ACLU ONLINE E MAIL NEWSLETTER 23APR10

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A Big Win and A Big Step Forward

Google's New Transparency Tool: A Window into Government Surveillance

Texas Rewrites History, Jeopardizing the Educational Future of Children Nationwide

Attorney General Stands Behind Use of Criminal Courts for 9/11 Terrorism Suspects

Is Facebook Having Another Privacy Disconnect?

ACLU In Court Last Week to Challenge Warrantless Surveillance Law


Is Facebook Having Another Privacy Disconnect?

The first sentence on Facebook's privacy guide page states: "You should have control over what you share." But many of Facebook's recent actions, such as its much-criticized "privacy transition," have made it harder for users to retain control over their information.

Earlier this week, following up on its recent policy changes, Facebook announced its plans to create more dynamic profiles using "Connections." What exactly counts as a connection wasn't clearly defined but seems to include things like friends lists, likes and interests, events, groups, and activities.

More importantly, it's also unclear whether users will have real control over how their connections are shared. Both Facebook's Monday announcement and its recent policy changes have suggested that users cannot prevent applications (also know as "apps"), pages, and other third parties from accessing these connections. They may be able to "hide" them from other Facebook users but not from the government, advertisers, or anyone else with the ability and incentive to create apps or pages. However, new documents for app developers point to the Extended Permissions page which requires apps and pages to explicitly ask for user permission before accessing various "connections"—including interests, events, groups, and location.

If Facebook believes that you "should have control over what you share," it should resolve this by giving users real control over whether their connections can be accessed by apps and pages. Doing so still won't resolve other issues, like the "app gap" that allows your friends' applications to view your personal information without your knowledge or consent, but it would be a step in the right direction.

Otherwise, the only way you can keep control of your information is to refuse to use Facebook to share or connect at all.

ACLU In Court Last Week to Challenge Warrantless Surveillance Law

Last week, the ACLU argued in a New York federal appeals court that its lawsuit challenging an unconstitutional government spying law should be reinstated. The ACLU filed the landmark lawsuit in July 2008 to stop the government from conducting surveillance under the FISA Amendments Act (FAA), which gives the executive branch virtually unlimited power to monitor Americans' international e-mails and telephone calls.

"This law allows the government to engage in dragnet surveillance of Americans' international telephone calls and e-mails," said Jameel Jaffer, Director of the ACLU National Security Project. "It intrudes on constitutionally-protected privacy and free speech rights and sweeps far more broadly than is necessary to serve any legitimate government interest. In this context, the courts have not just the authority but the obligation to intervene. The lower court decision, which relegated Americans' privacy rights to the mercy of the political branches, should be reversed."

U.S. District Court Judge John G. Koeltl of the Southern District of New York dismissed the case in August on "standing grounds," ruling that the plaintiffs—who include journalists, defense lawyers and human rights workers who rely on confidential communications to perform their jobs—did not have the right to challenge the new surveillance law because they could not prove with certainty that their own communications had been monitored. The ACLU is asking a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit to overturn Judge Koeltl's ruling.

In November, the ACLU filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for records related to the implementation of the new law, including reports indicating how the FAA is being interpreted and used, how many Americans are affected by this sweeping spying regime and what safeguards are in place to prevent abuse of Americans' privacy rights. The government has not yet released any of the records requested.

Learn more about the ACLU's lawsuit challenging the FAA.

A Big Win and A Big Step Forward
by James Esseks

From a courtroom in Arkansas to the President's desk in the Oval Office, we've seen critical steps forward in the struggle for LGBT rights.

In 2008, an Arkansas state law went into effect banning gay and other unmarried couples from being adoptive or foster parents. The ACLU immediately went to court to challenge this outrageous law. And now, a state court, in response to the ACLU's lawsuit, has declared the law unconstitutional.

We were set to start a trial in early May, but the court agreed with the arguments we made in a pre-trial motion that the ban is so clearly unconstitutional that no trial was needed. Taking down this law means that many Arkansas children will have a better chance of finding the permanent home they've been seeking. And it advances LGBT rights law, as well—a great combination.

The reasoning in this decision will help us fight a range of restrictions against gay and lesbian people all across America—from parenting bans in other states, to the federal government's Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy, to state bans on marriage for same-sex couples. And it shows that, with persistence and hard work, we can successfully push back against those who want to impose their narrow-minded beliefs and values on the rest of us.

Another big step forward happened recently—on an issue that the ACLU and others have been working on for decades. President Obama directed that hospitals receiving Medicare or Medicaid money—which means virtually all hospitals—must allow patients' same-sex partners to visit in the same way that spouses and other immediate family members can.

The President expressed a determination to end the practice of members of the LGBT community being "barred from the bedsides of the partners with whom they may have spent decades of their lives—unable to be there for the person they love, and unable to act as a legal surrogate if their partner is incapacitated."

Victories like these are hard-earned. But, the profound difference they make in people's lives makes all that effort worthwhile.

Google's New Transparency Tool: A Window into Government Surveillance

Google's just-released Government Requests tool tracks requests for user information and content removal.
We've known for a long time that electronic privacy law is woefully outdated. But what we haven't known is how often the government is taking advantage of this fact to engage in a shopping spree in the treasure trove of personal information being collected by companies like Google.

So, we're happy to see Google's just-released Government Requests tool, which is the company's attempt to shine some light on how often governments around the world request user information and content removal from Google.

Google's new tool displays the number of "user requests" that Google received from various governments from July to December 2009. According to the tool, the company received thousands of such requests from the U.S. government during that period —requests digging into the intimate details of individual lives that are captured in emails, search histories, reading and viewing logs, and the like.

There are a few shortcomings with Google's new tool. First, it tracks requests that are received as part of an official criminal investigation—which would exclude, for example, the infamous Department of Justice subpoena asking for millions of users' search queries, something that was not part of an official criminal investigation. Second, Google's tool only counts the number of requests it receives, not the number of user records that were requested—and a single request may seek to collect countless individual records. Finally, Google is barred by law from disclosing the number of requests it receives pursuant to National Security Letters, although we know that upwards of 50,000 of these secret government requests are issued every year. All told, the requests that show up in Google's tool are just the tip of the iceberg.

The ACLU has been calling on Google and other corporations to disclose this kind of information for years. We hope this step will provide momentum for reforming the out-of-date Electronic Communications Privacy Act. Further, we hope that Google will continue to improve this tool to shine more light on how many non-criminal requests for user records it receives, break those down by type, provide more information on how many users were or would have been affected by those requests, and explore ways to disclose how it has responded to those requests—which is admittedly difficult to do.

Texas Rewrites History, Jeopardizing the Educational Future of Children Nationwide

Send your public comment opposing the extremist takeover of textbooks that will be studied by millions of students.
The Texas State Board of Education recently released amendments to the state's social studies curriculum which essentially rewrite history to comport with the personal, ideological and religious beliefs of some members of the board.

If the proposed changes are implemented, it could affect the education of students from kindergarten to 12th grade across the country for the next 10 years. Because Texas is one of the largest purchasers of textbooks nationwide, the changes the board makes to its standards often end up in textbooks purchased by other school districts around the country.

Among the more troubling recommendations are changes that minimize the importance of constitutional protections requiring the separation of church and state and that paint the country as rooted entirely in sectarian ideology—a claim that educators and historians dispute. For instance, the board eliminated a standard that would require students to "examine the reasons the Founding Fathers protected religious freedom in America by barring government from promoting or disfavoring any particular religion over all others."

The proposed amendments also distort the rights of minorities and women and minimize their roles as historical figures. For example, Archbishop Oscar Romero, an important leader in the Hispanic community, was removed from the curriculum. Meanwhile, under the proposed amendments, Confederate leaders are painted in a positive light. This pro-Confederacy bias may explain why civil rights movements—specifically those of African-Americans, Latinos and women—are given short shrift under the revised curriculum. This portrays such key advances as the result of government action and suggests that equality on paper equals equality in reality.

These changes will affect the education of a generation. If an entire generation of children grows up thinking that it's permissible for our government to favor one view of religion over others, what will the next generation believe? If these same children fail to understand the importance of the struggle for civil rights, how can we be sure that they will remain committed to correcting such abuses in the future?

Public schools should be used to educate—not indoctrinate—students on political and religious belief systems, and decisions about curriculum should be decided by educators, not politicians.

>> Take action! The public has 30 days to comment on the proposed amendments to the curriculum released last week. Send a letter to the Texas Board of Education and help stop the extremist takeover of textbooks.

Attorney General Stands Behind Use of Criminal Courts for 9/11 Terrorism Suspects

While testifying last week before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Attorney General Eric Holder defended the merits of his November decision to try the 9/11 suspects in federal criminal court, but acknowledged that the administration may still consider using the fatally-flawed military commissions instead. Holder said a final decision on which court system would be used for the trials was "weeks away."

The ACLU strongly believes that the appropriate place to try these and all terrorism cases is in federal criminal court and that the military commissions are unable to deliver effective and certain justice—and should be shut down for good. Since 9/11, the military commissions have completed only three terrorism-related cases, with two of the three convicted defendants already having been released. Federal courts, on the other hand, have successfully completed over 400 terrorism-related cases. During his testimony, the attorney general also stated that the administration will continue to indefinitely hold 48 Guantánamo detainees that it believes are "too dangerous to transfer but not feasible to prosecute."

The ACLU rejects the notion that there is a significant class of prisoners who simultaneously cannot be prosecuted nor safely released and insists that detaining terrorism suspects without charge or trial is illegal and un-American.

>> Take action! Urge President Obama to Try the 9/11 Suspects in Federal Court.