News & Commentary

After your support drove the California Legislature to send a letter rejecting the Department of Motor Vehicle's proposal to begin embedding biometric information—face and fingerprint scans—into drivers' licenses, a senate subcommittee voted yesterday to delete the facial scan proposal from the DMV's contract with drivers' license providers.

For Rochelle Hamilton, starting high school was the beginning of relentless harassment from teachers and school staff because she's openly gay. One teacher told her, "You're going to hell. This is a sin." Another said, "What's wrong with you? What are you, a man or a woman?" After months of asking the school and the district to intervene – to no avail – Rochelle and her mom reached out to the ACLU for help. Together, we took on the school district – and won.

A big thumbs up to the San José City Council for standing up for free speech and against censorship on Tuesday night and voting against the installation of internet blocking software on library computers.

On Tuesday, April 21, at 7pm, the San José City Council will consider a proposal that would limit public access to important information by imposing filtering on the Internet terminals in public libraries. If you live or work in San José, please attend this meeting and join us in opposing this proposal.

AT&T recently announced the launch of FamilyMap, a service that allows customers with a "Family Plan" to track the locations of other cell phones on the same plan.

Stanford Law School's Center for Internet and Society is hosting a panel event this coming Tuesday, April 7, from 5-7:30 p.m. about the ACLU of Northern California's new document, Privacy and Free Speech: It's Good for Business. The event is free and open to the public and a limited number of individuals may also attend via webcast. Panel from 5-6:30 p.m., reception to follow.

On March 18 2009, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson signed a bill ending the death penalty in his state, replacing it with permanent imprisonment. Gov. Richardson’s courageous act makes New Mexico the third state – following New Jersey and New York in 2007 – to end the death penalty in favor of an alternative that better supports the needs of victims and the public safety concerns for all New Mexicans.

Privacy and Free Speech: It's Good for Business, released today by the ACLU of Northern California, is a first-of-its-kind publication offering hands-on tips for how businesses can build their reputations–while saving time and money–by properly protecting customers' privacy and free speech. The publication is based on dozens of case studies analyzing what prominent companies like Google, Yahoo!, Qwest, ChoicePoint, Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T have done right–and wrong– in safeguarding users. (Publication can be downloaded at www.aclunc.org/tech.)

"Companies that overlook the need to build robust privacy and free speech safeguards into new products often pay the price with negative publicity, costly lawsuits, and government investigations. These case studies and tips can help companies avoid having millions read about their privacy and free speech mistakes later," said Nicole Ozer, ACLU of Northern California Technology and Civil Liberties Policy Director.

ACLU of Northern California released a new report revealing that California continues to spend more money on the death penalty, even while fewer counties actually send anyone to death row.