Earlier this week, a New York federal judge became the nation’s first jurist to rule inadmissible evidence collected after Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) officials used a stingray, or cell site simulator, to locate a drug suspect’s phone, and by extension the man himself,...
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...
Last week, the Boston Globe reported that former Suffolk County Assistant District Attorney Christina Corda lost her sex discrimination lawsuit against her former employer, the county DA. Corda, 34, had alleged that District Attorney Dan Conley fired her because she repeatedly raised the...
A new report using state and federal data identifies Massachusetts and North Dakota as the two states with “the worst civil forfeiture laws in the country.” The legal bar the state must meet to seize property and assets is very low in Massachusetts, and does not...
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...
On Tuesday, April 5, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) hears oral argument in Commonwealth v. Laltaprasad, a case that will determine whether or not state judges have the power to use common sense discretion in drug sentencing, as both the plain...
There’s been a lot of misinformation about the FBI’s battle to force Apple to weaken its digital security. Here are the top four myths about the case, followed by the top four reasons we’ve got to support Apple. The top four myths...
The wall separating “foreign” intelligence operations from domestic criminal investigations has finally, fully collapsed. The FBI now plans to act on a rule change initiated by the Bush administration and finally massaged into actionable policy by Obama: Soon, domestic law enforcement agencies like...
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...
It’s budget time again, and everyone is looking for ways to cut corners. When it comes to public transportation, cutting corners isn’t easy or advisable—especially in Boston, where the system already requires significant infrastructural investment. A number of years ago, the state...