Alabama segregates all prisoners with HIV, and houses them separately from all other prisoners – it’s an HIV ghetto. As soon as you walk into Limestone Correctional Facility, the prison where Alabama houses all male prisoners with HIV, you know who has the virus: they are forced to wear a white armband day and night.
By Patrick DePoy, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 10:16am
This week, Washington will host the 2012 International AIDS Conference. This is the first time since 1990 that the U.S. will host the major international gathering on the AIDS epidemic. The reason for this is that in 1987, Congress passed legislation prohibiting people living with HIV from traveling into the United States. Under the ban, those living with HIV were listed as having a “communicable disease of public health significance.” Rooted in the fear and prejudice that was an ever-present reality in those days, the ban imposed an unfair burden on tourists, short-term visitors, and foreigners seeking to live in the U.S. In 2009, President Obama finally lifted the travel ban, following a 2008 statutory repeal vote in Congress, correctly pointing out that if the U.S. wants to be a world leader in the fight against HIV/AIDS, “we need to act like it.”
By Ian S. Thompson, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 4:18pm
Spit as a deadly weapon? As crazy as it sounds, in some states that is the reality that people living with HIV face.
On Friday afternoon, Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) introduced legislation in Congress that will bring some much needed attention to the issue of criminalization of HIV. Rep. Lee's legislation — the REPEAL HIV Discrimination Act — would provide states with incentives and support to reform outdated criminal laws that target people living with HIV.
The theme this week was "without": combating the spread of AIDS without actual tools and information to combat the spread of AIDS, searches without warrants, protections for business without protections for everybody else, government bureaucracy without privacy or security, accessing medical marijuana without federal government interference, sentencing without (or at least with a lot less) unfairness. That last one is good, the rest not so much....
By Ian S. Thompson, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 4:20pm
The ACLU has been invited to offer our civil liberties and civil rights recommendations to the Democratic National Committee’s “platform drafting committee,” which is currently meeting in Minneapolis to begin the process of putting together the 2012 Democratic National Platform. While the ACLU is a nonpartisan organization, we welcome opportunities to infuse a respect for and commitment to civil liberties in the political process. We would also be pleased to offer our views to the Republican National Committee’s platform drafters.
