News & Commentary

The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has become the latest federal appeals court to consider the question of whether law enforcement needs a warrant before it obtains cell phone location data. We have (with allies) filed an amicus brief in this case, as we did in cases now pending in the Fourth and Eleventh Circuits. Clearly this is an issue that is headed toward the Supreme Court (especially if the circuit courts come to different conclusions).

Every time you email someone overseas, the NSA copies and searches your message. It makes no difference if you or the person you're communicating with has done anything wrong. If the NSA believes your message could contain information relating to the foreign affairs of the United States – because of whom you're talking to, or whom you're talking about – it may hold on to it for as long as three years and sometimes much longer.

The U.N. Human Rights Council could take a big step this month toward protecting privacy rights around the world. At its current session, the HRC plans to vote on whether to appoint an independent expert on the right to privacy, called a "special rapporteur."

This year, our nation came close to ending a shameful, nearly century-long chapter in history that carried on the legacies of slavery and Jim Crow for domestic workers in the U.S. But on the cusp of finally bringing justice to a neglected class of workers, a federal judge put the brakes on the long-awaited solution.

Getting arrested for using the bathroom could become the law in Florida.

What the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division uncovered in Ferguson – racially biased policing on steroids, encouraged by a court system whose budget was dependent on the extortion of its city's residents – isn't just a dark look into an isolated small municipality, it's unfortunately an indictment of American policing in general.

Too many New York City children are standing in their schools wondering if they are in a prison instead. Because that is how they are being treated.

Agonizing. Enraging. Inspiring. These are a few words that came to mind after watching "The Hunting Ground," a new documentary on campus sexual violence that opened this past weekend.

This post originally appeared on the ACLU of Missouri's blog.