For years, the FBI has begged congress to address what it says is a “going dark” problem. In July 2015, FBI director James Comey told the Senate Judiciary Committee law enforcement needs broader powers to force companies to build “backdoors” into their encrypted systems....
The advocacy organization Color of Change is mobilizing its members to ask FCC chairman Tom Wheeler to require transparency and policy commitments before authorizing local police departments to use controversial cell site simulator technology known as stingrays. The group’s message to the...
West Springfield, MA, population 28,137, has two grenade launchers. Why? https://t.co/TLH5S8EZ6E — ACLU Massachusetts (@ACLU_Mass) July 6, 2014 Back in the summer of 2014, the ACLU of Massachusetts published a report about the militarization of the police. Based off of publicly available materials and...
An alarming story out of Houston, where US Marshals have arrested a man over unpaid student loans dating back to the 1980s: Paul Aker says he was arrested at his home last week for a $1500 federal student loan he received in...
Torture is a subject of debate in the 2016 GOP presidential primary campaign. Last week, republicans debated whether waterboarding is torture (it is), and whether they would “bring it back” if they were elected president. Donald Trump said he would not only...
Two big ACLU lawsuits are in the news this week. First, stingrays. My colleagues at the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) successfully sued the NYPD to force the release of documents pertaining to the department’s use of controversial cell site simulators,...
A police officer is not immune from accountability after he points a gun at a non-threatening person, with his finger on the trigger and the safety off, and accidentally fires. So ruled the First Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston last week, in...
After considering some 50 amendments to the popular legislation, the Massachusetts state senate today unanimously voted to approve strong public records reform legislation. Following the passage of weaker legislation from the house, the two chambers must now meet to hammer out a...
Granting the ACLU and the public access to staffing, budgetary, and statistical information about the Boston Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) and FBI would mean “the public would know where the FBI was putting its resources,” warned an Assistant US Attorney in...
New reporting on the fallout at the University of Missouri over student protests alleging administration racism reveals that the FBI has been tracking the movements of “a significant Ferguson protester,” most likely DeRay Mckesson. Student activists and the UM football team succeeded in...