American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois / Aclu of Illinois

Legislative initiatives: for this year included successful passage of a measure that adds new protections for patients and providers of both abortion care and gender-affirming health care in the wake of efforts by other states to criminalize legal health care in Illinois. We also worked on legislation that would protect the personal health care data collected by third party personal devices, mandating that such data could not be shared or sold without express permission from the user. Additionally, we championed a new law that modernizes language inside the department of children and family services in order to better serve the increasing number of lgbtq+ youth who find themselves in care. Under the new law, Illinois statutes affecting children in care now recognize these lgbtq+ youth and their family dynamics through inclusionary language. We also worked to reduce barriers to recovery for those who use illicit drugs. The measure we advanced through the Illinois house would reduce penalties for those arrested with small amounts of drugs from a felony to a misdemeanor and enhance access to care and rehabilitation rather than relying exclusivesly on punishment and imprisonment. The aclu of Illinois also worked with interested parties and legislators on measures touching on critical first amendment issues, including laws that prohibit the doxing of someone in Illinois, and a law aimed at addressing efforts to ban books in the state. In addition, we reviewed and considered a position on more than 1400 legislative proposals including many that implicated issues related to personal freedom, abortion rights, lgtbq+ rights, technology and privacy, issues in the criminal legal system and other matters.

Chapters: in four discreet geographic areas across the state - urbana-champaign, bloomington-normal, springfield, and peoria - aclu members voluntarily gather together to form local chapters to advance the work of the organization in these areas. These chapters serve as a critical early warning system for Civil Liberties' violations/concerns in these areas and often produce important public programs that address concerns that might be federal, statewide, or local. Finally, the chapters serve as representatives for the aclu in these communities, raising our profile by participating in local activities, from marches and parades to demonstrations and farmers' markets. The chapters also play a critical role as conduits to local elected officials, including mayors, police leaders, and others. During this year, each of the chapters addressed local proposals to adopt and implement automatic license plate reader systems in their community; chapter members reached out to public officials to share aclu concerns about privacy raised by the systems. In addition, chapter members focused on ways to ensure the smooth implementation of the pretrial fairness act, ending the use of money bond in Illinois.

Communications: the communications activities of the aclu of Illinois are deisgned to: keep our members and supporters updated on the work of the organization; broadly inform and advance the public about important developments in our work and issues of concern (constitutional issues) in the general public; and target messages that may move opinion leaders in support of our work. We utilize an array of communications tools in order to achieve these goals, from public speaking to social media, email communication with members and supporters, other written messages, and a podcast. The department is responsible for messages that reach thousands of people across the state of Illinois during the year regarding the work of the organization.