News & Commentary

The story of 20-year-old Daunte Wright, shot and killed by Brooklyn Center, Minnesota police after being pulled over for minor traffic violations on Sunday, is heartbreakingly familiar. It is so familiar, in fact, that protests are happening just 10 miles from the courtroom where Derek Chauvin is on trial for the death of George Floyd. Police interactions with citizens shouldn’t end in death, and yet hundreds die at the hands of police every year. In order to protect and serve Black Americans, we need immediate solutions. 

At the start of the pandemic, technologists and policymakers touted the promise of technology to track and warn individuals of potential COVID-19 exposure and high-risk areas. But whether due to overburdened contact tracers or the lack of early and coordinated adoption, those technologies never became a central part of the public health effort against the disease. W

Last week, the Arkansas legislature passed HB 1570, a bill that will ban gender-affirming health care for trans youth in the state. This came just one day after Arkansas’ Gov. Asa Hutchinson vetoed the bill, and amidst pleas from doctors, social workers, and parents of transgender youth to protect health care for trans youth. Arkansas is the first state in the country to pass such a bill. &

Last year, Detroit police arrested a Black man,

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Think about all the information stored on your cell phone or computers — photos, texts, location data, and even more information generated by a multitude of apps. These tools are convenient and integral to our everyday lives. But what does that mean for our privacy rights in the digital age? Today, the Wisconsin Supreme Court hears oral arguments addressing this question, including arguments that the ACLU has presented in a series of amicus briefs. T

For more than a century, the ACLU has been on the frontlines advancing civil liberties and civil rights. This has meant not only defending rights for all but taking bold positions in order to help America live up to her own ideals — a reality that is better than where we are, and one that is never finished. For over 100 years, this aspiration of a more perfect union has been our story.

My first interaction with the FBI was based on a lie.

Last week, the Department of Homeland Security’s internal watchdog agency released a damning report that shed new light on dangerous conditions at La Palma Correctional Center, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Eloy, Arizona. The Office of Inspector General’s investigation confirmed the dangerous use of force, abuse, and lack of medical care at La Palma as COVID-19 swept through the facility and revealed troubling details about ICE’s mismanagement of detention during the pandemic. I