American Civil Liberties Union

Earlier this week, a Senate Judiciary subcommittee, chaired by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), held a hearing on campaign finance law enforcement. We submitted comments highlighting a few areas of common ground between the ACLU and proponents of campaign finance reform.

Today, the Supreme Court granted our petition seeking review of an appellate court’s 2-1 ruling upholding patents on two human genes associated with hereditary breast and ovarian cancer.  We represent 20 plaintiffs, including geneticists, patients, and scientific organizations representing over 150,000 pathologists and laboratory professionals.   The case is the first challenging whether human genes can be patented.

Originally posted by the ACLU of Northern California

Why is the FBI spying on Occupy protesters? The ACLU-NC is determined to find out.

The ACLU of Northern California and San Francisco Bay Guardian today filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the FBI to find out whether and to what extent the feds have been spying on members of the Occupy movement. Although the right to protest goes to the heart of our democracy, and the FBI exists to keep us safe, the FBI has a perverse history of interpreting its mission to mean that it can spy on political activists, including Martin Luther King, Jr.

Last fall, the grassroots protest movement Occupy Wall Street - or simply "Occupy" - swept the nation. Originating in New York, prominent Occupy movements sprung up all over Northern California. But the law enforcement response was swift and brutal, as police showered protesters with exploding projectiles, batons, and pepper spray. (The ACLU-NC is currently suing UC Davis over its pepper spraying of peaceful student protesters, and is also partnering with the National Lawyers Guild in suing the City of Oakland over the violent crackdown on Occupy Oakland.)