News & Commentary

The movement to stop the torturous practice of long-term solitary confinement gained traction in 2019. These are the achievements and developments the ACLU is most excited about, as well as what we're watching in the year to come.

Victims of America's war crimes had little means of accountability. Now, even that is being eviscerated.

America made big strides in 2019 on its path to dismantle the racist, unfair, and inhumane death penalty. Today, dramatically fewer states permit the death penalty than any time in the modern era, and the number of people on death row is at a 27-year low.

The ACLU is advocating for state legislatures to adopt policies that improve registration, the voting process, and ensure that more citizens are eligible to participate in the 2020 election.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) are using incredibly invasive surveillance technology as part of their continued efforts to target and tear apart communities across the country. They’re doing so in near-total secrecy and without any public accountability.

You might think that Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), the Ranking Member of the House Intelligence Committee, would be too busy to file baseless defamation lawsuits against anonymous Twitter accounts. But you’d be wrong.

This past year has been a critical one in the fight for reproductive freedom. For decades, politicians who want to interfere with people’s personal decisions about pregnancy have worked to push abortion care out of reach. They’ve quietly passed 483 state abortion restrictions since 2011 — including 59 new restrictions passed in 2019 alone. And after Trump was able to put two new justices who are hostile to abortion rights on the Supreme Court, politicians decided to go for broke. 

This year, despite deep political divisions, one area of growing consensus from stakeholders on both sides of the aisle was the need to reform our country’s criminal legal system. 

On Friday, Congressman Chris Stewart (R-Utah) and several of his Republican colleagues in the House of Representatives introduced the so-called “Fairness for All Act.” The bill is being described by its supporters as a compromise that protects both LGBTQ people and religious liberty.