By Devon Chaffee, Legislative Policy Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 4:51pm
I was scheduled to return from my summer vacation at 6 a.m. Sunday morning flying out of Vermont’s Burlington International Airport in a state most often thought to be ahead of the civil liberties curve. If you’ve ever had a crack-of-dawn flight, you can relate to my blurry eyed exhaustion after waking up at 3:30 a.m. to make it to the airport with enough time for what we now consider to be the standard, if annoying, airport security rigmarole. I expected to have to strip off my belt and sweatshirt, take off my shoes, show my ID, and be subjected to a naked body scan or all-too-personal pat down. What I didn’t expect was a full-on TSA interrogation about my summer vacation before I even reached the identification checkpoint.
By Jay Stanley, Senior Policy Analyst, ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project at 7:02pm
The Los Angeles Times today reports on the TSA’s VIPR program, in which roving teams of security agents bring the joys of the airport security experience into bus and train stations, highways, the subway, and other transportation facilities around the country (a Daily Caller story on the program from earlier this year is here).
By Jennifer Carnig, New York Civil Liberties Union at 6:49pm
For the past 10 days, scores of demonstrators have occupied Zuccotti Park near Wall Street to protest what they believe are entrenched inequities in the nation’s financial system.
In response to the peaceful demonstration, the NYPD has flooded the Financial District with police officers and has erected labyrinths of steel barricades along sidewalks in front of the Stock Exchange and around the famous bull statue on Broadway.
With New York State's new law giving lesbian and gay couples the freedom to marry set to take effect on July 24, thousands of same-sex couples are facing complex and serious questions regarding their rights — questions most wedding planners can't answer.
