Lawsuit brought by health care providers challenges abortion restrictions in the Commonwealth of Virginia — some of which have been on the books for over 40 years.

Today, the ACLU of Virginia sent a letter to Governor of Virginia Ralph Northam urging him to act with dispatch to ensure that Virginia’s protocols for administering the death penalty exemplify the highest standards of transparency and accountability.

The report calls for solitary confinement to be banned in state prisons except “only in rare and exceptional cases, for the shortest duration, with the least restrictive setting necessary and only when the prisoner poses a credible continuing and serious threat to the security others."

The Virginia Supreme Court today made clear in Neal v. Fairfax, a case brought by the ACLU-VA against the Fairfax County Police Department, that random mass surveillance by law enforcement agencies is not exempt from the requirements of Virginia’s Government Data Collection and Dissemination Act.