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For decades, local, state and federal public officials from both political parties and powerful interest groups engineered the system of mass incarceration. They did this in part by constructing a narrative of fear fueled by racism through which they passed laws, spent billions of dollars, and separated millions of families. It was a disaster of epic proportions that unfolded in slow motion and for which we are still paying the price today as a nation.
T
By aclutn
Dec 09, 2016
After Two Unconstitutional Anti-Abortion Bills Pass, We Have to Ask: What’s the Matter With Ohio’s Lame Duck Legislature?
This piece was originally posted by the ACLU of Ohio.
It’s lame duck season in the state of Ohio and this year seems like the “super special” version. During the lame duck
By aclutn
Dec 09, 2016
Obama Can Stop the Trump Administration From Targeting and Discriminating Against Muslim and Arab Immigrants
This Monday, December 12, the ACLU will be joining Color of Change, 18 Million Rising, MomsRising.org, MoveOn, DRUM — Desis Rising Up and Moving, and others to deliver over 280,000 petition signatures calling on President Obama to repeal the special registration system targeting Muslim and Arab immigrants before Donald Trump takes office.
By aclutn
Dec 09, 2016
In Federal Appeals Court for Wikimedia v. NSA: Here's How It Went
Originally posted on Wikimedia’s blog.
Yesterday, the next hearing in
By aclutn
Dec 08, 2016
Trying to Keep the Internet Safe From Warrantless NSA Surveillance
Originally posted at The Daily Beast.
Next month, President-elect Trump will be
By aclutn
Dec 06, 2016
In Alabama, Susan Watson Took on the Powerful in Defense of Our Liberties and Won. We Celebrate a Life Well Lived.
In opposing the raft of bills seeking to make it more difficult to obtain an abortion, Susan Watson often commented, “Next it will be a crime to be a woman in Alabama.” And then she got to work overseeing the equivalent of seven federal court challenges to such restrictions in her first three years as the executive director of the ACLU of Alabama. After a brief illness, Susan died unexpectedly last week, and Alabama lost a champion for civil liberties.
I knew Susan from my earliest days at the ACLU starting in 2000 through the present: as a plaintiff i
By aclutn
Dec 06, 2016
The NYCLU Will Continue to Watch the NYPD, so Its Lawyers Don’t Institutionalize a Protester Prosecution Program
People who take to the streets to protest should not be subject to a different form of justice than everyone else. But lawyers for the NYPD are doing exactly that when they selectively step in and act as prosecutors in cases that involve demonstrators, reportedly to keep those protesters from suing the department for false arrest.
The eyebrow-raising agreement between the Manhattan district attorney’s office and the NYPD, in which the district
By aclutn
Dec 05, 2016
Why I Joined My Fellow Vets at Standing Rock This Weekend
When I joined the Marines 40 years ago, I took a vow to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” That’s why I drove from the suburbs of Minneapolis to the Standing Rock Indian Reservation this weekend to join other military veterans in protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline.
For the past few months, I have watched from afar as para-militarized police forces from nine states have targ
By aclutn
Dec 05, 2016
President Obama, The Time Is Now to #FreeChelsea. She Deserves Her Freedom.
Chelsea Manning, currently in the seventh year of a 35-year court-martial sentence, has already served longer in prison than any other whistleblower in the history of our country.
On Monday, more than a dozen LGBT organizations — led by the ACLU — sent
By aclutn
Dec 05, 2016
The Obama Administration Is Allowing Religious Organizations to Restrict Health Care for the Most Vulnerable, but We Just Won the First Round
When she was 17 years old, Rosa* fled her home country and came to the U.S. seeking a better life. As she made her way across the border, she was raped. After she arrived in the U.S. alone, she was taken into federal custody and then placed with a Catholic organization that receives taxpayer money to provide services to young women like Rosa.Already afraid and alone, Rosa learned she was pregnant, adding to her trauma. She requested an abortion. But instead of helping Rosa get the care she needed — as required by law — Catholic Charities kicked her out of its federally funded program. Rosa became so distraught by the prospect of not being able to obtain an abortion that she was hospitalized for suicidal thoughts.
Her story doesn’t end there. The Obama administration tried to place Rosa with another religiously affiliated or
By aclutn
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