A State Supreme Court justice has ordered Nassau County to comply with a 23-year-old unfulfilled charter mandate to establish an independent board charged with overseeing and reforming conditions at the Nassau County Correctional Center, where county officials have for years failed to meet their obligation to provide prisoners adequate medical and mental health care.

Donald Shaffer, founder of the NYCLU’s Nassau County Chapter and an emeritus member of the NYCLU’s statewide Board of Directors, died on Feb. 17. NYCLU Executive Director Donna Lieberman offers the following remembrance: Don and his beloved late wife, Doris Shaffer, were passionate lifelong supporters of civil liberties, serving with consistency and devotion as board members and as activists and organizers in Nassau County and statewide.

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.”

The New York Civil Liberties Union this week asked law enforcement officials in the Lower Hudson Valley, Suffolk County, Nassau County and Western New York, as well as the state Division of Criminal Justice Services, to turn over records about how they use automatic license plate readers (ALPR) to track and record New Yorkers’ movements. The request was filed as part of a nationally coordinated public records request with 34 other American Civil Liberties Union state affiliates.

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:

Following the recent suicide of an Iraq war veteran housed at the Nassau County Correctional Center – the fifth inmate suicide in less than two years – the New York Civil Liberties Union today filed a lawsuit to compel county officials to comply with a 22-year-old unfulfilled charter mandate to establish an independent board charged with overseeing and reforming conditions at the jail.

The New York Civil Liberties Union has filed court papers challenging the Nassau County Police Department’s refusal to disclose public records concerning allegations that the Department launched an internal affairs investigation at the behest of Fox News pundit Bill O’Reilly of a detective whom the TV personality believed was romantically involved with his wife.