News & Commentary

(LOS ANGELES)-The ACLU of Southern California announced that it has filed a lawsuit on behalf of American citizen Samy Ali, to challenge the federal government’s revocation of his wife’s visa in retaliation for his exercising the right to counsel during FBI questioning.  The case was filed in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.

Los Angeles – The U.S. Supreme Court today ordered the state of California to reduce its prison population in order to alleviate extreme overcrowding that endangers the health and safety of the state’s prisoners and prison staff.  The court ordered California to reduce its prison population to 137.5 percent of capacity. The system is nearly at 200 percent of capacity.

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The federal government’s use of secrecy and deception in the name of national security reached a new low last week, when Obama administration lawyers argued that they had the right to lie to a federal court in the name of national security by denying even the fact that they were keeping secret records about a group of Southern California residents.   While the Court excoriated the government for lying, the Obama administration has defended its actions, raising fears that it will continue the practice in other cases.  Read the Amended Order

SACRAMENTO – Today, the California State Senate unanimously approved the Reader Privacy Act of 2011 – legislation that would require government agencies to seek a warrant in order to access consumers’ reading records from bookstores and online retailers. The bill – SB 602 authored by Senator Leland Yee (D-San Francisco) – would establish consumer protections for book purchases similar to long-established privacy laws for library records. 

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California is in a serious crisis, with the state budget deficit at a staggering $15 billion. To balance the budget, we need to balance our priorities. California is slashing funds for education and health care, while billions in prison spending remains untouched.