News & Commentary

Five years ago, the Philadelphia police thought that carrying Arabic-language flashcards was enough to warrant the arrest of an innocent traveler. A settlement reached today in a lawsuit I brought against the police department makes it clear that it is not.

In a case currently pending before the Supreme Court, the government is arguing that courts should not be able to decide if the executive branch followed the law in denying a visa to a non-citizen seeking to enter the United States — even if the visa denial affects the constitutional right of a U.S. citizen.

This post was first published by Just Security.

We began this week by celebrating the 85th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s birth, but today the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in an important case that could knock down a crucial racial and economic pillar of justice built during the civil rights movement.

Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, last year proposed a logical approach to border security: In rejecting measures to put the "cart" of border spending before the "horse" of measuring what resources are needed, he introduced legislation that, in his own words, "demands a plan, verified by outside experts, before one dollar is spent on new resources."

This year marks the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s historic 1965 march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, to demonstrate how vitally important it was that black Americans be able to exercise their fundamental right to vote. In Selma, people died, suffered bodily injury, and went to jail for that right. President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law a few months after the Selma march – but we're still fighting voter suppression on many fronts half a century later.

Literary history was made today with the publication of the first-ever book by a still-imprisoned Guantánamo detainee. Mohamedou Ould Slahi's "Guantánamo Diary" was finally published with some redactions after years of litigation to declassify it.

In less than 24 hours, the Supreme Court will hear a case that will define the future of decades-old legal protections against discrimination by landlords and banks against renters and homebuyers. The decision could have far-reaching consequences for the battle against housing policies that discriminate on the basis of race, sex, religion, disability, and other protected characteristics. And that, in turn, would have profound implications for efforts to ensure fair and unbiased policing in places like Ferguson and New York City and throughout the country.

This was originally posted by the ACLU of Florida.