News & Commentary

In September 2007, a U.S. District Court judge in Oregon struck down two provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act as unconstitutional. Brandon Mayfield, a Portland-based attorney, was arrested and detained in connection with the 2004 bombing of a train station in Madrid, but was released after two weeks when a fingerprint at the scene alleged to be his was matched to an Algerian terrorist. The court found that the secret searches of Mayfield's house and office, although done under a FISA warrant, violated the Fourth Amendment's guarantee against unreasonable search and seizure.

Today was a really good day for the First Amendment. And it was also a good day for our court system. The judge made it clear in the Wikileaks case that he took the Constitutional issues seriously, at one point reminding the court that he had taken an oath to uphold the Constitution.

Today was a really good day for the First Amendment. And it was also a good day for our court system.

The American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Northern California and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) last night filed a motion to intervene in a lawsuit that led a federal district judge to order the domain name Wikileaks.org shut down. The motion is on behalf of organizations and individuals that have accessed and used documents on the Wikileaks.org website in their work and want to continue to be able to do so."The court's order shuts down and locks up the domain name Wikileaks.org pe

A recent policy conference on Internet issues held in Washington, D.C. included the panel, "Social Networking and Privacy: An Oxymoron?" It shouldn't be, but some of the major platforms for social networking seem to be treating the two concepts as if they were mutually exclusive.

The ACLU of Northern California has been a leader in generating public and legislative attention to the privacy, personal safety, and financial security risks associated with the use of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology in government-issued identification documents, such as drivers' licenses and student ID cards.

The ACLU has released a systematic analysis of the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) final regulations for the Real ID Act. It reveals that the regulations still address only 9 percent of the problems with the act that have been identified.

The Transportation Security Agency has come under significant and ongoing criticism. One major source of concern and irritation are the No-Fly lists, which contain tens of thousands of names and has generated a lot of negative press when U.S. senators, famous musicians and others have been kept off of flights. There are even those who say that TSA is largely engaged in "security theater," meant primarily to psychologically reassure travelers while doing little to actually improve the security of goods and travelers. Luckily, the criticism has not kept TSA from starting a blog, called Evolution of Security. The rather amazing thing — it's open for comments.