The American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan has taken up the cases of 14 Amish families whose homes have been condemned by the Lenawee County Health Department for not being up to code for their water and sewer systems: The health department has filed lawsuits against the owners of the properties for what it calls a lack of adequate water and sewer systems. In one particular complaint lodged against... 

Massachusetts State Police have become the first law enforcement agency in the US to use robotic dogs, in a first that has critics warning that the machines could be weaponized in the future. WBUR News reports that the metal dogs, made by Boston Dynamics (DARPA funded), have been leased to the police and used on multiple occasions in active law enforcement incidents since August. The robots, named... 

Loring Wirbel, board member of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Colorado chapter and co-chair of the ACLU’s Colorado Springs chapter, called for supporters of GOP presidential hopeful Donald Trump to be shot before they vote for the billionaire businessman. Comparing Trump to Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels, Wirbel wrote in his Facebook page: The thing is, we have to really reach out to... 

US President George W. Bush awards former CIA director George Tenet the Presidential Medal of Freedom on December 14, 2004. The US Central Intelligence Agency had explicit guidelines for “human experimentation” on terrorism detainees as part of its controversial rendition, detention and interrogation program, according to a newly declassified document. The document containing the guidelines was... 

Dozens of US law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, have used radar devices that allow them to “see” through walls of buildings to monitor human activity, a new report states. This has led to questions regarding how legal these tactics are. The policing agencies began using the radar device more than two years ago without public disclosure and little notice from courts until a recent case... 

U.S. District Judge William Paley ruled today that the NSA’s rampant violations of the Fourth Amendment are legal. He cited al-Qaeda and 9/11 when he dismissed a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union challenging the NSA’s surveillance program. Paley said the NSA program “represents the government’s counter-punch” to al-Qaeda. Despite recent evidence to the contrary, Paley... 

The American Civil Liberties Union is imploring people to stand up for their digital privacy this holiday season, and is doing so with a humorous YouTube video that has Santa Claus poking fun at the National Security Agency. “The NSA is Coming to Town” is the name of the two-minute long ACLU clip, and in it the organization parodies the classic Christmas tune in order to call attention to the... 

Hundreds of people rally in the US capital to denounce the National Security Agency’s massive surveillance programs as furor grows at home and abroad over the US government’s spying activities. Protesters marched in Washington DC from Union Station to Capitol Hill on Saturday, the anniversary of the Patriot Act, holding signs that said, “Stop mass surveillance,” “Thank you, Edward... 

The American Civil Liberties Union has released documents confirming that police license plate readers capture vast amounts of data on innocent people, and in many instances this intelligence is kept forever. According to documents obtained through a number of Freedom of Information Act requests filed by ACLU offices across the United States, law enforcement agencies are tracking the whereabouts of... 

Drones aren’t conducting surveillance 24/7 in the United States just yet, but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing to worry about: in Dayton, Ohio, manned airplanes might soon do the spying. Officials with the Dayton City Commission recently announced that they hope to sign a $120,000 contract with a local security company in order to give law enforcement agencies an eye-in-the-sky ability unheard... 

Illegal immigrants are being released from US detention facilities ahead of looming federal budget cuts that would slash funding for the removal and detention of illegal aliens. In an attempt to save money ahead of the automatic budget cuts, which are scheduled to take effect Friday, the detainees are being released in the US – even though they are facing the prospect of deportation. For several... 

A federal judge issued a 75-page ruling on Wednesday that declares that the US Justice Department does not have a legal obligation to explain the rationale behind killing Americans with targeted drone strikes. United States District Court Judge Colleen McMahon wrote in her finding this week that the Obama administration was largely in the right by rejecting Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests... 

US President Barack Obama A new report has revealed that US President Barack Obama’s administration accelerated a plan to institutionalize drone strikes before the recent presidential election, as the likelihood of Obama’s reelection was fading. When the possibility of a victory for Mitt Romney increased before the election, the Obama administration embarked on an immediate course of action last... 

A handful of international election monitors have touched down in the US to swing by polling places next month when voters cast ballots for the president, but officials in the state of Texas have issued them a warning: you’re not welcome. State Attorney General Greg Abbott has sent a scathing letter to the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, threatening to arrest any of the election... 

Worried that the US government might be able to read your emails? Don’t be — they already can! The American Civil Liberties Union is asking the feds to come clean on why — and what — they do with the personal correspondence of its citizens. The ACLU has filed request under the US Freedom of Information Act in hopes of learning more about the powers the government has granted itself to snoop...