News & Commentary

Being Black in America today is rough. Turns out being Black and living in Minneapolis, Minnesota, doesn't make it any easier. Often appearing on "Top 10 Best Places to Live" lists, Minneapolis is billed as a progressive, accessible American city, where residents can work, raise families, and generally live out their own American dream. But if you're a person of color or of a lower socioeconomic status (or, even worse, both) living in Minneapolis, the numbers tell a different tale – indeed, a tale of two cities.
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Last week I was in Vienna, representing the ACLU at the United Nations Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice. Meetings of the Crime Commission, as it's informally known, are sometimes contentious. But the commission's closing session on Friday afternoon was anything but. Instead, the delegates erupted in thunderous applause as the Mandela Rules on the treatment of prisoners were approved by acclamation — the culmination of years of work by the ACLU and many others.
The Mandela Rules — named in honor o

Last week I was in Vienna, representing the ACLU at the United Nations Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice. Meetings of the Crime Commission, as it's informally known, are sometimes contentious. But the commission's closing session on Friday afternoon was anything but. Instead, the delegates erupted in thunderous applause as the Mandela Rules on the treatment of prisoners were approved by acclamation — the culmination of years of work by the ACLU and many others.
The Mandela Rules — named in honor o

This piece originally appeared at The Guardian.
Ray Charles Staten Sr. should have cel

In a last-ditch effort to scare lawmakers into preserving unpopular and much-abused surveillance authorities, the Senate Republican leadership and some intelligence officials are warning that allowing Section 215 of the Patriot Act to sunset would compromise national security. (One particularly crass example from Senator Lindsey Graham: "Anyone who neuters this program is going to be partially responsible for the next attack.") Some media organizations have published these warnings without challenging them, which is unfortunate. The claim that the expiration of Section 215 would deprive the government of necessary investigative tools or compromise national security is entirely without support.
First, there's no evidence that the ca

In a last-ditch effort to scare lawmakers into preserving unpopular and much-abused surveillance authorities, the Senate Republican leadership and some intelligence officials are warning that allowing Section 215 of the Patriot Act to sunset would compromise national security. (One particularly crass example from Senator Lindsey Graham: "Anyone who neuters this program is going to be partially responsible for the next attack.") Some media organizations have published these warnings without challenging them, which is unfortunate. The claim that the expiration of Section 215 would deprive the government of necessary investigative tools or compromise national security is entirely without support.
First, there's no evidence that the ca

This was originally posted at The Daily Beast.
One section of the Patriot Act has bee

This was originally posted on JustSecurity.
Many others have already weighed in ab

While technically Sen. Rand Paul's (R-Ky.) stand against the NSA yesterday wasn't a filibuster, any time a member of Congress talks for over ten hours without a bathroom break, it's close enough in our book.
Paul's move came just as the debate ar