Washington Markup
03/05/2013
Defense of Marriage Act

Historic Shift in Congress against DOMA Mirrors Shift in Public Opinion in Favor of Marriage for Same-Sex Couples

By Ian S. Thompson, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 11:24am

On Friday, 212 members of Congress, 172 representatives and 40 senators, filed an historic brief in support of Edie Windsor's challenge to the discriminatory and unconstitutional so-called Defense of Marriage Act's (DOMA) exclusion of married same-sex couples from marriage-based federal responsibilities and rights.

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03/04/2013
Targeted Killings

Hey Congress: Make the Sun Shine on the Targeted Killing Memos For All to See

By Matthew Harwood, Media Relations Associate, ACLU at 2:53pm

During his State of the Union Address a few weeks back, President Obama promised:

[I]n the months ahead, I will continue to engage Congress to ensure not only that our targeting, detention and prosecution of terrorists remains consistent with our laws and system of checks and balances, but that our efforts are even more transparent to the American people and to the world.

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03/01/2013
Do Not Track

The Time is Now for Do Not Track Legislation

By Sandra Fulton, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 4:53pm

While our electronic privacy laws have remained stagnant, online advertising has grown into a multi-billion dollar industry. The browsing and communications habits of online users are routinely and secretly tracked as they surf the internet. Yesterday, Senator Rockefeller (D-WV), chairman of the powerful Senate Commerce Committee, introduced a bill to establish a Do Not Track mechanism –similar to a Do Not Call Registry– that would allow users to restrict what companies collect about them and regain control of their privacy and online identity.

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02/10/2013
CISPA

CISPA Claws Back to Life

By Michelle Richardson, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 1:54pm

It's baa-aaack.

The House cybersecurity bill that allows the National Security Agency (NSA) and the military to collect your private internet records is scheduled for an encore appearance on Wednesday. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-MI) and Ranking Member Dutch Ruppersberger (D-MD) will reintroduce the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), which news reports say will be the same bill that passed the House of Representatives last year.

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01/15/2013
Immigration Detention

Mr. President, What Will Be Your Civil Rights Legacy?

By Laura W. Murphy, Director, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 11:44am

Watching President Obama take the Oath of Office four years ago was a historic moment I will never forget. I remember meeting him when he was an Illinois state senator...

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01/11/2013
FOIA

A FOIA White Out

By Michelle Richardson, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 4:46pm

Secret law exists inside the United States.

As we wrote a few weeks ago, one of the main issues discussed on the Senate floor during the FISA debate was secret law.  Under the law,  the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court makes secret interpretations and secret rulings about something that should never be secret: our constitutional rights. Sen.  Jeff Merkley (D-OR) fought for an amendment that would have required the administration to release the court’s opinions, to provide unclassified summaries of them, or to certify how many there are and why they can’t be released.

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12/28/2012
Using Religion to Discriminate

The Sweeping License to Discriminate Hidden in the NDAA

By Dena Sher, ACLU Washington Legislative Office & Ian S. Thompson, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 1:58pm

With Congress having recently approved this year’s NDAA, we think it is important to draw attention to a provision (Section 533(a)(1)), which, though hidden away, is unprecedented, sweeping, and could invite dangerous claims of a right to discriminate against not just lesbian, gay, and bisexual service members, but also women, religious minorities, and in the provision of health care.

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12/28/2012
Immigration Deportation

A Wish for the New Year: End Mass Deportation and Family Separation

By Shawn Jain, ACLU at 12:08pm

As families get together this holiday season, we thought we’d share one wish for the New Year: an end to a government policy that tears thousands of these families apart.

We’re talking about the Obama administration’s harsh immigration enforcement regime, which has led to more than 200,000 parents of U.S. citizen children deported in just the last two years.

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12/21/2012
Racial Profiling

Time for Obama and Holder to Truly End Racial Profiling by Law Enforcement

By Laura W. Murphy, Director, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 12:18pm

Why can’t President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder do more to ban racial profiling in the United States?  Surely, more so than any of their predecessors, they can understand the injustice and humiliation racial profiling victims feel when they are treated as suspect because of the color of their skin.

Yet, after four years in office, they’ve made no revisions to the Justice Department guidance regarding the use of race in federal law enforcement issued by Attorney General John Ashcroft in 2003.  Ashcroft’s guidance was deficient: though it expressly banned racial profiling by federal law enforcement agencies, it left broad exemptions for national security and border integrity investigations.

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12/18/2012
Voting Rights Act

Federal Reforms Needed to Increase Voter Access

By Deborah J. Vagins, ACLU Washington Legislative Office & Shawn Jain, ACLU at 4:18pm

Tomorrow, the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold an important hearing entitled, The State of the Right to Vote After the 2012 Election. The timing is ripe for the committee to consider the state of our most fundamental right as citizens.  Just six weeks ago, Americans went to the polls in large numbers to elect a president in spite of massive hurdles that interfered with their most fundamental right.

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