News & Commentary

November 20th is the Transgender Day of Remembrance. The transgender experience in the United States has been heavily misunderstood and stigmatized. Being transgender in this country has become a radical act of self-preservation in the face of a traditionally gendered society.Today we honor the 238 trans* people worldwide we've lost this year.

Solitary confinement can eat away at someone's mind, making mental illness worse and leaving many people depressed, suicidal, hopeless or hallucinating. It's no place for individuals with mental illness.

The ACLU of Northern California suffered a double blow with the death of veteran journalist Raul Ramirez Nov. 15. Ramirez, who was the executive news editor at KQED, was also an ACLU-NC client for over a decade.

We sat down with Linnea Nelson, ACLU of Northern California staff attorney who specializes in education equity, to understand how California's new funding formula could help ensure more equal educational opportunities for all schoolchildren.

From revelations of widespread NSA spying to high profile data breaches, transparency is more important than ever. Our new policy paper takes a close look at what we all can do to increase transparency and protect privacy today.

Remember when we filed a lawsuit to obtain the FBI's full records on Antiwar.com? New documents confirm that the FBI targeted and spied on Antiwar.com. Government surveillance of news organizations interferes with democracy and journalists’ ability to report the news.

The United States has a long history of persecuting and stigmatizing people and ideas it doesn’t understand: Islam, HIV/AIDS, mental health, and abortion to name a few. One of the most widely and ferociously debated social issues in the last 30 years is the rights and experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people. From marriage equality to Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, we’ve argued our way through decades of prejudice, persecution and power dynamics, centered on some of the most vulnerable among us. Despite historic wins for equality at the national, state, and local levels, there are still a handful of fringe, anti-equality groups fighting to push the LGBT community to the margins of society, dismissing and dehumanizing their experiences as un-American and irresponsible.

The ACLU of Northern California is saddened and troubled by the tragic shooting of 13-year-old Andy Lopez by a Sonoma County sheriff’s deputy. It is imperative that there be a robust and transparent review of this incident, including the public release of any and all findings resulting from the investigation of any law enforcement agency into this shooting.

The ACLU of Northern California urges Santa Clara County to keep its current immigration detainer policy and to reject the District Attorney's recommendation to adopt a policy that would allow enforcement of immigration detainers under certain circumstances.