ACLU ONLINE NEWSLETTER 10SEP10

UPDATES and actions on privacy for international travelers and the 1st & 4th amendments, abortion, torture, the death penalty, extraordinary rendition, targeted killings of American citizens, National Security Letters, immigration and the American Justice system. I am proud to be a member of the ACLU, click the header to go to their website to join support their work.

Laptop Searches and Seizures at the Border Challenged We Won! Appeals Court Finds Anti-Immigrant Law Unconstitutional Extraordinary Rendition Victims Denied Their Day in Court It's Time for a Top-to-Bottom Review of the Criminal Justice System Targeted Killings Violate the Constitution and International Law ACLU Attorney Named One of Best LGBT Lawyers Under 40 Exhibit Commemorates 90 Years of Protecting Liberty A Step Towards Justice in Ohio National Security Letters: A "Civil Liberties Minute" Podcast Nebraska Attorney General Agrees To Settlement In Intrusive Abortion Law ACLU Attorney Named One of Best LGBT Lawyers Under 40 Christine Sun, senior counsel for the ACLU LGBT & AIDS Project since 2005, was recently named one of the Best LGBT Lawyers under 40 by the National LGBT Bar Association. Sun has many gay rights accomplishments under her belt in her career. She was lead attorney in a Southern California case that led to the federal court ruling that a high school student cannot be "outed" to her parents without her consent. Most recently, Christine represented Constance McMillen in her successful litigation against the rural Mississippi school district that refused to let her bring her girlfriend to the prom and then cancelled the prom when told they had to. back to top Exhibit Commemorates 90 Years of Protecting Liberty Join the ACLU in celebrating our 90th anniversary. A traveling exhibit will be on public view throughout the country highlighting ACLU accomplishments and the tremendous impact the ACLU has had on the lives of individuals and on society as a whole. Dates and times of the traveling exhibit can be found here. back to top A Step Towards Justice in Ohio Last month, we told you about the case of Kevin Keith, a 46-year-old man on death row in Ohio. Keith was scheduled to be put to death on September 15, despite overwhelming evidence that he is an innocent man. Many groups, leading eyewitnesses and memory experts were petitioning the Ohio Parole Board and Ohio Governor Ted Strickland to grant clemency to Keith. The Parole Board rejected his claim and recommended that the governor deny his clemency request. The 6th Circuit Court of Appeals denied one of Keith's final appeals. As his September 15 execution date was fast approaching, activists around the country continued to press for commutation, asking Gov. Strickland to grant clemency to Keith. The response was overwhelming, and on September 2, our work paid off—Gov. Strickland commuted Kevin Keith's sentence. Thank you to all of you who signed the petition and sent letters asking Gov. Strickland to commute Kevin Keith's death sentence. The struggle for Kevin Keith's innocence continues, but now, he will have the time he needs to continue his fight for exoneration. >> Please take a few minutes to thank Gov. Strickland for doing the right thing by commuting Kevin Keith's death sentence. back to top National Security Letters: A "Civil Liberties Minute" Podcast Can it be a crime to tell your fiancé or family what the FBI has done to you? >> Listen to the podcast. Nebraska Attorney General Agrees To Settlement In Intrusive Abortion Law Late last month, the Nebraska Attorney General announced that he has agreed to a settlement with Planned Parenthood of the Heartland acknowledging that the recently enacted Women's Health Protection Act is unconstitutional and will be permanently enjoined. The ACLU was co-counsel in the case, which acknowledges that the Women's Health Protection Act is unconstitutional based on the merits presented in Planned Parenthood of the Heartland v. Heineman. The Act, which passed the Nebraska legislature in April 2010, would have required physicians who may perform an abortion to discuss the entire body of research literature about possible health risks related to abortion with their patients who are seeking abortions, even though much of this information may be outdated, false or misleading. For instance, it would have required a physician to discuss flawed studies that purport to find a link between abortion and breast cancer, even though the leading medical organizations—such as the National Cancer Institute, the American Cancer Society and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists—have all flatly rejected any association between abortion and breast cancer. District Judge Laurie Smith Camp stated that complying with the law's requirements "would be impossible or nearly impossible," and would place "physicians who perform abortions in immediate jeopardy of crippling civil litigation, thereby placing women in immediate jeopardy of losing access to physicians who are willing to perform abortions." "We are very pleased with this outcome. This statute was about political interference in a woman's private health care decisions," said Alexa Kolbi-Molinas, staff attorney at the ACLU and co-counsel in the case. "The government should stay out of these difficult, private decisions and let physicians decide what information is best for a patient's individual situation." 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. September 10, 2010 Laptop Searches and Seizures at the Border Challenged ACLU client Pascal Abidor was traveling from Montreal to New York on Amtrak when his laptop was searched and confiscated at the Canadian border. >> Watch the video! >> Take action: Tell Congress to rein in suspicionless laptop searches at the border. Earlier this week, the ACLU and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) filed a lawsuit challenging the government's claimed authority to search, detain, and copy electronic devices—including laptops, cell phones, cameras, etc.—at the country's international borders without any suspicion of wrongdoing. We carry a lot of private information on these devices—pictures, personal emails, work-related documents, and much more. Normally, the Fourth Amendment requires the government to obtain a warrant before sifting through this information, and the First Amendment protects this information from unwarranted government scrutiny. The Fourth and First Amendments should also bar the government from rummaging through all that information and detaining the devices indefinitely without any suspicion, just because a person is crossing the border. The plaintiffs in this case are Pascal Abidor, a 26 year-old U.S.-French dual citizen and a Ph.D. student at McGill University in Montreal who was taken off an Amtrak train in upstate New York and whose laptop was detained and searched for 11 days; NACDL, an organization of approximately 10,000 attorneys with members who often travel overseas for work with documents protected by the attorney-client privilege; and the National Press Photographers' Association (NPPA), an organization of about 7,000 photojournalists. Like NACDL, NPPA has members who travel frequently for their jobs with sensitive material—in their case, raw footage and imagery that are essential for newsgathering. In 2007, one of NPPA's members, Duane Kerzic, was stopped at the U.S.-Canada border where a border agent perused the contents of his laptop for about 15 minutes without any reason at all. The government has claimed the authority to undertake these suspicionless searches and seizures of electronic devices under a policy issued in August 2009 by the Department of Homeland Security. Documents obtained by the ACLU in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit for records related to the DHS policy reveal that more than 6,600 travelers—nearly half of whom are American citizens—were subjected to electronic device searches at the border between October 1, 2008 and June 2, 2010. Border agents should have some suspicion that the search will turn up evidence of wrongdoing before looking through all the private information that people have stored in their devices. >> Take action: Tell Congress to Rein in Suspicionless Laptop Searches at the Border. back to top We Won! Appeals Court Finds Anti-Immigrant Law Unconstitutional In August 2006, the city of Hazleton, PA passed a law that would punish landlords and employers accused of renting to or hiring anyone the city deems an "illegal alien." The ACLU challenged that law in district court—and won—in 2007, and the city of Hazleton appealed that ruling to the 3rd Circuit of Appeals. And earlier this week, the 3rd Circuit found the city of Hazleton's anti-immigrant laws unconstitutional. Hazleton's law spawned several copycat measures in other places, including Arizona, attracting very close interest from supporters of such discriminatory laws, as well as from their opponents. In the unanimous opinion, the court stated that it was "required to intervene when states and localities directly undermine the federal objectives embodied in statutes enacted by Congress." The Hazleton law, the court said, "attempted to usurp authority that the Constitution has placed beyond the vicissitudes of local governments" and "could not possibly be in greater conflict with Congress's intent" as reflected in federal law. "Divisive laws like these destroy communities and distract from the very real problems that local governments are facing across the country," said Vic Walczak, Legal Director of the ACLU of Pennsylvania and a lead attorney in the case. "Immigration reform needs to come from the federal level. Local ordinances like these have a toxic effect on the community, injecting suspicion and discriminatory attitudes where they didn't previously exist." This decision comes on the heels of a recent legal victory against S.B. 1070, the racial profiling law passed in Arizona this summer, and several cities' decisions to suspend or abandon housing laws modeled after Hazleton's. back to top Extraordinary Rendition Victims Denied Their Day in Court Earlier this week, a federal appeals court dismissed a case against Boeing subsidiary Jeppesen DataPlan, Inc. for its role in the Bush administration's extraordinary rendition program. The ACLU filed the lawsuit in May 2007 on behalf of five men who were kidnapped by the CIA, forcibly disappeared to U.S.-run prisons overseas and tortured. The Bush administration intervened in the case, improperly asserting the "state secrets" privilege in an attempt to have the lawsuit thrown out. This week's ruling all but shuts the door on accountability for the illegal program, but we intend to seek Supreme Court review of the decision. "This is a sad day not only for the torture victims whose attempt to seek justice has been extinguished, but for all Americans who care about the rule of law and our nation's reputation in the world," said Ben Wizner, staff attorney with the ACLU, who argued the case. "To date, not a single victim of the Bush administration's torture program has had his day in court. If today's decision is allowed to stand, the United States will have closed its courtroom doors to torture victims while providing complete immunity to their torturers." >> Learn more about the ACLU's work on accountability for torture. back to top It's Time for a Top-to-Bottom Review of the Criminal Justice System The United States' criminal justice system is broken and dysfunctional. The U.S. incarcerates roughly 2.3 million of its people—a higher percentage of its population than any other country in the world today—at staggeringly high costs. That's why it is so important that you urge your senators to support the National Criminal Justice Act, which is currently pending in Congress. This legislation would create a blue ribbon commission to provide a comprehensive, top-to-bottom review of the criminal justice system. The National Criminal Justice Commission Act would be the first since 1967 to provide such a review, as well as propose recommendations for reform. The need for such a top-to-bottom review could not be clearer. >> Take action: Urge your senators to support the National Criminal Justice Commission Act and begin the process of addressing America's incarceration crisis. back to top Targeted Killings Violate the Constitution and International Law The ACLU and the Center for Constitutional Rights filed a lawsuit challenging the government's asserted authority to carry out "targeted killings" of U.S. citizens located far from any armed conflict zone. >> Watch the video to learn more. The ACLU and the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) have filed a lawsuit challenging the government's asserted authority to carry out "targeted killings" of U.S. citizens located far from any armed conflict zone. The authority contemplated by the Obama administration is far broader than what the Constitution and international law allow, the groups charge. Outside of armed conflict, both the Constitution and international law prohibit targeted killing except as a last resort to protect against concrete, specific and imminent threats of death or serious physical injury. An extrajudicial killing policy under which names are added to CIA and military "kill lists" through a secret executive process and stay there for months at a time is plainly not limited to imminent threats. The groups charge that targeting individuals for execution who are suspected of terrorism but have not been convicted or even charged—without oversight, judicial process or disclosed standards for placement on kill lists—also poses the risk that the government will erroneously target the wrong people. In recent years, the U.S. government has detained many men as terrorists, only for courts or the government itself to discover later that the evidence was wrong or unreliable. "A program that authorizes killing U.S. citizens, without judicial oversight, due process or disclosed standards is unconstitutional, unlawful and un-American," said Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director of the ACLU. "We don't sentence people to prison on the basis of secret criteria, and we certainly shouldn't sentence them to death that way. It is not enough for the executive branch to say 'trust us'—we have seen that backfire in the past and we should learn from those mistakes." The complaint asks a court to rule that using lethal force far from any battlefield and without judicial process is illegal in all but the narrowest circumstances and to prohibit the government from carrying out targeted killings except in compliance with these standards. It also asks the court to order the government to disclose the standards it uses to place U.S. citizens on government kill lists. >> Act Now: Urge President Obama to reject the policy of targeted killings outside of zones of actual armed conflict. >> Read more on the case. 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 Privacy Statement This mail is never sent unsolicited. You, or someone on your behalf, has subscribed to receive this information from the American Civil Liberties Union. 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