ACLU ONLINE NEWSLETTER 6AUG10

THERE is an important letter campaign included in this newsletter opposing the expansion on the FBI's National Security Letters, I hope you will send the letters to your members of Congress, click the link to participate and share with others.

Historic Victory in Prop 8 Case is a Call to Action FBI's Latest Power Grab Is a Bold and Unnecessary Move Arizona Win: Amplify the Impact Victory! With the Stroke of a Pen, a Fairer Criminal Justice System Obama Administration in Danger of Establishing "New Normal" With Worst Bush-Era Policies Learning from WikiLeaks: A "Civil Liberties Minute" Podcast City Council In Fremont, Nebraska Suspends Discriminatory Law Pending Resolution of ACLU Lawsuit New York City Mayor Bloomberg Stands Up for Religious Freedom Learning from WikiLeaks: A "Civil Liberties Minute" Podcast What's the lesson we should learn about WikiLeaks disclosing 91,000 pages of classified information about the Afghanistan War? Listen to the podcast to find out. back to top City Council In Fremont, Nebraska Suspends Discriminatory Law Pending Resolution of ACLU Lawsuit Last week, the City Council in Fremont, Nebraska voted to suspend a city law that seeks to banish persons alleged to be undocumented immigrants from rental homes in the 25,000-person town while the ordinance is being litigated. The ordinance also mandates that businesses performing work in Fremont enroll in an error-ridden federal program for verifying work status. The ACLU filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of landlords, tenants and employers in Fremont challenging the law. Like the recently passed law in Arizona, the Fremont law invites racial profiling against Latinos and others who appear "foreign." The Fremont ordinance requires prospective renters to provide the Fremont Police Department with information about their citizenship or immigration status prior to renting any home. Employers are required to check the status of would-be hires using E-Verify, a flawed federal electronic verification program that Congress has repeatedly declined to make mandatory. The ACLU's lawsuit charges that Fremont's law is at odds with the clear constitutional mandate imposing a uniform federal immigration enforcement system and has a discriminatory effect on those who look or sound "foreign." U.S. citizens who have family members who cannot prove their immigration status are worried about the impact the law will have on their ability to live together as a family, and employers are concerned that the error-ridden employment verification program will force them to turn away lawfully authorized workers. The ACLU has successfully challenged local anti-immigrant laws across the country, including in Escondido, California, Hazleton, Pennsylvania and Farmers Branch, Texas. back to top New York City Mayor Bloomberg Stands Up for Religious Freedom New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg should get a standing ovation for his teary-eyed speech this week in defense of pluralism and religious freedom with regard to the proposal to build an Islamic cultural center two blocks from Ground Zero. "We may not always agree with every one of our neighbors. That's life, and it's part of living in such a diverse and dense city. But we also recognize that part of being a New Yorker is living with your neighbors in mutual respect and tolerance. It was exactly that spirit of openness and acceptance that was attacked on 9/11," Mayor Bloomberg said. The mayor was correct to assert that this controversy represents a crucial test for our precious religious liberty. While we don't always agree with the mayor, his principled stance on this issue is heartening, especially given the intense public pressure he's been getting from the opposition. Kudos to Mayor Bloomberg and to all of the community leaders who have joined him in standing strong and refusing to shelve our nation's values and the rule of law. >> Read the full transcript of Mayor Bloomberg's speech. back to top Do you know somebody who would be interested in getting news about the ACLU and what we're doing to protect civil liberties? Help us spread the word about ACLU Online — forward this newsletter to a friend.

August 6, 2010 Historic Victory in Prop 8 Case is a Call to Action Commit to working until same-sex couples are allowed to marry all across America. This week's landmark decision in the Prop 8 case is a huge victory for LGBT Americans. In Perry v. Schwarzenegger, Judge Vaughn R. Walker of the U.S. District Court in San Francisco ruled that Proposition 8, the California ballot initiative that excluded same-sex couples from marriage in the state, is unconstitutional. The ruling holds for the first time that the due process clause of the United States Constitution guarantees same-sex couples the freedom to marry and that denying same-sex couples this freedom also violates the equal protection clause. We don't yet know what the impact of this historic ruling will be, as it will first go up on appeal to the 9th Circuit—and is likely to eventually end up before the U.S. Supreme Court. But what we do know is that our work on relationship recognition is by no means done. In fact, in order to give this case the best possible chance of success as it moves through the appeals process, we need to show that America is ready for same-sex couples to marry by continuing to seek marriage and other relationship protections in states across the country. The ACLU is working with same-sex couples throughout the country to secure the freedom to marry by working to pass marriage bills in New York, Rhode Island, Maryland, and Maine—and by seeking domestic partnership recognition in Montana, Hawaii, Illinois, New Mexico and Alaska. >> Sign the ACLU pledge. Commit to working until same-sex couples are allowed to marry all across America. >> Read more. The court's ruling can be found here. back to top FBI's Latest Power Grab Is a Bold and Unnecessary Move What do the ACLU, the former director of the NSA and a tech industry lawyer all have in common? They believe that the government's recent request to let the FBI get Americans' internet use records in national security investigations without going to court—and without any suspicion of wrongdoing—is a huge expansion of authority that would open floodgates of sensitive information to the FBI. National security letters (NSLs) are rather informal requests for records the FBI can use to obtain people's communication, financial and credit information. These requests are not approved by a court, and the FBI does not have to suspect you of actually being a terrorist, spy or criminal; the only thing they have to do to get your records is certify to themselves—not a court—that you are "relevant" to an investigation. To make matters worse, the FBI has the power to prohibit any internet service provider, bank or credit company from which it demands sensitive customer records from ever disclosing anything about the record demand. In the mid-2000s, the FBI issued upwards of 50,000 national security letters, often to get information about U.S. citizens -- and sometimes to get information on people two or three times removed from an actual suspect. The FBI is asking that the statute that allows it to issue NSLs for phone records and a limited set of email records be expanded to allow it to demand a wide range of internet activity records, as well. The FBI isn't defining what kinds of internet records it wants. This proposal could allow them to get things like all of the websites you visit, your web search history, location information or social network activity. Internet records are especially sensitive and need to be protected from FBI snooping by a court order and suspicion requirements. Looking at a list of websites a person visits can tell you a lot more about his or her life than a list of phone numbers. It can tell you a huge amount of information that could include a person's illness, mental health issues, financial situation, political affiliations and religious beliefs. The administration is asking Congress to give the FBI more of your private information without even going to a judge. >> Take action! Ask Congress to reject this power grab and side with the Constitution—just as their oath of office demands. back to top Arizona Win: Amplify the Impact Sign the ACLU's petition to your governor and all other governors. You likely have already heard that a federal judge in Phoenix blocked the most egregious provisions of Arizona's racial profiling, "show me your papers" law from taking effect. Many people have been working hard to stop this law from ever being enacted. And we still have a long way to go, but this ruling is an important and critical first step. The ruling came after the judge heard arguments from the U.S. Department of Justice, the ACLU and our allies that irreparable harm would occur if Arizona's law were allowed to go into effect. The judge agreed and recognized that the law would lead to the "intrusion of police presence into the lives of legally-present aliens (and even United States citizens), who will necessarily be swept up by [its requirements]." The reactionary forces that have been pushing this law will stop at nothing to see it enacted. And they'll keep trying to spread their misguided tactics in statehouses across the nation. But there are millions of people like you who care about justice, freedom and upholding the Constitution. That's why your voice is so critical. So, on the heels of this big victory, help make sure the poisonous policy of racial profiling doesn't spread to other states. Let's make it clear that the unconstitutional "show me your papers" law does not belong in Arizona, or anywhere else people try to promote racial profiling. >> Take action! Sign the ACLU's petition to your governor and all other governors. back to top Victory! With the Stroke of a Pen, a Fairer Criminal Justice System Earlier this week, President Obama signed the Fair Sentencing Act into law. This legislation will vastly reduce the infamous and discriminatory 100-to-1 sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine. And for the first time since the Nixon administration, a mandatory minimum sentence has been eliminated—in this case for simple possession of crack cocaine. The disparity contributed disproportionately to severe sentences of African-Americans. This new law will help to restore some semblance of fairness, indeed justice, to what had been one of the most dysfunctional and needlessly cruel aspects of the federal criminal justice system. Up until this point, a person charged with possessing a mere five grams of crack—roughly the weight of two pennies—could receive a five-year mandatory sentence. With such laws on the books, it is little wonder why the U.S. has the world's highest rate of incarceration. While this new federal law goes a long way to correct the injustice of this sentencing disparity, crack cocaine will still be punished more harshly than the powder form of the drug. The ACLU is committed to working to see the eventual total elimination of this unjust disparity. back to top Obama Administration in Danger of Establishing "New Normal" With Worst Bush-Era Policies The Obama administration has repudiated some of the Bush administration's most egregious national security policies but is in danger of institutionalizing others permanently into law, thereby creating a troubling "new normal," according to a report released by the ACLU last week. "Establishing a New Normal: National Security, Civil Liberties, and Human Rights Under the Obama Administration," an 18-month review of the Obama administration's record on national security issues affecting civil liberties, concludes that the current administration's record on issues of national security and civil liberties is decidedly mixed. President Obama has made great strides in some areas, such as his auspicious first steps to categorically prohibit torture, outlaw the CIA's use of secret overseas detention sites and release the Bush administration's torture memos. However, he has failed to eliminate some of the worst policies put in place by President Bush, such as military commissions and indefinite detention. He has also expanded the Bush administration's "targeted killing" program. "In its first days, the Obama administration took some important steps to restore civil liberties and the rule of law," said Jameel Jaffer, Deputy Legal Director of the ACLU. "It has not, however, abandoned the 'global war' framework that was the basis for many of the last administration's counterterrorism programs. Indeed, some of the Obama administration's policies like the policies on indefinite detention, military commissions and targeted killings are entrenching this framework, presenting a profound threat to human rights and the rule of law. We urge the Obama administration to recommit itself to the ideals it articulated in its very first days. President Obama should not make 'global war' the new normal." The 22-page report, which was researched and written by staff in the ACLU's National Security Project and Washington Legislative Office, reviews the administration's record in the areas of transparency, torture and accountability, detention, targeted killing, military commissions, speech and surveillance, and watchlists. >> Read the full "Establishing a New Normal" report. back to top Join us on...

American Civil Liberties Union 125 Broad Street, 18th Floor New York, New York 10004-2400 Geraldine Engel and Lisa Sock, Editors

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