Blog of Rights
06/07/2012
Anti-Muslim Bias

Members of Congress Urge Investigation of FBI Muslim Surveillance

By Devon Chaffee, Legislative Policy Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 11:37am

Yesterday 22 Members of Congress sent a letter to the Inspector General of the Department of Justice urging him to launch an investigation into the Federal Bureau of Investigation's improper recording and dissemination of information about the First Amendment-protected activities of American Muslims. Several of the members who joined the letter-including Representatives Pete Stark (D-CA-13), Anna Eshoo (D-CA-14), Sam Farr (D- CA-17), Mike Honda (D- CA-15), Zoe Lofgren (D-CA-16), and Barbara Lee (D-CA-09) -represent districts in Northern California in which FBI memoranda document the use of community outreach for intelligence purposes.

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06/06/2012
Stop-And-Frisk

Stop and Frisk Watch: Keep Tabs on the NYPD with Your Smart Phone

By Michael Cummings, New York Civil Liberties Union at 11:13am

The New York Civil Liberties Union is giving smart phones a social conscience. This week, we unveiled Stop and Frisk Watch – a new smart phone app that will empower New Yorkers to hold the NYPD accountable for unlawful, abusive street stops and other misconduct.

Stop and Frisk Watch – available in English and Spanish for Android phones – allows bystanders to document stop-and-frisk encounters and alert community members when a street stop is in progress. Easy to use, it has three main functions:

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06/01/2012
Anti-Muslim Bias

Muslim Profiling and Behavioral Profiling

By Jay Stanley, Senior Policy Analyst, ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project at 2:24pm

Yesterday I posted about the debate over profiling Muslims at the airport, and how Bruce Schneier persuasively argued that the concept, which seems so intuitively sensible to so many Americans, is a terrible idea even just from a security point of view. He also commented on the other, less tangible costs that such a scheme would impose, such as the alienation of Muslims from American life, and the corruption of our values.

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06/01/2012
STPP

Honor Student Jailed and Fined for Missing School

By Taurean K. Brown, Racial Justice Program at 12:57pm

Texas Judge Lanny Moriarity's decision to "make of an example" of 17-year old honor student Diane Tran succeeds only in highlighting the insensitive and counterproductive treatment of Texas juveniles in the state's criminal justice system. Judge Moriarty fined Diane and sentenced her to spend 24 hours in jail with adults charged with serious criminal offenses. The crime? Truancy. Tran is a straight-A student taking difficult college courses and missed classes because she has been working two jobs to help support a family torn apart by divorce and her mother's abandonment. Tran should, in fact, be made an example of, but not because of the number of school days she missed; Tran exemplifies the triumph of determination and hard work over serious adversity.

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05/31/2012
Anti-Muslim Bias

Profiling Muslims at the Airport

By Jay Stanley, Senior Policy Analyst, ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project at 3:20pm

I finally had a chance to read this extended debate between the security-ologist Bruce Schneier and critic-of-religion Sam Harris (yes that Sam Harris) over whether we should profile Muslims in airport security.

First of all, Sam Harris performs a useful function by articulating a more sophisticated version of what is the intuitive position for many Americans, which runs something like: “we know who the danger is, it ain’t old ranchers from Texas or pretty blondes from San Diego—it’s Muslims, so let’s focus airport security on them.” (I hear this regularly myself when discussing airline security in public.) By fearlessly arguing for such profiling—which many people might quietly suspect makes sense—Harris sets it forth explicitly so that it can be explicitly debunked. And Schneier not only debunks it, he demolishes it.

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05/24/2012
Stop-And-Frisk

Fix Stop-And-Frisk

By Rachel Myers, ACLU at 3:40pm
The pressure on the New York Police Department to reform its stop-and-frisk program is mounting, led by the New York Civil Liberties Union and other advocates and now the New York Times.
 
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05/07/2012
Voter ID

On the Agenda: Week of May 7-13, 2012

By Rekha Arulanantham, ACLU at 1:38pm

Congress is back, so we’re looking at a busy schedule this week.

As we mentioned last week, this Wednesday the House Armed Services Committee will mark up this year’s National Defense Authorization Act. We’re keeping a close eye on NDAA amendments, which could affect several diverse civil liberties issues, including LGBT rights, indefinite detention, reproductive rights, and military sexual trauma.

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05/04/2012
Overincarceration

Breaking the Addiction to Incarceration: Weekly Highlights

By Alex Stamm, ACLU Center for Justice at 2:34pm

Today, the U.S. has the highest incarceration rate of any country in the world. With over 2.3 million men and women living behind bars, our imprisonment rate is the highest it’s ever been in U.S. history. And yet, our criminal justice system has failed on every count: public safety, fairness and cost-effectiveness. Across the country, the criminal justice reform conversation is heating up. Each week, we feature our some of the most exciting and relevant news in overincarceration discourse that we’ve spotted from the previous week. Check back weekly for our top picks.

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04/26/2012
FBI

New Call for Internal DOJ Investigation of FBI’s Targeting of Religious and Ethnic Groups for Intel Gathering

By Ateqah Khaki at 3:02pm

Today we sent a letter to the Department of Justice Inspector General asking him to investigate the FBI’s improper collection of intelligence about American Muslim, Arab, Middle Eastern, and South Asian communities, and compilation of records describing community members’ First Amendment protected speech and activities in violation of the Privacy Act.

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04/25/2012
I Am Not a Stereotype

A Mother’s Story: It Is Not What We Say to Black Boys and Men, It Is What We Do to Them

By Laura W. Murphy, Director, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 9:36pm

I feel deeply for Travyon’s mother; she’s living my worst fear.

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