ACLU In The News

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Monitors are raising big-brother concerns

Public surveillance cameras on the upswing

Government surveillance hasn't quite reached the degree of interloping foretold in George Orwell's novel “1984,” but it's growing significantly in the name of public safety.

Mobile cameras have become commonplace in public places, capturing faces and places to help authorities prevent or solve crimes.

If you went to the Super Bowl in recent years, or the Mardi Gras celebration in downtown San Diego – picture taken.

If you hopped on the trolley at the Old Town station, drove any number of San Diego's freeways or testified at a large gathering where emotions were expected to run high – picture taken.

A spokesman for the American Civil Liberties Union contends that such surveillance can have a chilling effect on political expression by law-abiding citizens. He also said the installation of cameras tends to push crime to adjacent neighborhoods rather than halt it.

But ask National City police about their plans to monitor prostitution on Roosevelt Avenue, or the city of Vista about its plans to crack down on drug dealing and graffiti. You will get unabashed enthusiasm for what they see as another crime-fighting tool.

Exactly what can be taped, who can view the images and how they can be used is largely undefined in most cities. Most of it has been left to the discretion of peace officers who control the cameras.

The high-speed, high-resolution cameras are manned by police, the Sheriff's Department, Caltrans and the Metropolitan Transit System, the region's main transit agency.

Trolley rider Elizabeth Mohr, 25, a law school student, said the cameras are reassuring, to a point.

Interviewed recently at the Old Town station, Mohr said, “I feel like the surveillance here is OK. I have seen some serious problems – like two men fighting at another trolley stop, and a woman getting groped at this station by a stranger.”

But there should be a limit, she said.

“It's really a slippery slope for invasion of privacy,” Mohr said. “They need to have a very specific policy to make sure they're not violating people's rights.”

Robert Ranson, 77, a photographer also waiting for a trolley, said the security is appealing, but the price is high.

“It's sort of nice having surveillance here,” Ranson said. “The problem is when you start something like this, it never ends. It spreads like a cancer.

“Eventually, I expect in 50 years or less, we'll probably be taped whenever we walk down a street. Whoever is in power can use that for whatever they want to, and you're never going to know what that is.”

Kevin Keenan, executive director of the ACLU in San Diego and Imperial counties, said while the surveillance is legal, police are creating “a false sense of security and contributing to a total 'information surveillance' society.”

“The public can draw a line here and say, 'No more cameras: We need on-the-ground policing that's proven effective,' ” Keenan said.

Last month in Vista, a Sheriff's Department spokesman announced the city had bought a mobile surveillance camera for about $20,000 with a federal grant to help record “any type of criminal activity.”

Cpl. Stephen Litwin explained that the camera would be bolted onto poles or buildings at undisclosed outdoor public areas and initially would focus on narcotics, graffiti and gang activity.

Litwin said the camera can “zoom in on suspects as they commit crimes.” The information will be transmitted to the Sheriff's Department and continuously recorded, he said.

The Sheriff's Department also videotapes public entrances and hallways in four county courthouses and in the county's seven main jails, said Capt. Glenn Revell.

It has other mobile surveillance cameras that are used to record activity in parks around the county that have problems with vandalism, graffiti or other crime. The equipment also is used to record selected public gatherings, Revell said.

The Metropolitan Transit System, which oversees the bus and trolley system, has video cameras mounted at 10 trolley stations and plans to expand such surveillance to three more stations in Chula Vista by the end of this year.

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National City police plan to install four digital video cameras on utility poles along Roosevelt Avenue, from First to Eighth streets this month to target the street's infamous prostitution trade.

The cameras will record in color during the day and automatically switch to a black-and-white mode at night. They also have 360-degree pan, tilt and zoom capabilities, said Lt. Lanny Roark, manager of the project.

The cameras can be operated with a joy stick from police headquarters about a mile away to zoom in on faces or a license plate. Police then can view tapes on a computer monitor.

The new cameras for National City cost about $60,000 and were funded from federal Homeland Security grants, Roark said. The department may install identical cameras to discourage crime at the Plaza Bonita mall, possibly by the end of the year.

In San Diego, police have used mobile video equipment to record large events or parades in recent years when police determined that unlawful activity could occur, said department spokesman Dave Cohen. Examples include the 2003 Super Bowl; a protest march during a 2001 biotech convention; and several Mardi Gras celebrations in the Gaslamp District.

While the placement and type of camera to be used in Vista by sheriff's deputies have been kept secret, National City police have openly publicized their project, including their “DVTel” equipment and camera locations.

National City police also met with a community advisory board to develop a policy about the use of such cameras. It allows monitoring only in public areas, “where courts have held there is no expectation of privacy.”

It requires a public hearing about surveillance locations and signs in English and Spanish advising people there are “public safety” cameras present.

The policy says the cameras will not record sound unless authorized by a court. It prohibits using the cameras to watch specific individuals or groups unless a warrant has been issued by a court. But it does allow recording of public events, demonstrations and crowd activity.

“We're going to be very transparent,” said National City Police Chief Adolfo Gonzales. “We want people to know what we're doing.

“If it disrupts prostitution activity and causes it to move to a nearby neighborhood or park, we're going to have officers there.”

San Diego police have a less detailed policy that begins by discouraging the videotaping or photographing of peaceful demonstrations. It allows such recordings only if a commanding officer has determined there is reason to believe such events have potential for unlawful activity.

Neither the Metropolitan Transit System nor the Sheriff's Department has a policy regulating the use of surveillance equipment in public areas, officials said. But the Sheriff's Department is considering creating one.

“We are in the midst of evaluating the need for that,” Revell said.

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Christians Sue for Right Not to Tolerate Policies
Many codes intended to protect gays from harassment are illegal, conservatives argue.


Ruth Malhotra went to court last month for the right to be intolerant.

Malhotra says her Christian faith compels her to speak out against homosexuality. But the Georgia Institute of Technology, where she's a senior, bans speech that puts down others because of their sexual orientation.

Malhotra sees that as an unacceptable infringement on her right to religious expression. So she's demanding that Georgia Tech revoke its tolerance policy.

With her lawsuit, the 22-year-old student joins a growing campaign to force public schools, state colleges and private workplaces to eliminate policies protecting gays and lesbians from harassment. The religious right aims to overturn a broad range of common tolerance programs: diversity training that promotes acceptance of gays and lesbians, speech codes that ban harsh words against homosexuality, anti-discrimination policies that require college clubs to open their membership to all.

The Rev. Rick Scarborough, a leading evangelical, frames the movement as the civil rights struggle of the 21st century. "Christians," he said, "are going to have to take a stand for the right to be Christian."

In that spirit, the Christian Legal Society, an association of judges and lawyers, has formed a national group to challenge tolerance policies in federal court. Several nonprofit law firms — backed by major ministries such as Focus on the Family and Campus Crusade for Christ — already take on such cases for free.

The legal argument is straightforward: Policies intended to protect gays and lesbians from discrimination end up discriminating against conservative Christians. Evangelicals have been suspended for wearing anti-gay T-shirts to high school, fired for denouncing Gay Pride Month at work, reprimanded for refusing to attend diversity training. When they protest tolerance codes, they're labeled intolerant.

A recent survey by the Anti-Defamation League found that 64% of American adults — including 80% of evangelical Christians — agreed with the statement "Religion is under attack in this country."

"The message is, you're free to worship as you like, but don't you dare talk about it outside the four walls of your church," said Stephen Crampton, chief counsel for the American Family Assn. Center for Law and Policy, which represents Christians who feel harassed.

Critics dismiss such talk as a right-wing fundraising ploy. "They're trying to develop a persecution complex," said Jeremy Gunn, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief.

Others fear the banner of religious liberty could be used to justify all manner of harassment.

"What if a person felt their religious view was that African Americans shouldn't mingle with Caucasians, or that women shouldn't work?" asked Jon Davidson, legal director of the gay rights group Lambda Legal.

Christian activist Gregory S. Baylor responds to such criticism angrily. He says he supports policies that protect people from discrimination based on race and gender. But he draws a distinction that infuriates gay rights activists when he argues that sexual orientation is different — a lifestyle choice, not an inborn trait.

By equating homosexuality with race, Baylor said, tolerance policies put conservative evangelicals in the same category as racists. He predicts the government will one day revoke the tax-exempt status of churches that preach homosexuality is sinful or that refuse to hire gays and lesbians.

"Think how marginalized racists are," said Baylor, who directs the Christian Legal Society's Center for Law and Religious Freedom. "If we don't address this now, it will only get worse."

Christians are fighting back in a case involving Every Nation Campus Ministries at California State University. Student members of the ministry on the Long Beach and San Diego campuses say their mission is to model a virtuous lifestyle for their peers. They will not accept as members gays, lesbians or anyone who considers homosexuality "a natural part of God's created order."

Legal analysts agree that the ministry, as a private organization, has every right to exclude gays; the Supreme Court affirmed that principle in a case involving the Boy Scouts in 2000. At issue is whether the university must grant official recognition to a student group that discriminates.

The students say denying them recognition — and its attendant benefits, such as funding — violates their free-speech rights and discriminates against their conservative theology. Christian groups at public colleges in other states have sued using similar arguments. Several of those lawsuits were settled out of court, with the groups prevailing.

In California, however, the university may have a strong defense in court. The California Supreme Court recently ruled that the city of Berkeley was justified in denying subsidies to the Boy Scouts because of that group's exclusionary policies. Eddie L. Washington, the lawyer representing Cal State, argues the same standard should apply to the university.

"We're certainly not going to fund discrimination," Washington said.

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As they step up their legal campaign, conservative Christians face uncertain prospects. The 1st Amendment guarantees Americans "free exercise" of religion. In practice, though, the ground rules shift depending on the situation.

In a 2004 case, for instance, an AT&T Broadband employee won the right to express his religious convictions by refusing to sign a pledge to "respect and value the differences among us." As long as the employee wasn't harassing co-workers, the company had to make accommodations for his faith, a federal judge in Colorado ruled.

That same year, however, a federal judge in Idaho ruled that Hewlett-Packard Co. was justified in firing an employee who posted Bible verses condemning homosexuality on his cubicle. The verses, clearly visible from the hall, harassed gay employees and made it difficult for the company to meet its goal of attracting a diverse workforce, the judge ruled.

In the public schools, an Ohio middle school student last year won the right to wear a T-shirt that proclaimed: "Homosexuality is a sin! Islam is a lie! Abortion is murder!" But a teen-ager in Kentucky lost in federal court when he tried to exempt himself from a school program on gay tolerance on the grounds that it violated his religious beliefs.

In their lawsuit against Georgia Tech, Malhotra and her co-plaintiff, a devout Jewish student named Orit Sklar, request unspecified damages. But they say their main goal is to force the university to be more tolerant of religious viewpoints. The lawsuit was filed by the Alliance Defense Fund, a nonprofit law firm that focuses on religious liberty cases.

Malhotra said she had been reprimanded by college deans several times in the last few years for expressing conservative religious and political views. When she protested a campus production of "The gotcha11 Monologues" with a display condemning feminism, the administration asked her to paint over part of it.

She caused another stir with a letter to the gay activists who organized an event known as Coming Out Week in the fall of 2004. Malhotra sent the letter on behalf of the Georgia Tech College Republicans, which she chairs; she said several members of the executive board helped write it.

The letter referred to the campus gay rights group Pride Alliance as a "sex club … that can't even manage to be tasteful." It went on to say that it was "ludicrous" for Georgia Tech to help fund the Pride Alliance.

The letter berated students who come out publicly as gay, saying they subject others on campus to "a constant barrage of homosexuality."

"If gays want to be tolerated, they should knock off the political propaganda," the letter said.

The student activist who received the letter, Felix Hu, described it as "rude, unfair, presumptuous" — and disturbing enough that Pride Alliance forwarded it to a college administrator. Soon after, Malhotra said, she was called in to a dean's office. Students can be expelled for intolerant speech, but she said she was only reprimanded.

Still, she said, the incident has left her afraid to speak freely. She's even reluctant to aggressively advertise the campus lectures she arranges on living by the Bible. "Whenever I've spoken out against a certain lifestyle, the first thing I'm told is 'You're being intolerant, you're being negative, you're creating a hostile campus environment,' " Malhotra said.

A Georgia Tech spokeswoman would not comment on the lawsuit or on Malhotra's disciplinary record, but she said the university encouraged students to debate freely, "as long as they're not promoting violence or harassing anyone."

The open question is what constitutes harassment, what's a sincere expression of faith — and what to do when they overlap.

"There really is confusion out there," said Charles C. Haynes, a senior scholar at the First Amendment Center, which is affiliated with Vanderbilt University. "Finding common ground sounds good. But the reality is, a lot of people on all sides have a stake in the fight."

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Indiana State student questions campus leafleting policy



TERRE HAUTE, Ind. — An Indiana State University student who handed out fliers about Iraq's notorious Abu Ghraib prison to counter a campus visit by Army recruiters is questioning a school policy that stopped him from distributing the pamphlets.

ISU officials told freshman Nathan Mutchler late last month that school policy permits people to hand out pamphlets only if a student group or other campus organization sponsors them.

Since he had no such affiliation, Mutchler was told to move to an off-campus sidewalk. The 20-year-old, who said he handed out about 150 fliers from a nearby parking lot, views the matter as a freedom-of-speech issue.

Mutchler said he decided to distribute the fliers about the Iraqi prison where U.S. soldiers abused prisoners to give students listening to recruiters' pitch a more complete picture of what joining the Army might mean.

"I was disappointed that ISU's campus was not a truly public space," said Mutchler, a theater major from Terre Haute.

Bill Mercier, ISU director of public safety, says the school distinguishes between pure speech and solicitation or distribution of materials.

People can say whatever they want in any outside area of campus, with some obvious restrictions, including speech that might obstruct the university's operation, incite a riot or block the entrance to a building, he said.

Mercier said ISU restricts distributing materials and solicitation because allowing either would open the campus to commercial establishments and people "who possibly are not entirely legitimate."

"It opens the campus up in such a way that it becomes very difficult to know who's on campus, why they are here and what they are trying to do," he said.

Fran Quigley, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana, said that in general, if the rules are applied consistently to all organizations that want to distribute information, "Then it's probably constitutionally permissible."

Cathy McGuire, a Terre Haute activist who opposes the war in Iraq, disagrees with ISU's policy and questions if it is legal.

"You either have freedom of speech or you don't," she said.

McGuire said she had handed out anti-war materials on ISU's campus and circulated petitions and she had not been asked to leave. A university organization didn't sponsor her, but she said campus police probably weren't aware she was there.

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Maloney May Lose ACLU in Fight on Abortion

After an outcry from free speech advocates, the American Civil Liberties Union is reconsidering its endorsement of proposed legislation calling for federal regulation of advertising by anti-abortion counseling centers.

The bill, introduced last month by Rep. Carolyn Maloney, a Democrat of New York, would have instructed the Federal Trade Commission to issue rules aimed at precluding deceptive advertising by crisis pregnancy centers, which are often set up near abortion clinics and sometimes advertise in phone directories under headings like "abortion" and "clinics."

The director of the ACLU's Washington Legislative Office, Caroline Fredrickson, spoke at a press conference Ms. Maloney held on March 30 to unveil the bill. In addition, the ACLU issued a press release the same day urging lawmakers to support the legislation and applauding the congresswoman for her proposal.

However, in recent days, the press release and all mention of the bill have disappeared from the ACLU Web site. Links that previously led to the release now produce an error message.

A spokeswoman for the ACLU, Emily Whitfield, confirmed that the organization has withdrawn its earlier statement, pending an internal review.

"We did pull it down, as you observed, because we realized it really was not fully vetted within the ACLU, and so we're doing that now," Ms. Whitfield said.

Several members of the organization's board said yesterday that the group's endorsement of the legislation prompted considerable discussion and some sharp dissent. A New York Sun article in which First Amendment experts and civil libertarians expressed concern about the bill and the ACLU's stance was circulated to the entire board, insiders said.

"I find it quite appalling that the ACLU is actively supporting this," one board member, Wendy Kaminer, said in an interview. "I think this is precisely the kind of legislation we should be opposing, not supporting."

The bill would prevent any person from advertising "with the intent to deceptively create the impression that such person is a provider of abortion services if such person does not provide abortion services." The term "abortion services" is defined to include surgical and drug-induced abortions, as well as referrals for abortions.

"I am troubled by the assumption in the legislation that abortion services, as a matter of linguistics and a matter of law, cannot include discussing with a woman why she shouldn't have an abortion," said Ms. Kaminer, a Boston attorney and author who described herself as "very strongly pro-choice."

"I don't believe the pro-choice movement has the copyright on the term 'abortion services.' That seems to me a very clear example of government being the language police," she said.

Another ACLU board member, John Brittain, said he regretted the decision to endorse the bill. "We shouldn't have supported this kind of legislation," he said.

Mr. Brittain said that one board member warned that a ban on deceptive advertising outside the realm of commerce could even affect groups such as Jews for Jesus, which seem Jewish at first glance but are actually Christian. "I could see a free speech principle even in the utmost deception," the lawyer said.

Mr. Brittain, an attorney with the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law in Washington, said he suspects the endorsement was the product of a desire to make common cause with liberal groups in the capital. "In the D.C. policy world, organizations sometimes elevate their collaborative, coordinational support for each other in public policy over some principles that may be core to their individual institutions," he said.

Ms. Fredrickson, the ACLU's point person on the legislation, became the civil liberties group's top lobbyist in July, after leaving a job as general counsel and legal director for an abortion rights advocacy organization, NARAL Pro-Choice America. That group was among several that joined the ACLU in endorsing Ms. Maloney's bill.

Ms. Fredrickson, who did not respond to a request for comment yesterday, previously served as chief of staff to Senator Cantwell of Washington, a Democrat.

Several board members said attorneys who serve as general counsel to the board were reviewing the legislation to determine whether the bill was constitutional and whether it was in accord with ACLU's principles and policies.

Ms.Whitfield declined to discuss the review process or to say at what level the endorsement of the bill was approved. She said the group's executive director, Anthony Romero, was not available for an interview yesterday.

A dissident voted off the ACLU board last year, Michael Meyers of New York, said he viewed the episode as another indication that the group has strayed from its traditional free-speech roots and has embraced "identity politics."

"It's the new ACLU that's the problem," he said.

A spokesman for Ms. Maloney said she was traveling in New York yesterday and unavailable for comment. Her bill has 16 co-sponsors in the House, including 3 New York democrats, Reps. Maurice Hinchey, Gary Ackerman and Joseph Crowley.

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ACLU Raises Concerns About Information-Sharing System



ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- The American Civil Liberties Union is concerned over a statewide computer system designed to let law enforcement agencies share information faster.

The Law Enforcement Information Exchange is to go online late this summer in Bernalillo, Sandoval and Dona Ana counties.

The database is part of a national program.

ACLU New Mexico executive director Peter Simonson said it also includes information about innocent people, crime victims, witnesses and minor traffic violations.

He said that represents a significant threat to personal privacy.

U.S. Attorney David Iglesias said the program prohibits sharing tax records, credit reports, purchasing patterns, motor vehicle records and other non-law enforcement records.

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Christians Win Free Speech Victory Against ACLU In New York


    A federal judge has ordered an upstate New York school district to return bricks inscribed with Christian messages to a high school walkway, and a pro-family civil liberties attorney is praising the outcome as a victory against viewpoint discrimination.

    The dispute arose after the Mexico Academy High School class of 1999 in Mexico, New York (Oswego County), sold bricks that could be inscribed with personal messages and included in a walkway as a fundraiser. However, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) complained that certain bricks, particularly those inscribed with the messages “Jesus Saves/John 3:16″ and “Jesus Christ, the only way,” constituted public school endorsement of Christianity.

    The ACLU maintained that the bricks violated the so-called “separation of church and state,” and the group’s complaints prompted school officials to remove the contested bricks in 2000. Other bricks purchased by private individuals bore messages that referred to God or to local churches but were allowed to remain in place; only the bricks mentioning Jesus were taken out of the walkway.

Leave it to the ACLU to complain that upholding the first amendment actually violates it. How much more twisted can logic be and still be called logical. Seriously, according to ACLU logic the first amendment violates the first amendment!! The school encouraged people to express themselves individually, and because they did not act to censor Christian expressions, the ACLU concludes they have endorsed it. And then through legal threats the school caved in and censored them! Insanity!

    Two community residents who had purchased the extracted bricks filed a lawsuit challenging the school district’s censorship of their messages. In that case, Judge Norman Mordue of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York has now ruled that removal of the bricks bearing the Christian messages was a violation of the free-speech rights of those individuals who paid for them.

    Although the District Court initially refused to grant a preliminary injunction to have the bricks reinstalled, it was forced to reconsider the issue when the Second Circuit Court of Appeals remanded the case for reconsideration. The court’s ultimate ruling orders school officials to restore the bricks inscribed with religious messages to the school walkway.

    Pro-family attorney John Whitehead is president of The Rutherford Institute, the civil liberties and human rights defense organization that represented the Christian plaintiffs in the lawsuit, arguing that the school’s censorship violated rights guaranteed to citizens by the First and Fourteenth Amendments as well as by the New York Constitution. He is pleased with the court’s ruling and says it is consistent with the outcomes of many similar suits in which his legal group has been involved.

    “We’ve won several of these cases in this area,” Whitehead notes. ” It’s called viewpoint discrimination. You can’t discriminate against the religious viewpoint, and the judge said that’s what happened here. It violates the First Amendment.”

    The attorney asserts that officials with the high school, in initiating the walkway fundraiser, created a public forum that allowed for private speech, and apparently the bricks with the Christian messages were initially welcomed. “But when the ACLU threatened a lawsuit,” he says, “they actually removed the bricks, and the judge said that’s viewpoint discrimination. That violates the First Amendment when you have different messages on a sidewalk or in [another public] forum.”

That’s the ACLU for you in all its shining glory; America’s number one religious censor! It is quite shameful that an organization that prides itself as the protector of religious liberty to use legally threaten people to actually violate people’s rights. But that is what the ACLU are best at.

Alan Sears describes the ACLU well in this WND column.

    This dramatic erosion of religious liberty is the result of the ACLU’s deliberate, incremental strategy. The group often starts its attacks against cash-strapped organizations or legally unsophisticated governmental agencies. Many times, a forceful letter from a big-firm ACLU lawyer is enough to cause an administrator to restrict the public expression of religion.

    Even if the embattled organization is sympathetic to a believer’s plight, officials often determine it isn’t worth the hassle or considerable expense to fight the ACLU in a protracted battle. When people do stand their constitutionally protected ground, the ACLU often finds judges and courts likely to support their leftist legal interpretations. And every successful case serves as a precedent for the next.

    The ACLU’s destructive assault on the religious heritage of this nation must be challenged – and vigorously. We as a people must stand our ground to protect our constitutionally guaranteed right to freely practice our religion in public and private.

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STDs hit record high in Minnesota

Gonorrhea, chlamydia, and syphilis cases hit record-high levels in Minnesota in 2005, with gay and bisexual men in their 30s, 40s, and 50s accounting for most of the new syphilis diagnoses, the St. Paul Pioneer Press reports. The other sexually transmitted diseases saw significant increases among 15- to 24-year-olds, according to state health department data.

"This is the highest number of cases we have ever seen in a single year," Kip Beardsley, chief of the health department's STD/HIV division, told the Pioneer Press. "It represents an alarming trend that says loudly that too many infected people are going untested and untreated."

A spokesman for the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota says the rise in new STD cases in Minnesota coincides with greater emphasis on abstinence-only sex education in the state’s schools.

__________________________

Again their logic and information is totally incorrect. Abstinence only teaching does not cause an increase in STD'd it is the anything goes teachings that the ACLU advocates that does this.

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ACLU Backs Away From Congressional Abortion Bill Targeting Pregnancy Centers

Shortly after announcing its support for Congressional legislation that would target crisis pregnancy centers, the ACLU has backed off of its support for the pro-abortion bill. The measure would threaten to shut down pregnancy centers that abortion advocates say deceive women because they don't do abortions.

Sponsored by Rep. Carolyn Maloney, a New York Democrat, the bill directs the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to create a rule prohibiting pregnancy centers from trying to deceive women into thinking they perform abortions.

The ACLU, which frequently takes pro-life laws limiting abortion to court, immediately issued a press release supporting the bill.

However, the pro-abortion law firm is backing away from it after some ACLU activists said it would unconstitutionally limit the free speech rights of pregnancy centers.

The press release and any mention of the legislation, introduced March 30, have disappeared from the ACLU web site.

According to the New York Sun newspaper, some civil libertarians within the ACLU spoke out against its position on the bill.

"I find it quite appalling that the ACLU is actively supporting this," board member Wendy Kaminer told the Sun in an interview. "I think this is precisely the kind of legislation we should be opposing, not supporting."

"I am troubled by the assumption in the legislation that abortion services, as a matter of linguistics and a matter of law, cannot include discussing with a woman why she shouldn't have an abortion," Kaminer said.

"I don't believe the pro-choice movement has the copyright on the term ‘abortion services.’ That seems to me a very clear example of government being the language police," Kaminer told the Sun.

Several other board members told the Sun newspaper that they are reviewing the legislation to determine where it is constitutional and whether the ACLU could support it given its policies in favor of the First Amendment.

Maloney did not provide any examples of crisis pregnancy centers falsely advertising abortions when she filed her bill and three groups that represent thousands of pregnancy centers across the country called it an "old recycled" attempt to attack pregnancy centers.

"This is nothing more than a routine attack on pregnancy centers by organizations seeking to limit their competition," Care Net president Kurt Entsminger said in a statement provided to LifeNews.com.

"Our network of pregnancy centers are held to a high standard of integrity regarding truth and honesty in advertising," he added.

[Soldier4Christ]

Only The ACLU


Only the ACLU would take exception to the police being able to share information.

I swear, they act every day more and more like teenagers that have something to hide, don’t they?

Linked here is a story about the New Mexico ACLU taking, eh, exception to the law enforcement agencies in New Mexico being able to use the “LINX” system, which stands for “Law Enforcement Information Exchange” and allows law enforcement agencies to share information faster and more equally.

    Linx lets officers type in a name, address or other piece of information, and the system makes available any reports from participating agencies pertaining to the information entered.

Now, of course they have concerns. Namely;

    In 2001, the Detroit Free Press uncovered 90 violations by authorized users who accessed a statewide database to track down ex-girlfriends or harass a woman.

Incidents such as this should be dealt with harshly. Anyone abusing a position of power and access for personal gain or issues should be punished in the harshest terms possible.

But the ability of law enforcement to share information should not be hindered. That was part of the reason that 9-11 worked for the murdering thugs that pulled it off

The ACLU is wrong to try to protect criminals at the expense of our safety.

But then, they spend a lot of time on the wrong side of the issues, so they are probably very comfortable with that.

[Soldier4Christ]

Battle over seal ending


A fourth attempt at a ballot measure designed to return a tiny cross to the Los Angeles County seal failed Monday, and organizers said they are giving up the cause.

Cross proponent David Hernandez said volunteers collected about 100,000 signatures supporting the measure, far short of the 170,606 needed to get it on the ballot.

He said supporters donated about $90,000 which paid for a mass distribution of petitions, radio advertisements and other expenses but he estimated it would take $300,000 to $500,000 to hire paid signature-gatherers for a successful campaign.

As a result, he said he doesn't plan to make a fifth attempt.

Hernandez, a retired insurance adjuster who lives in Valley Glen, said he intends to turn his attention to his campaign for county supervisor, challenging incumbent Zev Yaroslavsky.

If he's elected he would be the third swing vote on the board and he and supervisors Michael Antonovich and Don Knabe could vote to return the cross to the seal.

"As a new member of the board, I would be in a position to introduce a motion to put this on the ballot in June 2007," Hernandez said.

The latest effort is part of a nationwide controversy over the constitutionality of religious symbols on government and public display.

The issue ignited in early 2004 after the American Civil Liberties Union threatened to sue the county, claiming the cross on the original 1957 seal was unconstitutional.
   
In several 3-2 votes, the supervisors ordered the cross removed, and hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent replacing the original seal on thousands of vehicles, buildings, signs and uniforms. Supervisors Zev Yaroslavsky, Gloria Molina and Yvonne Brathwaite Burke also voted against a motion to give voters a chance to decide the fate of the cross.

Brad Dacus, president of the Pacific Justice Institute in Sacramento, a legal defense organization specializing in the defense of religious freedom, parental rights and other civil liberties, said the supervisors unfortunately buckled under intimidation from the ACLU.

"The hostility is from an intolerant minority who wish to sterilize the public square of any acknowledgment of the truth of our nation's history and heritage," said Dacus, whose organization offered to defend the county if it chose to fight the ACLU.

"People may not like the foundation of our nation's history, but it is what it is. And the minority should not be allowed to snuff out the truth of our nation's heritage for future generations."

The ACLU did not return a call for comment.

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March aborted at Miami University

OXFORD - As many as 15 people claiming ties with white-supremacist groups apparently lost their way Monday night and tried to stage a march at the wrong place, a Miami University spokesman said.

Their intended target apparently was the ACLU, which held a seminar on immigration at the Miami University-Hamilton campus, said Richard Little, a university spokesman.

"A group claiming an association with the Aryan Nation and the KKK got lost and wound up on the Oxford campus" sometime after 7 p.m., Little said.

"They tried to carry their signs outside on campus. They were told they had no permit" and they left, Little said.

A Miami University police dispatcher confirmed that a group of people walked around for a short time in uniform.

Little said he believes the group had come from Toledo.

"They were there simply because they were lost and confused," Little said.

Lost or not, the sight of the group walking and holding up signs that read "White people unite" unnerved students.

Members of the Sigma Lambda Gamma Sorority Inc., a Latina-based multicultural group, said they were posting fliers in Shriver Student Center at 8:30 when they saw the marchers.

Michelle Flood, 20, of Huber Heights said she saw a neo-Nazi sign decorated with a swastika in front of the marchers.

"I've never seen anything like that in my life," said Mattie Newell, 18, another sorority member who is a native of Birmingham.

"It was a disgrace."

Newell, who is white, said some of the men had come inside the building and walked through the sorority sisters in a rude manner as the women posted their fliers for a forum on race relations at the university set for April 19.

[Soldier4Christ]

Betrayal at the Top: The Record of the American Civil Liberties Union

The ACLU is widely portrayed by the mass media as an uncompromising defender of our most cherished freedoms. The impression given is of a group so dedicated to protecting the Bill of Rights that they would be willing in 1979 to lose as many as 70,000 of their members through their controversial defense of the right of Nazis to march in Skokie, Illinois.

Unquestionably the vast majority of ACLU members have been drawn to the organization by an idealistic response to this image. But on closer examination, a great disparity exists between the group’s professed ideals and the work and statements of its leadership. A review of such contradictions can lead to an understanding of why this is the case.

The ACLU and The Right to Life

Since the Supreme Court’s legalization of abortion in 1973, the ACLU has remained the staunchest advocate not only of the mass murder of millions of unborn children, but also of compelling those to whom abortion is morally repugnant to pay for it through public funding.

The Union endorses euthanasia or “mercy killing” through so-called “living wills” in which the right to terminate one’s own life is delegated to the doctor with the protection of the state.

In spite of the Union’s insistence on what it calls a woman’s “right to control her own body,” we find the group consistently absent from defending doctors and patients who are persecuted for choosing nutritional therapies for terminal diseases. The Union’s record in defending the civil liberties of mental patients against involuntary commitment to institutions also leaves much to be desired.

But most amazingly, in spite of the group’s willingness to give the government power to determine when life both begins and ends, the ACLU flatly maintains that there is no crime one can commit so horrible, either for retribution or deference, than capital punishment.

ACLU Defends the Soviet Family

It would be fair to say that the ACLU has contributed to the attempted undermining of the American family. They have been active in fighting for distribution of often dangerous methods of contraception and abortion to minors without parental approval. While avoiding defense of doctors who recommend nutrition to their patients, the ACLU has pushed for legalization of dangerous “recreational” drugs, not in the free market, but under government monopoly control. In the face of growing evidence of its relationship to child molestation, the ACLU is famous defending all kinds of pornography from the restrictions of local government, while sanctioning an even more intrusive and impossibly unenforceable “national standard” on obscenity and related matters. And, of course, there is the ACLU’s unsuccessful support for that Pandora’s box of federal power extensions that was called the “Equal Rights Amendment.”

In so many of these issues, which include areas in which the Union has in recent years received much publicity, the ACLU claims to be defending the rights of minors as individuals against the wishes of their parents. But when 12-year-old Ukrainian Walter Polovchak in 1980 ran away from his parents in Chicago because he did not want to be forced to return to a life of slavery in the Soviet Union, the ACLU was so moved by his parents “concern,” that they took the case for the boy’s involuntary repatriation. Apparently for the ACLU, an American child should be free to do anything regardless of the consequences, but a child from behind the Iron Curtain should be refused the chance for a life of freedom.

Whose Rights?

It may seem incredible that a group like the ACLU would fear the exhibition of Nativity scenes on public property or the singing of “hark the Herald Angels Sing” in public school assembly programs as threats to the First Amendment while turning deaf ears to the pleas of a 12-year-old boy for freedom. But strange conclusions result from the group’s tendency to view the concept of rights as pertaining not to all individuals and what they have the right to do, but rather to groups who use government to take away from others the things they think they deserve.

Unlike the authors of the U.S. Constitution, the ACLU views our rights as demanding the fruits of another’s labor rather than the opportunity to earn them ourselves. The late Ayn Rand correctly pointed out that this really means the right to enslave others to provide what we want. The Union’s leaning toward a collectivist view of rights is further illustrated by the fact that that other guide books separately detail the rights of women, gay people, teachers, students, military personnel, veterans, hospital patients, mentally retarded persons, young people, aliens, students, candidates and voters, suspects, prisoners, lawyers and clients, government employees, etc. It’s almost as if our rights are defined by our job or sex, or lack of either.

ACLU Assaults our Intelligence Agencies

Had the ACLU not been around we might not have had the tragedies in Oklahoma City or the bombing at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.

Perhaps the best known posturing against Big Brother on the part of the Union consists of its often bewilderingly contradictory positions on personal privacy vs. government surveillance and investigation.

The ACLU provided primary leadership for the Left’s drive to abolish the:

    * House Committee on Un-American Activities(later House Internal Security Committee),
    * Senate Internal Security Subcommittee
    * Subversive Activities Control Board
    * Attorney General’s List of Subversive Organizations
    * Internal Security Division of the Justice Department
    * domestic operations of Military Intelligence
    * and the 1977 Levi Guidelines which crippled the investigative capacity of the FBI.

[Soldier4Christ]

The Saga of Jay Paul

In 1982 the ACLU of Southern California sued Los Angeles Police Department for alleged “abuses” committed by the Public Disorder Intelligence Division, a department which had investigated subversion and terrorism for many years.

Though initially a fishing expedition to determine what data the department possessed as well as its sources, by 1983 the focus of the attack had become PDID Detective Jay Paul, an acknowledged expert on Communist subversion and terrorism. LAPD had been under outside pressure to destroy its intelligence files and Detective Paul had stored them in his home. These files consisted of many boxes full of public record information, mostly newspaper and magazine articles going back to the 1930’s. They were of historical value, possibly useful in ongoing or future investigations and were rescued by Paul from destruction. The ACLU and its liberal political allies in Los Angeles were horrified to discover the collection contained information on their own left-wing activities.

In January 1983 Jay Paul was removed from his intelligence capacity and subjected to an exhausting daily interrogation and investigation that would continue almost 18 months. It is not without significance that this action and the subsequent abolition of the PDID stopped the only advance investigation security preparation that could have helped stop terrorism at the 1984 Summer Olympics before it started.

Using this suit as a public “cause celebre”, in the summer of 1983, the Union pushed mightily for a local Freedom of Information ordinance which Police Chief Darryl Gates told the LA City Council would prevent him from protecting the people of Los Angeles against terrorism at the 1984 Olympics. Fortunately enough concerned citizens packed the council chambers in opposition to this measure that only a very emasculated version of the proposal became law.

The ACLU File

One reason why some prominent leaders of the ACLU have been so opposed to public and private investigations of subversion must relate to what such an investigation would reveal about the Union itself.

The ACLU was formed out of earlier organizations in 1920 and its Executive Director and moving spirit until 1950 was Roger Baldwin. Before he died at age 97 in 1981, his ideology may have changed, but during the early years of his ACLU tenure there is no doubt where he stood.

In the “Harvard Class Book of 1935, spotlighting Baldwin’s class of 1905 on its thirtieth anniversary, he was quoted as saying, “I seek the social ownership of property, the abolition of the propertied class and sole control by those who produce wealth. Communism is, of course, the goal.” He gave this advice in 1917 to an associate who was forming another group:

    “Do steer away from making it look like a Socialist enterprise…We want also to look like patriots in everything we do. We want to get a good lot of flags, talk a good deal about the Constitution and what our forefathers wanted to make of this country, and to show that we are really the folks that really stand for the spirit of our institutions.”

It should not be surprising to note that Baldwin was active during the 1930’s in quite a few of the Communist Party’s United Front organizations - he was an officer of the Garland Fund, for instance - along with other ACLU leaders including Rev. Harry Ward, Rev. John Haynes Holmes, Clarence Darrow, Scott Nearing, Robert Morss Lovett, Arthur Garfield Hayes, Archibald MacLeish, and Oswald Fraenkel. ACLU leadership also included identified Communist Louis Budenz, Robert Dunn and Corliss Lamont. ACLU activists William Z. Foster and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn would later become leaders of the Communist Party, U.S.A.

Since that time, the ACLU’s official left-leaning activism has only steadily increased. Some local affiliates of the Union have always led this crusade, such as the Southern California ACLU which had maintained on its Board identified Communist Party operative Frank Wilkinson. While the national ACLU has not been characterized as a Communist front by any state or federal investigation since 1938, any doubt about its becoming a ’staunch defender’ of individual rights was put to rest in April 1976, when the ACLU National Board formally reinstated Communist Elizabeth Gurley Flynn “posthumously” in its ranks. Despite this partisanship, the ACLU and its affiliated tax-exempt foundation continue to receive substantial yearly support from the Ford, Rockefeller, Carnegie, Field, and other foundations.