News & Commentary

What if once a week the police drove by your home and took a picture?

Public-records laws are designed to ensure that constituents and journalists have access to information on public affairs. They protect a bedrock value of our democracy: transparency.

For communities of color, surveillance isn't just an invasion of personal privacy, it’s a tool for high tech racial profiling that can have disastrous and fatal consequences.

A federal district court held that the government must obtain a warrant to obtain historical cell phone location data. This important ruling makes it clear that we don’t have to give up privacy to participate in modern society.

The ACLU of Northern California has joined the Federal Public Defender’s Office and the Electronic Frontier Foundation in supporting a warrant requirement for access to cell phone location information.

San Francisco, like many local communities, is considering the use of police body worn cameras, and the Board of Supervisors recently allocated $6.6 million for their purchase pending approval of a use policy. But for body cameras to deliver on their promise of accountability and promote public trust, there must be transparency and public trust in both the process that leads to a decision to adopt them and the policy that may ultimately govern their use. That's why the ACLU of California, joined by the Council on American-Islamic Relations and Color of Change, sent a letter today detailing our concerns with the transparency and effectiveness of the process so far and the provisions of the July 9, 2015 draft policy.

If there’s one thing the First Amendment stands for, it’s that vigorous debate about the issues of the day—even, and perhaps especially, uncomfortable debate about things like racism or terrorism—should be free from government interference. Tragically, that principle has been betrayed repeatedly over the past decade and a half, as law enforcement agencies continue to single out individuals for scrutiny based on speech or association protected by the First Amendment.

Last week wasn’t just a big one for NSA reform – it also found one of California’s largest cities rolling back warrantless surveillance by local law enforcement. With a unanimous vote, the Oakland City Council adopted a privacy policy for its port-centered surveillance project known as the Domain Awareness Center (DAC) and created a new committee to address citywide surveillance reform, including a potential surveillance ordinance. Oakland’s move represents a sea change in how California communities address surveillance practices that all too often target low-income and people of color. We encourage other communities to follow suit.

The California Senate on June 3, 2015 took a powerful stand for privacy, voting overwhelmingly to approve the California Electronic Communications Privacy Act (CalECPA).