ACLU Online: August 21, 2003
The e-newsletter of the American Civil Liberties Union
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IN THIS ISSUE:
--Ashcroft Goes on the Road to Promote Patriot Act
--ACLU Files First Challenge to USA Patriot Act
--Take Action: Your Chance to Speak Out on Airline Profiling
--ACLU Challenges Use of Obsolete Voting Machines in California Recall Election
--ACLU Continues to Fight for Religious Freedom in Colorado and Utah
--What YOU Can Do to Protect Our Freedoms
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ATTORNEY GENERAL ASHCROFT GOES ON THE ROAD TO PROMOTE THE USA PATRIOT ACT
The Justice Department has launched a multi-city public relations "roadshow" promoting the controversial USA PATRIOT Act. The ACLU has criticized the tour's closure to the public, presumably intended to squelch protests, and questioned the agency's use of public money to counter broad public concern about the expansive surveillance powers in the law.
The PATRIOT Act tour comes in the midst of rapidly growing public concern about portions of the 2001 law. In recent months, the Department of Justice has been roundly criticized for this legislation and its questionable record on civil liberties in the post-9/11 era.
Across the United States, more than 150 communities - including three states - have passed local government resolutions calling for a fix to troubling sections of the PATRIOT Act. And, while the Department of Justice continues to downplay the resolutions drive as the product of "liberal college towns," communities as disparate - and conservative - as Castle Valley, Utah; Carrboro, North Carolina, and the inimitably independent state of Alaska have passed broadly popular pro-civil liberties measures.
One of the primary concerns with the tour, the ACLU said, is that it might be designed to prop up other politically ailing legislative initiatives, including the expansive sequel to the PATRIOT Act, known as PATRIOT II, or the new VICTORY Act, which contains four PATRIOT II provisions. Lawmakers and advocacy groups from across the political spectrum, including conservative mainstays like the American Conservative Union and Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform, oppose both pieces of legislation.
"Although the Department of Justice is understandably reluctant to admit it, the real significance of this roadshow is that it shows the PATRIOT Act is becoming a kitchen table issue," said Laura Murphy, Director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office. "Of course Americans want to be safe, but they also want - and deserve - to be free."
To read more see
http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFree.cfm?ID=13334&c=206.&MX=920&H=0
Remarks of Laura Murphy, Director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office can be found at
http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFree.cfm?ID=13345&c=206.&MX=920&H=0
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TAKE ACTION: YOUR CHANCE TO SPEAK OUT ON AIRLINE PROFILING
The Bush Administration continues to move forward with a new airline profiling system despite serious concerns about its impact on privacy and safety.
This computerized profiling system -- known as CAPPS II -- would put the government in the business of conducting background checks on all travelers each time they fly. Not only would this system severely infringe on each individual's privacy, many innocent people would be delayed or banned from travel and have no way of finding out why.
The Department of Homeland Security has opened a comment period on this new system and it is important that they hear from concerned people like you.
Click here for more information and to contact the Department of Homeland Security:
http://www.aclu.org/Privacy/Privacy.cfm?ID=13332&c=39&MX=920&H=0
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ACLU FILES FIRST CHALLENGE TO USA PATRIOT ACT
**If you missed last month's live chat on the ACLU web site with Associate Legal Director Ann Beeson discussing the lawsuit and a new ACLU report, listen to the archive version here:
http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFree.cfm?ID=13255&c=207&MX=920&H=0
The ACLU has filed the first legal challenge to the USA PATRIOT Act, taking aim at a section of the controversial law that vastly expands the power of FBI agents to secretly obtain records and personal belongings of innocent people in the United States, including citizens and permanent residents.
"Ordinary Americans should not have to worry that the FBI is rifling through their medical records, seizing their personal papers, or forcing charities and advocacy groups to divulge membership lists," said Ann Beeson, Associate Legal Director of the ACLU and the lead attorney in the lawsuit.
As the ACLU described in it's report "Unpatriotic Acts: The FBI's Power to Rifle Through Your Records and Personal Belongings Without Telling You," released last month, Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act violates constitutional protections against unreasonable searches and seizures as well as the rights to freedom of speech and association.
The ACLU filed the lawsuit on behalf of six advocacy and community groups from across the country whose members and clients believe they are currently the targets of investigations because of their ethnicity, religion and political associations.
Among the groups participating in the lawsuit are: Muslim Community Association of Ann Arbor (MCA), which operates a mosque and school in Ann Arbor, MI; American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), a national civil rights organization based in Washington, DC; and Bridge Refugee and Sponsorship Services, a church-sponsored non-profit organization that resettles refugees throughout East Tennessee.
The ACLU report is available at:
http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFree.cfm?ID=13246&c=206&MX=920&H=0
The ACLU's complaint is available at:
http://www.aclu.org/Files/OpenFile.cfm?id=13247&MX=920&H=0
More resources related to this case -- including ACLU reports and plaintiff statements -- are available online at:
http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFree.cfm?ID=13255&c=207&MX=920&H=0
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ACLU CHALLENGES USE OF OBSOLETE VOTING MACHINES IN CALIFORNIA RECALL ELECTION
With a gubernatorial recall election pending in the state, the ACLU of Southern California filed a lawsuit challenging the continued use of outdated, obsolete voting machines in counties with high concentrations of minority voters. Unfortunately, on Wednesday afternoon the U.S. District Court refused to delay the recall. It is likely that the affiliate will appeal the court's decision.
According to the ACLU's complaint, the "punch card" voting machines are the same machines at the center of the controversy surrounding the contested 2000 presidential election in Florida. In that election, the error rate for the "punch card" machines was more than double that of any other system used in the state.
If a recall election takes place in October 2003, the continued use of the "punch card" machines will needlessly and unlawfully disenfranchise millions of African-American, Latino, and Asian-American voters in at least six counties in the state (Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Diego, Santa Clara, Solano, and Mendocino).
"If the October election goes forward, we can predict with absolute certainty that every Californian's vote will not count," said Mark Rosenbaum, Legal Director of the ACLU of Southern California. "Democracy in California should not hang by a chad."
More information on the ACLU lawsuit:
http://www.aclu.org/VotingRights/VotingRights.cfm?ID=13291&c=32&MX=920&H=0
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ACLU WORKS TO PROTECT RELIGIOUS LIBERTY IN COLORADO AND UTAH
The ACLU of Colorado has filed a lawsuit in federal district court challenging the constitutionality of a new law that requires teachers and students to recite the Pledge of Allegiance every day in all Colorado public schools.
"Public expressions of belief in the ideals of liberty and justice should be voluntary, not coerced," said Mark Silverstein, Legal Director of the ACLU of Colorado.
"I am a patriotic person, but I believe that part of our freedom in the United States is to express our support of our country in different ways," said high school student Keaty Gross, one of the plaintiffs in the case.
The ACLU lawsuit relies on a landmark United States Supreme Court decision handed down 60 years ago on behalf of Jehovah's Witnesses who were expelled from school because they would not recite the Pledge of Allegiance. In that case, West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette, the Court held that no government official had the power to compel individuals to pledge their allegiance, whether they objected on religious grounds or for other reasons of conscience.
To read more about the case:
http://www.aclu.org/ReligiousLiberty/ReligiousLiberty.cfm?ID=13317&c=139&MX=920&H=0
The ACLU complaint is online at:
http://www.aclu.org/ReligiousLiberty/ReligiousLiberty.cfm?ID=13316&c=139&MX=920&H=0
The ACLU of Utah has returned to court in the controversy over the Mormon Church's ability to restrict free speech rights on the city's Main Street Plaza, saying that city officials have failed to respect a federal court ruling that the plaza is a public forum.
At issue is a block of Main Street that Salt Lake City officials sold to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS) in 1999. The city retained an easement for public access and passage, but the church placed restrictions on speech and behavior on the plaza. Those restrictions were struck down last year by a federal appeals court in a challenge brought by the ACLU.
Rather than assume its obligation to regulate this space, however, the city acquiesced to the demands of the Church and created a powerful platform for the Church to promulgate its message on a range of social, political and religious issues while prohibiting others from sharing their own messages on the same issues in the same place and in the same manner.
A copy of the ACLU's complaint is available at:
http://www.aclu.org/Files/OpenFile.cfm?id=13288&MX=920&H=0
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American Civil Liberties Union
125 Broad Street, 18th Floor
New York, New York 10004-2400
http://www.aclu.org?MX=920&H=0
Phil Gutis and Gerri Engel, Editors
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