News & Commentary

The U.S. agency responsible for managing the federal prison system sent personnel to a secret CIA prison in Afghanistan where detainees were tortured during the Bush administration’s “war on terror” and covered its involvement up, according to emails obtained by the ACLU through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.  As a result of our lawsuit, which we agreed to end yesterday, the Federal Bureau of Prisons confirmed not only that

This piece was originally published at Just Security on November 21, 2016.  As a candidate, Donald Trump notoriously called for a ban on the entrance of all Muslims, a

On January 20, President Obama will hand Donald Trump the keys to the surveillance state. Not only will Trump have the NSA’s incredibly powerful technological tools at his disposal, but he’ll also have the benefit of the overbroad and unconstitutional surveillance authorities embraced by the Obama administration — authorities that give tremendous discretion to executive branch officials. These spying powers have long been cause for concern because they violate our core rights to privacy,

This piece was originally posted in the Houston Chronicle.Dee Arellano had just parked her car in downtown Houston when she was approached by a police officer on horseback. The officer cited her because her vehicle registration had lapsed, a common infraction. A single mother of an 8-year-old boy, Dee was spending what little income she had to feed her family and put herself through sc

It was around four in the morning when I received the phone call. “I was raided by the FBI,” said a trembling voice on the other end. “I need help.” I was immediately alarmed. I was in the middle of production of a highly risky investigation into the U.S. drone war,

Cesar Matias, a gay man, fled to the United States from Honduras more than a decade ago to escape the persecution he suffered because of his sexuality. He worked as a hair stylist and in a clothing factory in Los Angeles and rented a small, one-bedroom apartment.In March 2012, immigration agents arrested him; locked him up in the city jail in Santa Ana, California; and put him in deportation proceedings. He applied for asylum, and an immigration judge found him eligible for release while his case was being decided. He then spent the next four years of his life in prison — not because of any crime, but because he couldn’t afford to pay the $3,000 bond set by the judge. Last week, the ACLU won a path-breaking ruling in federal district court that sh

Since Election Day, the ACLU has seen a renewed sense of urgency from hundreds of thousands of Americans to protect civil liberties.In just five days, our Facebook followers have increased by 25 percent to nearly one million people; 400,000 people viewed our open letter to President-elect Trump on our website; and 150,000 new people have joined our e-mail list. We have also heard from thousands of people offering to volunteer their time and services and have received roughly 120,000 donations, totaling more than $7.2 million.This is the greatest outpouring of support for the ACLU in our nearly 100-year history, greater than the days after 9/11. All of this support will be put to good use protecting the rights of all Americans. Immediately, we are working across the country to protect the rights of protestors and ensuring those who voice their concerns know their rights. We are also analyzing the civil liberties records of potential high-ranking federal appointees.In the coming weeks and months, the ACLU will be focusing our legal and advocacy strength on: protecting the “Dreamers” who received presidential deferred action protection resistin

This morning, in Ogden, Utah, Aaron Feller McFarland and his husband, Nik McFarland, woke up to find the slurs “FAGET” and “HOMO DIE” emblazoned across their car in blood-red spray paint.Yesterday, Nancy Leong experienced a more casual form of harassment. On her morning run in Denver, as a car whooshed by, a man screamed at her, “Build that wall!” Never mind that Nancy, an associate professor at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law, is an Asian American, born and raised in this country. Her brown skin and dark brown hair were all that were required to raise the ire of her harasser.

Last spring, when we learned that Facebook was providing advertisers with the option to show different ads to different users based on their “ethnic affinity,” we got nervous.Facebook places people into these clusters — African-American, Asian-American, and Latino — based on the fact that they’ve liked things on Facebook associated with membership in those groups, like an African-American chamber of commerce. (You can figure out how Facebook labels you here.) We were worried that advertisers who wanted to hide their ads from members of these groups could do that. Conversely, we were also worried that advertisers who wanted to target them in predatory ways could do that, too.  Discriminatory targeting is illegal when those ads are for housing, credit, and employment. Because those areas are so