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Take
Action: Congress Must Stand Up to Bush Scare Tactics
Federal
Judge Orders CIA and Defense Department to Produce Torture
Documents
ACLU
Asks Federal Appeals Court to Lift Ban on Renowned Scholar
Become
a Guardian of Liberty Today—You Can Make the
Difference
ACLU
Asks Federal Court to Block Use of Unfair Voting Technology
in Ohio
Federal
Court Protects Access to Abortion Care for Women Prisoners
in Missouri
English-Only
School Bus Rule Violates Students’ Rights
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Federal
Court Protects Access to Abortion Care for Women Prisoners
in Missouri
A
federal appeals court in Missouri last week upheld a ruling
allowing women prisoners in Missouri the right to obtain
timely, safe and legal abortion care.
“The
decision is consistent with rulings from across the country
that women prisoners do not lose their reproductive rights
once they are incarcerated,” said Diana Kasdan, a
staff attorney with the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project.
In 2005, prison officials in Missouri went to
extreme lengths to deny a woman prisoner abortion care. The
ACLU asked a court to require the prison to transport the
woman for an abortion as they would for all other serious
medical needs. When the court ruled that the prison must
transport the woman to a nearby health care facility, the
state unsuccessfully asked the U.S. Supreme Court to
intervene. The woman received the care she needed.
The
ACLU then had the case certified as a class-action lawsuit
on behalf of all incarcerated pregnant women in Missouri
seeking abortions. In July 2006, the U.S. District Court
for the Western District of Missouri ruled that women
prisoners do not lose their constitutional right to
abortion care.
“We are pleased that the court
recognized that whether or not to have a child is one of
the most important decisions a person can make and survives
incarceration,” said Brenda Jones, Executive Director
of the ACLU of Eastern Missouri.
In a similar ACLU
case, Doe
v. Arpaio,
an Arizona court of appeals held last year that women in a
county jail could not be denied timely and safe access to
abortion care. The county has asked the U.S. Supreme Court
to review the case.
>>
Read
more about the ACLU’s work to protect reproductive
freedom.
English-Only
School Bus Rule Violates Students’ Rights
In
Nevada, the Esmeralda County School District is blatantly
discriminating against Latino students and violating their
first amendment rights by forbidding students from speaking
Spanish on school buses. The ACLU sent a letter to the
superintendent requesting that the school district rescind
the ban on Spanish immediately.
"During the
bus ride to and from school there is no scheduled
scholastic instruction,” said Lee Rowland, staff
attorney with the ACLU of Nevada. “Yet while
English-speaking students can carry on personal
conversations that don’t further any educational
goals, Spanish-speaking students must sit in silence."
By singling out and prohibiting the use of Spanish,
the ACLU’s letter points out, the school district
sends the message that Spanish-speakers, the majority of
whom are Latino, are inferior. Because the language people
choose to speak closely reflects their culture and where
they are from, restricting the use of languages violates
federal prohibitions against discrimination based on
national origin.
The ACLU has requested to meet
with the superintendent soon to resolve the matter of the
school district’s policy that prohibits Spanish on
the bus.
>> The ACLU’s letter is online
in both English
and Spanish.
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February
1 , 2008
Take
Action: Congress Must Stand Up to Bush Scare Tactics
With
the deadline for renewing the FISA-gutting “Protect
America Act” looming, President Bush once again
resorted to fear-mongering during Monday's State of the
Union address when he claimed that the "flow of vital
intelligence" would be disrupted without an extension.
Congress, in turn, extended the Protect America Act through
Friday, February 15.
Is this 15-day extension a
victory for civil liberties? If Congress uses the extension
wisely, it gives more time to make real changes that
protect the rule of law and bring spying in line with the
Constitution. It could also be a prelude to another
Congressional cave-in, but not if we have anything to say
about it.
On Monday and Tuesday, the Senate will be
finalizing and voting on its spying bill. The ACLU, its
hundreds of thousands of members and millions of Americans
who believe in the rule of law and want their privacy
protected are calling on the Senate to stand up to
President Bush's fear-mongering.
The ACLU will
remain unwavering in our demands. Tell the Senate to stand
up to President Bush on telecom immunity and reject
massive, untargeted surveillance without a warrant.
>>
Take action:
Tell your senators to oppose any bill with telecomm
immunity or warrantless spying on Americans.
>>
Get the Facts:
Debunking Bush's Fear-Mongering
Federal
Judge Orders CIA and Defense Department to Produce Torture
Documents
As
a result of an ACLU Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)
lawsuit, a federal judge ordered the government to produce
documents related to the treatment of prisoners in U.S.
custody overseas to determine for himself if they should be
made public.
“Given the evidence of
widespread and systemic abuse of prisoners, it is entirely
appropriate for the judge to view these documents for
himself instead of taking the government's word for why
they should be kept secret," said Alexa Kolbi-Molinas,
staff attorney with the ACLU.
The documents the
judge will view include:
Department
of Defense documents relating to the deaths of prisoners;
allegations of prisoner abuse; and interrogations that
deviate from those permitted by the current Army Field
Manual;
A
September 17, 2001 CIA Presidential Directive setting up
secret CIA detention centers abroad;
CIA
documents gathered by the agency's Inspector General in
the course of investigations into unlawful and improper
conduct by CIA personnel; and
Documents
discussing the CIA's secret detention and interrogation
program.
The
judge is still considering the ACLU's motion to hold the
CIA in contempt of court for destroying thousands of hours
of videotape depicting the abusive interrogations of two
detainees in its custody. The ACLU charges that by
destroying the tapes, the CIA violated a September 2004
court order requiring the agency to produce or identify
records that fell within the scope of its FOIA request.
>>
Read
more about the ACLU's FOIA request.
ACLU
Asks Federal Appeals Court to Lift Ban on Renowned Scholar
The
ACLU recently appealed a ruling to challenge the
government’s exclusion of Tariq Ramadan, a renowned
Swiss scholar, from the U.S. The ACLU believes that the
government’s stated reason for barring the scholar is
a pretext and that Ramadan, a leading European academic,
remains banned from the country because of his political
viewpoints.
"The Bush administration has
barred Professor Ramadan from the U.S. for more than three
years now -- first by alleging without basis that he
endorsed terrorism, then saying that it would take years to
consider his visa application, and now pointing to
charitable donations that were entirely legal at the time
they were made,” said Jameel Jaffer, Director of the
ACLU National Security Project.
The government
originally revoked Ramadan’s visa in 2004 based on
the so-called “ideological exclusion” provision
of the Patriot Act, a provision that applies to individuals
who have “endorsed or espoused” terrorism,
because he made small donations to a Swiss charity that
provides aid to the Palestinians. This revocation prevented
Ramadan from taking up a tenured teaching post at the
University of Notre Dame. The government later abandoned
its claim when it could not produce any evidence that
Ramadan had endorsed terrorism. On the contrary, Ramadan
has been a consistent and vocal critic of terrorism and
those who use it.
>>
Read
more about the Ramadan case, the history of ideological
exclusion at:
www.aclu.org/exclusion
Become
a Guardian of Liberty Today—You Can Make the
Difference
Every
day all across the nation, the ACLU is called on to defend
the freedoms guaranteed in the Constitution and the Bill of
Rights. Guardians of Liberty are dedicated ACLU members who
have made the commitment to support all this critical work
with a monthly contribution.
These monthly gifts
help the ACLU meet the costs of increased litigation,
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education that are needed for a vigorous and successful
defense of liberty.
As a Guardian of Liberty you
can help make sure that no challenge to any of these rights
goes unanswered. A modest monthly contribution of $25, $20
or even $15 provides the vital support that the ACLU needs.
As a Guardian you will receive special monthly
updates on our work, and your membership in the ACLU will
automatically renew.
Keep
Freedom’s Flame Alive. Become a Guardian of Liberty
Today!
ACLU
Asks Federal Court to Block Use of Unfair Voting Technology
in Ohio
The ACLU filed a motion this week asking federal
Judge Kathleen O'Malley of the Northern District of Ohio to
prevent the Ohio Secretary of State and the Cuyahoga County
Board of Elections from using balloting technology that
does not give notice to voters of problems with their
ballot. The motion follows a lawsuit filed by the ACLU on
January 17 challenging the constitutionality of this
technology.
"Every voter who goes to the polls
must have the opportunity to verify his or her ballot is
free from errors," said ACLU Voting Rights Project
attorney Meredith Bell-Platts. "The evidence is
overwhelming that when voters do not have access to
technology that notifies them of ballot errors, many more
ballots are left uncounted."
Recently, the Ohio
Secretary of State Brunner and the Cuyahoga County Board of
Elections opted to implement ballots that do not provide
notice of problems with votes. Cuyahoga County, which
contains Columbus and surrounding areas, is the only county
in Ohio whose current process does not allow notice to
voters of problems with their ballot.
On January 22,
the Ohio Association of Election Officials, a non-partisan
organization representing Ohio's elections officials, voted
unanimously against the sweeping changes Brunner has
proposed, particularly emphasizing that counties should not
adopt any voting technology that prevents voters from
verifying their ballots are filled out correctly.
>>
Read
about the case.
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