Occupy Report from Oakland (by Rebecca Farmer, ACLU of Northern California)
The May Day protests in Oakland saw a great deal of police presence and use of force, but not quite to the degree that we saw during demonstrations in the fall of 2011. Still, reports of multiple rounds of tear gas, flash bang grenades and possibly other projectiles raise questions. The OPD has a clear policy governing how it should deal with protests, but the department has violated protesters’ rights on far too many occasions in the past. The policy and common sense require OPD to use the minimal force necessary to disperse a crowd.
By Gabe Rottman, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 5:04pm
It was hard to miss on TV or online yesterday the spectacle of Democratic Congressman Bobby Rush of Chicago being ejected from the House floor for wearing a hooded sweatshirt.
After taking off his jacket and raising the hood over his head during a speech in tribute to Florida shooting victim Trayvon Martin, the presiding officer instructed the Sergeant-at-Arms to give Rush the boot, ostensibly to enforce the House rules on decorum. Now we all know you can’t wear hats while Congress is in session.
By Alex Berger, Legislative Assistant, ACLU at 3:29pm
I, like most Americans, watched in horror as the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School unfurled last December. As a former elementary school teacher, I could not stop seeing my former students as possible victims, and I was angry, confused, and eager for change to prevent another incident like this one.
Since the shooting, there’s been a lot of discussion about how to keep kids safe and how to prevent more violence. The tragedy in Newtown has sparked a national conversation about guns, mental illness, violence in the media and school safety, and over the past several weeks, there have been a number of Congressional hearings on these issues. In fact, the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing Wednesday on a proposed assault weapons ban and the House Education and Workforce Committee will meet later this week for a hearing on school safety. Restricting access to certain types of firearms is one thing. But while some well-meaning policymakers might assume that putting more police in schools will make students safer, experience demonstrates otherwise. Censoring violent media or stigmatizing those with a mental illness as unusually violent won’t fix the problem either.
By Alexander Abdo, Staff Attorney, ACLU National Security Project at 2:37pm
We Americans cherish few rights more than the right to speak our minds. And yet that right often comes under attack. Most recently, the federal government has used laws criminalizing the “material support” of foreign terrorist organizations to prosecute people who hold unpopular political views. Take the case of Tarek Mehanna, a native of Sudbury, Massachusetts.
This year marks the 30th anniversary of “Banned Books Week,” the American Library Association’s rousing celebration of free speech, and its condemnation of government shackling of library bookshelves across the nation. Free speech is a core mission of the ACLU: books are speech. They enrich us; they teach us; they entertain us; they confound us; and they challenge us. And sometimes, they make us uncomfortable. But there is no room on library shelves for censorship.
By Naomi Gilens, ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project at 5:28pm
This morning, faced with the threat of criminal and civil contempt, Twitter turned over information about Occupy Wall Street protester Malcolm Harris to a New York criminal court judge. This development follows Twitter’s months-long effort to challenge the Manhattan District Attorney Office’s subpoena for Harris’s information, which was issued as part of the D.A.’s disorderly conduct prosecution of Harris stemming from his participation at an Occupy event last fall.
After a brief weather-related delay, the 2012 Republic National Convention is finally getting underway. Although crowds of protestors are smaller than initially expected, as we recently pointed out, in past years, political conventions have sometimes become “constitutional black holes” that stifle free speech and other First Amendment protected activity.
By Aden Fine, Senior Staff Attorney, ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project at 12:44pm
Twitter just filed its brief appealing a June decision by a New York criminal court judge requiring the company to give the Manhattan District Attorney detailed information on the communications of Twitter user Malcolm Harris, an Occupy Wall Street protester charged with disorderly conduct in connection with a march on the Brooklyn Bridge.
The South by SouthWest Panel Picker has launched for the 2013 festival, and we need your help!
The ACLU has submitted two panel pitches (one and two) for SXSW Interactive, which will take place March 8-12, 2013 in Austin, Texas. (Wondering why the ACLU is going to SXSW? We work with policymakers, business and community members every day on issues related to privacy, free speech and emerging technology. And as we’ve done for the past several years, we’ll be at SXSW this year to make sure that privacy is on the agenda!)
By Carol Rose, Executive Director, ACLU of Massachusetts at 10:27am
You know we are in the silly season of summer when Boston Mayor Thomas Menino fires up the old bully pulpit to roast his political enemies and fire up his base.
