Court Cases

In 2004, the FBI conducted a “threat assessment” of long-time journalists and commentators Justin Raimondo and Eric Garris, as well as their website, Antiwar.com. In violation of the federal Privacy Act, this threat assessment compiled descriptions of the journalists’ First Amendment activities without any apparent law enforcement purpose. Attorneys at the ACLU Foundation of Northern California and Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP represented the journalists in a federal lawsuit against the FBI. Records the journalists received in response to their Freedom of Information Act claims revealed that the threat assessment was based on shoddy investigative work in addition to the apparent targeting of the journalists’ political speech. In the litigation, the FBI asserted that it was entitled to create this threat assessment because of Antiwar.com’s posting of government documents. But the First Amendment has long protected the publication of government secrets and the FBI never even suggested that the journalists or Antiwar.com had violated the law by obtaining or posting those documents.

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 Foundations of California filed suit against Secretary of State Alex Padilla challenging two statutes that prohibit voters from sharing ballot selfies. The suit asks for a temporary restraining order to prohibit the state from enforcing the ban for the November presidential election.

The CA Supreme Court has agreed to review a case that could have allowed people to censor online speech without even giving the website’s owner an opportunity to come to court to defend itself.

A federal class-action lawsuit brought by the ACLU Foundation of Northern California to block implementation of unconstitutional provisions of a ballot measure that restricts the protected speech of sex offenders registered in California.

The ACLU Foundation of Northern California sued a local school district so a Native American high school senior could display an eagle feather on his cap during the graduation ceremony for religious and spiritual reasons.

In May 2014, the County of Sacramento adopted an ordinance making it a crime to panhandle except when soliciting donations for charitable purposes. The ACLU Foundation of Northern California sued to stop the enforcement of the new law, which prohibits free speech.