News & Commentary

A federal court will be scrutinizing one of the National Security Agency’s worst spying programs on Monday. The case has the potential to restore crucial privacy protections for the millions of Americans who use the internet to communicate with family, friends, and others overseas. The unconstitutional surveillance program at issue is called PRISM, under which the NSA, FBI, and CIA gather and search through Americans’ in

It’s been nearly one month since a federal court ordered the Trump administration to reunite separated families, but hundreds of children are still waiting. In fact, as of 12:00 pm on August 16, 565 immigrant children remained in government custody. For 366 of those children, including six who are under the age of five, reunion is made all the more complicated by the fact that

In recent years, the number of transgender and nonbinary people murdered has hit record highs. This year, the alarming trend is expected to continue. According to one survey,

Earlier this spring, violence broke out in the Lee Correctional Institution in South Carolina, resulting in seven deaths and many injuries. Incarcerated leaders in the South Carolina prison system decided they had had enough. Brutal treatment from corrections officers, deteriorating prison conditions, and incredibly long, punitive sentences had led to a condition of hopelessness in South Carolina’s prisons. Leaders within the South Carolina prison system began reaching out to incarcerated allies acro

The state of Arizona is violating the National Voter Registration Act, putting more than 500,000 voters at risk of being disenfranchised. The ACLU has repeatedly warned Arizona that it is violating the law, and yet it has failed to take the necessary steps to protect voters. This weekend, we filed a

Last month, a federal judge blocked the government from arbitrarily locking up asylum seekers who came to the U.S. fleeing persecution, torture, or death in their countries of origin. The judge found that under President Trump, the Department of Homeland Security had been violating its own policy, which instructs that asylum seekers be released on humanitarian parole — provided they meet a series of strict requirements — while they await decisions in their case. The impact of DHS’s about-face on humanitarian parole was felt immediately by asylum seekers. Our lawsuit identified five ICE field offices wh

California, the nation’s most populous state and a national leader in protecting and advancing reproductive health, could become the first to ensure that medication abortion is available to college students in public universities.  State Senator Connie M. Leyva has authored SB320 — a groundbreaking bill in California that would require that the a

Judge Brett Kavanaugh, President Trump’s nominee for the Supreme Court, will have his Senate confirmation hearings next month. An exacting look at his judicial record is crucial to understand where he stands on issues of critical importance to the American people.  In one such case,

Kevin McAleenan, the commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, recently gave The New York Times an interview. For those expecting some contrition from him for the lasting trauma inflicted by CBP on children taken away from their parents under the Trump administration’s family separation policy, or empathy for the hundreds of kids still without their parents, his answers project callous defensiveness and alarming inaccuracy.  McAleenan’s Border Patrol agents are the ones who