Free Republic

An American Civil Liberties Union attorney was named Wednesday to be the acting head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. Vanita Gupta, who has served for the past four years as deputy legal director of the ACLU and director of its Center for Justice, starts at the Justice Department next week. She previously worked as a lawyer at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. A person familiar with the process said President Barack Obama plans to nominate Gupta to serve in the job permanently. The person was not authorized to discuss the selection process by name and spoke on the...

The U.S. Supreme Court has blocked Wisconsin from enforcing its strict voter identification law in this year's election.. By a 6-3 vote, the justices granted an emergency appeal from civil rights lawyers who argued it was too late to put the rule into effect. Lawyers for the ACLU had noted the state had already sent out thousands of absentee ballots without mentioning the need for voters to return a copy of the photo identification. It would be "chaos," they said, for the state now to have to decide whether or not to count such ballots because the voters failed to...

The New York Times knows no boundaries in its quest to be the most anti-American outlet in an already very anti-American national media. This story sounds like something that came from The Onion, but sadly it is true. The New York Times has editorialized in favor of the Civil Rights of pedophiles – yes pedophiles! The Times wrings its dainty little hands and bemoans the nation’s “tough anti-pedophile laws” as “unfair to pedophiles.” A mouth breathing mutant named Margo Kaplan, of course a former American Civil Liberties Union lawyer, who is now an assistant professor at Rutgers University is quoted...

Blacks are more likely to be stopped and frisked by Hub cops in a “problematic pattern” that stops short of “widespread” racial profiling, according to the researcher whose findings the ACLU cited in an explosive report on Boston police tactics.

The case was brought by 10 same-sex couples who are represented by the ACLU. Missouri must recognize the marriages of same-sex couples that were granted elsewhere, state Judge Dale Youngs ruled on Friday. “[T]o the extent these laws prohibit plaintiffs’ legally contracted marriages from other states from being recognized here, they are wholly irrational, do not rest upon any reasonable basis, and are purely arbitrary,” Youngs wrote. The ruling followed a hearing in September on the case, which was brought by 10 same-sex couples represented by the American Civil Liberties Union. “Missouri has finally recognized our couples’ marriages as being...

On Monday, October 6, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in a North Carolina case that asks whether a traffic stop based on a police officer’s mistaken understanding of traffic laws violates the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures. A friend-of-the-court brief submitted by the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of North Carolina, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, and the Cato Institute argues that a mistake of law can never supply the reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing that the Fourth Amendment requires in order to justify a traffic stop. "Ignorance of the law is not...

Opponents of Wisconsin's photo ID requirement for voters took their case to the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday, seeking an emergency halt to the state's implementation of the law before the fast approaching Nov. 4 election. ~snip~ In their petition, voter ID opponents told the Supreme Court that there's not enough time to properly implement the law in the month remaining in the tight race between GOP Gov. Scott Walker and Democratic challenger Mary Burke. "Thousands of Wisconsin voters stand to be disenfranchised by this law going into effect so close to the election. Hundreds of absentee ballots have already...

Attorney General Eric Holder was just months into the job when he announced plans to prosecute the accused mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks and other alleged co-conspirators in a New York courtroom, rather than through the Guantánamo Bay military commission process. It was an audacious idea, but immediately beset by political opposition and public safety concerns. The Obama administration’s eventual decision to walk away from the proposal was a stinging defeat for Holder and a reminder of the complexities of the legal fight against terrorism. […] … (U)nder his watch, the department authorized targeted drone strikes against Americans abroad,...

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, says the Army private formerly known as Bradley Manning is at a high risk of self-castration and suicide unless she receives more focused treatment for gender dysphoria at the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. "Such clear disregard of well-established medical protocols constitutes cruel and unusual punishment," ACLU attorney Chase Strangio said in a statement. The Army is providing some treatment but not enough, according to the lawsuit.

It’s been almost three years now since Commissioner Charles Ramsey issued a directive to Philly Police, letting them know that it’s entirely legal for the public to record officers doing their work and making arrests — as long as the photographer doesn’t interfere with that police work. It seems his officers still haven’t gotten the message. The ACLU today announced another lawsuit — the fifth in a series — against the department on behalf of a woman who was physically restrained from recording officers arresting a protestor.

And how the ACLU abets them A federal grand jury investigation going on all summer in St. Paul, Minnesota has been focused on a group of 20-30 Somali-Americans allegedly conspiring to join the fight with ISIS in Syria. Most of the youths being investigated have been going to the Al Farooq Youth and Family Center and mosque in Bloomington, where sources told the Star Tribune that 31-year-old Amir Meshal, an American of Egyptian descent, may have influenced them to join the jihadist movement. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has been aware of Meshal for quite some time. The native...

HOUSTON, Texas -- The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is expected to allow thousands of illegal immigrant deportees to return to the U.S., so long as they have ties to Southern California. Taxpayers will additionally fund a media campaign in Mexico, alerting deportees that they may be eligible to come back to the United States. An agreement outlining the new settlement was announced in late August, according to the Los Angeles Times. The plan, which only applies to Southern California, was reportedly drawn up in response to a lawsuit that was filed last year by the American Civil Liberties...

The National Lawyers Guild had legal observers on the ground in Ferguson to monitor protests against the killing of unarmed black teenager, Michael Brown, by a Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson. They were also present to help with jail support for community residents. But, while working, four of the NLG’s observers fell victim to the police occupation they were trying to help Ferguson fight and were arrested. As Dennis Black, one of the legal observers arrested, commented, “Ferguson is a pilot program of what’s to come when communities respond to police brutality.” He and others had traveled from Detroit to...

Religious directives that some worried could restrict medical care at a new health clinic preparing to open on the Washington State University Spokane campus are being jettisoned. The announcement Friday by Providence Health & Services comes two days after the American Civil Liberties Union expressed concern about the clinic’s bylaws and asked WSU regents to address the matter at their Sept. 11 meeting. The Spokane Teaching Health Center is a consortium of Providence, WSU Spokane and the Empire Health Foundation. It’s expected to open on the WSU Spokane campus in 2016, and regents will consider selling $15 million in revenue...

The ACLU, the American Immigration Council and other pro-amnesty groups filed a lawsuit Friday against the federal government because they claim the Obama administration’s policies are unconstitutional. The groups filed on behalf of mothers and children deported from a detention facility in Artesia, New Mexico for policies that would ensure “rapid deportations” and create “countless hurdles” according to the ACLU for people who illegally crossed the border. …

Marta Mendoza, a 47-year-old Mexican woman, had lived in the Los Angeles area illegally for 32 years. There, she raised six children, all U.S. citizens.In July 2013, Mendoza, who has a history of mental health issues, was arrested for shoplifting at a pharmacy near her home. The American Civil Liberties Union says that while in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, she was pressured to sign "voluntary return" papers, which led her to be returned to her home country five days later."We didn't know where she was at," her daughter Patricia told NPR's John Burnett. "We had to go...

Islamic activists that strong-armed the FBI to purge anti-terrorism training material considered “offensive” to Muslims have made their next wave of demands, which include an overhaul in the way all law enforcement officers are trained in the United States. The coalition of influential and politically-connected Muslim rights groups is demanding that the Obama administration implement a mandatory retraining program for all federal, state and local law enforcement officials who may have been subjected to materials they deem “biased and discriminatory” against Muslims. There must also be an audit of all federal law enforcement and intelligence gathering training and educational materials...

The Ferguson Police Department's actions appear misleading and remarkably cynical. They call into question the department's commitment to ensuring an independent and impartial investigation into the killing of Michael Brown. The video and incident report released are of dubious relevance. The decision to disclose them suggests an attempt to assassinate Mr. Brown's character by showing that he had roughly pushed a convenience store clerk on the day that he was killed. The one-sided and piecemeal disclosure of potentially irrelevant and prejudicial information, while continuing to withhold the critical police incident report that the public has demanded, suggests a desire to...

The American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio has sent letters to seven county sheriffs in Ohio asking them to ignore requests from the federal government to hold illegal immigrants until they can respond. The requests usually come from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, but the ACLU says they're unconstitutional. "ICE detainers are not legally binding if they're not accompanied with probable cause or a warrant. They're merely requests," said Shakyra Diaz with the ACLU of Ohio. The letters went to sheriff's offices in Butler, Clark, Cuyahoga, Franklin, Mahoning, Montgomery, and Warren counties. "Those were the counties that had the highest...

A federal judge says a New Mexico city must remove a monument inscribed with the Ten Commandments from the lawn in front of Bloomfield City Hall. The Daily Times reports that Senior U.S. District Judge James A. Parker issued a ruling Thursday in a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, saying the monument constitutes government speech and has the “principal effect of endorsing religion.” …