The ACLU’s role in defending freedom of speech has been hotly contested by some critics recently — but these conversations are far from new. Throughout its history, the organization has had to balance its dedication to advancing civil rights for …
The movement for D.C. statehood has gained remarkable momentum in recent years. A bill to admit the district as the 51st state passed the House with unanimous Democratic support in April, and a hearing before the Senate is slated for June 22. As the …
This piece first appeared in The Hill. Imagine being released from prison to serve the rest of your sentence at home. You begin your reintegration back to society. You get a job, rent an apartment, maybe even go back to school. You reconnect with your …
New Mexico made great strides this year toward building a more equitable electoral process when Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed the Redistricting Act into law, empowering a bipartisan Citizens Redistricting Committee to propose fair electoral maps for …
While preparing for our Juneteenth celebration at Carnegie Hall this year, I re-read General Order No. 3, presented by General Granger in Galveston, Tex. on June 19, 1865. This order famously communicated to Texans news of the Emancipation Proclamation: …
Amazon has doubled down on its private surveillance infrastructure by activating Sidewalk, a private network to connect Amazon’s servers with smart home devices and gadgets sold by Amazon and its partner companies. With concerning privacy and security …
Today the Supreme Court issued a narrow ruling that one taxpayer-funded religious agency in Philadelphia has a right to renew its contract to provide foster care services to the city, despite its unwillingness to comply with the city’s non-discrimination …
Tech companies and police forces would like us to believe there is nothing we can do to stop harmful surveillance technologies like face recognition. We and our allies reject that narrative. Across the country, coalitions of community-based organizations …
Here in the United States, many are finally seeing the light at the end of the COVID-19 tunnel. More than 60 percent of U.S. adults have received at least one dose of the vaccine, and the vaccine is now available to anyone over the age of 12. However, …
In January, many online platforms decided they no longer wanted to host President Trump’s speech. Google, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and other social media services announced they would no longer distribute Trump’s hateful, demeaning, outrageous speech …
Last week, Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak signed into law a bill to decriminalize minor traffic violations. This move will ensure all traffic tickets no longer lead to warrants and incarceration for people who cannot afford to pay fines and fees imposed on them …
Last week, a state court judge in Orange County, California, declared the end of a landmark lawsuit called Campbell v. Barnes. The suit was filed last summer at the height of the pandemic and sought the release of people in the county’s jails due to the …
The trove of revealing data held by phone and email providers is proving too great a temptation for the Justice Department, even when the government’s spying threatens the freedom of the press. The department’s existing rules, which were supposed to …
This piece was published in partnership with The Nation. On a cold, rainy night last November, Bastian Rodriguez spent the first hours of his 18th birthday inside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement van. Rodriguez was aging out of the Cowlitz County …
The confidentiality of patient-doctor communications is a cornerstone of medical ethics and effective care, and rightly so — the information we divulge in the course of treatment is often highly sensitive, intimate, and revealing. We need patient privacy …
I’m proud to lead a nationwide constituency of Black women dedicated to organizing around issues that greatly impact us, our families, households, and communities — including financial independence. Black women carry more student loan debt than any other …
The cruelty of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency was on full display this past year. The agency refused to take vital measures to curb the spread of COVID-19 in its detention centers, even in the face of its own experts’ findings …
As we enter Pride month, I am reflecting on the interconnectedness of our joy and our struggle. I am struck by the fact that Pride and Immigrant Heritage month begin just as Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) and Jewish American Heritage Month end. …
Earlier this week, the Supreme Court issued a decision interpreting the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), a federal anti-hacking law from the 1980s which has proven ill-suited to the modern internet. The Supreme Court’s opinion in Van Buren v. United …
Has the ACLU lost its way? This appears to be a perennial question. In 1994, then-ACLU President Nadine Strossen wrote a 17-page article with 54 footnotes, responding to the charge that the organization “is abandoning its traditional commitment to free …
