American Civil Liberties Union

In February of this year, seven years of work by the ACLU of West Virginia and others came to fruition when the final report of the West Virginia Traffic Stop Study was released. The study was mandated in 2004 through legislative action initiated by the ACLU of West Virginia. Rules on how the study would be conducted were finalized in 2006, and the study itself, meant to track quantifiable categories associated with traffic stops by West Virginia law enforcement, was conducted from April 2007 through September 2008.

Late on the evening of August 28, 2008, an explosion rocked the Bayer CropScience plant in Institute, W.Va. The incident, which ultimately claimed the lives of two workers and created confusion and panic throughout a community of tens of thousands, has drawn international attention because the chemical plant in question houses methyl isocyanate (MIC). That is the same chemical responsible for the 1984 disaster in Bhopal, India, that claimed upwards of 4,000 lives and has contributed to countless health problems in the region since.

There have been several accounts detailing Bayer CropScience's culpability leading to what happened that night and their refusal to cooperate with first responders trying to get a handle on the situation. The U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) has published the first part of their report detailing the lapses at the plant. However, one particular maneuver by Bayer deserves special recognition by anyone who cares about civil liberties and the obstacles to accessing information vital to the public interest that have been posed by post 9/11 anti-terrorism laws.

In an effort to find out more about what happened and, in turn, take strides to make sure it never happens again, People Concerned About MIC, a grassroots organization of citizens in the Kanawha Valley formed after the Bhopal disaster, petitioned the CSB to keep their promise of holding a public hearing on the explosion once more had been learned. Bayer CropScience was pressuring the CSB to cancel the meeting. Bayer even went as far as to refuse to release key documents on the matter to the Chemical Safety Board, citing that releasing documents related to the explosion would be a threat to homeland security under the Maritime Transportation and Security Act of 2002.

Maybe it's different where you're from, but in West Virginia, the just-past general election cycle and the one before it were noted for concerted efforts by out-of-state corporate behemoths to purchase seats on the State Supreme Court and in the Attorney General's office. Call me bitter, but when your state's judicial system becomes the basis for a John Grisham novel, the time has come to take action.

During the 2004 elections, Don Blankenship, the CEO of giant coal producer Massey Energy, decided to get involved in a State Supreme Court race. This coal baron had a big case coming before the court and knew he needed a more favorable vote count. So he started his own "issue advocacy organization" called "And For the Sake of the Kids." Due to his group's tax classification, he did not have to disclose the source of its funding: close to $3 million of his own money in a blatant effort to buy a seat on the West Virginia State Supreme Court. The effort paid off because, by the time it was revealed that Blankenship was the person funding the highly negative television ads, radio spots, and direct mailings, the damage was done and his candidate had won. When that big case came around, turned out the Massey energy had made a smart investment: The justice he helped elect provided the crucial vote in a 3-2 decision. (Coincidently, that justice's refusal to recuse himself from that case has led to the United States Supreme Court getting involved. The high court has agreed to hear the failure to recuse case next spring.)