Legislative advocacy is a critical part of the NYCLU's interdisciplinary approach to protecting civil liberties, which also includes litigation, community organizing, and communications.
As part of its work to affect legislation the NYCLU distributes dozens of legislative memoranda each year. Legislative memoranda are position papers that the NYCLU distributes to the governor's office and to state legislators and their staffs laying out our views on bills under deliberation or on issues that we feel the Legislature needs to address.
The concept of equality under the law is a foundational principle of our democracy, yet our federal and state constitutions were written at a time when their promises of equality only protected the interests of a few. Today, our constitutional protections remain woefully inadequate.
Ongoing protests over the role of police in public life, and the excessive police response they have prompted, have rightly brought new attention to the technology and machinery used by local law enforcement.
Government collection and maintenance of DNA samples presents significant privacy concerns. It is well past time for lawmakers to finally make clear that local governments are prohibited from establishing or maintaining municipal DNA identification indices.
Contact tracers are considered an essential ingredient for re-opening the State following New York on Pause. But contact tracing will only be effective if individuals who are diagnosed with COVID-19 are willing to share their contacts and if their contacts are willing to act on the information th
Addressing the ongoing public health crisis arising out of the COVID-19 pandemic may require real changes to how New Yorkers exercise constitutional rights, including the right to vote. As a first and immediate step, we must ensure that as many voters as possible can vote by mail.