News & Commentary

As a lesbian of Asian descent, I hear not very kind comments based on gender, ethnicity, or sexual orientation often enough. Most of the time I can blame ignorance, not take it personally, and not let it bother me. But the way I was treated when my wife Kris died, that one really hurt.

Today, the ACLU’s Jameel Jaffer will appear before the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board as its members question government officials, privacy advocates, law professors, and policy experts about the government’s surveillance programs operating under the FISA Amendments Act (“FAA”), also known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

I had a homie who was arrested for having an ounce of weed that was just for his personal use. He had full custody of his four children and still did 8 long months. My friend hasn't been the same since, to be quite honest, and I just can't get over the fact that before he went into the system, he was funny, sensitive, and charismatic, and now, he's just different. 

Representatives of the online advertising industry headed to the White House last week to speak with the task force on “big data and privacy” that President Obama asked advisor John Podesta to head up. The executives said they would bring the White House their usual message: that advertising supports free content on the Web. After the meeting, the ad executives reported being pleased, with one telling Adweek, “It was clear they knew the importance of the digital economy.”

Imagine if your child was ridiculed in front of his classmates for his religious beliefs until he was physically ill. Can’t believe it? Neither could we, and that’s why the ACLU and the ACLU of Louisiana sued the Sabine Parish School District on behalf of C.C., a sixth-grader of Thai descent and a practicing Buddhist. You remember C.C.: He was chastised by teachers and administrators at his Louisiana public school for his religious beliefs. School officials also repeatedly, and illegally, imposed their religious beliefs on students in a number of ways.

What NSA whistleblower joined the ACLU at South by Southwest for his first live conversation with an audience?

Well, that didn’t take long. Within just a few months of Kentucky cutting its ties with the country’s biggest for-profit prison company, the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) has hit back with its latest sinister scheme to turn tax dollars (and human misery) into shareholder returns.

One week after the ACLU filed the first appellate brief challenging the government’s bulk collection of Americans’ phone records under Section 215 of the Patriot Act, we’re getting a little help from our friends. Yesterday, seven prominent and diverse organizations filed friend-of-the-court briefs in support of our challenge, which is now before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York.

The U.S. government is blacklisting people as terrorism suspects based on secret standards and secret evidence. People on government watchlists are questioned, harassed, detained, and even barred indefinitely from flying — and the government denies them any meaningful way to correct errors and clear their names. In an era of unprecedented government secrecy, every American should know this: The U.S. government’s massive and secret watchlist system is fundamentally broken.