Blog of Rights
Allie
Bohm
02/05/2013
Single-Sex Education

Another High School Rejects Stereotypes and Returns to Coeducation

By Allie Bohm, Advocacy & Policy Strategist, ACLU at 12:06pm

Central High School in La Crosse, Wisconsin has an anti-discrimination policy that reads pretty much like any other high school's anti-discrimination policy: It is the policy of the School District of La Crosse . . . that no person on the basis of sex, race, religion, national origin, ancestry, creed, pregnancy, marital or parental status, sexual orientation or physical, mental, emotional, or learning disability, may be denied . . . participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be discriminated against in any curricular . . . program . . . And, we're happy to report that Central High is finally back in the business of living up to its policy.

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10/02/2012
Police Surveillance

Documents Obtained by ACLU Shed Light on Other Telecom Surveillance Techniques

By Allie Bohm, Advocacy & Policy Strategist, ACLU at 9:57am

For the past year, the ACLU has been gathering information on local law enforcement agencies’ use of cell phone location tracking. (We’ve written about what we’ve learned here, here, here, here, and here.) In addition to everything we’ve discovered about location tracking itself, we’ve also learned about a number of other techniques law enforcement and the telcos can use when they work together. Sometimes the information came to light because, as with this telecom data retention chart, the information on the other techniques was mingled with the information on cell phone location tracking. Sometimes it was because law enforcement agencies misunderstood our public records requests and sent us everything they had related to telephones.

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02/22/2012
NDAA

Angry About the National Defense Authorization Act?

By Allie Bohm, Advocacy & Policy Strategist, ACLU at 4:16pm

Now's the time to do something about it. We've just released a new toolkit with resources to help you fight the NDAA in your community.

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02/10/2011

The Latest on the Patriot Act

By Allie Bohm, Advocacy & Policy Strategist, ACLU at 6:37pm

Have you caught your breath yet? In just 24 hours, we told you about an upcoming vote on the Patriot Act, over 1,000 of you took action through our Action Center (thank you!), and we won (!): On February 8, the House failed to get enough votes to extend the Patriot Act until Dec. 8, 2011. We hope you’ve celebrated.

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03/17/2009

"Sheriff Arpaio Is America's Problem"

By Allie Bohm, Advocacy & Policy Strategist, ACLU at 5:47pm

"Sheriff Arpaio is not just Arizona's problem; Sheriff Arpaio is America's problem. Arizona has to live with Sheriff Arpaio, but Sheriff Arpaio is America's disgrace," Representative Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.) told a room of journalists, immigrants, and advocates at a combination rally and news conference on Wednesday, March 11. The immigrants and advocates had come from as far as Arizona, California, and Florida to deliver petitions to the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice in support of the investigation of Maricopa County's Sheriff Arpaio for civil rights violations that was announced on March 10. The 30,000 petitioners also called on the judiciary committees of Congress to hold hearings on Arpaio's violations.

The room was locked when attendees arrived and the press conference started late, but everyone — including journalists — waited. And they were rewarded for their patience. Representatives John Conyers (D-Mich.), Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), and Grijalva, as well as Maricopa County Supervisor Mary Rose Wilcox and several immigrants' rights advocates from Arizona addressed the crowd, in English and Spanish, emphasizing the atrocities committed by Arpaio and his deputies as well as the importance federal oversight in this situation.

One advocate described a college-age Latina who was pulled over for allegedly having a broken tail-light while driving home with her mother. She was made to leave her car and was interrogated and harassed. When she ultimately proved that both she and her mother were U.S. citizens, she was dismissed without a citation — because she did not have a broken tail-light. She was pulled over for driving while brown.

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06/25/2012
U.S. Torture

Please Tweet for Torture Awareness

By Allie Bohm, Advocacy & Policy Strategist, ACLU at 6:44pm

June: best known for school ending, kids’ going to camp, longer days, and increasing temperatures. Also known for being Torture Awareness Month. And, tomorrow, June 26, is International Day in Support of Victims of Torture (as declared by the U.N. in 1997). 

We at the ACLU promote torture awareness all year long, but tomorrow, we’re joining the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, Amnesty International, Witness Against Torture, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, and many other groups in a Tweet-in Day Against Torture. We’ll be tweeting @No_More_Torture and using the hashtags #June26, #NoTorture, #StopTorture, #Torture, #Guantanamo, and #NDAA, and we hope you will tweet tomorrow as well.

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06/14/2012
NDAA

And Now Rhode Island

By Allie Bohm, Advocacy & Policy Strategist, ACLU at 2:29pm

Rhode Island’s state legislature adjourned on Tuesday – or, according to their floor calendars, sometime after 2 am on Wednesday morning. (Ouch!) As in most state legislatures, the last day of session saw a flurry of activity, a rush to pass important bills that legislators could not allow to die with the session. Among those must-pass bills in the Rhode Island House of Representatives? A resolution calling on Congress to repeal Sections 1021 and 1022 of the Fiscal Year 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). Those are the dangerous detention provisions authorizing the president — and all future presidents — to order the military to pick up and indefinitely imprison people captured anywhere in the world, far from any battlefield. The members of the Rhode Island House, like so many of you, found those provisions so abhorrent that they could not go home for the summer/campaign season until they had officially expressed their disapproval to Congress.

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04/27/2012
NDAA

One Thing Maine, Virginia and Arizona Have in Common: Opposition to the NDAA

By Allie Bohm, Advocacy & Policy Strategist, ACLU at 10:46am

This week, the House Armed Services Committee has turned its attention back to the National Defense Authorization Act and began working on this year's bill. You remember last year's perversion that, for the first time in American history, codified indefinite military detention without charge or trial far from any battlefield? State legislators and activists and concerned citizens on the right and the left — and everyone in between — haven't forgotten.

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07/05/2011
U.S. Torture

The Value of the Rear-View Mirror

By Allie Bohm, Advocacy & Policy Strategist, ACLU at 1:32pm

Remember back in the 1980s when some cars only had one side rear-view mirror? Remember how that was later made illegal, and cars were required to have mirrors on both sides as a matter of safety?

On Friday, Gen. David Petraeus was quoted in the Wall Street Journal as saying, "It is time to take the rear-view mirrors off the bus with respect to certain actions out there." Now, I remember driver education, and I remember the video showing just how large buses' blind spots are and just how necessary their mirrors are. As any 16-year old in drivers' ed can tell you, rear-view mirrors — and the ability to see behind yourself — are paramount to safety on the road.

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02/07/2011

The House is Voting on the Patriot Act Tomorrow

By Allie Bohm, Advocacy & Policy Strategist, ACLU at 3:39pm

Here we go again. Three sections of the Patriot Act are scheduled to expire on February 28. It's February 7. Wait until the last minute much?

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