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The ACLU has filed suit in federal court in Chicago seeking access to racial profiling data.
The ACLU wants the Bush Administration to show it's serious about promising to fight racial profiling by federal law enforcement agencies.
Toward that end, lawyers for the civil rights group in Chicago Wednesday asked a federal court to order the release of data that will help determine whether federal law enforcement agencies are engaged in racial profiling. The lawsuit seeks the information from the Justice Department and the new Department of Homeland Security under the federal Freedom of Information Act.
“If the Bush Administration and the Attorney General are serious about confronting and correcting racial profiling across the nation, a good first step would be to release for public scrutiny all information that gives citizens confidence that their government's actions are lawful and non-discriminatory,” said Harvey Grossman, Legal Director of the ACLU of Illinois. “Making the data collected by federal law enforcement officials available to the public is a step toward building a strong bond of trust and confidence between law enforcement and the people.”
John Poindexter has submitted a five page resignation letter defending his data-mining and other privacy intrusive programs . You can read the text of the letter here .
Tonasket? Yes, Tonasket in Okanogan County Washington --the latest small town to pass a resolution against the Patriot Act.
Tonasket has 1,000 residents. One of them, Mark Alan, drafted the two page resolution opposing the Patriot Act. The Police Chief edited it. Two nearby towns are considering adopting it, as is the county.
Its preamble reinforces the notion that America was created "in the shadow of bloody conflicts" with intentionally strict limits on government. It goes on to suggest that the Patriot Act and similar incursions on individual civil rights are unconstitutional.
While supportive of fighting terrorism, the Resolution points out, correctly in our view, that the Goverment was equipped with laws to do so before the Patriot Act.
And it boldly proclaims that any law that "dilutes, weakens or denies" a person's constitutional rights is "unenforceable in our jurisdiction."
True, federal laws trump local ordinances and the Tonasket Resolution may not be enforceable. That's not the point. The point is the message.
...similar resolutions in other U.S. cities contain "unenforceable-in-our-jurisdiction" language to warn the feds that their police are there to protect citizens, not serve as FBI gofers.
The Bill of Rights Defense Committee keeps track of the number of jurisdictions opposing the Patriot Act. The current numbers: "three states and 141 counties and cities representing 16 million Americans."
Here is the text of the Tonasket Resolution:
(512 words in story) There's More :: Permalink :: Comments
The National Law Journal examines the two suits recently filed against the Patriot Act and the potential hurdles they face.
The good news is these lawsuits will not be the only ones:
This is not the final gunshot. It's the opening salvo," said Charles Shanor of Emory University School of Law. "It's a complex process that no doubt will involve the courts, the legislature and public opinion. And it could turn on matters that are as nonlegal as whether there is another terrorist attack between now and judicial decision time."
The process involves weighing whether the judgments made in the act were appropriate or over-reactions, Shanor and others said.
"Part of the context of this is the Patriot Act was enacted in an environment where there was virtually no discussion or careful scrutiny," said Stephen Schulhofer of New York University School of Law. "Maybe there shouldn't have been because we needed to act quickly. But now we have the time and room for thought about what we need in the post-9/11 world."
The two pending suits were filed by the ACLU and the Center for Consitutional Rights. You can read the ACLU complaint here and a description of the CCR suit here.
In our view, the Patriot Act is a classic example of "Act in haste, repent at leisure."
Further Reading:
by Nancy Chang, Howard Zinn, Center for Constitutional Rights
The number two position at the Justice Department is held by Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson, who has just announced he is leaving the Department to return to private practice. He is the fourth Justice Department higher-up to leave in recent months.
We like Larry Thompson a lot, and have always felt a little better knowing he was at Justice, hopefully providing some measure of moderation to Ashcroft. We don't like the list of possible replacements and are concerned that Larry's departure will be a bad omen for freedom and justice.
We haven't been following the story of the Episcopalian church's Bishop election but Dave Cullen has and he's joyous.
It's true! It's true!
Finally, a bishop of our very own. We're finally part of the family. I dont' know how many cliches I've got in me, feeling like I'm just bursting at the seams with them.
Suddenly the past month, it's feeling like we can really achieve equality in our lifetime. (Maybe).
....Wow. We finally have a gay bishop of a mainline church.
Dave will be writing more about this--he also writes for Salon, Denver's 5280 and other publications, so go read.
[comments now closed]
The First Amendment is in more trouble than we thought. Political prosecutions, on the other hand, are alive and well in the U.S. This really happened today:
A federal judge sentenced a man to a year in prison Monday for creating an anarchist Web site with links to sites on how to build bombs. U.S. District Judge Stephen Wilson sentenced Sherman Austin to more than the prosecutor had recommended under a plea bargain.
Austin, 20, pleaded guilty in February to distributing information related to explosives.... Austin admitted posting links about bombs to enable people to build and use them during demonstrations against interstate and foreign trade. He told FBI agents he wanted the Web site to teach people about police brutality.
The article continues:
Austin was arrested with other protesters at the World Economic Forum in New York in February 2002 on charges of disorderly conduct and unlawful assembly. While in New York, federal charges were handed down in California.
Austin said he took a plea bargain because he feared his case was eligible for a terrorism enhancement, which could have added 20 years to his sentence. The plea deal had called for him to serve four months.
Update: Instapundit has lots more, including the charge against Austin and the elements necessary to prove it. He also discusses prosecutors' conduct in bargaining terror-related cases.
Strange Bedfellows examines the unlikely but productive alliance between the NRA and the ACLU.
America’s love affair with the homeland security state is getting a little rocky. Republican Rep. C.L. “Butch” Otter of Idaho proposed an amendment to this year’s Commerce, Justice, and State funding bill that would order law enforcement agencies to stop using delayed-notification search warrants, one of the dubious measures enshrined in the Patriot Act of 2001. The amendment passed the House on July 22 by a vote of 309-118, with 113 Republicans voting in favor. A similar measure has yet to face a Senate vote, and it’s anybody’s guess whether the change would survive a presidential veto, but the Otter Amendment signals a clear direction in the nation’s mood.
The amendment seems to follow the lead of a growing grassroots movement on both the left and right opposing the Patriot Act and the so-called Patriot Act II. (The latter has not been introduced in Congress yet, but a Justice Department document outlining provisions for a new bill was leaked on February 7, causing much alarm among defenders of civil liberties.)
Backlash against the Patriot legislation has created a fantasyland of political concord: Gun Owners of America nodding in agreement with the American Library Association and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), with the Green Party happily concurring. Organizations across the political spectrum, from village councils to national advocacy groups, are going on record opposing this newest potential assault on Americans’ civil liberties.
Count NACDL in the group as well. We have been aligned with Second Amendment organizations for years even though we differ on some central issues. What matters most are those issues you do agree on because there is power in numbers.
Thanks to Patriot Watch for the link.
California's embattled Governor Gray Davis signed into law a bill that prohibits transgendered discrimination in housing and employment. Only three other states, New Mexico, Rhode Island and Minnesota, provide similar protection to the transgendered.
The new California law will prohibit discrimination against people whose ``perceived gender characteristics are different from those traditionally associated with the individual's sex at birth.''
Some good news....support for the First Amendment is rising after 9/11.
PATRIOTWATCH says it's been a good month for civil liberties and the Administration is on the run.
A survey of recent civil liberties victories includes PATRIOT II receiving body blows as a source tells the L.A. Times that the "original Patriot II proposal is now "dead." Meanwhile, the House voted by an significant majority against a provision of the USA PATRIOT Act that permits secret searches known as "Sneak and Peek" searches (Section 213). (309 House members recently voted in favor of the amendment) And the House continues to hit DOJ...Congressional Quarterly reports that the House is calling on Attorney General John Ashcroft to have a senior Justice Department official "assume responsibility for developing appropriate civil rights safeguards specifically related to the war on terrorism."
There's also setbacks to CAPPS II, TIA and finally, John Poindexter. Patriot Watch has all the details.
The Boulder, Colorado Public Library does not want to have to comply with the Patriot Act's provision allowing for library records to be turned over to the Feds. So it has instituted a policy that will prevent its ability to do so:
If a federal agent asks a Boulder librarian for a list of all the books checked out by John Q. Public in the last month, the answer will be "Records? What records?"
"People have a right to read what they want to read without other people looking over their shoulder," said Priscilla Hudson, manager of the Boulder Public Library's main branch.
The library has decided to almost completely stop recording what books patrons have checked out. The library will keep tabs only while a book is checked out; when the book is returned, that record will be purged from the library's computers.
While purging records is not unique to Boulder, librarians from other areas say Boulder's move to delete records just to thwart investigators' requests, is unusual.
Also in Boulder, there are no sign-up sheets for using computers. They don't want to know who is using them. If they don't know, they can't tell. Beautiful.
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