The Washington Supreme Court today struck down the City of Sumner's curfew ordinance, ruling that the law is unconstitutionally vague. The American Civil Liberties Union represents the Sumner parent who challenged the law. The parent had been fined for violating the curfew in 1999 after he allowed his teenage son to go to a neighborhood convenience store at night.
One of the most insidious features of the War on Drugs has been government seizures and closures of the property of people who are not involved in illegal activities. The Washington Court of Appeals dealt these practices a setback when it ruled in April, 2000 that the state’s drug nuisance abatement law was unconstitutional as applied to Oscar's II, a Seattle nightclub.
The ACLU is trying to put the kibosh on warrantless police searches of hotel registries. Suspicionless searches strike at people’s right to travel freely and violate protections against unreasonable governmental intrusion into one’s private affairs.
Washington Supreme Court found (in State v. Smith) that "exigent circumstances" existed when police searched a home without a warrant and therefore the search was valid.
Seeking to uphold union democracy, the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington and Public Citizen today filed a lawsuit backing the free speech rights of a union member running for office. The suit was filed on behalf of Joseph Hughes to secure his right to speak with fellow members of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW).
ACLU-WA 1999-2000 Annual Report
Cyberspace is the latest frontier for battles over censorship. Around the state, right-wing groups are demanding that public libraries install filters to "protect" people from sexually explicit materials on the Internet.
In a precedent-setting case, the Washington Court of Appeals has temporarily put a halt to Wahkiakum School District’s program of suspicionless urine testing for student athletes.
City governments around the state are rethinking their urine-testing policies in the wake of the ACLU's success in curbing Seattle's suspicionless urine-testing program.
On February 9, the ACLU of Washington filed a friend of the court brief with the Washington Supreme Court to protect the rights of people who seek to be legally designated as de facto parents.
