Stories from the ACLU of Washington

Racial disproportion is endemic in America. A new report on the impact of the housing crash provides fresh evidence of how families of different races are impacted disparately by economic forces. 

The ACLU of Washington applauds WA Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler for his recent action supporting the rights of transgender people. Kreidler wrote to health insurance companies on Wednesday to make clear that it is illegal to discriminate against transgender policyholders under state and federal law.

In June of 2013, NSA contractor Edward Snowden famously leaked knowledge of systematic government spying to journalist Glenn Greenwald of The Guardian. Over the next year, Greenwald assembled his insights about government spying and Snowden into a book titled No Place to Hide. On a book tour, he recently spoke to a packed house at Seattle’s Town Hall.

Have you wondered where Seattle’s police drones are? How about … Los Angeles? In an aptly named article “Game of Drones” in the LA Weekly, Seattle journalist Rick Anderson chronicles how the Los Angeles Police Department acquired the two 3.5 Draganflyer X6 drones as a gift from the Seattle Police Department.

When people hear that their police department is considering equipping officers with body cameras, their initial reaction is likely to be “Good!”  Many instances of police misconduct have come to light over the years because someone recorded the incident with a mobile camera. So having a camera attached to each officer seems like a great way to ensure accountability.

Legal intern Michael Marchesini is excited to be working on criminal justice and voting rights for the ACLU in his home state. He is proud of Washington for its recent advances in civil liberties, including marriage equality and marijuana legalization, as well as the Governor’s moratorium on the death penalty and the ACLU’s work against debtors’ prisons.

Stephanie Llanes has come a long way from where she started. Born in Puerto Rico and raised in Orlando, she just finished her first year at Berkeley Law School – the first in her family to attend college.

May has been National Teen Pregnancy Prevention Month—a month-long opportunity for parents, schools, policy-makers, and organizations to promote and support effective teen pregnancy prevention initiatives. As becoming pregnant as a teen is a significant stumbling block to a financially secure future, measures devoted to preventing teen pregnancy certainly are important.

A terrific article in the New York Times calls out government officials for using detained immigrants as extremely cheap labor at federal detention centers. For performing such essential tasks as preparing meals, scrubbing bathrooms, and buffing hallways, the jailed workers are paid all of 13 cents an hour (i.e., a dollar a day) – far less than the federal minimum wage of $7.25/hour that would be paid to contractors.

Yesterday, Governor Jay Inslee sent a letter to FCC Chairman Wheeler urging him to delay a vote on proposed rules that would allow Internet service providers to discriminate among lawful content providers changing the free and open nature of the Internet.