News & Commentary

The bad back that awakened me at 6 a.m. on this birthday morning and that spurred unpleasant thoughts of growing old dissipated in an instant with an email alert that our long-awaited decision in the voter ID had issued. I didn't have the opinion, but I had the result – we won! Thousands of hours of hard work in collaboration with my fantastic colleagues had not been a total waste. And that adrenaline rush only increased when I read the opinion.

Congress took an important step this week by passing an omnibus appropriations bill— one giant package to replace 12 spending bills that Congress passes in a normal year to keep the government running for the rest of FY 2014 and avoid another government shutdown. Immigration-related provisions are scattered throughout—some good, some bad, and some downright ugly. Here are just a few:

Today, The Hill's Congress Blog posted a commentary on the importance of Congress improving and passing the Voting Rights Amendment Act of 2014. Below is an excerpt from the piece, and the full commentary is available here.

As you may have heard, Justin Bieber is being investigated for egging his neighbor's home in Los Angeles. If the damage is found to be $400 or more, Bieber could be charged with felony vandalism under California law. A wrinkle that makes this different than the average pop star-in-peril situation is that because Bieber isn't a United States citizen, if he is convicted of a felony he could potentially be deported back to his native Canada. This potential loss to America is because under U.S. law, an aggravated felony or crimes of "moral turpitude" by non-citizens leads to mandatory detention and ineligibility for almost all relief.

The ACLU’s Chris Calabrese testified yesterday before the Senate Commerce Committee in a hearing on the economic benefits and the safety, privacy, and First Amendment implications of unmanned aerial vehicles — drones — which are poised to invade U.S. airspace by 2015. The hearing came on the same day as a front-page story in the Washington Post, describing the rapid spread of this new and powerful technology among law enforcement agencies.

Picture it. You’re online, ensconced in a muscled avatar, hacking your way through a World of Warcraft quest. A burly blacksmith appears on screen, and instead of brandishing a blunderbuss, turns to you and whispers: “Nothing is better than joining a peace party.” This might be your first clue that whoever is operating the blacksmith suit has things other than digital conquest on the brain.

Originally posted by the ACLU of Ohio.
Ohio made

Last week, I publicly revealed my identity as a member of the Citizens' Commission to Investigate the FBI, a group that in 1971 broke into an FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania, took documents proving that the FBI had been spying on innocent Americans, and shared them with the public. Since I came forward, I have been repeatedly asked the following: Why would you, a young mother of three, do something so dangerous and with such serious consequences, and put the lives of your children at risk?

In documenting how she was stalked and threatened online, Amanda Hess, a feminist journalist, shines an unflinching spotlight on the ugly misogyny that too often pervades online forums, making women feel unwelcome or even unsafe just for speaking our minds. It is for similar reasons that (much as I cherish the First Amendment) I generally try not to get sucked into reading comments posted on stories covering cases brought by the ACLU Women's Rights Project, where I work.