American Civil Liberties Union

There’s nothing wrong with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie communicating with Fox News President Roger Ailes. That is, unless Christie wants to hide what he says under the cloak of executive privilege.

And that’s exactly what the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey wants to prevent. ACLU-NJ sued Christie on behalf of the popular blog Gawker. One of its reporters, John Cook, had requested copies in May of any correspondence, calendar entries or phone logs from Christie’s office pertaining to Ailes pursuant to New Jersey’s Open Public Records Act.

The government has filed a suit against Alabama’s draconian anti-immigrant law, which it said conflicts with federal laws and makes it too easy for police to detain people suspected of being in the country illegally.

Modeled on Arizona’s infamous SB 1070 but taking it to even greater extremes, the Alabama law is considered the most pernicious of a series of state anti-immigrant laws passed this year.

The Justice Department lawsuit filed Monday comes on the heels of a class-action challenge filed last month by the ACLU and a coalition of other civil rights organizations charging the law is unconstitutional on multiple grounds. On July 21, the coalition filed a request that the court block the law from taking effect, pending a final ruling on the law’s constitutionality.