News & Commentary

The events that led to the murder of Willie McCoy by City of Vallejo police began with a 911 call came from a Taco Bell employee. In the recording, the employee sounds perplexed: "I have a person unresponsive to car horn honks in my drive-through," he said. He then added, "He's unresponsive. I've already had, like people try to knock on the window. I have no idea what's going on." The dispatcher sent out Vallejo police officers for what's known as a "wellness check." Officers arrived, saw that Willie McCoy was passed out in the driver's seat of his car, and began to evaluate the situation. That this led to police to shooting and killing a Black man who had been sleeping in his car speaks volumes about deadly force and racial bias not just in California, but across the nation.  

Last year, California lawmakers passed the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), a new law to strengthen consumer privacy protections. A few weeks ago, newly-elected Oakland Assemblymember Buffy Wicks introduced AB 1760: Privacy for All, to add critical improvements to current law and ensure privacy is a right we can all exercise in California — and pave the way for other states to do the same — regardless of what we look like or how much money we have in our bank account.

After years of working to affirm my identity in a world where transgender people are questioned constantly about their decisions, I felt hopeful as I arrived for the surgery I had waited so long for. I was 27, and I would finally be closer to calling my body home.

Gov. Gavin Newsom dealt a major blow to the nation’s already anemic death penalty on Wednesday when he announced a moratorium on the practice in California. With 737 death row prisoners, the state has by far the nation’s largest death row, dwarfing the next largest states, Florida with 353 and Texas with 232. The death penalty is a barbaric penalty that is riddled with error and bias, and other states should follow California’s lead in halting its use immediately.   

Last Friday, a Honduran asylum seeker suffered an unthinkable tragedy when she had a stillbirth while in ICE detention in Texas. While the facts of this case are still coming to light, it is only one of many tragic incidents involving immigrants detained by the federal government in recent months.

After more than a month of threats, a government shutdown, and bipartisan action by Congress, President Trump has finally declared a national emergency to spend billions of taxpayer dollars on his border wall obsession. In response, the ACLU will file a lawsuit early next week challenging this blatantly illegal executive action.

As a nation, we must address the brutal reality and deadly consequences of police violence. We have seen far too many people, particularly Black and brown people, killed by police. We have seen too many families and communities shattered by loss and tragedy. Enough is enough. We must limit when police officers can use deadly force and take someone's life.

Since the U.S. Supreme Court issued the landmark decision affirming the constitutional right to an abortion in Roe v. Wade, we've seen states pass over one thousand restrictions that make it harder for women to have an abortion. In just the first six months of 2018, 11 states enacted 22 new medically unnecessary restrictions on abortion. A Kentucky lawmaker recently introduced a bill that bans abortion once a fetal heartbeat is detected and about half a dozen other states are currently considering bills like it.

In recent years, the federal government has significantly ramped up its efforts to monitor people on social media. The FBI, for one, has repeatedly acknowledged that it engages in surveillance of social media posts. So it was surprising when the bureau responded to our Freedom of Information Act request on this kind of surveillance by saying that it “can neither confirm nor deny the existence of records.”