Supreme Court Term 2025-2026

This case asks whether the state can arrest, charge, and convict someone under Montana’s obstruction statute for exercising their federal and state constitutional right to record police officers in public spaces. The defendant was filming a traffic stop when police instructed him to move farther away. When he did not move as far as they wanted, they arrested him for obstructing a peace officer. The ACLU’s State Supreme Court Initiative, along with the ACLU of Montana, filed an amicus brief in support of the defendant arguing that the officer’s refusal to allow the defendant to peacefully record police activity from a public sidewalk was, in effect, a content-based restriction on speech that could not be justified under strict scrutiny. Even if the restriction was not content-based, our brief argues that it is not a reasonable time place or manner restriction.

The ACLU has joined a lawsuit defending the interests of trans student athletes in Connecticut.

There are serious privacy concerns raised by reports that the United States DOGE (“Department of Government Efficiency”) Service (“USDS”) has gained access to federal agency systems, including those housing sensitive information like federal payment data, student loan data or federal employee records, and may be using artificial intelligence technology in analyzing them. The ACLU submitted a FOIA request to the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and USDS to provide the public with information on what federal records the agencies have provided to or been asked for by the USDS and if sensitive information and key decision-making has been outsourced to unvetted technology.

ICE’s use of special management units, or solitary confinement, has prompted active concern and attention from Congress, the media, and advocates. On Dec. 6, 2024, ICE announced that it had issued policy updates for the use of special management units (SMU), or solitary confinement cells, for detained immigrants. ICE, however, has not made a copy of the updated policy publicly available. We’ve sued to obtain a copy of this policy to better defend immigrants subject to solitary confinement in detention.