Blog of Rights
Ateqah
Khaki
05/27/2010

Congress Must Rein in Anti-Terrorism Financing Laws

By Ateqah Khaki at 5:39pm

Yesterday, ACLU Policy Counsel and former FBI agent Mike German testified before a House Financial Services subcommittee about anti-terrorism financing laws and their impact on legitimate and lawful charities. Mike spoke about the need for greater transparency and due process in the Treasury Department’s enforcement of anti-terrorism financing laws against charities, and how these policies are blocking legitimate humanitarian aid to those in need.

Read More»
01/21/2010
Indefinite Detention

Winner Announced in ACLU Poster Design Contest

By Ateqah Khaki at 5:55pm

Today, we announced the winning design in an ACLU poster contest. After the 2008 election, we asked artists to review our transition plan for the incoming Obama administration and come up with a design that depicts our vision of this country's transformation into a country committed to fixing unconstitutional policies, holding its leaders accountable and reclaiming American values. (Call us optimists.)

Read More»
10/22/2009
Guantánamo

Tortured Tunes

By Ateqah Khaki at 4:29pm

Today, a group of musicians, including REM, Pearl Jam and The Roots filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to find out whether their music was played at the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay.  The request for information stems from former Guantánamo detainees’ testimony and released government documents that document that music has been used as part of interrogations.

Read More»
08/24/2009

New Torture Documents, Same Old Story

By Ateqah Khaki at 11:13pm

So the big news today was the release of the CIA inspector general's (IG) report from May 2004 (PDF) made public as part of our Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit, and Attorney General Eric Holder's announcement of a decision to appoint a prosecutor to conduct a preliminary investigation into whether federal laws were violated during the interrogation of detainees in U.S. custody.

Read More»
07/21/2009

ACLU in Court Tomorrow to Challenge Unconstitutional Spying Law

By Ateqah Khaki at 5:10pm

Tomorrow, we'll be in court presenting oral arguments in our challenge to the unconstitutional FISA Amendments Act (FAA) — the law passed by Congress last year that gave the government virtually unchecked power to intercept Americans' international e-mails and telephone calls. As you may recall, we filed a lawsuit to stop the government from spying under the FAA less than an hour after the Act was signed into law by President Bush on July 10, 2008.

Read More»
04/21/2009

Give Torture Victims Their Day in Court

By Ateqah Khaki at 3:01pm

Today, we sent a letter to a federal appeals court in San Francisco in our extraordinary rendition case against Boeing subsidiary, Jeppesen Data Plan, Inc. As you may recall, the government (under both the Bush and Obama administrations) has consistently and inappropriately asserted the "state secrets" privilege, arguing that allowing the case to go forward would be a threat to national security.

Read More»
08/30/2012
Protestors' Rights

Know Your Rights at the DNC!

By Ateqah Khaki at 3:37pm

Earlier this week, we told you about your RNC-related rights, and now we’ve pulled together similar resources specific to the Democratic National Convention.

As we mentioned before, while the First Amendment protects our rights to free speech and assembly, police and government officials are allowed to place certain nondiscriminatory and narrowly drawn "time, place and manner" restrictions on the exercise of First Amendment rights. These restrictions must apply to all speech regardless of its point of view, but this does mean that how these rights manifest themselves do vary from state to state and city to city.

Read More»
07/19/2012
Military Commissions

ProPublica: “Can the government declare anything a Guantanamo detainee does or says automatically classified?”

By Ateqah Khaki at 6:56pm

Earlier this week, ProPublica published an article discussing the government’s attempts to censor the statements of the defendants in the 9/11 Guantanamo military commission trials.  The article’s well worth reading because it discusses in detail the government’s arguments for censorship, as well as legal challenges brought by the ACLU, media organizations, and one of the 9/11 defendants’ lawyers.

Read More»
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.

Read More»
04/30/2012
Targeted Killings

White House Confirms Existence of Targeted Killing Program

By Ateqah Khaki at 2:59pm

Today, the New York Times ran an ACLU op-ed about the CIA's misuse of secrecy to withhold information from the public about the agency's targeted killing program, which has so far killed thousands of people, including several Americans.

The piece, penned by ACLU Deputy Legal Director Jameel Jaffer and National Security Project Legal Fellow Nathan Wessler, explains that in ACLU lawsuits about the drone strike program the CIA has consistently taken the position that it can neither confirm nor deny the existence of the program or any records related to it, despite the fact that numerous other government officials have spoken about the program to the public and the press. The op-ed states,

Read More»
Statistics image