News & Commentary

The New York Times Magazine on Monday published an article on the ACLU's advocacy and litigation efforts in the days following the 2016 presidential election. Below is a preview of "Inside the A.C.L.U.'s War on Trump:" On the morning of Friday, June 22, the American Civil Liberties Union won a major Supreme C

Children who have not committed a crime should never be treated like criminals. But that’s exactly what’s happening today in the schools in Riverside County, California. The county’s Youth Accountability Team (YAT) Program, which is actually an arm of the local probation departm

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In a win for government transparency about its lethal actions overseas, a federal judge has told the CIA that it can’t refuse to “confirm or deny” whether it knows anything about a military operation when the agency’s director was present at the White House dinner where the action was approved. The judge rejected the Trump administration’s extreme secrecy claim in a

President Trump holds the keys to some of the most powerful spying programs in the world — surveillance that gives the government warrantless access to a sea of digital data moving around the planet. Emails, web browsing activities, and chats that you thought

BROWNSVILLE, TEXAS – Over a thousand people marched to a federal courthouse in Brownsville, Texas on Thursday, after a rally organized by the ACLU, its Texas affiliate, and other partner organizations to protest the Trump administration’s policy of criminally prosecuting anyone who crosses the border without authorization. Demonstrators from across Texas converged on the courthouse early Thursday afternoon, yelling “shut it down” and demanding access to hearings being held inside. Brownsville lies directly along the U.S.-Mexico border, and in recent months the courthouse has been the site of hearings for immigrants whose children were forcibly taken away from them by Border Patrol agents. Under the blazing 90-degree South Texas sun, rally attendees listened as immigrant rights advocates and grassroo

The Constitution protects the fundamental freedoms of speech and association. It protects all speakers equally.  Until it doesn’t — as the Supreme Court made clear on the last day of the term, in its highly anticipated decision in Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees. The case pitted the First Amendment claims of anti-union public-sector employees against the interests of pro-union employees and employers. And instead of reaching a careful balance, the court sided entirely with the rights of some over the rights of others. For nearly half a century, the court had embraced a compromise that balanced the First Amen

Let’s say you came to this country as a 3-year-old with your parents and overstayed your visa. You felt American. You graduated from high school and college, and you fell in love with a U.S. citizen and got married. But upon applying for legal status, through your spouse, you got stopped by immigration authorities, arrested, and told you’d be deported. In the past, a mechanism called “administrative closure” could have helped. Until about a month ago, it would have al

On Wednesday afternoon, the Supreme Court’s 2017 term came to an end along with the tenure of one of the nation’s most consequential jurists — Anthony M. Kennedy. The 2017 term saw a decisive conservative shift on the bench, in large part because Justice Kennedy, often a swing vote, joined the conservatives in all 14 of the Court’s 5-4 decisions. The court decided a range of historic cases that significantly expanded as well as contracted our fundamental freedoms. Of the 72 cases heard by the justices, the American Civil Liberties Union was involved in 17, directly arguing four. Here are five of the most significant decisions, along with the role we played, the outcomes, and what it means for Americans’ ci