Blog of Rights
Ateqah
Khaki
09/17/2012
FISA

Warrantless Wiretapping at the Supreme Court

By Ateqah Khaki at 7:07pm

Today, we filed our brief with the Supreme Court in our lawsuit challenging the FISA Amendments Act, the 2008 law that ratified and expanded the National Security Agency’s warrantless wiretapping program.  (You can read our brief here.)

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act – FISA – is a post-Watergate statute that was meant to rein in and regulate domestic surveillance undertaken in the name of national security. In 2008, Congress amended the statute, giving the National Security Agency unprecedented power to conduct dragnet surveillance of Americans’ international communications. The ACLU immediately challenged the law, but the government has tried to keep our case out of court.

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10/20/2011
Protestors' Rights

Tell Everyone: Dissent Is Patriotic

By Ateqah Khaki at 1:16pm

The First Amendment guarantees what some might consider the most fundamental freedoms that define our nation.

The ongoing Occupy Wall Street protest is spreading from the streets of New York to cities and towns all across America, and the right to protest and dissent is a key part of this important national conversation.

As long as the ACLU has existed, we've been defending the rights of demonstrators to speak their minds and assemble together. Because we believe dissent is a form of patriotism. We believe all people have the right to free speech and the freedom to stand up for what they believe in.

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07/05/2012
Internet Free Expression

Internet Freedom is Worth Fighting For

By Ateqah Khaki at 5:02pm

The ACLU and dozens of other organizations – including Free Press and the Electronic Frontier Foundation – have teamed up to create the Declaration of Internet Freedom, which sets for a set of principles providing a positive vision to preserve the Internet as a platform for speech, innovation and creativity.

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03/22/2012
Facebook

Status Update: Employers Asking For Your Facebook Password Violates Your Privacy and the Privacy of All Your Friends, Too

By Ateqah Khaki at 2:49pm

After the objections raised by the ACLU and others about this issue, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) announced that he is writing a federal bill to outlaw the practice.

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12/15/2011
Indefinite Detention

President Obama Should Listen to the American People – Not His Advisors – on the NDAA.

By Ateqah Khaki at 2:43pm

Last night, the House of Representatives voted to pass the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), a bill that contains harmful provisions that some legislators have said could authorize the U.S. military to pick up and imprison without charge or trial civilians, including American citizens, anywhere in the world.

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09/12/2012
Warrantless Wiretapping

House Reauthorizes Warrantless Wiretapping Program

By Ateqah Khaki at 5:53pm

Today, the House of Representatives passed a reauthorization of the 2008 FISA Amendments Act, an unconstitutional domestic spying law that gives vast, unchecked surveillance authority to the government. The law, passed in July of 2008, authorizes the National Security Agency to conduct dragnet surveillance of Americans’ international emails and phone calls.

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01/09/2012
Indefinite Detention

INFOGRAPHIC: Guantánamo by the Numbers

By Ateqah Khaki at 4:48pm

Our new infographic illustrates how, over the past decade, the prison camp has become a symbol of injustice, abuse and disregard for the rule of law.

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06/18/2009
TSA

ACLU Sues TSA for Unlawful Detention of Ron Paul's Campaign for Liberty Treasurer

By Ateqah Khaki at 4:25pm

Today, we filed a new lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) over unlawful TSA search and detention practices. The case was filed on behalf of a traveler who was illegally detained and harassed by TSA Agents at the airport for carrying approximately $4,700 in cash.

On March 29, 2009, the plaintiff in the case, Steven Bierfeldt was detained in a small room at Lambert-St. Louis International Airport and interrogated by TSA officials for nearly half an hour after he passed a metal box containing cash through a security checkpoint X-ray machine. He was carrying the cash in connection to his duties as Treasurer of Ron Paul's Campaign For Liberty. Steven's experience is part of a troubling pattern of the TSA transforming its valid but limited search authority into a license to invade people's constitutional right to privacy.

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12/21/2010

Who's Spying on You?

By Ateqah Khaki at 2:12pm

Yesterday, the Washington Post published the latest installment in its “Top Secret America” series, an ongoing investigation into the costly and expansive security buildup in the United States following the September 11, 2001 attacks. Mike German, ACLU Policy Counsel and a former FBI agent, appeared on Countdown with Keith Olbermann last night to discuss the article:

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06/19/2012
Puerto Rico

ACLU Releases New Report on Widespread Police Brutality in Puerto Rico

By Ateqah Khaki at 10:18am

The ACLU today released a report that finds the Puerto Rico Police Department -- the second-largest police department in the U.S. -- is plagued by a culture of unrestrained abuse and brutality. The use of excessive or lethal force is routine among the 17,000 officer-department. In recent years, civil and human rights violations have resulted in the unjustifiable loss of civilians’ lives, and severe and lasting injuries.

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