American Civil Liberties Union is the only national organization dedicated to defending and expanding the civil liberties of all people.



The national ACLU is comprised of affiliates in each state. The ACLU of Northern California, based in San Francisco, is the affiliate that works to protect civil liberties in this region of the country.



The ACLU uses a dynamic mixture of strategies to accomplish our goal of ensuring constitutional rights and freedoms.



In addition to the direct litigation for which the ACLU has been known over the past seven decades, we engage in public education, inform the media, educate and lobby legislators, organize grass-roots activists to enliven the public debate and disseminate information through our membership and volunteer chapters.