By Gabe Rottman, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 3:25pm
With one major exception, the Roberts Court has been quite protective of unpopular (and even revolting) speech under the First Amendment. That exception, however, is a doozy. It involves a statute criminalizing “material support” for terrorism, and the danger of the law was on stark display this week with reports of a petition to hold Twitter responsible for allowing Hamas to use the service.
By Jay Stanley, Senior Policy Analyst, ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project at 10:05am
One of the technology-related civil liberties battles that ACLU affiliates around the country have been fighting in recent years involves defending students’ rights to privacy and free expression in the new electronic media that are becoming such a large part of their lives. For some reason many school officials seem to believe that when it comes to online communications, students have no such rights
By Gabe Rottman, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 6:36pm
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) deserves significant credit for placing a hold today on a draft intelligence spending bill that would place enormous new obstacles in the path of journalists trying to report on government illegality, fraud and waste in the intelligence community. Although it is true that national security sometimes requires secrecy, restrictions on freedom of the press would do little to benefit the national security while significantly insulating government wrongdoing from public scrutiny.
By Gabe Rottman, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 10:52am
The Petraeus Affair Affair is salacious stuff. It also, naturally, raises a lot of questions about privacy. But there’s also an interesting First Amendment angle underneath the sensation: why did the FBI investigate Paula Broadwell—the Petraeus biographer and paramour who allegedly sent “harassing” emails to Tampa housewife Jill Kelley—in the first place? The Daily Beast reported Tuesday that none of the Broadwell emails contained “overt threats,” and really amounted to “cat-fight stuff” (a source’s words, not mine). Further, it appears the email that initially prompted Kelley to go to the FBI (titled “kelleypatrol”) was forwarded by General Allen, not sent directly. And, apparently, prosecutors expressed doubt that any of the emails constituted a threat.
The ACLU LGBT Project and the ACLU of Utah filed a lawsuit earlier today challenging a decision by Davis School District in Davis County, Utah, to remove a children’s picture book about a family with two moms from all elementary school libraries in the district. The book, called In Our Mothers’ House, was written by Patricia Polacco, an acclaimed author of award-winning children’s literature. The School Library Journal gave In Our Mothers’ House a rave review and recommends the book for children in grades 1 to 4. The school district decided to remove the book from the library shelves and hide it behind the librarians’ desks in response to complaints from some parents that the book “normalizes a lifestyle that we don’t agree with.” The school district has claimed that having a book about a family with same-sex parents on the library shelves would also violate Utah’s sex-education laws because it would amount to “advocacy of homosexuality.”
The right to peacefully assemble, enshrined both in the U.S. Constitution and international human rights law, is an intrinsic element of the democratic fabric of the United States. Yet according to a report released Friday by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), an international organization of which the U.S. is a member, America is failing to uphold this fundamental right. The report is the first comprehensive OSCE report on violation of the right to freedom of peaceful assembly that covers the U.S.
By Sandra Fulton, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 12:08pm
UPDATE: The State Department's response to the ACLU is posted here.
The ACLU sent a letter yesterday to the State Department thanking Secretary Clinton for the department’s unwavering defense of basic free speech principles in the backlash over the controversial “Innocence of Muslims” video. While the video was blamed for riots, violence, and unrest in many countries, the Obama administration stayed strong against calls at home and abroad to take down the video (though it did, rightly, receive some criticism for “asking” Google to take another look at whether the video violated the company’s terms of service).
In Our Mothers’ House, by Patricia Polacco, is a children’s book about three adopted children and their two mothers. In response to complaints from a subset of parents that the book “normalizes a lifestyle we don’t agree with,” Davis School District in Utah has instructed its elementary school librarians to remove all copies of the book from the library shelves and place the book behind a counter where students must have written parental permission to read it.
By Mitra Ebadolahi, Legal Fellow, ACLU National Security Project at 10:24am
The ACLU is appearing today before the Third Circuit Court of Appeals to argue on behalf of our client, Nick George.
In August 2009, Nick went to the Philadelphia International Airport to catch a flight to California and begin his senior year at Pomona College. At the airport, he was detained, abusively interrogated, handcuffed, and jailed for several hours in a holding cell – solely because he was carrying a set of Arabic-English flashcards for his language studies, and a book critical of U.S. foreign policy.
