News & Commentary

LOS ANGELES - As high school seniors graduate and look to the future this month, local students called on Congress Monday to pass the DREAM Act, a federal bill that would increase access to higher education for undocumented immigrant students and give them the opportunity to pursue their goals after high school.

LOS ANGELES - Over the last several months the ACLU of Southern California has been working with countless parents, students and teachers who are deeply concerned about extreme efforts to recruit their children to the military. In order to meet its goals, the government since 2002 has required public high schools to turn over students' personal data to the Pentagon as a condition of receiving federal funding.

LOS ANGELES - The ACLU of Southern California strongly objects to a City of Los Angeles proposal that would effectively end civilian oversight of six law enforcement departments and agencies. The Police Commission is expected to vote on the plan Tuesday.

LOS ANGELES'The American Civil Liberties Union and United Airlines announced today that they have reached a settlement in a lawsuit brought on behalf of Assem Bayaa and the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), charging that the airline discriminated against Bayaa by removing him from a flight. While United disputes Bayaa's and ADC's allegations, the parties agree that settlement of this claim is in the best interest of all.

LOS ANGELES - Exactly one year after hundreds of people were arrested near bus stations and supermarkets for alleged immigration violations, the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California has obtained more than a thousand pages of documents that may confirm community suspicions that the border patrol targeted people based on race.

LOS ANGELES - What do Yao Ming and Russell Crowe have in common?

SACRAMENTO - The State Senate today approved a bill that would prohibit state and local governments from issuing identification documents containing a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tag, a device that can broadcast an individual's most private information including name, phone number, and date of birth. In a 29-7 bipartisan vote, the bill would also make it unlawful for a person to read or attempt to read an identification document without the owner's knowledge.

LOS ANGELES - Like Nightline anchor Ted Koppel's choice to honor soldiers who died while fighting the war in Iraq by reading hundreds of names, two Santa Barbara brothers chose to read soldiers' names on Veteran's Day last year in the city's shopping district.

LOS ANGELES - The U.S. Senate is expected this week to affirm the anti-privacy, anti-asylum, anti-property rights bill known as Real ID attached to an appropriations measure to fund the war in Iraq and tsunami relief. The ACLU of Southern California soundly opposes Real ID.