There are many who seek to consolidate their power at the expense of others, and the ACLU helps balance the scales by defending justice, freedom and fairness.
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ACLU/SC’s Statement on the End of the LAPD’s Consent Decree
By Hector Villagra, Executive Director, ACLU of Southern California The consent decree secured by the ACLU Foundation of Southern California and the Justice Department accomplished its purpose by and large. This is no longer your father’s Los Angeles Police Department. … Continue reading
ACLU/SC: It All Began With an Arrest in 1923
By Hector Villagra, Executive Director, ACLU of Southern California, and Stephen Rhode, Chair, ACLU Foundation of Southern California On May 15, 1923, angered by the LAPD’s brutal treatment of striking longshoremen, journalist and novelist Upton Sinclair appeared at a rally … Continue reading
Automated License Plate Readers Threaten Our Privacy
By Peter Bibring, Senior Staff Attorney, ACLU of Southern California and Jennifer Lynch, Staff Attorney, Electronic Frontier Foundation Law enforcement agencies are increasingly using sophisticated cameras, called “automated license plate readers” or ALPR, to scan and record the license plates of millions … Continue reading
Advocating for LGBTQ Youth
by Joey Hernandez, LGBTQ Student Rights Advocate Over the years, the north steps of the State Capitol have seen some fierce advocacy by queer youth from across the state of California. The ACLU of California is keeping that legacy alive … Continue reading
Our True Americanness
by Hector Villagra, Executive Director of the ACLU of Southern California Historian Eric Foner has said that “[l]ike all great historical transformations, emancipation was a process, not a single event. It arose from many causes and was the work of … Continue reading
Historic Decision Recognizing Right to Counsel for Group of Immigration Detainees
By Esha Bhandari, Equal Justice Works Fellow, ACLU & Carmen Iguina, Equal Justice Works Fellow, ACLU of Southern California In a landmark ruling yesterday, Federal District Judge Dolly M. Gee ordered the federal government to provide legal representation for immigrant detainees in California, Arizona … Continue reading
On Eve of Immigration Reform Rollout, Immigration Detainees Win Right to Fair Hearing
By Michael Tan, Staff Attorney, Immigrants’ Rights Project, ACLU National Today the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued a landmark ruling that curtails one of the most wasteful and draconian features of our immigration lock-up system: the … Continue reading
ACLU analysis: Prop 8 at the Supreme Court
By Elizabeth Gill, ACLU of Northern California Staff Attorney Today the LGBT rights world was a flurry of activity, with Facebook feeds full of red for marriage equality and people the country over intently focused on what was happening inside … Continue reading
Bringing Gideon’s “noble ideal” to the immigration system
By Carmen Iguina and Michael Kaufman This week marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Supreme Court’s declaration in Gideon v. Wainwright that the Constitution guarantees indigent criminal defendants the right to appointed counsel. The Supreme Court described a “noble ideal” … Continue reading
Mother faces deportation for having barking dogs
By Jennie Pasquarella, ACLU of Southern California and Axel Caballero, Cuéntame Where would you expect to find half-a-dozen patrol cars on New Year’s Eve? In Bakersfield, California, ranked in the highest ten percent of the most violent cities in America, … Continue reading
A good citizen
By Jennie Pasquarella, Staff Attorney Tarek Hamdi is a civil engineer who’s helped build freeways, tunnels and bridges throughout New England and Southern California. His wife (his college sweetheart) and his four daughters are all American-born U.S. citizens. So it … Continue reading
Immigration Detainees Deserve Fair Hearings
By Michael Kaufman, Staff Attorney Apparently as a result of sequester-induced budget cuts, Immigration and Customs Enforcement recently released hundreds of immigration detainees that it found were not risks either to flee or endanger public safety. The fact that these detainees were … Continue reading
Nixon or Obama? Targeted killing
By Hector Villagra, ACLU/SC Executive Director In 2010, the ACLU put out an ad featuring a picture of President Obama morphing over several frames into a picture of President Bush and asking, “What will it be, Mr. President? Change or more of … Continue reading
The problem of prolonged incarceration of immigrants
By Julia Harumi Mass, ACLU of Northern California Bertha Mejia is a 53-year-old grandmother who fled political violence and sexual abuse in her native El Salvador as a girl. She has four U.S. citizen children and is the primary caretaker for … Continue reading
ACLU Guide: Tips for companies on protecting user privacy and free speech in 2013
By Nicole A. Ozer Last year was jam-packed with stories of companies making costly mistakes on user privacy and free speech. To help companies get a fresh start in 2013, the ACLU of California has just released the new edition … Continue reading
