ACLU

ACLU Wants Probe Of FBI's Muslim Outreach Efforts

Ryan J. Reilly | April 26, 2012, 1:02PM

The Justice Department's Inspector General should look into allegations that the FBI used the "guise" of outreach to Muslim communities to investigate various organizations, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said in a letter Thursday.

ACLU officials wrote that the FBI "has improperly targeted American Muslims and Americans of Arab, Middle Eastern, and South Asian descent, and their religious, community, cultural, and student organizations, and that it has violated the Privacy Act by recording and disseminating as intelligence, information about these innocent Americans' First Amendment-protected speech and activities."

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Voting Rights Act

The Voting Wars Could Get Bloody

Ryan J. Reilly | March 19, 2012, 4:56AM

The key electoral battle in 2012 might be less about who you cast a ballot for, than about whether you get to cast a ballot at all.

Yes, the voting wars are heating up just in time for the 2012 elections. And between the Justice Department's opposition to voter ID laws in two states and several other state and federal cases brought against such laws by various civil rights organizations, the battles are only just beginning.

The Justice Department has already blocked restrictive voting laws in South Carolina, Florida and Texas, and state suits in response may see the Supreme Court take up a direct challenge to the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act this year.

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University Of California-Davis

Pepper Sprayed UC Davis Students Continue Fight

David Taintor | February 27, 2012, 6:11AM

Protesters at the University of California, Davis

When a police officer in riot gear pepper sprayed peaceful, seated protesters at University of California Davis last year, it quickly became one of the enduring images of the Occupy movement.

But the shorthand -- "Occupy" -- in the national coverage and conversation that followed the incident often obscured the issue at the heart of the students' protest: tuition costs rising so quickly and so steeply that many fear higher education will soon be out of their reach.

Now, as a lawsuit against the university has been filed, and with the school due to present the findings of its own internal investigation into the incident later in March, the students at the receiving end of the fog want to bring the focus back to what they're still fighting for.

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University Of California-Davis

UC Davis Students, Alumni Sue University Over Infamous Pepper Spray Incident

David Taintor | February 22, 2012, 4:09PM

It has been months since UC Davis campus police pepper sprayed a group of sitting protesters. But the students haven't forgotten.

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Virginia

Virginia's Ultrasound Bill Makes No Exceptions For Rape Or Incest

Pema Levy | February 22, 2012, 11:26AM

Image from Alexander Raths/ Shutterstock

The Virginia House is due to vote Wednesday on a bill which would require women seeking an abortion to undergo an ultrasound. This is the final step before the bill arrives on the governor's desk.

The bill requires that the ultrasound operation helps show the physical aspects of the fetus and also detects a heartbeat. Since most abortions are sought during the first 12 weeks of a pregnancy, when the fetus is little larger than a grain of rice, this means many women would not undergo a procedure like the one depicted in the picture above. Instead, they would be obliged to endure an invasive "transvaginal" procedure. This has led opponents of the bill - many of them Democrats - to decry it as "state-sponsored rape."

This only adds to another controversial aspect of the bill: that unlike many laws which regulate abortion, Virginia's does not contain exemptions for victims of rape or incest.

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ACLU

ACLU Wants Info On Drone Strikes Against U.S. Citizens

Jillian Rayfield | February 6, 2012, 11:52AM

The ACLU is suing the federal government for the release of records related to the program of using unmanned drones for "targeted killing" of U.S. citizens overseas.

On Wednesday, the ACLU filed in U.S. District Court in New York to force the Department of Justice, the Department of Defense, and the CIA to release records on overseas drone use, in compliance with a Freedom of Information Act request.

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FBI

FBI Tries To Reassure Muslims It's Taking Training Material Issue Seriously

Ryan J. Reilly | December 7, 2011, 3:47PM

FBI Agents

FBI representatives met once again with Muslim and Arab-American leaders at Bureau headquarters on Monday to update them on the progress they have made to rid their counterterrorism training programs of anti-Muslim material.

One participant described the meeting, organized by FBI's Community Relations Division, as "lengthy and positive."

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FBI

Muslim Officials Want Answers From FBI Over Data Collection During Outreach Efforts

Ryan J. Reilly | December 1, 2011, 5:45PM

The American Civil Liberties Union charged Thursday that the FBI is using the "guise" of "community outreach" to the Muslim community to "collect and illegally store intelligence information on Americans' political and religious beliefs" in violation of the Privacy Act.

Bureau officials counter that the latest batch of documents obtained by the ACLU through the Freedom of Information Act are just standard internal reports intended to help manage the FBI's resources and make sure agents are following protocol.

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Tennessee

ICE Sued For Alleged Warrantless Raid In TN: 'We're ICE...The Warrant Is Coming Out Of My Balls'

Jillian Rayfield | October 24, 2011, 1:50PM

The Tennessee chapter of the ACLU is suing Immigration and Customs Enforcement over an alleged warrantless raid on an apartment complex housing people suspected of being illegal immigrants, during which an officer reportedly said "we don't need a warrant, we're ICE."

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FBI

Documents Show FBI Targeted Communities Based On Race, Ethnicity

Ryan J. Reilly | October 20, 2011, 5:11PM

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) just released a massive trove of FBI documents indicating that anti-Muslim training materials have spread pretty far and wide within the bureau over the past several years and that analysts have been targeting areas based on racial and ethnic demographics.

It's all part of the ACLU's new "Mapping the FBI" initiative, which "aims to expose misconduct and abuse of authority by the bureau." They say the documents show that the FBI "has been targeting American communities for investigation based on race, ethnicity, national origin and religion" and that analysts "across the country are associating criminal behaviors with certain racial and ethnic groups and then using U.S. census data and other demographic information to map where those communities are located to investigate them."

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Gay Rights

High School Student Alleges Principal Assaulted Him Over Pro-Gay Shirt

Jillian Rayfield | October 5, 2011, 10:03AM

The ACLU has gotten involved on behalf of a student who alleges that his high school principal physically and verbally assaulted him for wearing a shirt in support of establishing a gay-straight alliance at the school.

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Florida

Florida ACLU Files Suit Against State's Welfare Drug Testing Law

David Taintor | September 7, 2011, 2:37PM

The Florida ACLU has filed suit against a state law requiring welfare applicants to first pass a drug test before receiving benefits.

The suit claims the Florida law violates the Fourth Amendment by requiring welfare applicants to submit to "suspicionless drug testing." It's filed on behalf of Luis Lebron, a 35 year-old Orlando resident and Navy veteran, who applied for the benefits but refused to take the drug test, according to an ACLU release.

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FBI

FBI Recommended 'Complete Idiot's Guide,' Anti-Muslim Books To New Agents

Ryan J. Reilly | July 28, 2011, 6:00AM

The FBI was telling new bureau recruits as recently as Jan. 2009 that Islam "transforms [a] country's culture into 7th Century Arabian ways" and recommending a book written by one of Norwegian terrorism suspect Anders Behring Breivik's favorite authors as well as the Complete Idiot's Guide To Understanding Islam.

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Rick Scott

FL Gov. Rick Scott Defends Legislation Requiring Drug Tests For Welfare Applicants (VIDEO)

David Taintor | June 6, 2011, 1:28PM

Gov. Rick Scott (R-FL)

Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) on Sunday said his state will not "subsidize" anyone's drug addiction, defending recent legislation requiring welfare applicants to undergo drug testing.

Scott told CNN anchor T.J. Holmes he isn't sure how many welfare recipients are using drugs in Florida, but said "I know it's not right for taxpayer money to be paying for someone's drug addiction."

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Patriot Act

Tea Partiers Help ACLU, House Dems Stop Patriot Act Renewal

Susan Crabtree and Ryan J. Reilly | February 9, 2011, 9:27AM

Reps. Ron Paul (R-TX) and Dennis Kucinich (D-OH)

The American Civil Liberties Union's Michelle Richardson didn't know where things stood ahead of the House's vote expended certain provisions of the PATRIOT Act last night.

"I have no special inside knowledge on how this is going to shake down, but we're certainly going to be watching it closely," she told TPM ahead of the Tuesday night vote.

The big mystery was how the Tea Party-backed members would break on the first national security vote in the new Congress -- and whether the libertarian leanings of members from the right could align with concerns about government overreach on the left. Richardson said they'd be "seeing if the small government beliefs that have been espoused also apply in the national security context."

In the end, 26 Republicans broke with their leadership to oppose the bill, which still gained a majority of votes (227 to 148) but didn't pass.

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John Ashcroft

Supreme Court Will Hear Whether Man Detained Without Charge Can Sue John Ashcroft

Rachel Slajda | October 18, 2010, 10:38AM

Former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft

The Supreme Court today agreed to hear an appeal from former Attorney General John Ashcroft, who claims he should be immune from a lawsuit brought by a Muslim U.S. citizen who was detained for two weeks without charge in 2003 as part of a terrorism investigation.

Ashcroft has claimed total immunity from the lawsuit. At question is whether he is entitled to such immunity, according to SCOTUSblog.

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ACLU

ACLU Sues Over Digital Border Searches

Ryan J. Reilly | September 7, 2010, 12:11PM

Civil liberties groups sued the Department of Homeland Security on Tuesday, alleging that the government should not be able to search, copy or keep the data on electronic devices carried by people crossing the border without a reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing.

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ACLU

NJ Library Removes LGBT Book After Complaint From Member Of Glenn Beck's 9/12 Movement

Jillian Rayfield | August 4, 2010, 8:40AM

A public library in Burlington County, New Jersey has ordered all of the copies of "Revolutionary Voices: A Multicultural Queer Youth Anthology" removed from circulation, after a member of Glenn Beck's 9/12 Project complained about the book's content.

The library cited "child pornography" as its reason for removing the book.

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Byron Williams

Prosecutors: Anti-Gov't Shooting Suspect In CA Wanted To 'Start A Revolution,' Targeted ACLU

Jillian Rayfield | July 21, 2010, 10:56AM

Bryon Williams was in a shootout with police in Oakland, California.

Anti-government shooting suspect Byron Williams has been charged with allegedly opening fire on police officers on Interstate 580 in Oakland, California, while on his way to "start a revolution" by attacking members of the ACLU.

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Tom Corbett

Twitter Subpoena Was Part Of Bid For Stiffer Sentence In 'Bonus-Gate' Probe

Zachary Roth | May 21, 2010, 10:26AM

Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom Corbett

It's become clear who Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom Corbett thinks is behind the Twitter account that he subpoenaed information on last week.

As we reported Wednesday, the AG and Republican nominee for governor last week subpoenaed Twitter, demanding information about two accounts, both of which contained Tweets that were critical of Corbett, and linked to a blog with a similar anti-Corbett message. He didn't offer details about the purpose of the subpoenas.

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Immigration

Could Another Bybee Memo Help Preserve Arizona Immigration Law?

Zachary Roth | May 18, 2010, 10:00AM

Jay Bybee

A coalition of civil and immigrants rights groups has filed suit against Arizona's draconian immigration law. But efforts to challenge the law could be complicated by a memo written by one of the Bush Justice Department lawyers who also drafted some of the key opinions greenlighting torture.

Fourteen groups -- among them the ACLU of Arizona, the NAACP, and MALDEF -- filed the suit yesterday. They charge, among other things, that Arizona's law violates the federal Supremacy Clause by trying to bypass federal immigration law, and that it deprives minorities of their equal protection rights.

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Guantanamo

ACLU Denies Lawbreaking In Case Of Photographed CIA Officers

Justin Elliott | March 23, 2010, 11:00AM

Detainees at Guantanamo and U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald

In a case that has all the ingredients to explode into a national controversy, Attorney General Eric Holder has appointed star prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald to investigate whether laws were broken after "paparazzi style" photographs of CIA officers were found in the cell of a Guantanamo inmate accused of financing the 9/11 attacks, Newsweek is reporting.

In an interview with TPMmuckraker, the top official for the ACLU project that provided assistance for the defense of the detainee in question -- and hired private investigators to take the photos of CIA officers thought to be involved in torture -- said that no laws had been broken.

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Justice Department

Reports: DOJ Torture Memo Probe Clears Yoo, Bybee

Justin Elliott | February 1, 2010, 9:21AM

John Yoo

A long-awaited internal Justice Department report will essentially clear the lawyers who crafted the legal justification for the Bush Administration's torture policies, reversing the tougher findings of a draft version of the report, according to Newsweek.

The draft version of the Office of Professional Responsibility report recommended that John Yoo and Jay Bybee -- who served in the Office of Legal Counsel and are now a law professor at Berkeley and a federal appeals court judge in Nevada, respectively -- be referred to state bar associations for potential discipline for their role in writing memos that concluded torture was justified.

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Torture

ACLU Sues Justice Department On Torture Report

Zachary Roth | January 25, 2010, 9:08AM

John Yoo

The ACLU filed suit Friday in a bid to force the Justice Department to release its internal report on torture.

The long-awaited report from the department's Office of Professional Ethics considers whether DOJ lawyers like John Yoo broke ethics rules in writing the memos that approved torture.

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