News & Commentary

As teenage brothers Thomas and Lloyd descended a staircase with fellow prospective students of Colorado State University, the excitement of visiting their dream school quickly unraveled.

By the third time Sherese Crawford got pulled over, she knew it was no matter of coincidence.

On Friday, September 22, a group of several hundred people in Albuquerque peacefully marched downtown to protest police brutality against people of color in America. Though the event was planned well in advance, the timing couldn’t have been more appropriate. Just a few days earlier, yet another a white police officer was acquitted in the killing of a black motorist in St. Louis. When Black Lives Matter (BLM) activists protested the acquittal, St. Louis police in riot gear forcibly dispersed the protesters while mocking them with chants of, “Whose streets? Our streets!”—a co-opting of an iconic BLM slogan that emerged out the Ferguson protests three years earlier.

Robby Heckman, like many ACLU volunteers, experienced something in his personal life that shook him to the core and drove him to action.

Douglas lost his freedom because he lacked the money to post bond. He lost list life because Cibola County Detention Center didn’t think his life was worth the cost of a hospital bill.

These mysterious devices collect the cellular data of any unsuspecting bystander who happens to be in the area.

Two days before graduating from the State University of New York-Canton with a degree in law enforcement leadership, 21-year-old Jessica Cooke was stopped in her car by Border Patrol agents at a checkpoint on NY Route 37 along the St. Lawrence River’s maritime border with Canada.Ms. Cooke has driven through such checkpoints frequently, and she even completed the first phase of U.S. Customs and Border Protection physical training to apply for a CBP job. As she arrived at the checkpoint, there was no indication she’d crossed the border; indeed, she showed a driver’s license to confirm her identity and stated where she was coming from, which is more information than she’s required to provide.The last thing Ms. Cooke could have ex

We got some good news and some bad news today.

Check this out: the ACLU of Northern California just launched a new Mobile Justice app, a cool new tool that helps you to film and document encounters with police officers.With a simple tap of your touch screen, the Mobile Justice App will help you to hold police accountable by recording them when they step over the line. When you're done recording, the app will upload the video automatically to a secure server online where the ACLU can review it. That way if a police officer confiscates your phone or deletes your video, your evidence will still be preserved.