American Civil Liberties Union: Stop Religious Discrimination in Head Start


Stop Religious Discrimination in Head Start




The Head Start program may become a victim of federally funded religious discrimination. Instead of supporting civil rights protections, legislation pending before the Congress would allow Head Start programs to discriminate on the basis of religion.

The Head Start program provides educational opportunities to many of the nation's youth -- last year more than 900,000 children enrolled in the program (95 percent were younger than five years old). It also allows parents to participate in their childrens' education -- 1,450,000 parents volunteer in positions such as teacher aides and chaperones. The Head Start program also provides excellent job training and opportunities for poverty-stricken families. Last year 29 percent of Head Start program staff members were parents of current or former Head Start children.

Provisions in the Head Start re-authorization bill (H.R. 2210) would remove many of the civil rights protections currently found in the Head Start program. Under this new legislation, religious organizations involved in Head Start would be allowed to fire Head Start teachers who do not belong to the same religion. It would also restrict parents from volunteering with their children's education.

Take Action! Urge your Members of Congress to oppose federally funded religious discrimination!

This legislation harms teachers and people seeking teaching posts.
Thousands of Head Start teachers could lose their jobs if they fail their employer's religious tests.
Countless parents would furthermore be blocked from climbing the ladder out of poverty that has already allowed thousands of parents to go from being a parent volunteer to being a trained and paid Head Start teacher -- simply because they do not share the federally funded employer's religious beliefs.

This legislation harms parent volunteers.
The proposed bill is so broadly written that it would automatically disqualify parents from becoming classroom volunteers because they subscribe to a different faith than the group running the program. Religious discrimination against parent volunteers could take the form of either blocking parent volunteers from all volunteer opportunities in their children's classroom, or giving inferior volunteer assignments to parents who do not share the employer's religious beliefs.

This Act would allow violations of the Constitution.
The Constitution prohibits the government from using federal dollars to fund religious discrimination in hiring for government-funded jobs. The Head Start re-authorization bill would therefore authorize unconstitutional religious discrimination.

Well, the DCLU website has finally been completed after weeks of toil. Check it out!

American Civil Liberties Union : Safe and Free Quiz


The Safe and Free Quiz makes several pertinent points but the last few questions are not very useful. Quoting the head of the venture capital unit of the CIA and a budget official of the White House does not necessarily validate the objections being made. These are officials who are only concerned with the monetary aspects of CAPPS and the No-Fly Lists, and aren't experts on the effectiveness of such policies. I would want to see some other relevant officials or politicians being quoted. I am sure Kerry has something to say. ;-)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Media@dcaclu.org

WASHINGTON – In response to the first clear -- and overwhelmingly bipartisan -- congressional repudiation of anti-privacy and anti-civil liberties provisions in the USA PATRIOT Act last night, the American Civil Liberties Union today called the move a huge win and urged Congress to follow it with further action to restore Americans’ liberties.

“Congress took a courageous stand last night in its response to widespread public concern over civil liberties – hopefully this is the first trickle in a flood of PATRIOT fixes,” said Laura W. Murphy, Director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office.  “Congress is beginning to respond to what regular Americans have been saying at backyard barbecues and across their kitchen tables for months now: we can – and must – be both safe and free.”

Specifically, Congress agreed – by an extraordinary margin – to an amendment to this year’s Commerce, Justice and State funding bill that would bar federal law enforcement from implementing “sneak and peek” delayed notification search warrants, pursuant to a provision in the USA PATRIOT Act.  Conservative Rep. C.L. “Butch” Otter (R-ID) offered the amendment, which passed by a vote of 309 to 118, with 113 Republicans voting in favor.  The amendment still has to clear the Senate and the President before it becomes law.

The Otter Amendment is the first unequivocal indication that lawmakers are taking seriously a broad, grassroots backlash against excessive government powers, which has grown exponentially in the past several months.  To date, at least 142 communities and three states, encompassing more than 16 million people, have passed pro-civil liberties resolutions that speak out against the PATRIOT Act, many of which call for specific fixes to the bill.

The Otter Amendment would effectively prohibit any implementation of section 213 of the PATRIOT Act, which permits federal agents to obtain sneak and peek warrants under a very low evidentiary standard, making them far easier to get than before the bill was passed.  Sneak and peek or “black bag” warrants, as they are also called, allow agents to search homes, confiscate certain types of property and essentially “bug” computers, without notifying the subject of the search that it is happening for an often indeterminate amount of time.

Critics of the measure say that it violates both the intent and principle of Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures, and the long-held “knock and announce” warrant requirement, which is meant to give subjects of a search the opportunity to challenge errors in the warrant such as a wrong address or mistaken name.

“Although we applaud Rep. Otter and his fellow patriots, there is now more to be done,” said Timothy Edgar, an ACLU Legislative Counsel.  “The PATRIOT Act is replete with similar unnecessary and un-American surveillance, detention and investigative powers that must be repealed before we can really begin to restore civil liberties protections to where they need to be in America.”

John Gilmore, a co-founder of the Electronic Freedom Foundation has long advocated the viewthat people should not have to show ID to travel within the country. He has now been ejected from an aircraft for wearing a political button.

While I actually understand and have no quibbles with why John Gilmore was removed from the first aircraft, I fail to see why he wasn't allowed on a subsequent flight. Taking him off the plane for an additional security check? Fine with me. Not letting him fly at all while wearing the button? Now I have a problem.

~Jed

---------------------
To:
Subject: I was ejected from an airplane today for wearing a "Suspected
Terrorist" button
Date: Fri, 18 Jul 2003 21:29:28 -0700
From: John Gilmore

Your readers already know about my opposition to useless airport
security crap. I'm suing John Ashcroft, two airlines, and various
other agencies over making people show IDs to fly -- an intrusive
measure that provides no security. (See http://freetotravel.org).
But I would be hard pressed to come up with a security measure more
useless and intrusive than turning a plane around because of a
political button on someone's lapel.

My sweetheart Annie and I tried to fly to London today (Friday) on
British Airways. We started at SFO, showed our passports and got
through all the rigamarole, and were seated on the plane while it
taxied out toward takeoff. Suddenly a flight steward, Cabin Service
Director Khaleel Miyan, loomed in front of me and demanded that I
remove a small 1" button pinned to my left lapel. I declined, saying
that it was a political statement and that he had no right to censor
passengers' political speech. The button, which was created by
political activist Emi Koyama, says "Suspected Terrorist". Large
images of the button and I appear in the cover story of Reason
Magazine this month, and the story is entitled "Suspected Terrorist".
You can see the button at:

http://eminism.org/store/button-racism.html

(Reason hasn't put the current issue online yet, for some reason.)

The steward returned with Capt. Peter Hughes. The captain requested,
and then demanded, that I remove the button (they called it a
"badge"). He said that I would endanger the aircraft and commit a
federal crime if I did not take it off. I told him that it was a
political statement and declined to remove it.

They turned the plane around and brought it back to the gate, delaying
300 passengers on a full flight.

We were met at the jetway by Carol Spear, Station Manager for BA at
SFO. She stated that since the captain had told her he was refusing
to transport me as a passenger, she had no other course but to take me
off the plane. I offered no resistance. I reminded her of the court
case that United lost when their captain removed a Middle Eastern man
who had done nothing wrong, merely because "he made me uncomfortable".
She said that she had no choice but to uphold the captain and that we
could sort it out in court later, if necessary. She said that my
button was in "poor taste".

Later, after consulting with (unspecified) security people, Carol said
that if we wanted to fly on the second and last flight of the day, we
would be required to remove the button and put it into our checked
luggage (or give it to her). And also, our hand-carried baggage would
have to be searched to make sure that we didn't carry any more of
these terrorist buttons onto the flight and put them on, endangering
the mental states of the passengers and crew.

I said that I understood that she had refused me passage on the first
flight because the captain had refused to carry me, but I didn't
understand why I was being refused passage on the second one. I
suggested that BA might have captains with different opinions about
free speech, and that I'd be happy to talk with the second captain to
see if he would carry me. She said that the captain was too busy to
talk with me, and that speaking broadly, she didn't think BA had any
captains who would allow someone on a flight wearing a button that
said "Suspected Terrorist". She said that BA has discretion to
decline to fly anyone. (And here I had thought they were a common
carrier, obliged to carry anyone who'll pay the fare, without
discrimination.) She said that passengers and crew are nervous about
terrorism and that mentioning it bothers them, and that is grounds to
exclude me. I suggested that if they wanted to exclude mentions of
terrorists from the airplane, then they should remove all the
newspapers from it too.

I asked whether I would be permitted to fly if I wore other buttons,
perhaps one saying "Hooray for Tony Blair". She said she thought that
would be OK. I said, how about "Terrorism is Evil". She said that I
probably wouldn't get on. I started to discuss other possible
buttons, like "Oppose Terrorism", trying to figure out what kinds of
political speech I would be permitted to express in a BA plane, but
she said that we could stand there making hypotheticals all night and
she wasn't interested. Ultimately, I was refused passage because
I would not censor myself at her command.

After the whole interaction was over, I offered to tell her, just for
her own information, what the button means and why I wear it. She was
curious. I told her that it refers to all of us, everyone, being
suspected of being terrorists, being searched without cause, being
queued in lines and pens, forced to take our shoes off, to identify
ourselves, to drink our own breast milk, to submit to indignities.
Everyone is a suspected terrorist in today's America, including all
the innocent people, and that's wrong. That's what it means. The
terrorists have won if we turn our country into an authoritarian
theocracy "to defeat terrorism". I suggested that British Airways had
demonstrated that trend brilliantly today. She understood but wasn't
sympathetic -- like most of the people whose individual actions are
turning the country into a police state.

Annie asked why she, Annie, was not allowed to fly. She wasn't
wearing or carrying any objectionable buttons. Carol said it's
because of her association with me. I couldn't have put it better
myself -- guilt by association. I asked whether Annie would have been
able to fly if she had checked in separately, and got no answer.
(Indeed it was I who pointed out to the crew that Annie and I were
traveling together, since we were seated about ten rows apart due to
the full flight. I was afraid that they'd take me off the plane
without her even knowing.)

Annie later told me that the stewardess who had gone to fetch her said
that she thought the button was something that the security people had
made me wear to warn the flight crew that I was a suspected
terrorist(!). Now that would be really secure.

I spoke with the passengers around me before being removed from the
plane, and none of them seemed to have any problem with sitting next
to me for 10 hours going to London. None of them had even noticed the
button before the crew pointed it out, and none of them objected to it
after seeing it. It was just the crew that had problems, as far as I
could tell.

John Gilmore

PS: For those who know I don't fly in the US because of the ID demand:
I'm willing to show a passport to travel to another country. I'm not
willing to show ID -- an "internal passport" -- to fly within my own
country.

Posted by Jedidiah  |   7/22/2003 11:25:34 PM   |  

The Dartmouth Civil Liberties Union is now an official Dartmouth student organization!

DCLU can be contacted at dclu@dartmouth.edu or civil.liberties@dartmouth.edu

On July 21, 1925, the so-called "Monkey Trial" ended in Dayton, Tenn., with John T. Scopes convicted of violating state law for teaching Darwin's theory of evolution. The conviction was later overturned.

From the Economist:
The House of Representatives voted to maintain a policy of withholding funds from the United Nations Population Fund. Republicans accuse the fund of promoting abortion abroad.

Dartmouth Civil Liberties Union


Preview (for free :-) ) the DCLU website here!!!

Send me your comments!!

(There may be grammatical and spelling errors on the site because it's only a preview).

Wired News has a very disturbing article on Southeast Airlines--apparantly, they are installing videocameras on all of their planes to record everything except the restrooms, and this video may be stored for up to ten years.

There is a good piece in today's Washington Post about the military detentions, and the dissenters' opinons in the 4th Circuit Court's 8-4 decision in the Hamdi case. You can view the article here (after free registration).

. . .just doesnt get it. Read here.


And, Chien Wen Kung (who are you, anyway?), I must say that I wholeheartedly agree with your last point. DUJS did seem like a Republican front to me.

Of course, what these gentlemen seem to miss completely is that DCLU cannot be compared to the Aires, DUJS, or any such organization. The comment about DCLU being a non-partisan organization needs to be put in context. Among issue-oriented groups, DCLU is indeed the first non-partisan group. We have liberals and conservatives working side-by-side to achieve the same goals in DCLU.

President: Jed Sorokin-Altmann '05
Executive Director: Adil W. Ahmad '05
Vice President: Julia Cohen '05
Treasurer: Alyssa Minsky '06
Secretary: Kate Gilbert '05
Freshmen Representative: Rose McClendon '06 (acting Treasurer for Summer '03)

The issue of dorms being segregated by gender is an issue that has been raised on several campuses by civil liberties groups and LGBT groups. Whether one agrees or disagrees with the argument, I thought that this article from the Yale Daily News does a nice job of presenting the argument.
----------------------------
Allow cohabitation, end discrimination.
By William Han
Yale Daily News
http://www.yaledailynews.com/article.asp?AID=21745

Yale's current gender-segregated rooming scheme discriminates against homosexual members of the student body in a way that is more profound than at first appears. The scheme's effects are not particularly pernicious in practice. But its fundamental motivation should offend social liberals everywhere as much as Bowers v. Hardwick, the 1986 case in which the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of state anti-sodomy laws.

Advocates of cohabitation have argued that the current rooming policy discriminates against homosexual students because unlike their heterosexual peers, they are not free to live in an environment free from sexual tension. While this is a valid and significant point, there is a deeper one that so far seems to have gone largely unrecognized by campus commentators.

Yale regulates certain aspects of our daily life in loco parentis. Our parents, it is assumed, generally need to be convinced before permitting us to live with our significant others or potential sexual partners. Therefore, Yale, accommodating for what is thought to be our parents' wishes, denies its students the possibility of sharing a suite with members of the opposite sex.

What's wrong here? The leap of logic, the sleight of hand, is the implicit assumption that any student's potential partners belong to the opposite gender. In other words, Yale's current rooming policy is made based on the assumption that there is no such thing as a homosexual (or bisexual, for that matter). Gays, lesbians and bisexuals do not exist. They are make-believes, fairy tales, like Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny or the constitutionality of the USA Patriot Act. Or, at a minimum, it is inconceivable that any such decadent elements can possibly be attending this venerable institution of liberal learning.

That an institution as esteemed as Yale is pursuing such a policy adds frost to snow. To have one's existence denied is surely as much an insult as anything. To have it done by a university that prides itself in producing leaders, especially civil and political leaders, a university that is meant to be at the forefront of American and world opinion and thought, is an affront to anyone who cares about civil liberties.

But surely the administration does not actually believe that everyone on campus is heterosexual. Yes, if one of us stopped Dean Brodhead in the morning on his way to the office and asked him whether there are gay, lesbian or bisexual students at Yale, I'm sure he would answer in the affirmative. But that's precisely the point: Just like anti-sodomy legislations adopted back in the 19th century, gender-segregated rooming should be abolished because it is a relic of a previous era.
----
William Han is a junior in Branford College. He is secretary of the Yale chapter of the ACLU.

There is an excellent article on The Atlantic Online by Stuart Taylor, Jr., called "How Campus Censors Squelch Freedom of Speech: Under the guise of enforcing vague rules against racial or sexual 'harassment,' censorship is thriving."

Dartmouth is included as an example of a school with a vague rule that could be applied to censor students. The rule at Dartmouth that Taylor cites is, ""sexual harassment [can be] subtle and indirect, possibly even unintentional." This is about as open ended as it gets... As Andrew Grossman points out at www.dartlog.net, this could apply to a guy walking across the Green carrying a copy of Rolling Stone magazine or Maxim.

ACLU ad #1

ACLU ad #2

Well, this is a case of rather extreme application of the first amendment. Posting personal information of police officers on a website, just because you had a feud with the police? Sheehan has the right to do so, but police officers, after all, have a pretty dangerous job to do and such information could lead to retributions.

But hey, in the end, I love the guy - he knows that some of the info should not be made public (social security numbrs), but he himself is posting them on the world wide web for all to see and use.

-----------------------------------------------------

FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY.


NYT
July 12, 2003
A Web Site Causes Unease in Police
By ADAM LIPTAK


William Sheehan does not like the police. He expresses his views about what he calls police corruption in Washington State on his Web site, where he also posts lists of police officers' addresses, home phone numbers and Social Security numbers.

State officials say those postings expose officers and their families to danger and invite identity theft. But neither litigation nor legislation has stopped Mr. Sheehan, who promises to expand his site to include every police and corrections officer in the state by the end of the year.

Mr. Sheehan says he obtains the information lawfully, from voter registration, property, motor vehicle and other official records. But his provocative use of personal data raises questions about how the law should address the dissemination of accurate, publicly available information that is selected and made accessible in a way that may facilitate the invasion of privacy, computer crime, even violence.

Larry Erickson, executive director of the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs, says the organization's members are disturbed by Mr. Sheehan's site.

"Police officers go out at night," Mr. Erickson said, "they make people mad, and they leave their families behind."

The law generally draws no distinction between information that is nominally public but hard to obtain and information that can be fetched with an Internet search engine and a few keystrokes. The dispute over Mr. Sheehan's site is similar to a debate that has been heatedly taken up around the nation, about whether court records that are public in paper form should be freely available on the Internet.

In 1989, in a case not involving computer technology, the Supreme Court did allow the government to refuse journalists' Freedom of Information Act request for paper copies of information it had compiled from arrest and conviction records available in scattered public files. The court cited the "practical obscurity" of the original records.

But once accurate information is in private hands like Mr. Sheehan's, the courts have been extremely reluctant to interfere with its dissemination.

Mr. Sheehan, a 41-year-old computer engineer in Mill Creek, Wash., near Seattle, says his postings hold the police accountable, by facilitating picketing, the serving of legal papers and research into officers' criminal histories. His site collects news articles and court papers about what he describes as inadequate and insincere police investigations, and about police officers who have themselves run afoul of the law.

His low opinion of the police has its roots, Mr. Sheehan says, in a 1998 dispute with the Police Department of Kirkland, Wash., over whether he lied in providing an alibi for a friend charged with domestic violence. Mr. Sheehan was found guilty of making a false statement and harassing a police officer and was sentenced to six months in jail, but served no time: the convictions were overturned.

He started his Web site in the spring of 2001. There are other sites focused on accusations of police abuse, he said, "but they stop short of listing addresses."

Yet if his site goes farther than others, Mr. Sheehan says, still it is not too far. "There is not a single incident," he said, "where a police officer has been harassed as a result of police-officer information being on the Internet."

Last year, in response to a complaint by the Kirkland police about Mr. Sheehan's site, the Washington Legislature enacted a law prohibiting the dissemination of the home addresses, phone numbers, birth dates and Social Security numbers of law enforcement, corrections and court personnel if it was meant "to harm or intimidate."

As a result, Mr. Sheehan, who had taken delight in bringing his project to the attention of local police departments, removed those pieces of information from his site. But he put them back in May, when a federal judge, deciding on a challenge brought by Mr. Sheehan himself, struck down the law as unconstitutional.

The ruling, by John C. Coughenour, chief judge of the Federal District Court in Seattle, said Mr. Sheehan's site was "analytically indistinguishable from a newspaper."

"There is cause for concern," Judge Coughenour wrote, "when the Legislature enacts a statute proscribing a type of political speech in a concerted effort to silence particular speakers."

The state government, he continued, "boldly asserts the broad right to outlaw any speech — whether it be anti-Semitic, anti-choice, radical religious, or critical of police — so long as a jury of one's peers concludes that the speaker subjectively intends to intimidate others with that speech."

Bruce E. H. Johnson, a Seattle lawyer specializing in First Amendment issues, said Judge Coughenour was correct in striking down the statute because it treated identical publicly available information differently depending on the authorities' perception of the intent of the person who disseminated it.

"It forces local prosecutors to become thought police," Mr. Johnson said.

Elena Garella, Mr. Sheehan's lawyer, said there was one principle at the heart of the case.

"Once the cat is out of the bag," she said, "the government has no business censoring information or punishing people who disseminate it."

Fred Olson, a spokesman for the state attorney general, Christine O. Gregoire, said the state would not appeal Judge Coughenour's decision.

"Our attorneys reviewed the decision and the case law," Mr. Olson said, "and they just felt there was very, very little likelihood that we would prevail on appeal. Our resources are much better used to find a legislative solution."

But Bill Finkbeiner, a state senator who was the main sponsor of the law that was struck down, said the judge's opinion left little room for a legislative repair. He said he was frustrated.

"This isn't just bad for police officers and corrections employees," Mr. Finkbeiner said. "It really doesn't bode well for anybody. Access to personal information changes when that information is put in electronic form."

Mr. Sheehan says one sort of data he has posted has given him pause.

"I'll be honest and say I do have a quandary over the Social Security numbers," he said. "I'm going to publish them because that's how I got the rest of my information, and I want to let people verify my data. But our state government shouldn't be releasing that data."

Lt. Rex Caldwell, a spokesman for the Police Department in Kirkland, said his colleagues there were resigned to Mr. Sheehan's site, and added that much of the information posted on it was out of date.

When the matter first came up, "people were extremely unhappy about it," Lieutenant Caldwell said. "Now it's more of an annoyance than anything else. The official line from the chief is that we're still concerned. At the same time, everyone's greatest fear, of people using this to track them down, has not materialized."

Nor is there any indication that the site has led to identity theft, he said.

Brightening, Lieutenant Caldwell said some officers even welcomed the posting of their home addresses, if that encouraged Mr. Sheehan to visit.

"If he wants to drop by the house," Lieutenant Caldwell said, "the police officers would be more than happy to welcome him. We're all armed and trained."



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

The USA PATRIOT act is probably the broadest violation of civil liberties that has been put in legislative form, however, even as we continue to fight the PATRIOT act and the abuses that are ocurring under it, we should not forget that there are other pieces of legislation that require our attention. The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) was signed into law by President Clinton. The AEDPA limits the circumstances in which a prisoner can appeal to a federal court for a writ of habeas corpus. A prisoner has one shot--after which they can only have subsequent appeals for writs of habeas corpus at the discretion of the state court of appeals.

While I certainly appreciate the desire to move cases along and unclog the court system by stopping abuse of the habeus corpus process, it leaves legitamate complaints without a forum to be heard. One such case is that of James Rodwell in Massachusetts.

James Rodwell has been in prison since 1981, sentenced to life in prison for the murder of Louis Rose, Jr. No eyewitnesses placed Rodwell at the scene, no weapon was recovered, the motive offered by the prosecution was of highly questionable merit, and no fingerprints or any other forensic evidence placed Rodwell at the scene or in any other way linked him to the murder.

Rodwell was convicted on the strength of two witness's words: Frankie Holmes and David Nagle. At the time, Holmes was facing a significant amount of jail time for hijacking a truck in Rhode Island and bringing it across state lines into Massachusetts, and worse, he was already on parole. Gee--I can't see any reason why he would want to cut a deal with prosecutors, can you? His get out of jail free card was to claim that he watched Rodwell kill Rose and then steal drugs off of Rose's corpse. David Nagle was a jailhouse stoolie--a police informant--who claimed that while at the Billerica House of Corrections, he heard Rodwell brag that he killed Rose. Of course, Nagle was facing six counts of armed robbery at the time, in two counties. Gee--I can't see any reason why he would want to cut a deal with the prosecutors, can you?

The Middlesex County District Attorney's office failed to turn over the Holmes's and Nagel's probation records to the defense attorney as well as failing to turn over their complete criminal histories. In particular, Nagle was charged with 45 crimes in 10 years, most of them violent felonies, but the jury only heard about 12 of them. The prosecution also failed to tell the jury that Nagle was a police informant and the judge didn't allow the defense to bring it up.

There are other reasons why this case reeks of corruption, but you can read them for yourself at: http://www.angelfire.com/pro/rodwell/index.html More saliently is how does the AEDPA affect Rodwell's case?

Rodwell filed several appeals in the State court system, none of them successful. After he exhausted his state remedies, he sought a writ of habeas corpus from the US District Court. He was turned down because some of the evidence he presented to the US District Court had not been presented to the state court.

Rodwell went back and filed three more appeals in the State courts, all of them denied, and went back to the federal court, but at this point, the AEDPA was in effect. Remember, it bars 2nd habeas corpus petitions? His petition for permission for a 2nd habeas corpus petition was denied, and thanks to the AEDPA, he has no further remedies.

To quote from the decision of the United States Court of Appeals, First Circuit, in which Judges Selya, Stahl, and Lynch determined that Rodwell's appeal was barred by the AEDPA, "We acknowledge that, despite the petitioner's numerous attempts to expose the full extent of the relationship between Nagle and the state prosecutor, no court has exhaustively addressed that claim. Some of these lost opportunities may fairly be attributed to procedural errors on the petitioner's part. Others, however, are linked to the stringent filters that channel consideration of habeas corpus claims under the AEDPA. This regimen, though harsh, dovetails with Congress's intent. See H.R. Rep. No. 104-23 (1995), 1995 WL 56412, at *8 (explaining that the AEDPA is "designed to curb the abuse of the habeas corpus process, and particularly to address the problem of delay and repetitive litigation"). Section 2244(b)(3) establishes a rigorous gatekeeping arrangement through which second or successive habeas applications must pass, and it was the petitioner's inability to open that gate that kept the district court from probing more deeply into the circumstances surrounding Nagle's testimony. This may seem overly restrictive -- but any complaint about the inadequacy of the mechanisms available for judicial review in habeas cases ordinarily must be addressed to the Congress, not to the courts. See Felker v. Turpin, 518 U.S. 651, 664 (1996) (recognizing that "judgments about the proper scope of the [habeas] writ are normally for Congress to make"); see also United States v. Victoria-Peguero, 920 F.2d 77, 81 (1st Cir. 1990) (stating this court's resolve to refrain from "substitut[ing] judicial judgment for legislative judgment or . . . plac[ing] limitations on [statutory language] which were not envisioned by Congress")." (from http://www.angelfire.com/pro/rodwell/usca1opinion2003.html)

Even the judges at the First Circuit acknowledge that Rodwell has a claim that has never been fairly examined, but they wash their hands of it due to the limitations of the AEDPA.

Rodwell's story serves a cautionary note--first, that we should not solely look at post-September 11 civil liberties violations and forget that there are earlier civil liberties violations that are still ongoing. Second, that we cannot and must not stop legitimate claims from being heard in an attempt to cut back on fradulent or frivilous claims.

ACLUM's Civil Liberties Task Force is working across the state to defend the Bill of Rights, and raise consciousness about the various forms of legislation and other government actions that undermine our constitutional system.

Some of its members are working to pass resolutions in their towns and cities supporting civil liberties.  Others are drafting letters and articles for the press, lobbying their Members of Congress, helping monitor the INS, and gathering signatures so we can reach our target of 100,000 on a petition to roll back the USA PATRIOT Act.

Since news of its existence was leaked to the Center for Public Integrity, the Task Force is focusing on the urgent need to stop the passage of the Attorney General's 87-page Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003, known as PATRIOT Act II.   Judging from the way Attorney General Ashcroft pushed the USA PATRIOT Act through Congress without it even being read and debated, it seems likely that he is waiting for the right moment to strong arm Congress into passing this bill.



It if becomes law, this legislation would:

* severely diminish basic checks and balances on the power of the executive branch;

* allow the government to strip of their citizenship Americans who provide support for
   even the lawful activities of a group designated as "terrorist" (section 501);

* permit the wiretapping of Americans for 15 days without court order and at the sole
discretion of the Attorney General  (sections 103 & 104);

*   make it easier to carry out surveillance and wiretapping of US citizens under the
   top-secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (sections 101, 102 and 107);

*  protect federal agents engaged in illegal surveillance without a court order from
   criminal prosecution if they are following executive branch orders  (section 106);

*  terminate court-approved limits on police spying  (section 312);

*  authorize secret detentions, by barring Freedom of Information Act efforts to gain
   information about detainees  (section 201);

*  expand the death penalty to offenses that, because of the redefinition of domestic
   terrorism in the USA PATRIOT Act, could include protest activities (section 411);

*  limit defense attorneys from challenging the use of secret evidence (section 204);

*  expand the ability of government to obtain public and private sector personal
   information (section 126);

*  allow for the sampling and cataloguing of DNA information about both noncitizens
   and Americans without court order and without consent if they are suspected of certain
    crimes or of having supported any group designated as terrorist (sections 301-306);

*  provide for the summary deportation without evidence of crime or criminal intent,
    even of lawful permanent residents that the Attorney General says are a threat to
    national security (section 503).

*  further criminalize association with unpopular organizations labeled as terrorist by
    the government even if there is no intent to commit acts of terrorism (section 402);

*  permit, without any connection to anti-terrorism efforts, sensitive personal
    information about US citizens, including consumer credit and educational records,
    to be shared with local and state law enforcement (section 311);

*  share immigration files with local police, undermining trust between police
   departments and immigrant communities (section 311);

*  restrict public information about private companies that use potentially
   dangerous chemicals (section 202);

*  remove "whistleblower" protection for federal agents (section 129).

    And it goes on!  You can see the complete draft legislation on the website of the
   Center for Public Integrity - (www.public-i.org).
 
    Please call or write your elected representative and both Massachusetts senators
   and tell them  that PATRIOT Act II must be stopped in its tracks!

We also urge you to participate in the activities of the Civil Liberties Task Force:  we have to build a movement to protect our precious constitutional heritage!   You can download the petition on the repeal of the USA PATRIOT Act  from our website (www.aclu-mass.org) and help us reach our target of 100,000 signatures.    If you would be able to help pass a resolution in your town, or would like to receive the Civil Liberties Task Force's new electronic newsletter, email Bill of Rights Education Project director Nancy Murray at nancy@aclu-mass.org. The newsletter will give you regular civil liberties updates, action alerts, and news of our activities around the Commonwealth in support of civil liberties. 

Board member bio's have been removed from this blog to maintain the privacy of each individual.

Rules for Terror Tribunals May Deter Lawyer
By NEIL A. LEWIS
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/13/politics/13TRIB.html?hp

WASHINGTON, July 12 — United States officials say that when they begin military tribunals for prisoners charged with terrorism, they greatly want the trials to be seen as fair, both in the nation and throughout the world.

But as the Pentagon prepares for the first such proceedings in more than 50 years, it is encountering a potent criticism: many lawyers and bar groups say the conditions for civilian defense lawyers are so restrictive that they might not agree to participate in the process and thereby lend it legitimacy.

The issue of whether lawyers should agree to defend prisoners in proceedings at the naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, has been raised most forcefully so far by Lawrence S. Goldman, president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, which has 11,000 members — including most of the nation's prominent defense lawyers.

Mr. Goldman, a New York lawyer, wrote in the association's magazine this month that his group had considered soliciting people for a task force of experienced defense lawyers who would volunteer their services to tribunal defendants. But his group was troubled by restrictions on issues like information gathering and the privacy of lawyer-client conversations.

"In view of the extraordinary restrictions on counsel, however, with considerable regret, we cannot advise any of our members to act as civilian counsel at Guantánamo," he wrote. "The rules regulating counsel's behavior are just too restrictive to give us any confidence that counsel will be able to act zealously and professionally."

In an interview, Mr. Goldman said his concern was that lawyers could be "lending their legitimacy to what would otherwise be a sham proceeding." He said his group had not flatly advised lawyers not to participate but would take up the issue at the group's annual meeting next month.

Anyone charged before a military commission would be provided a lawyer from the military, but the complaints are about the conditions under which they could hire an additional civilian lawyer.

The restrictions that have troubled Mr. Goldman, as well as officials of the American Bar Association, include a requirement that defense lawyers acknowledge that their conversations with defendants may be monitored by the military. The Pentagon says none of the information collected that way may be used in the prosecution.

The Pentagon has been sensitive to some of the criticisms and has modified two regulations in recent days. Under the original regulations, defense lawyers would have been required to do all their trial work at Guantánamo, the remote naval base controlled by the United States, on the southeastern tip of Cuba. Lawyers would also have been restricted as to whom they could consult on their strategies. The modifications appear to address those concerns.

Whit Cobb Jr., the deputy general counsel at the Defense Department, said in an interview that the restraints were largely "driven by the ongoing war on terrorism and the need to protect intelligence."

But Mr. Cobb said defense lawyers should feel comfortable with the procedures, describing them as only slightly different than the usual civilian criminal proceeding or even a court-martial. "There are several similarities, like the availability of defense counsel, the concept of reasonable doubt and the right to remain silent that will seem familiar to many," he said.

Nonetheless, many do feel uncomfortable. Neal R. Sonnett, a Florida lawyer who is the chairman of the American Bar Association's task force on treatment of enemy combatants, said that even with the changes in the rules, "I find them extremely troubling."

Mr. Sonnett said the changes were encouraging and convinced him that the military was not purposely trying to discourage civilian lawyers from participating. He said he hoped the Pentagon would ease other restrictions, especially the one allowing monitoring of conversations.

"The participation of civilian lawyers is very important to the credibility of these tribunals around the world," Mr. Sonnett said. "If lawyers participate in the process and lend it an air of legitimacy without being able to contribute effectively, then we would fall into a trap that lawyers shouldn't fall into."

Mr. Sonnett said that his group, which has more than 410,000 members, would take up the matter next month at its annual meeting.

Other issues that have concerned lawyers include a requirement that lawyers inform military officials of anything they learn that could signal a future crime and that they would have to pay to obtain a security clearance, which could cost thousands of dollars. In addition, the defense would have to tell the prosecution a week before the trial about all of its evidence, a stark departure from a civilian trial.

Nonetheless, the National Institute of Military Justice, a Washington group, said it would be wrong for civilian lawyers to boycott the proceedings. In a statement, the group acknowledged serious questions about the procedures but added, "It would be as unfortunate for the American justice system for competent civilian defense counsel to make themselves unavailable in military commissions as it would be if civilians were formally precluded from participation."

On July 3, President Bush designated six captives from the Afghanistan war as eligible for the military tribunal process. Pentagon officials say that the six, who are believed to include two Britons and one Australian, are only the first batch that may be tried before a commission.

Officials have yet to decide if any of the six will be charged. So far, officials said, they have had informal applications to act as defense counsel from 10 civilian lawyers.

Grant Lattin, one of those, said that he thought that number was low and that he understood why. Mr. Lattin, a former lieutenant colonel in the Marine Corps, said that of the thousands of lawyers with experience in military law, plenty should want to participate in what would be a historic event.

"But there has been widespread uneasiness," Mr. Lattin said. "Some people feel strongly about the essential ethical issue here, that is whether these restrictions will make it impossible for them to mount a zealous defense." On balance, he said he believed it was important to participate. But other factors may make his taking part uncertain.

The regulations require defense lawyers to be responsible for their own transportation to and from Guantánamo. The cost for a security clearance can be as much as $2,800 for the kind of top secret classification that would entitle the lawyer to see much of the material.

Mr. Lattin said it would be difficult to devote weeks or months to such a case without compensation.

The Pentagon sought evaluations of the regulations from some prominent outsiders. One of them, Prof. Geoffrey C. Hazard Jr. of the University of Pennsylvania Law School, said in an interview that he had told military officials that many lawyers would be hesitant to serve under the restrictions and "that would cast doubt on the legitimacy of the proceedings," and suggested that they consider changes.

I don't entirely understand the logic behind the house bill to provide funding for faith-based drug treatment. The question is: how many drug addicts go to church (or any religious organization)? And even if they did attend church, how inclined would they be to listen to their religious leaders?

Anyone care to elucidate on the logic of this??


American Civil Liberties Union: ACLU Decries House Legislation that Earmarks $100 Million For Unproven Faith-Based Drug Treatment Programs

WASHINGTON - Responding to House legislation that would earmark $100 million for largely faith-based drug treatment initiatives, the American Civil Liberties Union today warned that the lack of quality standards and licensing requirements could harm participants and violate civil liberties.



FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Media@dcaclu.org

WASHINGTON - Responding to House legislation that would earmark $100 million for largely faith-based drug treatment initiatives, the American Civil Liberties Union today warned that the lack of quality standards and licensing requirements could harm participants and violate civil liberties.

"Taxpayer funds should not go to programs whose treatment regimens do not have to stack up to clinical standards and whose practitioners need not be professionally licensed," said Christopher E. Anders, an ACLU Legislative Counsel. "Of course, drug treatment and education is essential and praiseworthy. But to give any private group a blank check, signed by taxpayers, to try any approach it feels might work is wrong and a waste of money."

The religious drug treatment provision was slipped into the appropriations bill, currently pending in the House of Representatives, for the Departments of Labor and Health and Human Services. At a news conference today, John Walters, Director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, lauded such faith-based approaches and announced a new federal campaign titled "Faith - The Anti-Drug," which urges religious leaders to incorporate White House messages about drug use into their sermons and religious education.

The money in the appropriations bill would be voucherized and parcelled out to religious substance abuse rehabilitation centers, which frequently dismiss clinically accepted treatment regimens in favor of religious teaching.

Although the ACLU has a long supported drug treatment programs, it opposes public funding for overtly religious addiction counseling and therapy. The ACLU’s Anders said that the lack of quality standards or limitations on how the tax dollars are spent would result in ineffective programs that also violate the civil liberties of drug treatment patients.

Religious treatment facilities entered the public spotlight earlier this year with the President’s State of the Union address, in which he pledged $600 million over three years to expand treatment options. The set-aside announced today is part of that presidential pledge.

Recipients of the funds could include groups such as the Baton Rouge, Louisiana-based Healing Place Church, which uses only religious criteria when employing addiction counselors, and the evangelical Teen Challenge, which preaches conversion to fundamentalist Christianity as a treatment for drug addiction. In fact, the head of Teen Challenge made waves in 2001 when he told Congress that the Jews in his program that had converted to Christianity had become "completed Jews" when they embraced his brand of the faith.

Notably, officials at both the Healing Place Church and Teen Challenge were honored guests at the State of the Union address earlier this year.

1. End Affirmative Action.
2. Close the Borders now.
3. Deport all illegal immigrants now.
4. Eliminate bilingual education in all states.
5. Require health tests for all recent foreign born immigrants.
6. Make tax cuts permanent.
7. Reduce the number of Federal Employees.
8. Tort Reform - Stop Class Action Lawyers.


Courtesy, Michael Savage.

MSNBC finally got a good reason to fire Michael Savage of Savage Nation fame. The comments that merited the axe:

So you're one of those sodomists. Are you a sodomite?" Savage asked.

The caller replied: "Yes, I am."

"Oh, you're one of the sodomites," Savage said. "You should only get AIDS and die, you pig. How's that? Why don't you see if you can sue me, you pig. You got nothing better than to put me down, you piece of garbage. You have got nothing to do today, go eat a sausage and choke on it."



Mr. Savage claims that he was responding to a crank caller. He didn't win too many friends with his anti-immigrantion Paul Revere Society and now he's going after gays. Brilliant!

I have no idea why I am awake at this unearthly hour, but, here's a funny blog.

The poor soul made a desperate effort to defame the ACLU, but, fortunately, he lost hope very soon.

Well, its worth preserving the D's article on the DCLU. Here's the link.

Hopefully, ACLU types will know that Adrienne Strossen really refers to the ACLU President, Dr. Nadine Strossen.

ACLU Demands Truth From Justice Department; New Report Details False Claims About Scope, Impact of PATRIOT Act

July 9, 2003

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 
Contact:  Media@dcaclu.org                                                                   

WASHINGTON -- The American Civil Liberties Union today said that it has found a consistent pattern of factually inaccurate assertions by the Department of Justice in statements to the media and Congress, statements that mischaracterize the scope, potential impact and likely harm of the now-notorious USA PATRIOT Act.

The ACLU’s findings were released this morning in a special report that contrasts the Justice Department’s assertions about the USA PATRIOT Act with the language of the Act itself, and in some cases contrasts the Justice Department’s public statements with language from internal Justice Department memoranda that the ACLU was able to obtain through a Freedom of Information Act request.  The report – “Seeking Truth From Justice” – cites about a dozen specific instances in which Justice Department and other law enforcement officials misrepresented the scope or impact of the USA PATRIOT Act. 

“If the Justice Department wishes to convince the American people and their elected representatives that it carries the Constitution with it at all times during its prosecution of the war on terror, it must be conscientious with the truth,” said Laura W. Murphy, Director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office.

“That the department and its allies would repeatedly misrepresent the scope and nature of new surveillance powers is troubling, to say the least,” said Ann Beeson, ACLU Associate Legal Director.

Specific instances of what the ACLU termed the Attorney General’s legal version of "voodoo economics" include: 
The Justice Department’s repeated assertion that the USA PATRIOT Act’s surveillance provisions cannot be used against U.S. citizens.  In fact, the surveillance provisions are applicable to citizens and non-citizens alike.  Some of the surveillance provisions can be used even against citizens who are not suspected of espionage, terrorism, or crime of any kind.
The Justice Department’s repeated assertion that Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which permits the government to demand that any organization – including a library, bookstore, or hospital – turn its records over to the FBI, cannot be invoked unless the government can show “probable cause.”  In fact, the law contains no such restriction.  Section 215 requires only that the government declare that the records are “sought for” an ongoing investigation.  The “sought for” standard is an extremely lenient one, and it bears no resemblance to “probable cause.”  That the standard is so low is especially troubling in light of the Attorney General’s recent acknowledgement (at a June 2003 Congressional hearing) that the FBI could use Section 215 to obtain not only library and bookstore records but also computer files, educational records, and even genetic information. 

Sounds unconstitutional to me--according to the Valley News article on these stops (http://www.vnews.com/07092003/1192460.htm) they appear to be randomly stopping people looking for immigrations violations. :<( Here is an e-mail on the topic from the International Office that was forwarded to me.

--- Forwarded Message ---
Date: 09 Jul 2003 12:40:51 EDT
From: international.office@dartmouth.edu (International Office)
Subject: URGENT: U.S. Border Patrol checks
To: (Recipient list suppressed)
---

*************************************************************
The U.S. Border Patrol is in the local Hanover/Lebanon/West Lebanon area stopping cars at random to check immigration documentation.
According to U.S. law, all foreign nationals are required to have in their possession, at all times, their passport and I-94 card, or green card if you
are a legal U.S. permanent resident. It is wise as well to have your current SEVIS I-20 form (if an F-1 or F-2), current DS-2019 form (if J-1 or J-2),
or current I-797 approval notice (H-1B or H-4 or O-1 / O-3 status).

If you are stopped and you do not have the correct documentation, you will be held until the officers can verify your status. Please tell them you
are with Dartmouth College, and ask them to verify your status with the International Office (603 646-3474).

Please don't hesitate to contact our office if you have any questions.


****************************************************************
For more information on visas, immigration updates or the services the International Office provides, please visit our website at
www.dartmouth.edu/~intl
The International Office is open from 10am to 4:30pm on Monday and 8:00am to 4:30pm Tuesday through Friday
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
International Office
6202 Collis Center, Room 205A
Dartmouth College
603 646-3474
fax: (603) 646-1616
international.office@dartmouth.edu
www.dartmouth.edu/~intl

--- End of forwarded message ---

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