Blog of Rights
05/23/2013
School-to-Prison Pipeline

An Unexpected Reaction: Why a Science Experiment Gone Bad Doesn't Make Me a Criminal

By Kiera Wilmot, Student at 10:17am

After model student Kiera Wilmot was arrested and removed from her high school for doing a science experiment on school property...

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05/15/2013
First Amendment

In Disturbing Trend, Kansas School the Latest to Punish Student for Harmless Tweet

By Greger Calhan, Legal Fellow, ACLU, Racial Justice Program & Brian Hauss, Legal Fellow, ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project at 2:46pm

Update: An earlier version of this post did not cite Heights High School's letter to Wesley and his parents, which was originally published on KWCH.com.

In Kansas, joking about sports can be hazardous to your high school graduation. Wesley Teague, the senior class president at Heights High School in Wichita, Kansas, found this out the hard way. In a gently mocking 48-character Twitter post, Wesley wrote:

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05/22/2013
U.S. Death Penalty

What Does $10,000 Buy in Alabama? Less-than-Truthful Testimony Used to Sentence Someone to Death

By Anna Arceneaux, Staff Attorney, ACLU Capital Punishment Project & Sarah Solon, Communications Strategist, ACLU at 11:22am

A trial is supposed to be a search for the truth. That can never be more important than in a death...

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05/21/2013
First Amendment

Justice Department's Overreaching on Leaks Threatens Freedom of the Press

By Gabe Rottman, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 3:54pm

A week after the Department of Justice notified the Associated Press that it had secretly seized records for more than 20 phone lines...

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05/21/2013
Human Trafficking

Prestigious Law Firms Join Fight for Guestworkers' Rights in Major Human Trafficking Case

By Noa Yachot, Communications Strategist, ACLU at 11:30am

Eighty-three Indian guestworkers who fell victim to a massive human trafficking scheme filed suit...

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05/15/2013
Location Tracking

Federal Judge: Only Powered-Off Cell Phones Deserve Privacy Protections

By Chris Soghoian, Principal Technologist and Senior Policy Analyst, ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project at 11:27am

A federal magistrate judge in New York recently ruled that cell phone location data deserves no protection under the Fourth Amendment and that accordingly, the government can engage in real-time location surveillance without a search warrant. In an opinion straight from the Twilight Zone, magistrate judge Gary Brown ruled two weeks ago that “cell phone users who fail to turn off their cell phones do not exhibit an expectation of privacy.”

The case in question involved a physician who the DEA believed had issued thousands of prescriptions for pain killers in exchange for cash. In March of this year, the DEA had obtained a warrant for his arrest, and,

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05/16/2013
Private Prisons

Open Letter to the Corrections Corporation of America after 30 Years of Locking People Up for Profit

By Vanita Gupta, Center for Justice at 12:41pm

What do I have to say to the Corrections Corporation of America?

After 30 years, CCA should be ashamed.

For thirty years, CCA's profits have grown because more people are behind bars. For CCA, the fact that America incarcerates more people than any other nation in the world isn't a human tragedy – it's something they celebrate, because it makes them rich.

When CCA's shareholders hold their annual meeting today in Nashville, I hope they will remember that the cost of their riches is thirty years of human rights abuses, escapes, violence, understaffing, and preventable deaths in CCA's prisons. In Mississippi alone, CCA has had two deadly prison riots in the past twelve months. And in Idaho, CCA recently admitted that their officers falsified nearly 5,000 hours of time records, billing the state for security posts that they left unfilled. After 30 years of this, you should be ashamed.

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05/16/2013
HIV/AIDS

It Is Time to Modernize Discriminatory HIV/AIDS Laws

By Ian S. Thompson, ACLU Washington Legislative Office & Steven Waddy, Legislative Assistant, ACLU at 4:55pm

While science has vastly advanced since the early days of the HIV/AIDS epidemic more than 30 years ago, the ways in which many criminal laws treat people living with HIV look like throwbacks to the dark days of the past when fear and misinformation about HIV and how it is transmitted were rampant.

There are presently 32 states that have criminal laws that punish people for exposing another person to HIV, even in the absence of actual HIV transmission or even a meaningful risk that transmission could occur.

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05/20/2013
E-Verify

Immigration Reform: Week Two Is Through

By Michael Macleod-Ball, Chief of Staff, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 11:59am

After two more long days last week of largely unsuccessful attempts to scuttle the immigration reform bill, the Senate Judiciary Committee now is looking at the gargantuan task of wrapping up consideration – somehow, some way – before the end of this week. On Tuesday, the Committee completed work on the border security section of the bill and then began consideration of the section dealing with non-immigrant visas – addressing labor needs. Work on those issues continued on Thursday and then transitioned to enforcement, including the E-Verify employment verification system. All told, the Committee was busy this week – considering 64 amendments and adopting 40 of them. All but two of the amendments were adopted on a bipartisan basis. Ninety-nine amendments have now been considered (including modifications), and quite a few more have been withdrawn, out of the 300 amendments originally filed. Despite the accomplishments, the Committee still must figure out a way to deal with perhaps 150 amendments before Senators return to their home states at the end of the week for the Memorial Day recess.

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05/17/2013
Government Oversight

What the Government Says When It Says Nothing

By Bennett Stein, ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project at 1:36pm

On May 8, the ACLU released a slew of government documents obtained from the FBI, U.S. Attorneys' offices around the country, and the Justice Department's Criminal Division concerning the government's access to the contents of private electronic communications. The media has seized upon one of those documents, an undated memo titled, "Guidance for the Minimization of Text Messages over Dual-Function Cellular Telephones." This memo may show that the Criminal Division is doing nothing at all to avoid reading our text messages; it may show great procedures in place to safeguard the privacy our text messages; or, likely, it may have nothing to do with either of those predictions. The public does not know because the Justice Department put a large black box over every word following the header of the 15-page memo.

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