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Rekha
Arulanantham
03/23/2012
This Week in Civil Liberties

This Week in Civil Liberties (3/23/2012)

By Rekha Arulanantham, ACLU at 5:39pm

Some employers are asking job applicants for their passwords to which social networking site?

Which court ruled that a law that protects pregnant workers is unenforceable?

Which country is the only one in the world that sentences children to life without parole?

What government agency continues to defend warrantless wiretapping?

How could a shooter claim self-defense after killing an unarmed teenager in Florida?

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03/02/2012
This Week in Civil Liberties

This Week in Civil Liberties (3/2/2012)

By Rekha Arulanantham, ACLU at 5:52pm

How can you better protect your privacy from Google data collection?

Which legal architect of the torture program advised the Senate not to block the use of NDAA indefinite detention provisions?

In which state did a principal make anti-LGBT remarks to public school students?

This week the ACLU was in court to challenge anti-immigrant laws in which states?

Google's New Privacy Settings Go Into Effect
This week, Google put in place a new privacy policy across the vast majority of Google products and platforms. As we told you when they announced the new policy back in January, the new policy makes clear that Google will, for the first time, combine the personal data you share with any one of its products or sites across almost all of its products and sites (everything but Google Chrome, Google Books, and Google Wallet) in order to obtain a more comprehensive picture of you. And short of signing out of your Google account, there is no opting out.

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02/24/2012
This Week in Civil Liberties

This Week in Civil Liberties (2/24/12)

By Rekha Arulanantham, ACLU at 4:15pm

Which agency doesn’t need a warrant to intercept and store the 1.7 billion emails, phone calls, texts and other electronic communications it collects each day?

Which company is fueling our country’s addiction to incarceration by offering to buy state-owned prisons in return for a promise of a 90 percent occupancy rate?

How can you help fight the NDAA and indefinite military detention without charge or trial?

Racial profiling and mass incarceration disproportionately affect which population?

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02/17/2012
This Week in Civil Liberties

This Week in Civil Liberties (2/17/2012)

By Rekha Arulanantham, ACLU at 8:51pm

Which lobbying group wants to redefine religious liberty in order to prevent women from access to birth control?

The ACLU is challenging which law that ratified warrantless wiretapping?

Spoiler Alert: What does the documentary Let’s Talk About Sex talk about?

The House Homeland Security Committee held a hearing to learn more about social media surveillance by which agency?

In which state did the governor sign a bill recognizing the freedom to marry for same-sex couples?

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02/10/2012
This Week in Civil Liberties

This Week in Civil Liberties (2/10/12)

By Rekha Arulanantham, ACLU at 5:41pm

What were the consequences of prosecutorial misconduct for the district attorney’s office that hid evidence to send John Thompson to death row?

Who produced a short music video on photographers’ First Amendment rights?

This Valentine’s Day HBO will show a documentary on which couple who challenged Virginia’s interracial marriage ban?

Congress is attempting to pressure which agency to allow more aerial surveillance of Americans?

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02/03/2012
This Week in Civil Liberties

This Week in Civil Liberties (2/3/2012)

By Rekha Arulanantham, ACLU at 5:59pm

This week we sued the government for information on what program?

Why was ACLU of Ohio client Zach bullied and beaten in school?

Which movie rental company will be able to share your video rental records perpetually if H.R. 2471 is passed?

Which government department has announced a new rule that will prevent discrimination against LGBT families in its programs?

Which laws will the execution of Edwin Hart Turner violate?

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01/27/2012
This Week in Civil Liberties

This Week in Civil Liberties (1/27/2012)

By Rekha Arulanantham, ACLU at 6:11pm

Which search engine forces you to share your personal data with almost all of its products and sites?

A school district in which state will stop illegally promoting religion to public school students after a settlement with ACLU plaintiffs?

Which amendment did the government violate when it placed a GPS tracking device on Antoine Jones’s car?

Of which band is Billy McCarthy, who talks about solitary confinement in a new Prison Voices podcast, the singer and songwriter?

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01/24/2012

What Would You #AskObama?

By Rekha Arulanantham, ACLU at 2:54pm

Tonight and for the rest of the week, we'll be live-tweeting questions to Obama administration staff following the State of the Union address. Join us!

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01/13/2012
This Week in Civil Liberties

This Week in Civil Liberties (1/13/2012)

By Rekha Arulanantham, ACLU at 6:20pm

Are inmates on death row more violent or just unlucky?

Which Constitutional amendment does an Oklahoma law that discriminates against Muslims violate?

How many years has it been since the opening of Guantanamo Bay?

What search tool didn’t make privacy a default for its new social search?

Which Senator recently released a short video in support of LGBT youth and the Student Non-Discrimination Act?

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01/06/2012
This Week in Civil Liberties

This Week in Civil Liberties (1/6/2012)

By Rekha Arulanantham, ACLU at 6:12pm

Which bill, signed into law by President Obama on New Year’s Eve, allows for indefinite military detention without charge or trial?

What comic book debuting this week features the same-sex marriage of two characters?

In which state is the ACLU challenging a law that bars LGBT public employees’ partners from healthcare benefits?

Which governor attempted to strike down a voter-approved medical marijuana law?

President Obama Signs Indefinite Detention Into Law
President Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) last Saturday, allowing indefinite detention to be codified into law. As you know, the White House had threatened to veto an earlier version of the NDAA but reversed course shortly before Congress voted on the final bill. While President Obama issued a signing statement saying he had “serious reservations” about the provisions, the statement only applies to how his administration would use it and would not affect how the law is interpreted by subsequent administrations.

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