News & Commentary

Did you know that in 2014 police took more property from people in the U.S. than burglars did? Frightening, but absolutely legal. A new ACLU of California report finds that, although this tactic of policing for profit can impact all types of innocent people, folks of color and poor people bear the heaviest burden.

Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Twitter is no longer going to allow US intelligence agencies to access a Twitter-affiliated business service that compiles and analyzes the hundreds of millions of daily tweets on the service.

In 2015, the CA Dept. of Corrections and Rehab. published proposed regulations for a new execution protocol. This triggered an important public comment period in accordance with CA law. The ACLU had previously submitted a Public Records Act request, in order to shed light on the proposed regulations and enhance the public's ability to comment meaningfully on them. After withholding records for months, the department was ordered to turn over more than 800 documents to the ACLU.

The #Frisco5 are putting their lives on the line to end rampant racism and abuses of power by San Francisco police. The public wants accountability.

A prom controversy reached a happy conclusion today when the Shasta Union High School District agreed to let a 16-year-old student and her girlfriend be voted prom king and queen at the upcoming festivities this weekend.

From North Carolina to California and everywhere in between, transgender individuals face threats from lawmakers, bigots, pundits and others who choose to marginalize their fellow residents.

We owe an apology to our community, and especially to the family and friends of Alex Nieto and Idriss Stelley. In our January letter to the US Department of Justice, we mischaracterized the shooting deaths of Alex Nieto and Idriss Stelley. We included language regarding Alex Nieto that was in published reports, but was both disputed by the family, and not relevant to the police shooting. And, we did not provide details that would be important in understanding the circumstances in which Alex Nieto and Idriss Stelley were killed.

The Clovis Unified School District has a problem. School administrators in this small town in California’s Central Valley can’t seem to stop punishing students for being themselves. But this week, the school board took a brave leap into the 21st century and amended the dress code – bringing it into compliance with California law for the first time in recent memory.

Where we spend our money says a lot about our priorities. That’s why California’s legislature must reject the governor’s plan to spend $250 million more taxpayer dollars to build new jails.