Blog of Rights
04/30/2013
U.S. Torture

Guantánamo Prisoner's Memoirs Offer Rare First-Person Account of Torture

By Noa Yachot, Communications Strategist, ACLU at 2:31pm

A detailed and harrowing first-person narrative of a prisoner's experiences in Guantánamo is available to the public for the first time: Slate today published a three-part series of excerpts from The Guantánamo Memoirs of Mohamedou Ould Slahi. The excerpts were culled from a manuscript hundreds of pages in length, which Slahi provided his attorneys, a pro bono team of ACLU and other lawyers. After being classified for years, Slahi's memoirs – of arrest, rendition, torture, and imprisonment without charge or trial – are finally seeing the light of day, albeit with some redactions.

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04/30/2013
Civil Liberties in the Digital Age

The Burdens of Total Surveillance

By Jay Stanley, Senior Policy Analyst, ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project at 1:33pm

Last week’s Washington Post report that the CIA had requested that Boston bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev be placed on a terrorist watch list raises an interesting point about total surveillance societies: in addition to all their negative implications for citizens, they actually bring some disadvantages for the authorities as well.

It’s not clear what information the CIA’s request was based upon, but reportedly it came from Russian authorities. It is also possible that Tsarnaev’s communications were flagged by US agencies such as the NSA. Either way, it seems as though there’s a real possibility that Tamerlan’s name came to the attention of the authorities through some dragnet-style surveillance technique.

If so, the conundrum for the authorities is this:

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04/30/2013
Employment Discrimination

Why ENDA's Religious Exemption Must Be Narrowed

By Ian S. Thompson, ACLU Washington Legislative Office & Dena Sher, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 10:21am

Remarkably, there are only 16 states that currently have workplace non-discrimination laws that are fully inclusive of LGBT people. This leaves LGBT people vulnerable to workplace discrimination in well over half of the country–an unacceptable situation that must be changed.

To address this, last week, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) was reintroduced in Congress. The legislation would prohibit employment discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in most American workplaces, a critically important step towards full equality for LGBT people.

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04/29/2013
Guantánamo Hunger Strike

Time to End the Despair at Guantánamo

By Zachary Katznelson, Senior Staff Attorney, ACLU National Security Project at 5:29pm

The hunger strike in Guantánamo continues to grow, even by the U.S. military's questionable count. The military states that 100 of the 166 prisoners there are on strike, 21 are being force-fed, and five have been hospitalized. Lawyers for the prisoners put the number of hunger strikers at over 130. So many prisoners are in need of medical care that the military has now brought some 40 additional Navy "corpsmen, nurses, and other specialists" to add to the 100 already on duty.

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04/29/2013
LGBT News

First Major League Athlete Comes Out

By Shawn Jain, ACLU at 2:37pm

"I'm a 34-year-old NBA center. I'm black. And I'm gay."

With these 12 words and a powerful feature in the new issue of Sports Illustrated, Jason Collins has come forward as the first male athlete to openly identify as gay while still being active in major league American sports. And with it, the dizzying pace of progress in LGBT rights and visibility of LGBT people continues on its awesome forward march.

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04/29/2013
Solitary Confinement

"Reflection Cottages": The Latest Spa Getaway or Concrete Solitary Confinement Cells for Kids?

By Kiela Parks, Advocacy Associate, ACLU of Colorado at 12:06pm

When you hear the term "reflection cottage," what comes to mind? A relaxing spa getaway...

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04/29/2013
Civil Liberties in the Digital Age

Do Young People Care About Privacy?

By Jay Stanley, Senior Policy Analyst, ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project at 10:00am

Everywhere I go, I hear some variation of the claim that “young people today just don’t care about privacy.” This is something that people widely seem to believe is “just true.” The latest claim to this effect comes in the form of a new poll, the release of which was trumpeted with unfortunate headlines like “Millennials don’t worry about online privacy.”

In fact, the poll, which was conducted by the University of Southern California’s corporate-partnered Center for the Digital Future, showed no such thing. Although there were some differences between younger and older respondents,

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04/26/2013
Breaking the Addiction to Incarceration

Breaking the Addiction to Incarceration: Weekly Highlights (04/26/2013)

By Alex Stamm, ACLU Center for Justice at 4:17pm

Today, the U.S. has the highest incarceration rate of any country in the world. With over 2.3 million men and women living behind bars, our imprisonment rate is the highest it's ever been in U.S. history. And yet, our criminal justice system has failed on every count: public safety, fairness and cost-effectiveness. Across the country, the criminal justice reform conversation is heating up. Each week, we feature our some of the most exciting and relevant news in overincarceration discourse that we've spotted from the previous week. Check back weekly for our top picks.

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04/26/2013
ECPA

One Small Step by the Senate Judiciary Committee, One Giant Leap for Online Privacy

By Sandra Fulton, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 3:50pm

Yesterday marked a major step for Americans taking control of their privacy online. In a rare demonstration of bipartisan support, the Senate...

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04/26/2013
Campaign Finance Reform

Thoughts on the Latest Political Disclosure Proposal

By Gabe Rottman, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 3:41pm

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Ala.) and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) unveiled a new bill this week requiring all groups that spend money independently of campaigns, candidates, or parties to influence a federal election or nomination to disclose their donors. Although we have concerns with the bill, the senators' hearts are certainly in the right place, and they should be applauded for actively soliciting input during the drafting process from interested parties on all sides of the debate.

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