News & Commentary

The religious exemption executive order that President Trump signed last week was largely smoke and mirrors. But no one should be fooled by the illusion. The executive order paves the way for the administration’s vision for allowing religion to be used as a license to discriminate, including allowing employers to use their religious beliefs to block insurance coverage for their employees. Here is what’s at stake.

Eleven years ago, San Diego, California, resident Melodie Henderson was arrested for assault after a minor altercation with a former coworker. Her bail was set at $50,000. This was before a judge ever laid eyes on her. Although she was employed, there was just no way Melodie would ever have been able to come up with the $50,000 she ne

Yesterday — May 9, 2017 — has the potential to be one of the most consequential days in the history of the United States and our experiment in constitutional democracy since the Watergate scandal brought down President Richard Nixon. As with Nixon, we have the specter of a president using his formal constitutional powers to obstruct an investigation into potential criminal activity connected to the president’s campaign. And like Nixon, Donald Trump’s actions threaten to place the president above the law.They demand a strong response to preserve our constitutional values.A little after 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday, reports flooded in that President Trump had summarily fired FBI Director Jim Comey for his mishandling of the Clinton email investigation. This rationale, however, is hard to believe, considering he was leading the only serious investigation into whether members of the Trump campaign helped the Russian government interfere in November’s election to their boss’s advantage. We know the White House’s explanation is highly suspicious because of Trump’s own words as well as the sordid happenings behind the scenes in the run-up to yesterday’s dismissal of Comey, which are now spilling out of Washington and into the news.After all, in late October, Trump praised Comey for reopening the Clinton email investigation after criticizing the FBI director for failing to press charges against her in July of last year. And according to press reports, the case against Comey was built by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who had to recuse himself from the FBI’s Russia investigation due to his ties to the Trump campaign and his own meetings with the Russian ambassador to the U.S. before the election — which he may have lied about at his confirmation hearing. And today, The New York Times reports that just days before his firing, Comey asked the Justice Department for more resources to conduct his investigation into Trump campaign ties to Russia. To be clear, we’re not in impeachment territory yet, but the parallels to Nixon are s

A reporter in West Virginia was arrested Tuesday night for literally doing his job. Dan Heyman, a veteran reporter with Public News Service, was coveri

In New Hampshire, hundreds of voters are disenfranchised each election due to a statute which requires all absentee voters to undergo a “signature match” requirement — essentially a handwriting test. One of these voters is Mary Saucedo. At 94 years old, Mary first voted for president in 1944. Last year, New Hampshire refused to count her vote, so we filed a lawsuit today challenging the statute which left Mary and hundreds of others without their most fundamental right. Mary, who is legally blind due to advanced macular degeneration, qualifies to vote absentee in New Hampshire, an op

Learn about what's happening across the most pressing civil liberties issues of our time, and what you can do.

For decades, poor New Yorkers accused of crimes have been forced to rely on an overloaded and underfunded public defense system that has failed to provide the legal representation guaranteed to them under the Constitution. As a result, people in counties around the state have had only brief conversations with their lawyers, have not had their cases investigated, and have spent weeks or months in jail unnecessarily due to their attorneys’ inability to give their case the attention it deserves. Many have even pleaded guilty to crimes they didn’t commit just to avoid spending more time locked in jail. The problem is systemic and pervasive, and has led to countless people losing not only

On May 17, Chelsea Manning will be released from military prison after her sentence was commuted by former President Obama in his last week in office. She has been incarcerated for seven years — far less than the 35 years to which she was sentenced, but longer than any whistleblower in U.S. history. Chelsea’s story raises numerous issues of interest to the ACLU, including the government’s

As the gavel sounded on Monday afternoon, the Richmond, Virginia, courtroom quieted. In a room of rich green carpet, great hanging chandeliers, and dark wood, the Fourth Circuit prepared to listen to a lawyer from the government argue with the ACLU’s Omar Jadwat about the Muslim ban. Outside, a couple hundred protesters marched around the courthouse shouting, “No ha