News & Commentary

The Supreme Court today struck down portions of the Lanham Act, a 1946 federal trademark law that allowed the government to deny “offensive” trademarks as a violation of trademark holders’ free speech rights. Agreeing with arguments made by the ACLU in its brief to the court, the justices held that the First Amendment prevents the government from withholding a substantial government benefit just because it doesn’t like what you have to say. The court’s ruling makes a second, less formal determination: The Chinatown dance-rock b

I was raised by a single dad. Before he went to jail, I celebrated both Father’s Day and Mother's Day with just my father.My dad was such a goofball. Our relationship was like Disney's “The Goofy Movie.” He was Goofy and I was Max. We had two mutual loves: our family and music. He raised me, my two younger brothers, and my younger sister in a row home in the Cobbs Creek section of West Philadelphia. He taught me as much as he could about the Lost Boyz, EPMD, Rakim, and the Wu-Tang Clan. We listen

Students today have a lot to worry about: passing that pesky biology class, getting into college, and mastering the perfect Snapchat filter, to name just a few examples. However, there is one concerning matter that many of them are not aware they should be worried about: their school spying on them while using their school-loaned laptop. Most Rhode Island school districts participate in “1-1” programs — in which third parties provid

Five years ago today, I was having a pretty good day. I was still riding the high of getting into Harvard. I had a date for prom, and I had just gotten my dream prom dress. I was on my way home from the store with my mom when I got a frantic phone call from my best friend.I didn’t have very good service, but I could make out the gist of what she was yelling: new law, papers for Dreamers. I didn’t believe it. I turned on the Spanish radio, and there it was, DACA. President Obama had created a program called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals to give young undocumented people like me, who had come to the country as children, temporary permission to work and live here without fearing deportation. My parents and I immigrated to the United States from Chile when I was 6 years old. Just like other immigr

Last week, my wife and I were overjoyed to welcome our second child into this world. Our older son is 2, and our baby son is just nine days old. Being a dad is my crowning achievement in life. I treasure taking our older son to play in the creek near our house, being in the water with him at swim lessons, and putting him to bed at night. I love watching him learn to talk and develop his own language that only my wife and I can understand. And my years in the United States Navy have turned out to be excellent training for the sleep deprivation that comes along with raising two young kids. I’ve worked for J.P. Morgan Chase since 2010. As the due date for our second child approached, I reache

A previously secret document we released today shows that in 2014, an internet company challenged government surveillance demands issued under a controversial spying law — the first time we’ve ever learned of a case like this. The document is an opinion issued by the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

While the ACLU’s focus on foreign intelligence surveillance typically centers on the U.S. government’s National Security Agency, intelligence collection actually operates on a global scale. Our government is just one branch of an international network of intelligence services that coordinate their efforts with virtually no transparency or accountability. That’s why the ACLU has joined with seven of our partners in the International Network of Civil Liberties O

In a step forward for gender equality, the Supreme Court struck down yesterday a nationality law that treated U.S. citizen fathers and mothers differently. The law — first enacted in 1940 — is one of the few federal laws that continue to explicitly discriminate based on sex. The case centered on Luis Ramon Morales-Santana, a U.S. resident for more than 40 years, who was born

On the morning of June 12, 2016, I awoke to the horrifying, devastating news that there had been a mass shooting at an LGBTQ nightclub in Orlando, Florida. The scope of the tragedy was not yet clear at that point, but I already had feelings of dreadful sadness wash over me. I remember sobbing as I told my own partner what had happened at Pulse. Forty-nine lives, overwhelmingly young and Latinx, were lost in the attac