News & Commentary

Last week, the ACLU came out against a bill that would criminalize constitutionally protected boycotts and certain speech targeting Israel. The Israel Anti-Boycott Act, which was introduced in both the House and Senate earlier this year, would expand a 1970s-era export law and expose a range of activity to sweeping penalties, including criminal prosecution. Since we sent our

Roughly half of voters who said they voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election believe that he won the popular vote, according to a new poll from POLITICO/Morning Consult. The poll started on July 20, coincidentally just one day after the first meeting of the Election Integrity Commission. During the meeting, President Trump questioned why dozens of states have partially or fully rejected the commission’s request for sensitive data on every voter in the country. "What are they worried about?” he

In a series of tweets this morning, President Donald Trump unexpectedly announced a cruel and dangerous reversal in policy on transgender individuals serving in the military. Claiming that “[o]ur military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming victory,” Trump falsely suggested that transgender individuals were too costly and disruptive to continue serving. The announcement came as a surprise to everyone, including, it seems,

Last week, the ACLU filed a lawsuit in federal court in Wyoming on behalf of 23-year-old Taylor Blanchard. Ms. Blanchard is a first-time offender who was convicted of a drug-related crime and sentenced to six to 10 years in prison. She is incarcerated at the Wyoming Women’s Center in the small town of Lusk, Wyoming. But she shouldn’t be. Wyoming, like many states, has a “boot camp” program for young, first-time offenders.

After a three-and-a-half year moratorium, Ohio is poised to start executions again with the killing of Ronald Phillips by lethal injection on July 26. It will also mark the beginning of 27 planned executions that will make Ohio one of the most active capital punishment states north of Texas. But Gov. John Kasich can stop this execution spree before it starts. And here’s a quick reminder of why that’s the only mo

President Trump and his administration have wasted no time attempting to strip away some of our basic fundamental rights. And some of the most dangerous policies have been introduced and encouraged by Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Jeff Sessions’s

As the recently departed White House press secretary demonstrated earlier this year, making comparisons to the Nazi regime’s murderous use of poison gas is rarely a good idea. That’s one reason it was so surprising that ahead of a crucial court hearing this week, defense lawyers for the two psychologists behind the CIA’s torture program compared their clients to the contractors who supplied the Nazis with Zyklon B, the poison gas used at Auschwitz and other concentration camps to murder millions of Jews and other prisoners in the Holocaust. Psychologists James Mitchell and John “Bruce” Jessen were the

A federal judge in Michigan last night extended a lifeline to more than 1,400 Iraqi nationals across the United States, stopping their immediate removal to Iraq, where they fear near-certain persecution, torture, or death. Judge Mark Goldsmith granted the American Civil Liberties Union’s request to block the imminent deportation of any Iraqi national in the United States with a final removal order. In doing so, the judge weighed the irreparable harm faced by the detainees versus the government’s desire to deport them as quickly as possible. He found that: “Each Petitioner faces the risk of torture or death on the basis of residence in America an

Beginning this weekend, the anti-abortion group Operation Save America will descend on Louisville, Kentucky, in an attempt to shut down the last abortion clinic in the state, EMW Women’s Surgical Center. The group has targeted EMW, whom the ACLU represents, before. In May, 10 of its members were arrested when they linked hands to block the entrance of the clinic and refused to move when asked to do so by law enforcement. Abortion protesters have the First Amendment right to protest outside a clinic on public property, but they do not have the right to interfere with anyone’s access to the clinic. OSA planned to stage a week of protests in front of EMW, starting tomorrow, with the goal of shutting the center down.