In conversations about civil liberties reform, we often come face to face with the inescapable fact that our world and our issues are interconnected. It’s not possible to fully address systemic racism in the criminal system without also addressing economic injustice. Drug...
Mea culpa: I’ve been on vacation; that’s why no recent posts. Here is some news I missed while I was partying and relaxing. It is extremely easy for the FBI to spy on journalists, without warrants As Freedom of the Press Foundation’s...
Yesterday, April 5, ACLU of Massachusetts legal director Matthew Segal argued an important mandatory minimums case, Commonwealth v. Laltaprasad, before the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. The case will decide whether state judges have flexibility to issue less than mandatory minimum sentences when appropriate. In order...
As I blogged this morning, FBI director Jim Comey wants us to believe that his agency’s war against Apple is only about one phone, not about setting precedent that will impact all phones and all electronic devices. That couldn’t be farther from the truth. As the...
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...
The ACLU of Massachusetts this week filed a public records request with the Boston Police Department (BPD) seeking information about its cell phone tracking technology. For too long, the department’s use of controversial cell site simulators has been shrouded in an FBI-mandated cloud of...
Documents leaked to a justice organization by police whistleblowers in Alabama reveal a decades long conspiracy to plant guns and drugs on up to one thousand innocent Black men. The records also reveal a cover up that reached the highest levels of law enforcement in the state, including the local district attorney and a police officer who went on to become the state's current head of homeland security. Some of the police officers involved in the corruption ring are apparently dedicated white supremacists.
In the latest example of terror wars mission creep, the French government has begun using emergency rule powers granted in the wake of the Paris terrorist attacks to silence environmentalists.
The Intercept reports:
I don’t have anything to hide. Why should I care? Not concerned about your privacy? Great! Please email me all of your passwords, especially your banking and email passwords, and drop a copy of your home and car keys in the mail...
