ACLU

Weapons Industry Backed Militarization Of Police By Congress

August 16, 2014 Donny Shaw, www.maplight.org Educate! ACLU, Corporatism, Militarization, Police

Local law enforcement around the country has become more heavily armed through partnerships with the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security. One of the key programs, the 1033 Program, allows the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) under the Department of Defense to transfer military equipment to civilian police. In June, the House of Representatives voted on an amendment from Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) that sought to partially defund the 1033 Program. The amendment failed on a bipartisan vote of 62-355. Representatives voting to continue funding the 1033 Program have received, on average, 73 percent more money from the defense industry than representatives voting to defund it. Fifty-nine representatives received more than $100,000 from the defense industry from January 1, 2011 - December 31, 2013. Of those only four supported defunding the 1033 Program. As the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) noted in a recent report, "it appears that the DLA can simply purchase property from an equipment or weapons manufacturer and transfer it to a local law enforcement agency free of charge." The ACLU states that 36 percent of the equipment transferred under the program is brand new (pg. 26).

ACLU: US Has Illegal Muslim Blacklist

August 7, 2014 Matt Reynolds, www.courthousenews.com Resist! ACLU, Muslim, Surveillance, Terrorism

The United States violates its own immigration laws through an under-the-radar "blacklist" that denies citizenship, green cards and political asylum to thousands of people, including innocent people placed on a terrorist watch list, longtime legal-resident Muslims claim in Federal Court. Lead plaintiff Reem Muhanna, et al. claim that the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service has consistently denied their applications for citizenship and lawful permanent residence after secretly blacklisting them as "'national security concerns,'" though they pose no threat to the United States. The ACLU filed the lawsuit on July 31 against the USCIS, the Department of Homeland Security, and a slew of their national and regional officers. The plaintiffs claim that the Citizenship and Immigration Service uses obscure rules, under a program known as the Controlled Application Review and Resolution Program (CARRP), to delay or deny applications. "Under this unfair and unconstitutional program, the government has blacklisted their applications without telling them why and barred them from upgrading their immigration status in violation of the immigration laws," ACLU attorney Jennie Pasquarella said in a statement. The plaintiffs ask the court to order Uncle Sam to judicially settle their applications for citizenship and permanent residence, as required under the Immigration and Nationality Act. The executive branch of the government does not have the authority to set rules on citizenship and permanent residence, the plaintiffs say.

Citizens Sue Over Suspicious Activity Program

July 12, 2014 Kevin Gosztola, www.dissenter.firedoglake.com Resist! ACLU, Law, Privacy, Surveillance, Terrorism

The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit on behalf of five United States citizens challenging a domestic surveillance program, which involves the collection of “suspicious activity reports” on individuals. The federal government has a National Suspicious Activity Reporting Initiative (NSI) that, according to the ACLU’s filed complaint [PDF], “encourages state and local law enforcement agencies as well as private actors to collect and report information that has a potential nexus to terrorism in the form of so-called ‘suspicious activity reports [SARs].’” Any individual who is flagged as having a “potential nexus to terrorism” will automatically be subject to “law enforcement scrutiny, which may include intrusive questioning by local or federal law enforcement agents.” Plus, “Even when the Federal Bureau of Investigation concludes that the person did not have any nexus to terrorism, a SAR can haunt that individual for decades, as SARs remain in federal databases for up to 30 years.”

ACLU Report: US Government’s Role In Creating “Paramilitary Police”

June 29, 2014 Andre Damon, www.wsws.org Educate! ACLU, Democracy, Inequality, Police, Wars and Militarism

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) released an extensive report Monday on the militarization of the police in the US, showing that the “federal government has justified and encouraged the militarization of local law enforcement.” The report, entitled War Comes Home: The Excessive Militarization of American Policing, shows that the federal government has spent billions of dollars arming local police forces with military-grade weapons and encouraged their use in day-to-day policing. The report focuses on the increasing use of so-called Special Weapons And Tactics (SWAT) forces to take over the role of ordinary police forces. These units are, in the words of their creator, former Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl Gates, “quasi-militaristic” outfits. SWAT teams have been deployed throughout the US to carry out such tasks as serving search warrants related to non-violent crimes. These raids proceed like the house-to-house searches made infamous during the US invasion of Iraq, involving police in military battledress throwing stun grenades, pointing automatic rifles at people, wantonly damaging property, killing animals, and gunning down anyone who actively resists.

Facebook Fights Broad Search By Government

June 28, 2014 Vindu Goel and James C. McKinley Jr., www.nytimes.com Resist! ACLU, Facebook, Law, New York City (NYC), Privacy

Facebook and the Manhattan district attorney’s office are in a bitter fight over the government’s demand for the contents of hundreds of Facebook accounts. In confidential legal documents unsealed on Wednesday, Facebook argues that Manhattan prosecutors last summer violated the constitutional right of its users to be free of unreasonable searches by demanding nearly complete account data on 381 people, ranging from pages they had liked to photos and private messages. When the social networking company fought the data demands, a New York judge ruled that Facebook had no standing to contest the search warrants since it was simply an online repository of data, not a target of the criminal investigation. To protect the secrecy of the investigation, the judge also barred the company from informing the affected users, a decision that prevented the individuals from fighting the data requests themselves. The case, which is now on appeal, pits the Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches by the government against the needs of prosecutors to seek evidence from the digital sources where people increasingly store their most sensitive data.

SWAT Teams Claim ‘Corporate’ Exemption From Public Scrutiny

June 28, 2014 Sarah Lazare, www.commondreams.org Educate! ACLU, Law, Racism, SWAT, Wars and Militarism

Operators of Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) teams comprised of tax payer-funded police and sheriffs in Massachusetts claim they are immune to public records requests about deadly force, incident reports, and more because they are private "corporations." In addition to SWAT teams run by individual towns, many of these military-style domestic policing units are operated by regional "law enforcement councils," which are bankrolled by tax-payer money and comprised of publicly-funded police and sheriffs. According to the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, approximately 240 of the 351 police departments in Massachusetts belong to these LECs. Some of these LECs have become incorporated with 501(c)(3) status—a classification they say makes them exempt from public records requests. Jessie Rossman, staff attorney for the ACLU of Massachusetts, told Common Dreams that her organization issued records requests to "a couple of LECs" to obtain information about their policies for a recent report on the militarization of local police. "We got responses from individuals claiming to speak on behalf of the LECs saying they would not be responding because they do not believe they are subject to public records law," she explained.

ACLU Pushes Back Against Obama Nominee Who Authored Drone Murder Memo

May 8, 2014 Zak Newman, www.aclu.org Resist! ACLU, Drones

The ACLU wrote today to the full Senate membership urging senators to read key memos on the drone targeted killing program before voting on the nomination of David Barron to the First Circuit Court of Appeals. You can read the full letter here. Mr. Barron is the reported author of at least two memos from the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel authorizing the killing of an American citizen by an armed drone away from any battlefield. In order to uphold its constitutional obligations, the Senate must demand access to these and other legal memos on the killing program before moving forward with any vote on his nomination. The implications of Mr. Barron's secret memos are broad, having propped up the U.S. government's killing program. From our letter: The OLC opinions written or signed by Mr. Barron helped form the purported legal foundation for a large-scale killing program that has resulted in, as Senator Lindsey Graham stated last year, as many as 4,700 deaths by drone attacks, including the deaths of four American citizens acknowledged by Attorney General Eric Holder (one of the United States citizens killed by a missile fired from a drone was a 16-year old boy).

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