News & Commentary
Court Rules Cross Must Come Down
Yesterday, a district court ruled that the federal government may no longer display a 43-foot Latin cross on Mt. Soledad in San Diego, California. The Court's order, which prohibits the government from "displaying or continuing to allow the display of the current cross on federal land as part of the Mount Soledad Veterans Memorial," follows a 2011 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit holding that the display violates the fundamental principles underlying the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
By Heather L. Weaver
Image Control at Its Worst: The White House Immigration Chat
About midway through yesterday's immigration chat with Vice President Biden and Domestic Policy Advisor Cecilia Muñoz, I started to get the sneaking suspicion that the conversation was a tightly controlled event, with the questioners chosen beforehand, even though it wasn't advertised as such.
By By Shawn Jain, ACLU
The NSA's Winter of Discontent
Originally posted on The Huffington Post.
By By Laura W. Murphy, Director, ACLU Washington Legislative Office & Sandra Fulton, ACLU Washington Legislative Office
Even Your Avatar Can't Escape NSA Surveillance
It seems that literally no one is safe from the NSA. Even digital alter egos living in fantasy realms in the online gaming world are being caught up in the NSA's surveillance dragnet.
By By Robyn Greene, ACLU Washington Legislative Office
New Documents Show Lopsided Reliance on Secret Subpoenas
What happens when legislatures pass laws enabling law enforcement to obtain sensitive, private information about people without requiring any evidence of criminal activity, and without any outside oversight whatsoever?
By By Kade Crockford, Director, ACLU of Massachusetts Technology for Liberty Project
Mass Location Tracking: It’s Not Just For the NSA
Thanks to Edward Snowden we now understand that the NSA runs many dragnet surveillance programs, some of which target Americans. But a story yesterday from Washington, D.C. public radio station WAMU is a reminder that dragnet surveillance is not just a tool of the NSA—the local police use mass surveillance as well.
By By Catherine Crump, Staff Attorney, ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project
Should LGBT Activists in India Just Give Up?
Late last night, like many LGBT South Asian Americans, I waited anxiously to see how India's Supreme Court would rule on a colonial-era law that criminalized homosexuality. The ruling came in just after midnight Eastern Standard Time, and it was a major setback: the Court reversed a 2009 lower court judgment and restored the ban on homosexuality.
By By Shawn Jain, ACLU
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