By Chandra Bhatnagar, Senior Staff Attorney, ACLU Human Rights Program at 3:59pm
Last Monday, our country commemorated the life and work of the great Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who fought tirelessly for racial and economic justice.
Gordon Hirabayashi was an American-born student at the University of Washington in 1942, when he was ordered in his senior year to report to an internment camp in northern California. He refused.
Only a handful of remarkably courageous individuals defied the internment orders. Hirabayashi was not only the youngest; his decision was a clear act of civil disobedience based on his deeply held pacifist beliefs.
By Nusrat Choudhury, Staff Attorney, ACLU National Security Project at 3:28pm
Last week, the ACLU released FBI documents showing that the bureau is secretly and deliberately collecting information about innocent Americans through community outreach programs and retaining information about these Americans’ speech, beliefs, and other First Amendment-protected activities in violation of the Privacy Act. The Washington Post reported on Muslim community concerns over this practice.
The ACLU is on the ground in Alabama documenting the impact of H.B. 56 on farms, families and schools. We're finding evidence of racial profiling and discrimination.
“To Protect and Serve” is the longstanding motto of many American police departments. But it fails to ring true when a law enforcement officer subjects a citizen to humiliating interrogation, search and detention — simply because of how the person looks.
When police engage in racial profiling, they are not only violating the Constitution, they are also hindering their ability to keep communities safe.
By Nusrat Choudhury, Staff Attorney, ACLU National Security Project at 5:12pm
Yesterday, the ACLU unveiled a new initiative — Mapping the FBI — that exposes the ways in which vastly expanded FBI investigative authority has resulted in the unconstitutional investigation of American communities and individuals based on who they are and what they believe.
