Blog of Rights
Ateqah
Khaki
11/22/2011
TSA

Traveling for the Holidays? Don't Forget Your Rights!

By Ateqah Khaki at 5:32pm

Each year, millions of Americans travel for the holidays. But you shouldn’t have to check your rights when you check your luggage or cross the border.

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11/16/2011
Protestors' Rights

Yesterday’s Occupy Wall Street Evacuation: Protecting Public Health or Endangering It?

By Ateqah Khaki at 11:05am

Early yesterday morning, under Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s order, the New York Police Department expelled hundreds of Occupy Wall St. protestors from Zuccotti Park. Mayor Bloomberg asserted public health and safety reasons, but the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) disagrees.

In a statement released yesterday, NYCLU executive director Donna Lieberman said:

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10/26/2011

Salon's Glenn Greenwald and ACLU's Ben Wizner Discuss Post-9/11 Rule of Law

By Ateqah Khaki at 3:13pm

Tomorrow, the ACLU’s Ben Wizner will participate in an event with Salon.com’s Glenn Greenwald in Washington D.C. to discuss the state of American justice and the rule of law in the decade since 9/11.

The event will also feature Jim Klimaski from the National Lawyer's Guild Military Law Task Force, and will take place on Thursday, October 27, at 8:00 p.m. in the Room 309 of the Marvin Center at George Washington University School of Law in Washington, D.C. The event is being organized by the university ACLU and National Lawyers Guild groups, and is free and open to the public (tickets are not required).

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10/24/2011
Patriot Act

The Patriot Act, 10 Years Later

By Ateqah Khaki at 3:34pm

Our new infographic illustrates some of the most troubling aspects of the Patriot Act.

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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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10/13/2011
FBI

Surveillance in Post-9/11 America

By Ateqah Khaki at 3:40pm

Our new timeline charts shifts in unchecked government surveillance since 9/11, and paints an unsettling picture.

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09/22/2011
Protestors' Rights

Police Abuse in Puerto Rico: The Urgent Need for Real Change

By Ateqah Khaki at 4:46pm

Today, The New York Times ran letters from Luis Fortuño, Governor of Puerto Rico, and Rosie Pérez, actress and activist who was a part of an ACLU fact-finding mission on police abuses in Puerto Rico.

They were responding to this month's scathing Justice Department report finding widespread civil rights violations, corruption and illegal conduct at the Puerto Rico Police Department (PRPD), and a subsequent Times editorial.

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09/22/2011
Warrantless Wiretapping

ACLU Lens: Court Rules Challenge to Warrantless Wiretapping Law Can Proceed

By Ateqah Khaki at 3:21pm

In a very significant development, yesterday a federal appeals court ruled that our lawsuit challenging warrantless wiretapping can proceed. The law that we’re challenging, the FISA Amendments Act (FAA) of 2008, is the most far-reaching surveillance law ever enacted by Congress. It gives the National Security Agency (NSA) virtually limitless power to spy on Americans' international phone calls and emails. It allows the NSA to collect those communications en masse, without a warrant, without suspicion of any kind, and with only very limited judicial oversight. Needless to say, the law has dramatic implications for Americans' privacy rights.

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09/01/2011
U.S. Torture

A Decade Later

By Ateqah Khaki at 5:29pm

As the 10-year anniversary of 9/11 approaches, the ACLU joins all Americans in remembering the unspeakable losses suffered on that tragic day.

This solemn occasion provides opportunity to reflect on the turbulent decade behind us, and to recommit ourselves to values that define our nation.

Ten years ago, we could not have imagined that over the following decade, our nation would engage policies that were so at odds with our fundamental values: torture and extraordinary rendition, indefinite detention without charge or trial, racial profiling, and warrantless wiretapping.

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08/01/2011
Detention

Court Sanctions CIA to Pay Fees Over Torture Tapes

By Ateqah Khaki at 9:32pm

Earlier today, we appeared in court for a hearing on our motion to hold the CIA in contempt of the court for destroying 92 videotapes depicting torture of two prisoners, Abu Zubaydah and Abd Al-Rahim Al-Nashiri. (Coincidentally, the argument came on the nine-year anniversary of two of the “torture memos” that purported to provide legal cover for the brutal interrogation CIA detainees).

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