News & Commentary

This morning, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Town of Greece v. Galloway, a First Amendment challenge to a New York town's practice of solemnizing its local board meetings with Christian prayer. The argument revealed the weak constitutional footing on which the town stands when it argues that it may invite local clergy, the vast majority of whom are Christian, to deliver official invocations that are overwhelmingly Christian. It also served as a stark reminder of how the Supreme Court has failed citizens who are non-believers when it comes to this issue.

Today, we filed our second motion in five months in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) asking for public access to secret court opinions authorizing government surveillance en masse. The motion seeks to uncover the original and complete legal underpinnings of the government’s bulk collection of Americans’ records, such as our internet-usage history and location information. It was filed by the national ACLU, the ACLU of the Nation’s Capital, and the Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic at Yale Law School (MFIA).

This was originally posted by the ACLU of Northern California.

Another day, another historic victory for LGBT people.

This is the story of how I ended up pumping breast milk while sitting on a filthy floor, covered in dirt and dead bugs, at the plant where I work – and what I decided to do about it.

Yesterday the Illinois legislature gave same-sex couples the freedom to marry, making Illinois the 15th state (plus the District of Columbia) to do so, and the 9th new marriage state in just the last 12 months. With Illinois, over 37% of the American population lives in a freedom-to-marry state, up from 11% a year ago. The march towards equality is turning into a stampede!

The interview below, in which Faith Braverman speaks to ACLU Senior Policy Counsel Michael German, was first published by The Daily Caller.

Just in case we need reminders that too many people share the bias linking all black people with criminality, New York newspapers over the last two weeks were filled with stories of Black and Latino shoppers who were questioned and detained for suspicion of shoplifting solely because they had the audacity to purchase expensive items of clothing at exclusive clothing stores or to attempt to shop or return items at department stores. Prompted by these complaints, the New York State Attorney General has initiated investigations into practices by Barneys and Macy's.

This piece was originally published on The Nation's website.
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