News & Commentary

“BART Watch" is a new app designed to encourage users to report suspicious activities. But we’re calling out this app for its own suspicious activities - having no privacy policy that explains the sensitive information it collects and may be sharing with others, and for encouraging people to file potentially spurious complaints about innocent residents.

This video contains all-too common stories in California: young students, even kindergartners, kicked out of school for minor incidents, conduct labeled “willful defiance.”

Get a warrant -- that’s what I would say if the police showed up at my door asking to look around. Why? Because it’s my right. It’s one of the core principles that this country was founded on: the government, including local police, can’t come into my home unless they prove to a judge that they have a real reason to invade my privacy.

AB 2350 would prohibit universities from requiring a graduate student to take a leave of absence, withdraw from the graduate program, or limit his or her graduate studies solely due to pregnancy or pregnancy-related issues.

SB 1094, a bill that would strengthen the California Attorney General’s oversight of hospital mergers, will be voted on by the Assembly this Monday, August 18. Please look up and email your Assemblymember to urge them to vote YES on SB 1094.

A coalition of advocacy groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, sent a letter this week to the San Jose City Council demanding that it have the necessary public debate of whether a drone should ever be used in San Jose well before it starts to consider how it could be used.

Even though we live in a state where Medi-Cal dollars can be used for pregnancy care, including abortion, many people cannot take time off work to seek abortion care. That’s because 39% of the US workforce, including seven million Californians, earn no paid sick leave whatsoever. AB 1522 by Assemblymember Lorena Gonzalez addresses this problem in California.

Abdi Soltani writes about the enduring power of the Bill of Rights, while on vacation in the Yellowstone and Grand Tetons national parks.

It’s Time for a Public Debate and a New Vote Over San Jose Police Purchase of Drone