Why We Must Not Always Be Compliant

You may recall this incident in which Steven Bierfeldt, a Ron Paul supporter, was detained by TSA screeners for no other reason than that he was carrying a box of cash:

But it was a good thing he chose to disobey the Transportation Security Administration agent’s unlawful [...]

Police use-of-force reports are public records in New Jersey

A New Jersey appeals court on Monday ruled that police use-of-force reports — generated any time a police offer uses force against a citizen — are public records and cannot be withheld as criminal investigatory records.
Attorneys for West Milford, a township in northern New Jersey, appealed a state trial court’s [...]

ACLU Sues FBI for Imprisonment of New Jersey Man in Africa

The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit [1] against the Federal Bureau of Investigation, saying it illegally detained and mistreated an American, Amir Meshal, who was held in Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia for four months in 2007 before being released.
According to the ACLU’s complaint, which was filed [...]

Anti-corruption Group Discusses Strategy

The new organization dedicated to rooting out political corruption in San Bernardino County held its first public meeting on October 6 in Redlands. The meeting was relocated at the last minute when the San Bernardino Public Employees Association (SBPEA) reneged on its agreement to allow the group to use its [...]

Compliance by Design: The Continuing Allure of “Non-Lethal” Weapons

Although so-called non-lethal weapons (NLWs) have been around for decades and range from CS gas to pepper spray and from the low-tech water cannon to the Taser, their use by military and police agencies world-wide are designed to ensure compliance from hostile “natives.”
And with ever-more devilish torture tools being dreamed [...]

Informing Students of Their Rights

Here’s a rather silly article on the Fox News website. In the wake of 9/11, lots of schools started requiring students to say the Pledge of Allegiance again, a practice that had waned. But the Supreme Court has ruled, quite correctly, that no student can be forced to say that [...]

Do You Have the Right to Flip Off a Cop?

David Hackbart was mad, and he wanted to show it, but he didn’t think he would end up in federal court protecting his right to a rude gesture and demanding that the city of Pittsburgh stop violating the First Amendment rights of its residents.
Hackbart, 34, was looking for a parking space [...]

Drug Control Becomes Speech Control

When the government accuses a doctor of running a “pill mill,” prosecutors portray every aspect of his practice in a sinister light. Prescribing painkillers becomes drug trafficking, applying for insurance reimbursement becomes fraud, making bank deposits becomes money laundering, and working with people at the office becomes conspiracy.

When Siobhan [...]

ACLU demands records of border searches of laptops

The U.S. Customs and Border Patrol’s controversial practice of randomly searching laptops upon U.S. entry quietly began last year but has quickly drawn attention, including a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed this week by the American Civil Liberties Union for records related to the practice.
With regard to the searches, [...]

CIA OIG Report on Detention and Interrogation Activities Available

CIA OIG Report on Counterterrorism Detention and Interrogation Activities (September 2001-October 2003)

As widely reported in the press yesterday, the CIA Office of Inspector General has just released material on past detention practices in the ‘War on Terrorism’. The release of this material came about following a FOIA request by [...]

Sheriff Arpaio Slapped With Another Civil Rights Lawsuit Over Arrests

The man who boasts he is “America’s Toughest Sheriff” — and who is being investigated by the Department of Justice for civil rights violations — this week added another lawsuit to thousands already pending against him.
The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Arizona are suing Joe Arpaio, the [...]

DNA Evidence Can Be Fabricated, Scientists Show

Scientists in Israel have demonstrated that it is possible to fabricate DNA evidence, undermining the credibility of what has been considered the gold standard of proof in criminal cases.
The scientists fabricated blood and saliva samples containing DNA from a person other than the donor of the blood and saliva. They also [...]

DHS Admits It Failed to Disclose 11 More Deaths at Immigration Facilities

In response to a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) revealed yesterday that the government had failed to disclose 11 more deaths in immigration detention facilities.
In April, DHS officials released what they called a comprehensive list of all deaths [...]

Rapper Gets 2 Years for Cop-Killing Song

A Florida rapper is sentenced to two years in prison for a song called ‘Kill Me a Cop’ that he produced as a teenager.
Authorities say 20-year-old Antavio Johnson raps about killing two Lakeland, Fla., police officers in the tune, which cops found on MySpace while surfing for gang-related activity.
Johnson pleaded no [...]

Censorship in California: Marijuana Ad Campaign Rejected by TV Stations

The Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) kicked off a TV ad campaign aimed at gaining support for a California marijuana legalization bill in the legislature on Wednesday, but ran into problems with several TV stations around the state, which either rejected the ad outright or just ignored MPP efforts to place it. [...]

ACLU seeks data on border laptop searches

The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a FOIA request for records on laptops searched by border officials, PC Magazine reported. ACLU says these searching practices raise questions concerning First and Fourth Amendment rights because “they involve highly intrusive governmental probing into a traveler’s most private information.” Department [...]

Lawmakers in Oregon say No! to Real ID

On Friday, May 29th the Oregon State House passed Senate Bill 536 (SB0536) thanks to organizations such as ACLU of Oregon. The bill “Prohibits state from expending funds to comply with the federal Real ID Act 0f 2005 unless certain requirements are met.” The bill passed by a vote of 39-6. [...]

Supreme Court upholds California medical pot law

[ Smoke on this, Hoops. ]
Reporting from Washington — The Supreme Court on Monday rejected appeals from two hold-out counties in Southern California that objected to the state’s 13-year-old medical marijuana law and claimed it should be struck down as violating the federal drug control act.
Without comment, the court turned down [...]

WHITE HOUSE CZAR CALLS FOR END TO ‘WAR ON DRUGS’

Kerlikowske Says Analogy Is Counterproductive; Shift Aligns With Administration Preference for Treatment Over Incarceration
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration’s new drug czar says he wants to banish the idea that the U.S.  is fighting “a war on drugs,” a move that would underscore a shift favoring treatment over incarceration in trying to [...]

Supremes to Hear Case of 13 Year-Old Girl Strip-Searched on Suspicion of Carrying Ibuprofen

SAFFORD, Ariz. — April Redding was waiting in the parking lot of the middle school when she heard news she could hardly understand: Her 13-year-old daughter, Savana, had been strip-searched by school officials in a futile hunt for drugs.
It’s a story that amazes and enrages her still, more than six years [...]

Assembly Bills Aim at Recruiting Youngsters for Overseas Wars

Court Battle Looms Over Youth Protection Act
The Pentagon is on a direct collision course in the U.S. District Court for Northern California over its obligations under international law to stop military recruitment of youth under the age of 17. The case in question, United States of America v. Cities of Eureka [...]

Fusion center declares nation’s oldest universities possible terror threat

A newly leaked terrorism assessment from a law enforcement fusion center in Virginia highlights US universities as potential “radicalization nodes” for terrorists.
RAW STORY has published the entirety of the 215 page report, available here in PDF format.

Obama Administration: Constitution Does Not Protect Cell-Site Records

The Obama administration says the Fourth Amendment prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures does not apply to cell-site information mobile phone carriers retain on their customers.
The position is being staked out in a little-noticed surveillance case pending before the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia. The case [...]

County Asks U.S. Supreme Court To Erase State’s Medical Marijuana Law

San Diego County filed papers this week asking the U.S. Supreme Court to erase California’s medical marijuana law, arguing that federal prohibitions outlawing the substance supersede California’s law allowing sick people to use it.
The county is asking the nation’s highest court to overturn a state appellate court’s July decision upholding [...]

Feds Act Against Eureka, Arcata Over Voted Measures to Restrict Military Recruiter Access to Minors

EUREKA — Emergency closed-session City Council meetings last night in Eureka and later today in Arcata were called as local officials scrambled to respond to a notice of pending legal action in United States District Court to invalidate two ballot measures adopted by voters in each city on Nov. 4.
The Department [...]