| CIVIL
RIGHTS - CITIZENS
8/16/04 <link>
Learning from History: The Internment of
Japanese Americans during World War II
Click
here for commentary on this.
6/28/04 <link>
The U.S Supreme Court rules on "enemy
combatant" and "detainee" cases
Click
here for commentary on this.
12/17/02 <link>
Some
top cities across the U.S. oppose Patriot Act
Some symbolically, some legally, fight against the Patriot Act deeming
it excessively undermines civil liberties.
12/13/02 <link>
Interracial
dating and marriage on the rise
This is a piece of refreshing news in the midst of the Trent
Lott issue. We quote some figures cited by Nicholas Kristof in this
op-ed (bold phrases are our emphasis):
"...Mixed-race marriages in the U.S. now
number 1.5 million and are roughly doubling each decade..."
"...About 40 percent of Asian-Americans and 6 percent of blacks
have married whites in recent years..."
"...Still more
striking, one survey found that 40 percent of Americans had dated
someone of another race..."
"...Scientists who study the human genome say that race is mostly a
bogus distinction reflecting very little genetic difference, perhaps
one-hundredth of 1 percent of our DNA. Skin color differences are
recent, arising over only the last 100,000 years or so, a twinkling of
an evolutionary eye..."
11/22/02 <link>
"Total Information Awareness" (or Un-information
awareness?)
Civil liberties take a big step back with the approval for the TIA
office to be created after the passage of the Homeland Security Bill.
While we are in agreement that effective intelligence sharing and
information sharing on terrorists is a must, it is hard to imagine
that the only way to achieve this is through organized spying of a
massive scale. It is more intelligent to start with the suppliers of
materials and weapons that may get into the hands of terrorists and
work downward than start bottom-up by assuming everyone is a suspect
by default. Do we really have the confidence that such a system will
not miss the forest for the irrelevant shrubs, while destroying what
America stands for in the process?
As this article in the Financial
Times states, "...The FBI in the 1950s
set up a massive domestic counter-intelligence programme - known as
Cointelpro - to investigate and disrupt the activities of Americans
suspected of sympathising with the Soviet Union or the Communist
party. According to the congressional Church committee in 1976, that
mission led the agency to infiltrate not only the American Communist
party, but the civil rights movement, the Vietnam war protesters and
the women's liberation movement. Congress established many of the
current restrictions on the FBI and CIA spying in the wake of those
revelations..."
It is then not surprising
that even conservative Republicans like Bob Barr and Dick Armey - who
have also fought for the Right to Privacy - have
now been recruited as consultants by the ACLU. For the moment, we
feature some recent articles/op-eds on this issue below.
Derrick
Jackson (The Boston Globe)
Editorial
(The Washington Post)
Jim
Puzzanghera (San Jose Mercury News)
William
Safire (New York Times)
Audrey
Husdon (The Washington Times)
10/10/02 <link>
Representing an accused (suspected) terrorist? Think again.
Elaine Cassel in FindLaw, tells us how lawyers can go to the lam
forever - with their clients - due to the Patriot Act and its
aftermath.
10/2/02
<link>
A Fifth Amendment compromise?
Julie Hilden's thoughtful article in FindLaw asks whether we could rewrite
the laws to help prevent American citizens from having to be locked up
indefinitely on incorrect charges, but help keep them locked up if
they are really guilty - by giving them the right to an attorney (6th
Amendment) but taking away the 5th (Right to remain silent). Why would
this help? Well, read the article! The pros and cons are explored
there. Clearly a debatable idea but a thought provoking one. At a
time where there are more questions and complaints about civil
liberties, than answers, creative thinking of this kind is in order!
9/23/02
<link>
Some airline
security nightmares
Here's a Washington
Post editorial talking about the absurdity of trying to indict a
Sikh who was held because he spent too much time shaving in the
airplane. Another, an op-ed
by Bob Herbert in the New York Times talks about an Indian who was
held for hours because he seemed to have watched an unfolding incident
(including air marshals with guns pointed towards the cabin) involving
some "erratic" behavior by a Steven Fauer "too
closely". Hmmm.
9/17/02 <link>
Poll
on civil liberties
The Los Angeles Times reports on interesting findings from a poll of
Americans recently conducted by the National
Constitution Center (which has by the way a link
to the U.S. Constitution). Here are some highlights. It turns out
that ~ 60% of the people believe that:
-
Monitoring
prisoner-lawyer conversations on terrorism-related cases is OK
-
Illegal
immigrants deserve no constitutional protections and must be
deported immediately.
-
Racial
profiling at airports is not
acceptable.
9/11/02
<link>
CIVIL LIBERTIES
As we reach the anniversary of the most heinous attack on the lives,
freedom and liberties of the people of the United States, we decided
to feature some op-eds and opinion columns on where civil liberties
stand today. Clearly, this is a controversial topic, and we will in
due course publish our own opinions.
Jimmy
Carter (in the Washington Post)
John
Payton (in the Washington Post)
Editorial
(in the Washington Post)
Editorial
(in the Washington Post)
Paul
Krugman (in the New York Times)
Nicholas
Kristof (in the New York Times)
Editorial
(in the New York Times)
Editorial
(in the Los Angeles Times)
Editorial
(in the Los Angeles Times)
Editorial
(in the Los Angeles Times)
Derrick
Jackson (in the Boston Globe)
Dahlia Lithwick (in MSNBC/Slate)
Cragg
Hines (Houston Chronicle)
Bruce
Bartlett (in the Washington Times)
Nat
Hentoff (in the Washington Times)
Jake
Kreilkamp (FindLaw)
David
Cole (The Nation)
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