DOWNLOADS: (92)

PLAYS: (495)

Embed

On Wednesday, the Texas State legislature, currently composed of 19 Republicans and 12 Democrats, unanimously passed Senate Bill 11, which mandates that every Texan applying for food assistance through the TANF (Texas Assistance for Needy Families) program, submit to an undefined "screening process" and possible drug test before receiving benefits if the screener finds "good cause" to even suspect that person is... or is likely to... abuse any "controlled substance" -- despite the fact that there is no evidence at all that people seeking assistance are more likely to do drugs.

According to the bill’s author, Sen. Jane Nelson (R-Flower Mound), the purpose of the bill:

“It ensures that TANF, formerly known as welfare, supports its core purpose of helping families to achieve self-sufficiency,” said Nelson, as she introduced the bill. “We found common ground to support a plan that makes sure state resources aren’t used to support a drug habit while at the same time making sure children receiving benefit in a productive environment.”

The state of Florida passed an almost identical testing procedure that ran from 1999 to 2001 and was reintroduced in July of 2011 that was struck down by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta the following month, citing the fact:

"there is nothing inherent to the condition of being impoverished that supports the conclusion that there is a `concrete danger' that impoverished individuals are prone to drug use."

The Tampa Tribune investigated the results of those July 2011 drug tests and found that "96 percent proved to be drug free", another 2 percent never bothering to complete the lengthy application process, and 2 percent actually failing drug testing. At an average cost of $30 per test, the state was hemorrhaging tax dollars at a rate of "$28,800-$43,200 monthly"... FAR out pacing the supposed "savings" from preventing drug-abusers from gaming the system to buy drugs.

(Another analysis of the Florida program also found it to be a costly & colossal failure.)

The Texas bill is a bit more insidious than the Florida program, leaving the decision whether or not to submit an applicant for the confiscation and testing of their bodily fluids up to an ambiguous "good cause" determination by an unspecified process.

Terri Burke, executive director of the ACLU of Texas, said she was shocked to see the measure pass unanimously when it clearly singles out poor Texans as more likely to abuse drugs when federal surveys find no difference in use across any income groups and given the clear experience of Florida that such measures cost more money than they save.

This is just further perpetuation of the stereotype that poor people are all lazy drug-abusing scam-artists, rather than just people that have fallen on hard times seeking assistance. The results of these programs is always the same. Legislators are "shocked" to discover that PEOPLE WITH NO MONEY CAN'T AFFORD TO BUY DRUGS. Pick up any tabloid or turn on the TV, and the biggest drug abusers are the rich & famous (see: Lindsay Lohan), star athletes and the rich spoiled children of corporate executives, not the Average Joe who lost his home after his multi-billion dollar bank got bailed out -- and he didn't.

Addendum: Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) has proposed, not only taking this costly & ineffectual program national, but extending it to those seeking unemployment benefits as well.

This is absolutely crazy. These sex-obsessed busybodies need to get their noses out of everyone else's sex lives and just do their jobs - instead of trying to obstruct access to contraception and punish them with unwanted pregnancy. From Think Progress:

A Texas man has enlisted the ACLU to help him sue CVS for gender discrimination after a pharmacist refused to sell him emergency contraception.

Jason Melbourne had already visited four pharmacies in search of Plan B for his wife when he was referred to a CVS in Mesquite, Texas, some 15 miles away from his home. They had one box left:

But when he finally got there, the overnight pharmacist, Minni Matthew, told Melbourne she wasn’t going to sell it to him.In order for him to buy the meds, the pharmacist said, she’d need to talk to and see the ID of his wife, who was at home with their two young children. He asked why, and she pointed to the fine print on the medication’s box, which says it can only be sold to someone age 17 or older. Melbourne pointed out that he was well over 17.

“I’ve bought this plenty of times in my life, and it’s never been a problem,” he said. “Are you telling me every other place I’ve bought it from has been wrong?”Didn’t matter, Matthew said, since the medicine obviously wasn’t for him.“Why don’t you show me the law that says you can’t sell this to a man?” Melbourne replied.

The situation got worse from there. Melbourne put his wife on the phone and even Googled the medication to show the pharmacist there was no law against selling it to a man. But “she didn’t want to see it,” he said.

That’s when a male pharmacy technician informed Melbourne that they didn’t want to sell emergency contraception to men because they might be giving it to “rape victims.”

Jezebel notes that Melbourne’s ordeal happened around the same time that a Houston CVS store refused to sell another man Plan B. CVS apologized for that last month, calling it an “isolated incident.” It wasn’t.

In fact, in 2010 ACLU received reports that Walgreens stores in Texas, Mississippi and Oklahoma were refusing to sell emergency contraception to men. Walgreens relented when the ACLU confronted them publicly.

Wingnuts are so fixated on the Second Amendment, they completely miss the Fourth. With the increasing militarization of police departments and federal agencies, such legal formalities as warrants go right out the window:

On the night of October 20, 2010, Angel Enrique and Jesus Antonio were in bed in their small, two-bedroom apartment in the Clairmont complex in Nashville. The doors and windows were all shut and locked.

Suddenly there was a loud banging at the door and voices shouting "Police!" and "Policia!" When no one answered, the agents tried to force the door open. Scared, Jesus hid in a closet. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents began hitting objects against the bedroom windows, trying to break in. Without a search warrant and without consent, the ICE agents eventually knocked in the front door and shattered a window, shouting racial slurs and storming into the bedrooms, holding guns to their heads. When asked if they had a warrant, one agent reportedly said, "We don't need a warrant, we're ICE," and, gesturing to his genitals, "the warrant is coming out of my balls."

The Fourth Amendment strictly prohibits warrantless intrusions into private homes and the Constitution's protections apply to both citizens and non-citizens alike. In the absence of a judicially authorized warrant, there must be voluntary and knowing consent; ICE officers forcing themselves into someone's home does not constitute consent.

The ACLU and ACLU of Tennessee this week filed a lawsuit in federal court on behalf of fifteen residents of the apartment complex who were subjected to this large-scale, warrantless raid by ICE agents and Metro Nashville police officers.

[Video Not Safe For Work]

Elon James White, one of our favorite comedians and a Netroots Nation stalwart, channels a lot of people's sentiments in this video. It might be NSFW, but White says a lot of things that need saying.

It's part of the ACLU's campaign to End the War on Drugs:

June 2011 marked the 40th anniversary of President Richard Nixon's declaration of a "war on drugs" — a war that has cost roughly a trillion dollars, has produced little to no effect on the supply of or demand for drugs in the United States, and has contributed to making America the world's largest incarcerator.

The war on drugs has sent millions of people to prison for low-level offenses, and seriously eroded our civil liberties and civil rights while costing taxpayers billions of dollars a year, with nothing to show for it except our status as the world's largest incarcerator. There are 2.3 million people behind bars in this country — that is triple the amount of prisoners we had in 1987 — and 25 percent of those incarcerated are locked up for drug offenses. Taxpayers spend almost $70 billion a year on corrections and incarceration. A far more sensible way to deal with a public health problem like drug addiction is to provide treatment, which study after study has shown is more effective than incarceration.

Through advocacy and litigation, the ACLU has been seeking an end to this failed war on drugs and our costly addiction to incarceration for decades. Go here to read more about the ACLU’s work to end to excessively harsh crime policies that result in mass incarceration and stand in the way of a just and equal society.

There is a series of posts on the subject at the ACLU's Blog of Rights. Be sure to check it out.

Ohio Governor John Kasich lets his Koch love fly free.

From the AFL-CIO blog

The addiction of governors across the country to the Koch brothers’ agenda seems to be growing stronger every day. Here are some warning signs your governor might have a Koch problem:

1. Are they planning on attending the upcoming Koch brothers invitation-only strategy session in ritzy Vail, Colorado?

Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell has already confirmed his attendance. Just because your governor hasn’t announced his or her attendance doesn’t mean he or she is not planning on going. The Koch brothers hold biannual seminars but like to keep their strategy sessions secret so they don’t out their followers. If you have the opportunity, ask them!

2. Did your governor support attacks on collective bargaining rights for public service workers?

The Koch brothers’ front group, Americans for Prosperity, pushed attacks on the collective bargaining rights of firefighters, teachers, nurses, police officers and other public service workers in Wisconsin and Ohio and other states. During the Wisconsin struggle, Gov. Scott Walker was recorded taking a call from a prank caller he thought was David Koch and openly discussed the assault on working families.

3. Is your governor pushing massive tax breaks that would benefit the Koch brothers and other corporate cronies?

The Koch brothers fought hard for the Bush tax cuts to continue in December but they also took their fight for tax breaks for the rich to their Koch-addicted governors. In Ohio, Gov. John Kasich taped a personal thank you video for Americans for Prosperity for the group’s work pushing a repeal of the estate tax, which would only benefit the rich in Ohio.

Oh and there's more. Go check them out at ACLU-blog.

This is really discouraging. We've entered the Age of Surveillance, and no matter who's in the White House, it will continue to get worse:

WASHINGTON — The Federal Bureau of Investigation is giving significant new powers to its roughly 14,000 agents, allowing them more leeway to search databases, go through household trash or use surveillance teams to scrutinize the lives of people who have attracted their attention.

The F.B.I. soon plans to issue a new edition of its manual, called the Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide, according to an official who has worked on the draft document and several others who have been briefed on its contents. The new rules add to several measures taken over the past decade to give agents more latitude as they search for signs of criminal or terrorist activity.

The F.B.I. recently briefed several privacy advocates about the coming changes. Among them, Michael German, a former F.B.I. agent who is now a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, argued that it was unwise to further ease restrictions on agents’ power to use potentially intrusive techniques, especially if they lacked a firm reason to suspect someone of wrongdoing.

“Claiming additional authorities to investigate people only further raises the potential for abuse,” Mr. German said, pointing to complaints about the bureau’s surveillance of domestic political advocacy groups and mosques and to an inspector general’s findings in 2007 that the F.B.I. had frequently misused “national security letters,” which allow agents to obtain information like phone records without a court order..

Here's the really bizarre part:

Continue reading »

We are all familiar with how the death penalty works. A crime (usually murder) is committed. It's investigated by law enforcement. A suspect is arrested, charged with the crime, and goes to trial. The government shows the judge or jury the evidence against the accused. The accused can defend against the accusations. The jury delivers a verdict. If it's a guilty verdict, the defendant might be sentenced to death.

The process, from arrest to sentencing, is the Fifth Amendment in action, the part that states: "no person…shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law."

But earlier this year, the Obama administration asserted it has the authority to carry out "targeted killings" of U.S. citizens outside armed conflict zones. In February, then-Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair told the House Intelligence Committee that the U.S. was authorized to take “direct action” against suspected terrorists and that “if we think that direct action will involve killing an American, we get specific permission to do that.”

It was reported widely, in fact, that the government keeps secret "kill lists," which function as standing authorizations to use lethal force against anyone on the list, including American citizens.

Yesterday, the ACLU and Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) filed a lawsuit challenging the government's asserted authority to carry out targeted killings of U.S. citizens outside armed conflict zones.

Now, no one disputes that the United States is at war. But wars are waged in specific geographic areas. Currently, the U.S. is at war in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The U.S. is not at war in Somalia. Yet that is where a missile strike killed Ruben Shumpert, a U.S. citizen from Seattle.

The U.S. is also not at war in Yemen. Yet that is where Anwar al-Aulaqi, a U.S. citizen, is purportedly in hiding, and where the government has attempted to assassinate him as many as a dozen times using armed drones.

The Constitution protects all Americans' right to life, whether they're living at home or abroad. If the government thinks you should be dead, it should at least tell you why. The fact that the standard that puts Americans on the "kill list" is a secret is itself unconstitutional. As our complaint states, "U.S. citizens have a right to know what conduct may subject them to execution at the hands of their own government. Due process requires, at a minimum, that citizens be put on notice of what may cause them to be put to death by the state."

Continue reading »

I almost can't believe I'm writing this, but yesterday the ACLU and the Center for Constitutional Rights received a license that allows them to sue the government -- for ordering the assassination of a U.S. citizen, away from the field of combat, without due process of any kind:

“The license issued by OFAC today will allow us to pursue our litigation relating to the government’s asserted authority to engage in targeted killings of American civilians without due process. While we appreciate OFAC’s quick response to our lawsuit, we continue to believe that OFAC’s regulations are unconstitutional because they require lawyers who are providing uncompensated legal representation to seek the government’s permission before challenging the constitutionality of the government’s conduct. Notably, OFAC has indicated that the license issued to us today can be revoked at any time. We will pursue our claim that OFAC’s attorney-licensing regulations are unconstitutional and should be invalidated.”

Glenn Greenwald wrote about this back in January, and specifically about Anwar al-Aulaqi, the U.S. citizen targeted by this order:

Obviously, if U.S. forces are fighting on an actual battlefield, then they (like everyone else) have the right to kill combatants actively fighting against them, including American citizens. That's just the essence of war. That's why it's permissible to kill a combatant engaged on a real battlefield in a war zone but not, say, torture them once they're captured and helplessly detained.

But combat is not what we're talking about here. The people on this "hit list" are likely to be killed while at home, sleeping in their bed, driving in a car with friends or family, or engaged in a whole array of other activities. More critically still, the Obama administration -- like the Bush administration before it -- defines the "battlefield" as the entire world.

So the President claims the power to order U.S. citizens killed anywhere in the world, while engaged even in the most benign activities carried out far away from any actual battlefield, based solely on his say-so and with no judicial oversight or other checks. That's quite a power for an American President to claim for himself.

As we well know from the last eight years, the authoritarians among us in both parties will, by definition, reflexively justify this conduct by insisting that the assassination targets are Terrorists and therefore deserve death. What they actually mean, however, is that the U.S. Government has accused them of being Terrorists, which (except in the mind of an authoritarian) is not the same thing as being a Terrorist. Numerous Guantanamo detainees accused by the U.S. Government of being Terrorists have turned out to be completely innocent, and the vast majority of federal judges who provided habeas review to detainees have found an almost complete lack of evidence to justify the accusations against them, and thus ordered them released. That includes scores of detainees held while the U.S. Government insisted that only the "Worst of the Worst" remained at the camp.

No evidence should be required for rational people to avoid assuming that Government accusations are inherently true, but for those do need it, there is a mountain of evidence proving that. And in this case, Anwar Aulaqi -- who, despite his name and religion, is every bit as much of an American citizen as Scott Brown and his daughters are -- has a family who vigorously denies that he is a Terrorist and is "pleading" with the U.S. Government not to murder their American son:

His anguish apparent, the father of Anwar al-Awlaki told CNN that his son is not a member of al Qaeda and is not hiding out with terrorists in southern Yemen."I am now afraid of what they will do with my son, he's not Osama Bin Laden, they want to make something out of him that he's not," said Dr. Nasser al-Awlaki, the father of American-born Islamic cleric Anwar al-Awlaki. . . ."I will do my best to convince my son to do this (surrender), to come back but they are not giving me time, they want to kill my son.

How can the American government kill one of their own citizens? This is a legal issue that needs to be answered," he said."If they give me time I can have some contact with my son but the problem is they are not giving me time," he said.

Who knows what the truth is here? That's why we have what are called "trials" -- or at least some process -- before we assume that government accusations are true and then mete out punishment accordingly. As Marcy Wheeler notes, the U.S. Government has not only repeatedly made false accusations of Terrorism against foreign nationals in the past, but against U.S. citizens as well. She observes: "I guess the tenuousness of those ties don’t really matter, when the President can dial up the assassination of an American citizen."

This isn't a case of bleeding heart liberals being conned; everyone's aware that Anwar Al-Awlaki is a pretty dangerous individual who calls for jihad against Americans. But he's also a U.S. citizen, and deserves at least as much from the legal process as someone who holds up a bank.

That's what's supposed to make us different.

You know, we progressives like to rely on rational appeals a lot. And we're often frustrated when we discover that they're not working -- while Republican crooks and liars prosper with their often irrational appeals to people's emotions.

Thus, in the immigration debate, we can recite the whole litany of facts debunking the people -- like those in Arizona who passed and are now promoting its police-state immigration law, SB1070 -- who are trying to convince Americans that Latino immigrants are bringing with them a wave of crime. And you know what? The lizard-brain appeal often wins out.

We can point out till we're blue in the face that:

-- Despite the defenders of SB1070's claims that the law will brook no racial profiling, all Latino travelers from out of state -- including American citizens -- will be at risk should they choose to travel to Arizona if the law takes effect.

-- The law gives federal enforcement powers to local authorities -- something previously unseen in law enforcement.

-- Arizonans have been inverting reality when it comes to the levels and nature of immigrant-related border crime, conflating without evidence a handful of cases involving white victims while completely ignoring even more startling incidents involving white vigilantes and Latino victims.

-- The bill and its ensuing controversy has proven a major nexus for the mainstreaming of the racist right's white-supremacist agenda.

SB1070's defenders like to point to its popularity -- and yes, we can just as easily point out that, historically speaking, depriving the rights of others in this country has always been a popular proposition. But that's the rational argument.

We need to realize that we can make appeals that are both rational and emotional. Which is where this new video by the Black Eyed Peas' Taboo comes in.

Because really, the issues around SB1070 are very simple: right and wrong, just and unjust. And sometimes there's no better way to make that point than with a simple, great, heartfelt song.

And this is exactly that. The video features some guest vocals by Dolores Huerta, Eva Longoria, Oscar De La Hoya, Shakira & Juanes. It builds off the familiar riff of "One People" and becomes its own song.

Indeed, lots of musicians are joining this cause, and it can only help. Recall that Los Lobos has already made a statement of its own.

So while we're waiting for Judge Benson to rule on the Justice Department's suit to block the enactment of SB1070, here's something to remind us that sometimes the appeals from the heart can be the most powerful.

FWIW, Taboo was interviewed on MSNBC today about the video:

Continue reading »

From the ACLU series, Justice Denied

And as if we haven't already destroyed this man's life, it just gets worse:

On Monday, the Pentagon announced that two prisoners had been released from Guantánamo. Abd al-Nisr Mohammed Khantumani, a 50-year old Syrian (also known as Abdul Nasir al-Tumani) was given a new home in Cape Verde, a former Portuguese colony off the West African coast, while Abdul Aziz Naji, a 35-year old Algerian, was repatriated to Algeria.

(T)he focus must be on the legal maneuvering that led to the repatriation of Abdul Aziz Naji, because, for the first time in Guantánamo’s history, a prisoner has been sent home against his will, even though Doris Tennant, one of his lawyers, told the Washington Post two weeks ago that he was “adamantly opposed to going back.” At the weekend, another of his lawyers, Ellen Lubell, told the Miami Herald that Naji “fears extremists will try to recruit him — associating him with Guantánamo — and will torture or kill him if he resists.” She added, “He has nothing against the Algerian government, but he fears that the government will be unable to protect him from Algerian extremists.” In a press release, the Center for Constitutional Rights explained that Naji “fled various forms of persecution in Algeria many years ago, including having been attacked by an extremist.” CCR also sounded a note of caution about how the Algerian government will receive Naji, stating, “we are deeply concerned that he will disappear into secret detention.”

These are valid concerns, as Algeria has a poor human rights record. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the United Nations (PDF, pp. 108-9) regularly express concerns about the use of torture in Algeria, and in its 2009 report on human rights in Algeria, the US State Department noted, “Local human rights lawyers maintained that torture continued to occur in detention facilities, most often against those arrested on ‘security grounds.’”

In contrast, an Obama administration official, speaking anonymously, told the Washington Post two weeks ago, “We take some care in evaluating countries for repatriation. In the case of Algeria, there is an established track record and we have given that a lot of weight. The Algerians have handled this pretty well: You don’t have recidivism and you don’t have torture.” This was a bold statement to make, in light of the allegations made by NGOs and the UN, and concerns about torture or other ill-treatment were not diminished by a response to the news of Naji’s repatriation in Monday’s Washington Post, in which it was noted that “The government said that Algeria has provided diplomatic assurances that Naji would not be mistreated, assurances that administration officials say are credible because 10 other detainees have been returned to Algeria without incident.” The problems with this statement concern the “diplomatic assurances,” and the claim that 10 men have been repatriated “without incident.” On the “diplomatic assurances,” Human Rights Watch explained in a press release that its own research “has shown that diplomatic assurances provided by receiving countries, which are legally unenforceable, do not provide an effective safeguard against torture and ill-treatment,” and, on the status of the 10 men returned, although there have been no allegations of torture, there has been very little information at all about the conditions in which they have been held, and what has emerged publicly is not reassuring, as it reveals both prolonged pre-trial detention, and calls for punitive sentences from the prosecutors.

As much as it hurts me to say this, the Bush administration was far more humane on the issue of repatriating Guantanamo detainees back to areas where they might be tortured--known as "non-refoulement", as evidenced by the care they took with the Uighurs. Ironic, considering the callousness with which they treated them while in detention.

The long history of the authorities grappling with the “non-refoulement” obligation at Guantánamo began with the Uighurs, 22 Muslims from China’s oppressed Xinjiang province, who were mostly seized in Pakistan in December 2001 after crossing from Afghanistan, where they had been living in a run-down settlement in the Tora Bora mountains, thwarted in their attempts to travel to Turkey or Europe in search of work, or nursing futile hopes of rising up against their only enemy, the Chinese government.

With the Uighurs, the Bush administration recognized its “non-refoulement” obligation, refusing to return them to China, and finding new homes for five of the men in Albania in 2006. When the Obama administration inherited the problem of the remaining 17 men, who had, in the meantime, won their habeas corpus petitions, it found new homes for 12 of them in Bermuda, Palau and Switzerland, although five still remain at Guantánamo, and, last spring, the administration turned down a plan by White House Counsel Greg Craig to bring some of the men to live in the US, which would have done more in the long run to defuse scaremongering about Guantánamo than any other gesture.

The issue of closing Guantanamo, a promise which many liberals relied on Obama fulfilling shortly after taking office has been unquestionably a minefield of legal and ethical considerations. It's just another black mark on the Obama presidency.