American Civil Liberties Union

Late last week, after nearly a decade of advocacy led by our coalition partners at the National Center for Transgender Equality, the Social Security Administration (SSA) updated its policy for changing gender designation in Social Security records. The ACLU also included this as one of our top LGBT second term recommendations to President Obama. This change will not only protect the privacy of transgender individuals, but also brings SSA in line with other federal agencies and prevailing medical standards for the treatment of transgender individuals.

The following remarks were given by Laura Murphy, director of the ACLU's Washington Legislative Office, at Sen. Rand Paul's press conference yesterday announcing his intention to sue the government to stop NSA surveillance of Americans' communications.

Last week, the Guardian reported something extraordinary. The National Security Agency is routinely collecting all of your phone records under Section 215 of the Patriot Act. They know who calls whom, when, for how long and from where. There's no more debate about whether the government is spying on Americans; the only question is how we can stop it.

The immigration reform bill that has emerged from the Senate Judiciary Committee is good – not ideal, not awful, but good. It is a game changer for those who currently have no hope of realizing the Constitution's promise of equal protection. But it also creates real risks to privacy for all Americans regardless of status and expands the kind of database environment that many of us fear will give the government access to far too broad a swath of our lives. And the bill creates the kind of militarized environment along our southern border that is extremely costly, harmful to border communities' quality of life, and enormously inefficient. And we must not forget that some are wrongly excluded from even a chance at the fruits of immigration reform – beginning with those who happen to love someone of the same sex.

Earlier this week, in a case brought by the ACLU, the ACLU of Arizona, and the Center for Reproductive Rights, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9^th Circuit struck down an extreme Arizona law that bans abortion care starting at 20 weeks. The court called it "per se unconstitutional." That's judicial-speak for "are you kidding me with this?"

And yet today, the U.S. House of Representatives held a hearing on a bill from Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) that would do the very same thing—except this one wouldn't be limited to Franks' home state of Arizona. Initially, Franks targeted the women of D.C., but has since announced his intention to expand his scope nationwide.