The New York Civil Liberties Union will join farmworkers, community and civil rights advocates, and religious leaders in Albany today to urge state lawmakers to enact the Farmworkers Fair Labor Practices Act – legislation that will extend basic labor rights and protections to the state’s farmworkers. Even though they form the backbone of the state’s $4.7 billion agriculture industry, farmworkers are denied basic labor protections, including rights to overtime pay, to a day off per week, to workers’ compensation if they are injured on the job and to engage in collective bargaining.

In response to Governor Cuomo’s State of the State address, the New York Civil Liberties Union released the following statement, attributable to NYCLU Executive Director Donna Lieberman: “We’re pleased that the governor’s priorities for the coming session include a vigorous agenda for women’s equality that would make major strides in closing loopholes in New York’s existing protections for women. We particularly applaud his commitment to pay equity, extending protections against sexual harassment to all workers in New York, and protecting women’s fundamental right to choose.

The New York Civil Liberties Union today filed a federal lawsuit challenging New York prison officials' system-wide policies and practices governing solitary confinement that are responsible for the arbitrary and unjustified use of extreme isolation on thousands of individuals incarcerated in New York’s prisons every year.

The New York Civil Liberties Union and Common Cause/NY today announced joint measures to protect New Yorkers’ voting rights in polling districts in Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Poughkeepsie, Albany and Long Island. The NYCLU and Common Cause/NY have learned that True the Vote, a Houston-based organization with a history of using voter intimidation tactics in minority and low-income voting precincts, is recruiting and training poll watchers to challenge voters on Election Day at polling places in where U.S. Congressional races are tight.

The New York Civil Liberties Union today released an investigative report documenting in unprecedented detail how the use of solitary confinement in New York State prisons is arbitrary and unjustified; harms prisoners and prison staff; and decreases prison and community safety.

The New York Civil Liberties Union today launched Let Me Vote – an all-inclusive guide on the right to vote in New York State. The toolkit provides everything New Yorkers need to register to vote and cast their ballots on Election Day. “The right to vote is a fundamental pillar of our democracy,” NYCLU Executive Director Donna Lieberman said. “At a time when this sacred right is under assault in states across the nation, our new voting rights guide will help empower all New Yorkers to protect their right to vote.”

In response to reports that an apparent link between a DNA sample taken at an Occupy Wall Street action and the 2004 unsolved murder of a Julliard student may be the result of a crime lab error, the New York Civil Liberties Union today issued the following statement, which is attributable to NYCLU Executive Director Donna Lieberman:

Community and civil rights advocates, religious leaders and farmworkers gathered in Albany today to urge state lawmakers to enact the Farmworkers Fair Labor Practices Act – legislation that will extend basic labor rights and protections to the state’s farmworkers.

Transgender and gender non-conforming New Yorkers too often face severe discrimination and harassment in their daily lives but are denied basic civil rights protections that other state residents take for granted, according to a report released today by the New York Civil Liberties Union and the Policy and Legislative Advocacy Clinic at Fordham University School of Law.

The leadership of the New York Civil Liberties Union today denounced the State Legislature’s passage of legislation allowing police to collect a genetic sample of every person convicted of any crime in New York State, saying the measure will do little to enhance public safety while increasing the likelihood of wrongful convictions and flawed prosecutions.