News Releases

Seeking to promote open government, the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington today filed a lawsuit seeking public documents about the City of Seattle's stance in contract negotiations with the Seattle Police Guild.

The ACLU's Kitsap County Chapter fought an effort to censor David Guterson's Snow Falling on Cedars, a murder mystery about prejudice toward Japanese Americans after World War II. After South Kitsap County School District teacher and parent review panels endorsed the book, a vocal group of parents condemned the acclaimed work as pornographic.

The ACLU successfully challenged regulations purported to give the Washington Liquor Control Board authority to prohibit labels on beer bottles that the Board believes are "immodest, undignified, or in bad taste."

Proponents of free speech literally chalked up a victory on the campus of Western Washington University in Bellingham. In 1999, WWU administrators proposed new guidelines for writing messages in chalk on Red Square plaza that would unreasonably limit who could write messages and what they could say.

People of color in cities large and small across this nation still live with the day-to-day reality that skin color makes one a suspect in America. Police are more likely to stop and more likely to search motorists who are people of color. The ACLU is working to combat the practice of making decisions based on the race or ethnicity of an individual.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Washington today is filing its second lawsuit in United States District Court in Seattle challenging the City of Seattle's establishment of a No Protest Zone during the meeting of the World Trade Organization (WTO) on December 1-3, 1999.

TCI Cablevision (now owned by AT&T) and producer Michael Aivaz have reached a settlement to a lawsuit in federal court over the cancellation of Aivaz's program on Seattle's cable access television channel. Under terms of the settlement, TCI for the first time has established formal procedures for acting on complaints about the content of public access programming.

The American Civil Liberties Union today urged the Washington Court of Appeals to recognize the parental rights of a lesbian mother who has separated from the biological mother of her daughter.

The ACLU-WA joined with several women's rights and civil rights groups in urging the WA Courts of Appeals to back the rights of domestic violence survivors to protect their privacy in court records.

You should have to give up all your privacy rights when you travel by car. A new ACLU-backed law passed by the 2009 legislature has moved Washington to the forefront of states in protecting the privacy of vehicle owners.