Blog of Rights
Amshula
Jayaram
01/22/2013
Mandatory Minimum Sentences

Senator Leahy Says “No” to Mandatory Minimums, But Will Congress Listen?

By Amshula Jayaram, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 1:29pm

Taking issue with America’s position as the world’s largest jailer, Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) spoke to a group of Georgetown Law Students late last week about his vision for the Judiciary Committee’s agenda in the 113th Congress.  In a speech that covered a broad range of topics, from immigration the use of drones, Senator Leahy spent a great deal of time on a topic that increasingly impacts all of us: a criminal justice system seemingly fueled by an addiction to incarceration.

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06/11/2013
Guantánamo

Guantánamo: A Betrayal of Our Values, a Human Rights Crisis, and Expensive as Hell

By Amshula Jayaram, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 2:52pm

The House Armed Services Committee just voted to approve HR 1960, otherwise known as the National Defense Authorization Act...

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12/18/2012
U.S. Torture

Shedding Light on the Dark Side – A Call to Congress to Release the SSCI Report

By Amshula Jayaram, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 10:07am

Last week, nearly four years after President Obama closed the CIA’s Detention, Interrogation and Rendition Program, the American public is one step closer to learning the truth about a program that sanctioned the torture of terrorism suspects. To date, it has remained shrouded in secrecy, tarnishing our international reputation and severely damaging our nation’s security. Under the leadership of Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has voted to adopt a 6000-plus page report, based on an analysis of more than six million pages of CIA records, detailing the findings of the committee’s three-year investigation into the program. We urge the committee to publicly release the document with as few redactions as possible.

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10/03/2012
Human Trafficking

One Step Closer: New York Times Praises Executive Order on Human Trafficking

By Amshula Jayaram, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 5:54pm

The New York Times issued an editorial Tuesday praising President Obama’s Executive Order to end human trafficking in government contracts.  The Times viewed the order as an important step towards eliminating this shameful practice.  The Times also called for Congress to pass the End Trafficking in Government Contracting Act, which would provide the legislative muscle to enforce and make permanent the measures contained in the Executive Order to eliminate human trafficking from government contracting processes. 

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