file a Freedom of Information Act request in order to understand the scope of the FBI's activities, including the infiltration of Muslim communities and mosques through the use of informants.

In April 2013, the ACLU Foundation of Northern California submitted a FOIA request to the Department of Justice to enforce the public's right to information about the federal government’s use of a surveillance tool commonly known as a StingRay. StingRays simulate a cell tower and trick all wireless devices on the same network in the vicinity to communicate with the device.