The American Civil Liberties Union and ACLU of North Carolina Legal Foundation filed a lawsuit on behalf of three Rowan County residents demanding that the board of commissioners stop its practice of opening government meetings with prayers that were specific to one religion.
Tag Archives: ACLU
Federal judge orders commissioners in NC county to stop opening meetings with prayer
The American Civil Liberties Union and ACLU of North Carolina Legal Foundation filed a lawsuit on behalf of three Rowan County residents demanding that the board of commissioners stop its practice of opening government meetings with prayers that were specific to one religion.
PA Attorney General Refuses To Defend Marriage Law
Editor’s note: Last week, the ACLU filed a federal lawsuit to overturn Pennsylvania’s marriage law. In response, in a stunning move, Pennsylvania’s attorney general refused to defend the law. The Center for Vision & Values contacted Pennsylvania Family Institute President Michael Geer for a battlefront view.
V&V: You had a busy week last week on the legal front. What happened?
Geer: The week began with a phone call from a major national newspaper reporter, from whom I learned that the ACLU was about to file a federal lawsuit seeking to overturn Pennsylvania’s marriage law, and redefine this ageless institution. The week ended with Pennsylvania’s attorney general announcing that she would refuse to fulfill the obligation of her office and defend our state law in court. In between were numerous national, state, and local media interviews, followed by time spent at the capitol organizing a response and crafting legal and cultural strategies to protect and strengthen marriage.
V&V: You’ve been running PFI in Harrisburg for more than 20 years now. Are you surprised by the AG’s refusal to defend Pennsylvania’s marriage law? Do you recall anything similar happening?
Geer: There really is no precedent that matches the blatantly political move by Attorney General [Kathleen] Kane. Even the lead counsel in the ACLU’s lawsuit against our marriage law called her decision “an earthquake moment.” In a television interview during last year’s primary campaign for attorney general, then-candidate Kane stated, “The attorney general does not have the right to pick and choose which laws he or she enforces.” She said doing so injects politics into the job and, “That’s a dangerous proposition.” Even so, I was not surprised at Kane’s action – she is following precedents set by AG’s and other top elected officials in California, Illinois, and elsewhere, and by those in the U.S. Department of Justice on this issue. It really is a dangerous proposition, one that’s very damaging to our political system and the rule of law. I hoped for better from Kathleen Kane, but was not surprised when she did not deliver on her promise
V&V: Is this issue pertinent to people in other states around the nation?
Geer: It is in many ways – most notably because ultimately the ACLU is seeking to not only overturn marriage laws in Pennsylvania, but to impose a redefinition of marriage on the entire country. Such a Roe v.Wade-type sweeping decision would certainly not end the debate on the issue, but would usher in significant restrictions on religious liberty and free speech, not to mention the impact on marriage itself and the well-being of children.
V&V: Is the ACLU filing similar suits in other states. If so, why? Do you detect a political agenda beyond the legal implications of these cases?
Geer: Yes and yes. In addition to the lawsuit in Pennsylvania, the ACLU announced that it was also planning to file constitutional challenges in Virginia and North Carolina. Quite clearly, they are hoping to bring one or all of these cases to the U.S. Supreme Court to have “same-sex …read more
Official: ACLU releases license plate scanning docs, says you are being tracked
By Damon Lowney
Filed under:
The proliferation of automated license plate readers in police departments around the country has increased dramatically over the years, leading the American Civil Liberties Union to commission a report to find out what they are being used for, the policies governing their use and how they should be used to benefit the American public. The report, which has just been released, is called You Are Being Tracked. The report’s findings, according to the ACLU, show that plate readers are not being used in a lawful manner that benefits US citizens.
Automated plate readers are placed on roads, highways, overpasses, police cars, etc., and snap photos of all vehicles and license plates that pass by them. Software reads the numbers, adds a time and location stamp to them and then stores them in a database – often for an indefinite amount of time, even if the drivers are innocent of any crime. The ACLU claims that storing plate data indefinitely, or for an unnecessarily long period of time, is an invasion of privacy because many facets of citizens’ personal lives can be found out if their location is being tracked at all times.
In a 2011 survey, the ACLU found that almost three-quarters of police departments in the US were using plate readers and 85 percent of them were planning to increase their use of the readers over the next five years.
One city that has no plate-read storage policy, Milpitas, CA, the ACLU points out, has a population of 67,000, yet it had 4.7 million stored plate reads as of August 2, 2012. Jersey City, NJ, has a policy to store read data for 5 years, but with a population of 250,000, it still has about 10 million plate reads stored. The Minnesota State Patrol is striking a better balance with the technology, the ACLU states, with a patrol area covering 5.3 million people but a plate-read storage policy of 48 hours. The MSP stores less than 20,000 reads because of its policy, which the ACLU says limits the chance that innocent drivers can be tracked over time. The Ohio State Patrol’s policy is even stricter than the MSP’s, the ACLU reports, as its policy states that all non-hit records can’t be stored and must be deleted immediately.
Fueling the debate, the ACLU report found that, “In Maryland, for every million plates read, only 47 (0.005 percent) were potentially associated with a stolen car or a person wanted for a serious crime.” What do you think about this technology? Check out the ACLU’s press release below, then have your say in Comments.
Continue reading ACLU releases license plate scanning docs, says you are being tracked
ACLU releases license plate scanning docs, says you are being tracked originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 18 Jul 2013 11:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Source: FULL ARTICLE at Autoblog
ADF Files Motion Supporting Ind. Churches Sued by ACLU
The Alliance Defending Freedom has filed a motion to intervene on behalf of a group of Indiana churches being sued by the American Civil Liberties Union for a proposed display of crosses on public property. …read more
Source: The Christian Post
ACLU: Millions of Innocent Drivers Being Tracked
By Ruth Brown
You know about speed cameras and red-light cameras. But did you know about plate-reading cameras? Few people do, and that’s a worry for the ACLU, which says the cameras are infringing on our civil liberties. Unlike the speed and red-light cameras, which are activated only when someone violates a traffic… …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Newser – Home
ACLU, Ohio School District Nearing Settlement on High School's Jesus Portrait
The American Civil Liberties Union and an Ohio school district have reached a tentative agreement on the fate of a portrait of Jesus Christ that hung in a local public high school. …read more
Source: The Christian Post
Detroit Cops Dumping Homeless Outside City: ACLU
By Matt Cantor Detroit police are ushering homeless people out of a tourist area and leaving them miles away—in some cases outside the city itself, the ACLU alleges in a federal complaint. Officers are “approaching individuals who appear to be homeless in the Greektown area, forcing them into police vans, and deserting…
From: http://www.newser.com/story/166488/detroit-cops-dumping-homeless-outside-city-aclu.html
ACLU: Slow smartphone updates are privacy threat
One of the leading U.S. civil-rights organizations is taking on an unusual cause: spotty smartphone updates. The American Civil Liberties Union is asking the U.S. Federal Trade Commission to investigate what it considers a failure by U.S. wireless carriers to properly update the Google-built operating system used on Android phones. The ACLU says that sluggish fixes have been saddling many smartphone users with software that is out of date and therefore dangerous.
ACLU complains to FTC that mobile carriers leave Android phones unsecured
Smartphones with custom versions of Android offered by large mobile operators in the U.S. are not getting security updates as regularly as phones from Google, or smartphones from other vendors like Microsoft, according to a complaint by the American Civil Liberties Union to the Federal Trade Commission.
“Android smartphones that do not receive regular, prompt security updates are defective and unreasonably dangerous,” ACLU said in the complaint on Tuesday.
The complaint against AT&T, Verizon Wireless, Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile USA states that “all of the major wireless carriers have failed to deliver regular, prompt updates to Android phones which they have sold to their customers,” citing results from a survey in December last year by technology news site Ars Technica.
The sale of mobile computing devices such as smartphones and the software updates to the devices are not part of common carrier activities, and are hence subject to FTC authority, according to the complaint, a copy of which is on the ACLU website.
To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Let The Left Keep Talking…
The hysterical screeching has already started. The Left is drawn to blame a terrorist attack on American soil on conservatives like a moth is drawn to a flame. They’re psychopaths who only care about moving their destructive agenda forward. Liberals will say anything; they can’t do otherwise. They’re not bound by any restrictions of common human decency because they have none.
Despicable cancers such as Chris Matthews, Michael Moore, and lunatic Cynthia McKinney have already started accusing conservatives of this ugly attack. Let them keep talking.
Either the Boston Police or the media are lying about whether or not a suspect is in custody. Betting on the media seems to be the smart move here. The Left’s problem is that it doesn’t know what lie to tell, so let them keep talking.
The police/media contradiction puts the Left in a no-win situation. If the police stick to their story, at some point the Left will lose control of the news narrative because either they will or will not have a suspect. If they do have a suspect, questions about why they denied it will come up; if they never did have one, the media branch of the Left will lose its ability to manage the story because Americans will demand to know why there is no suspect.
Justifiable cries about a “conspiracy of lies” will pop up all over.
That will give rise to questions of whether or not the establishment can actually protect us if they were even interested in trying. Let them keep talking about that in the face of what has happened.
The linkage between the cover-up of Benghazi and Boston (the alliteration won’t help the Left either) will be unavoidable. If there is a suspect, questions about whether or not he will be treated as a common criminal or an unlawful enemy combatant will be asked. If he is “just a criminal,” will he be put on trial like the jihadist who shot up Fort Hood? Will the ACLU represent him and drag the case out forever? The Left will try to hide behind “I can’t comment on an ongoing investigation,” but that won’t help. Because of Fort Hood, people know the plan is to have their “ongoing investigation” continue until we stop asking questions; but every indication is that Boston won’t “just go away” as they hope.
None of this will be good for Barack Obama’s dreams of making America a European country. Nor will it help the Left erase our borders and take our guns. If we just stand back and let the Left talk, we can win both fights.
From: http://www.westernjournalism.com/let-the-left-keep-talking/
Email privacy in focus as Tax Day arrives
The Internal Revenue Service has taken the position it does not need a search warrant to gather email in criminal investigations, despite opposition from lawmakers and privacy advocates and a ruling by a federal appellate court.
Through the Freedom of Information Act, the American Civil Liberties Union obtained 247 pages of IRS records in an attempt to find out whether the agency had ever used only a subpoena to obtain emails. Unlike a warrant, a subpoena does not require law enforcement to show “probable cause” in front of a judge. Probable cause refers to having enough evidence to show that a crime has likely been committed.
Though inconclusive in what the ACLU was looking for, the records show that the IRS has taken the position at least since October 2011 that only a subpoena is needed to obtain emails more than 180 days old, as described in the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act. That position was outlined in a memo written by William Spatz, a senior counsel of the IRS. It is also written in the agency’s current manual of policies and procedures.
“Through their documents, [the IRS seems] to take the position that the Fourth Amendment has nothing to say about their access to people’s emails,” Nathan Wessler, a staff attorney for the ACLU in Washington, D.C., said on Thursday.
To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Video: Are You On The No-fly List?
By NewsEditor
The no-fly list was first implemented after the attacks of September 11. According to reports, the list contains approximately 21,000 individuals, 500 of whom are US citizens. Organizations such as the ACLU have called the list ineffective and useless when it comes to protecting travelers.
From: http://www.westernjournalism.com/are-you-on-the-no-fly-list/
IRS Might Be Peeking at Emails Without Warrants
By John Johnson It’s probably not wise to talk about all your deep, dark tax-dodging secrets via email, but if you do, know that the IRS might be poking into them without a warrant. So says the ACLU, which complains that it can’t get a straight answer from the agency about its policy,…
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Newser – Home
Yes, the IRS Can Read Your Emails If It Wants
Filed under: Taxes, Audits, IRS, Spending
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try{document.getElementById(“fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-194432″).style.display=”none”;}catch(e){}If you’ve been swapping emails with your crooked accountant about the best way to avoid paying taxes, be aware: The IRS says it has the right to go into your account and read them.
ArsTechnica flags a report from the American Civil Liberties Union, which filed a Freedom of Information Act request to find out whether the IRS is reading your emails without a warrant.
The tax-collection agency did not explicitly answer the question of whether its investigative arm always gets a warrant before opening suspects’ emails. But the ACLU says that its review of the documents indicate that it does not.
A bit of background is necessary here. When it comes to getting a warrant to read your email, the relevant law is the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, which was enacted way back in 1986. As you might expect, the law is a bit dated: According to the law, a government agency can read your email without a warrant as long as the email has been opened, or if it’s been sitting in your inbox for more than 180 days. Only unopened email that’s been on the server for less than 180 days requires a warrant.
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It’s exactly the kind of arbitrary distinction you might expect from a law written before email was widely used and understood. And accordingly, a Sixth Circuit appeals court ruled in 2010 that in fact, agencies needed to get a warrant before reading any emails, not just those that were new and unopened.
Before that decision, the IRS was certainly opening emails without warrants — in fact, the ACLU got hold of an internal handbook claiming that the “the Fourth Amendment does not protect communications held in electronic storage.”
The question, then, is whether those practices changed after the Sixth Circuit decision.
The ACLU‘s investigation suggest they did not: A 2011 update to its internal policies maintains the standard that “Investigators can obtain everything in an account except for unopened e-mail or voice mail stored with a provider for 180 days or less” without a warrant.
The IRS has lots of ways to investigate you if it thinks you’ve been hiding something. In addition to searching your email and voicemail, it may also search your social media accounts for incriminating information (though it denies that it may audit you based on something it finds on one of those accounts, insisting that audits are based strictly on your filed return.)
The ACLU is calling on the IRS to amend its procedures to bring them in line with the Fourth Amendment. In the meantime, just be aware that the taxman might sift through your inbox if he thinks you’re holding something back.
Matt Brownell is the consumer and retail reporter for DailyFinance. You can reach him at Matt.Brownell@teamaol.com, and follow him on Twitter
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance
The Week In Wingnuts: Mandatory Guns And State Religions
By The Huffington Post News Editors
North Carolina: The Promised Land?
GOP state Reps. Carl Ford and Harry Warren jointly proposed a bill Monday that would allow the state to declare an official religion—effectively nullifying the first amendment. The proposal, backed by 12 other Republicans, was put forth as a responsive to an ACLU lawsuit aimed at blocking commissioners in one North Carolina county from opening meetings with a prayer. Thursday, House Speaker Thom Tillis, who’s reportedly considering a U.S. Senate run, effectively killed the proposal by announcing it would nota receive a vote in the full House.
Read More…
More on Republicans
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Huffington Post
North Carolina House Speaker Kills Bill To Create State Religion
By The Huffington Post News Editors
The Republican speaker of the North Carolina House of Representatives killed legislation on Thursday that aimed to establish an official state religion.
House Speaker Thom Tillis (R-Charlotte) announced Thursday afternoon that the bill would not be receiving a vote in the full House, effectively dropping the measure. Loretta Boniti, a reporter for News 14 Carolina, broke the news on Twitter, and it was confirmed in a breaking news alert posted on the home page of wral.com, a Raleigh-based television station. Tillis’ decision followed several days of national media attention on the bill, which also said that the state government did not have to listen to federal court rulings and was exempt from the requirements of the First Amendment.
The bill, which was drafted by state Reps. Carl Ford (R-China Grove) and Harry Warren (R-Salisbury), was intended to address an issue in Rowan County, where the ACLU has filed a lawsuit against the county commission in an attempt to block commissioners from having a Christian prayer at the beginning of meetings.
Read More…
More on Religion and Politics
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Huffington Post
Obama: 'Constrained By System Founders Put In Place'…
Obama: 'Constrained By System Founders Put In Place'...
(First column, 10th story, link)
Related stories:
Source: Drudge Report
Proposal would allow state religion in North Carolina
By hnn
Raleigh, N.C. — A bill filed by Republican lawmakers would allow North Carolina to declare an official religion, in violation of the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Bill of Rights, and seeks to nullify any federal ruling against Christian prayer by public bodies statewide.
The bill grew out of a federal lawsuit filed last month by the American Civil Liberties Union against the Rowan County Board of Commissioners. In the lawsuit, the ACLU says the board has opened 97 percent of its meetings since 2007 with explicitly Christian prayers.
Overtly Christian prayers at government meetings are not rare in North Carolina. Since the Republican takeover in 2011, the state Senate chaplain has offered an explicitly Christian invocation virtually every day of session, despite the fact that some senators are not Christian….
Source:
WRAL
Source URL:
http://www.wral.com/proposal-would-allow-state-religion-in-north-carolina/12296876/
Date:
4-2-13
…read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at History News Network – George Mason University
State religion in NC?
By hnn
Raleigh, N.C. — A bill filed by Republican lawmakers would allow North Carolina to declare an official religion, in violation of the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Bill of Rights, and seeks to nullify any federal ruling against Christian prayer by public bodies statewide.
The bill grew out of a federal lawsuit filed last month by the American Civil Liberties Union against the Rowan County Board of Commissioners. In the lawsuit, the ACLU says the board has opened 97 percent of its meetings since 2007 with explicitly Christian prayers.
Overtly Christian prayers at government meetings are not rare in North Carolina. Since the Republican takeover in 2011, the state Senate chaplain has offered an explicitly Christian invocation virtually every day of session, despite the fact that some senators are not Christian….
Source:
WRAL
Source URL:
http://www.wral.com/proposal-would-allow-state-religion-in-north-carolina/12296876/
Date:
4-2-13
…read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at History News Network – George Mason University