News & Commentary

For more than two years, the ACLU has been fighting a Trump administration policy that prevents unaccompanied immigrant minors in federal care from accessing abortion. We had previously won in the lower court, securing a preliminary block on the policy. And last week, the Trump administration chose not to challenge that ruling and ask the Supreme Court to review the case—a real victory in our fight for justice for the Janes.

Emily Bellamy is a single mother living in South Carolina earning low wages as a daycare worker. Emily strives for a better life for her young children and, in the past, has been able to earn more money cleaning vacation condominiums or working as a home health aide for the elderly. But Emily no longer has access to those opportunities because her driver’s license is suspended for unpaid traffic tickets that she cannot afford to pay.

A significant number of Americans hold significant misconceptions about their privacy, according to opinion research — misconceptions that privacy-invading companies love. That’s according to research on American understandings of privacy carried out over the past couple decades by the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, lead by Prof. Joseph Turow, whom I recently heard give a talk summarizing these studies.

In a major victory for privacy rights, a federal court has held that the federal government’s suspicionless searches of smartphones, laptops, and other electronic devices at airports or other U.S. ports of entry are unconstitutional. The ruling in our case is a recognition that the Constitution protects us even at the border, and that traveling to or from the United States doesn’t mean we give the government unfettered access to the trove of personal information on our mobile devices.

Last week in Oklahoma, the largest single-day mass commutation of prison sentences in U.S. history took place. When all is said and done, nearly 600 people will be released from prison. This may seem like a surprise coming from a state that’s also home to the highest per-capita incarceration rate in the nation. But these commutations follow the will of the people: 58 percent of Oklahomans made clear at the ballot box in 2016 that they are ready to turn the tide on mass incarceration. The ballot initiative was supported by a number of legislators, and Governor Kevin Stitt proved to be a leader in providing retroactive relief during the commutation process.

My name is Kimberly Haven. I am an activist, an advocate, and I have also been referred to as the “tampon queen.” I got this moniker because, while I was incarcerated, I learned how to make my own tampons out of the subpar menstrual products I was “given” while incarcerated. 

Several months into the Trump administration, my wife was doing The New York Times crossword puzzle and came across this clue: “Group that told President Trump, ‘We’ll see you in court.’” I’m not generally much use when it comes to the crossword, but on that one I could help. She didn’t really need the assistance of course, as the ACLU is my employer, and she, The New York Times crossword puzzle drafters, and much of the country already knew that it was the ACLU who told the president we’d see him in court.   

Last Friday, the Trump administration announced an alarming new proposal that would strip away critical protections against discrimination in grants funded by the Department of Health and Human Services.

When we think of local government, what might come to mind are mundane topics such as garbage collection and pothole repairs. However, similar to representatives in the state legislature and Congress, city councils legislate on civil rights and civil liberties issues that affect entire cities. While off-year elections are often characterized by low voter turnout, they deal with high stakes issues. This year, five of ten city council seats are up for election.