News & Commentary

If you’re black in Ferguson, you have a greater chance of being stopped, searched, arrested, cited, and abused by police.

Despite criticism from the ACLU and Supervisor Joe Simitian, the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved a sheriff’s department request to use more than $500,000 of federal grant money to purchase a Stingray cell phone tracking system.

After a police officer is accused of a crime and the Department of Justice decides to investigate, virtually no data is available on how many officers are convicted or dismissed of these charges – or even what crimes police were charged with in the first place.

Insurmountable financial obstacles are key contributors to the rise in jail populations. For one, low-income defendants are often trapped by their inability to afford bail. Bail should not be used to punish people, and incarcerating people solely because they cannot pay for their release violates the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause.

The debate over cell phone surveillance comes to the heart of Silicon Valley on Feb. 24, when the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors will consider a proposal to purchase a Stingray. Unfortunately, the public wasn’t told about it.

Former director of the ACLU of Northern California’s Racial Justice Project, Michelle Alexander directed and coordinated the Project’s litigation, media, lobbying, and grassroots organizing work.

Less than a year after the ACLU released a pressing report on the dangerous militarization of American police, law enforcement agencies in California—including school police—continue to use military-grade equipment against the communities they are supposed to protect.

The killing of Alex Nieto, and other black and brown males, such as Tamir Rice and Ezell Ford, seems all too familiar. But would Nieto and others of color still be alive if they were white?

In San Francisco, yet another example of police abuse came to light when Jami Tillotson was arrested outside a courtroom in the Hall of Justice while attempting to protect her clients’ right to counsel.