News & Commentary

Louise Melling, Deputy Legal Director and Director of Ruth Bader Ginsburg Center for Liberty, ACLU Just

Anthony D. Romero, ACLU Executive Director Ruth

Hennepin County's Mary Moriarty has fought for us and, in return, she may be pushed out by an illegal process.

Voting by mail is the safest way to cast a ballot for many voters, whether they are immunocompromised, have a disability, or simply want to protect the health of their community. Six voters from across the country shared with us why they want to vote by mail, and why it should be an option for all voters. No excuses. 

In Ramsey County, and in most places nationwide, what’s in your wallet determines what happens if you are accused of a crime. Now thanks to a large grant and a new policy working group that includes the ACLU-MN, Ramsey County has a chance to chart a more just and equitable course by ending cash bail for most offenses and improving the pretrial process.

We usually know what to expect on any given presidential Election Day. After all, they happen every four years. But this is the first election in our lifetime to occur during a global pandemic, and there have already been significant changes to the electoral process as more voters plan to mail in their ballots than ever before. How will that change our quintessential American tradition of watching the results roll in on election night?

It’s after Labor Day, the weather is changing, leaves are turning, which all means — Election season is officially here. November 3 is now less than 50 days away, and we at the ACLU have been working for months nationwide to ensure voters safe and secure access to the ballot and to protect everyone’s rights while voting — and now that time is here. During the COVID-19 pandemic, it is essential that we not only protect our health but also our civil liberties — including our fundamental right to vote. It’s on all of us to make our plan to vote. Today is not too early to act. 

In the wake of George Floyd’s murder, protestors throughout America march to demand an end to police abuse. Advocates for the compelling movement to divest from the police and reinvest in communities convincingly argue that significant portions of the tax dollars we spend on policing would be better spent supporting the needs of communities of color and on alternatives to policing itself. Continuing to rely on overfunded police departments, which seem all too happy to continue to enforce laws in a racist manner and unwilling to limit aggressive uses of force, does not advance public safety.Consider how the racial disparities in the enforcement of marijuana laws have contributed to the mass incarceration of persons of color, or how the enforcement of trivial criminal infractions – like selling loose cigarettes or driving with a broken tail light – have repeatedly led to the murder of Black people. These practices more than adequately illustrate the devastating scope and impact of America’s policing problem.But even where defund/divest efforts succeed, police departments may be able to undermine some of this movement’s most important objectives. Certain achievements, such as creating non-police infrastructures for mental health crisis responses, will be difficult to circumvent, but when it comes to the over-policing and over-surveillance of communities of color, a foreseeable problem awaits. In response to a loss of funding, police departments are likely to consider shifting from more expensive, racist, human policing to more cost-efficient, racist, technology-driven policing. Should this play out, we will be left an altered but equally dangerous beast to fight.And there is a very real risk of that happening. It is a risk the Movement for Black Lives has focused upon at length, and it is time we all do the same.Surveillance Technologies and RacismLike policing itself, investigations into surveillance technology deployments have revealed, time and again, that they are overwhelmingly unleashed against communities of color. These technologies include:

Those 8 minutes and 15 seconds are indelibly etched into our minds. That’s at least how long police officer Derek Chauvin put his knee on George Floyd’s neck, leaning with his entire body weight, visibly grinding Floyd’s face into the pavement.