News & Commentary
ACLU-SDIC Testimony – San Diego City Council Considers Whether to Continue Surveillance Use Policies
By Blair Overstreet
ACLU-SDIC Testimony – Vista City Council Considers the Community Safety and Due Process Resolution
ACLU-SDIC Testimony – San Diego County Board of Supervisors Considers Drafting CLEAR Ordinance
By Brisa Velazquez
ACLU-SDIC Testimony – San Diego City Council Considers Due Process & Safety Ordinance
By Brisa Velazquez
ACLU Border Affiliates Oppose Border Enforcement Provisions in S.744 Immigration Reform Bill
The ACLU Southwest Border affiliates, including the ACLU of California, issued the following joint statement in response to the Senate’s vote to proceed on immigration reform:
ACLU Expands Capacity to Challenge Abuses at the Border
SAN DIEGO and PHOENIX – In order to make America’s border agencies more accountable to the laws that protect us all, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) today announced the launch of a new Border Litigation Project to investigate, document and litigate civil and human rights cases along the U.S.-Mexico border. The new initiative will allow the ACLU to increase its legal capacity along the Southwest border by hiring two new full-time staff attorneys in San Diego and Tucson.
ACLU and Border Coalition Seek Open Public Record in Anastasio Hernandez Rojas Civil Suit
ACLU Challenges NSA's Patriot Act Phone Surveillance
Last week, The Guardian released an order issued by the FISC that compelled a Verizon subsidiary—Verizon Business Network Services (VBNS)—to hand over, on an "ongoing, daily basis," details for every phone call placed on its network for a prospective three-month period. Collecting those details—"metadata" that reveals who people talk to, for how long, how often, and possibly from where—allows the government to paint an alarmingly detailed picture of Americans' private lives. The FISC order cited Section 215 as its legal basis, yet the breadth of the authority it granted to the government is simply incompatible with the text of the statute.
As an organization that advocates for and litigates to defend the civil liberties of society's most vulnerable, the staff at the ACLU naturally use the phone—a lot—to talk about sensitive and confidential topics with clients, legislators, whistleblowers, and ACLU members. And since the ACLU is a VBNS customer, we were immediately confronted with the harmful impact that such broad surveillance would have on our legal and advocacy work. So we're acting quickly to get into court to challenge the government's abuse of Section 215.
The ACLU's complaint explains that the dragnet surveillance the government is carrying out under Section 215 infringes upon the ACLU's First Amendment rights, including the twin liberties of free expression and free association. The nature of the ACLU's work—in areas like access to reproductive services, racial discrimination, the rights of immigrants, national security, and more—means that many of the people who call the ACLU wish to keep their contact with the organization confidential. Yet if the government is collecting
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