News Releases

The Selah Alliance for Equality (S.A.F.E.) and the City of Selah, WA have agreed to a settlement to dismiss a case SAFE filed against the City in 2020 after community members alleged the city censored their free speech by erasing chalk messages and confiscating and destroying signs in support of racial equality and the Black Lives Matter movement.

Carlos Rios, a United States citizen, filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington today against Pierce County and Pierce County Jail deputies, seeking declaratory relief and damages for his unlawful imprisonment and violations of his civil rights under federal and state law.

Last week, Bellingham voters approved a ban on government use of facial recognition and predictive policing technologies by their city.

NAACP Vancouver Branch 1139, the ACLU of Washington, and several other organizations have formally requested the United States Department of Justice to investigate the Vancouver Police Department (VPD) and Clark County Sherriff’s Office (CCSO).

Tacoma Police Department violated Public Records Act, failed to disclose information on invasive surveillance technology

A three-judge panel from the Washington State Court of Appeals declined a request from the campaign for Seattle Charter Amendment 29 (“CA 29”) to issue a stay blocking King County Superior Court Judge Catherine Shaffer’s order to remove CA 29 from the November ballot.

Today, King County Superior Court Judge Catherine Shaffer ruled that Seattle Charter Amendment 29 (“CA 29”), which proposed to establish city policy on homelessness through a vote by Seattle residents, violated state law limiting the permissible scope of local ballot initiatives in many ways and therefore should not appear on the November 2021 ballot.

A lawsuit filed today on behalf of the ACLU of Washington, the Transit Riders Union and the Seattle King County Coalition on Homelessness claims that a proposed amendment to the Charter of the City of Seattle is an illegal use of a local ballot initiative and violates state laws that mandate how local governments make and carry out plans for addressing homelessness. The lawsuit argues that the proposed Charter Amendment 29 goes beyond the scope of Seattle’s initiative powers.

ACLU of Washington reaction to the release of the results of an independent investigation into a complaint over a cotton picking lesson at Sacajawea Middle School in Spokane

On Tuesday, the Port of Seattle passed a measure regarding facial recognition technology (FRT) that falls short of a meaningful ban on biometrics for law enforcement and mass surveillance due to the port's ongoing collaboration with Customs and Border Protection (CBP), a sister agency of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).