Free Republic

On Tuesday, Barack Obama adamantly defended his policy of emptying the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, demanding that Congress get on board with it as well. As Jim Hoft noted at the time, the military leadership present at the State of the Union address didn’t appear too enthusiastic about it:CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO Perhaps the New York Times has an explanation for that stone-faced reaction. At the same time that Obama bragged about “turning the page” on war and the end of combat operations in Afghanistan, one of the men transferred from Gitmo worked to establish a...

Does America need a terrorist financier to secure its “freedom”? Sami al-Arian thinks so. His National Coalition to Protect Political Freedom poses as a watchdog for the Constitution, but he has focused his lobbying efforts on repealing anti-terrorist legislation. While Sami al-Arian himself has been arrested for being a prime financier for Palestinian Islamic Jihad (and likely one of its three founders), his political movement continues to threaten homeland security. Al-Arian founded the National Coalition to Protect Political Freedom (NCPPF) in 1997 as a reaction to the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1996. The coalition’s stated goal “is to help change the...

Long War Journal reports that the Obama administration has released Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri from a U.S. prison – not from Gitmo, but from a civilian jail after a federal terrorism conviction. Al-Marri is an al-Qaeda operative who was planted as a “sleeper” in the United States by Khalid Sheikh Mohamed to await instructions on carrying out a second wave of attacks after the 9/11 atrocities – against water reservoirs, the New York Stock Exchange, U.S. military academies, and other targets. The Justice Department quietly sprung him on Friday so he could return to his native Qatar, a country the...

As President Obama frees droves of terrorists—including five Yemenis this week—from the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo news reports confirm that a Gitmo alum who once led a Taliban unit has established the first Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) base in Afghanistan. His name is Mullah Abdul Rauf and international and domestic media reports say he’s operating in Helmand province, actively recruiting fighters for ISIS. Citing local sources, a British newspaper writes that Rauf set up a base and is offering good wages to anyone willing to fight for the Islamic State. Rauf was a corps commander during...

A grand juror is suing St. Louis County Prosecutor Bob McCulloch in an effort to speak out on what happened in the Darren Wilson case. Under typical circumstances, grand jurors are prohibited by law from discussing cases they were involved in. The grand juror, referred to only as “Grand Juror Doe” in the lawsuit, takes issue with how McCulloch characterized the case. McCulloch released evidence presented to the grand jury and publicly discussed the case after the grand jury decided not to indict Wilson, then a Ferguson police officer, in the shooting death of Michael Brown, an 18-year-old African-American. […]...

A member of the grand jury that declined to indict the Ferguson police officer who fatally shot 18-year-old Michael Brown asked a federal court Monday to remove a lifetime gag order preventing jurors from discussing the case. The American Civil Liberties Union filed the lawsuit on behalf of an unnamed juror who wants to speak about the investigation but would be in violation of Missouri law by doing so. The lawsuit also questions St. Louis County prosecutor Bob McCulloch’s characterization that “all grand jurors believed that there was no support for any charges.” The suit was filed against McCulloch, who...

TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (AP) — The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit against a western Indiana school district seeking to force it to recognize a club for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender students and those who support them. The lawsuit filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Terre Haute contends the North Putnam Community School Corp. in Bainbridge, 35 miles west of Indianapolis, is violating the First Amendment rights of the Gay-Straight Alliance and the three students who are now members. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of those students at North Putnam High School — a senior,...

The ACLU lawsuit was filed on behalf of the Missouri NAACP and the district's black residents, according to an ACLU press release. The complaint charges that the at-large voting system violates the Voting Rights Act, as it “impermissibly denies African-American voters an equal opportunity to participate in the political process and to elect representatives of their choice.” While more than three-fourths of the district's students are black, the area's voting-age population is majority-white. The ACLU suit contends that the district's at-large system results in the black vote getting drowned out. It calls for a new system where the district is broken...

Nope. Not their war against Christmas; but their war against our military: The Obama administration is withholding hundreds, perhaps even thousands of photographs showing the U.S. government’s brutal treatment of detainees, meaning that revelations about detainee abuse could well continue, possibly compounding the outrage generated by the Senate “torture report” now in the public eye. Some photos show American troops posing with corpses; others depict U.S. forces holding guns to people’s heads or simulating forced sodomization. All of them could be released to the public, depending on how a federal judge in New York rules—and how hard the government fights...

The federal government and the Obama administration are under fire for a variety of unconstitutional programs aimed at both militarizing and controlling local police and law enforcement, including supplying a vast array of sophisticated U.S. Defense Department “weapons of war” to city and county governments. Billions of dollars in military equipment has already been handed to municipal police departments and county sheriffs’ offices nationwide under the rapidly expanding federal schemes, but concerns from across the political spectrum are growing quickly as well. This year alone, over 150 so-called “mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicles,” or MRAPs, used by U.S. forces in Iraq, were...

The U.S. Army has agreed to “fully recognize” the new legal names of two transgender military veterans, the American Civil Liberties Union said Tuesday. The group’s New Jersey chapter announced that the Army Board for Correction of Military Records recently notified the two veterans about its decision. The board initially recommended that the request be rejected, but the Army Review Boards’ deputy assistant secretary overrode the decision. …

Once the grand jury makes its decision on whether to charge Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson, members will go back to their everyday lives. KMOX News wanted to know about the safety of those jurors given the high-profile case and the strong emotions surrounding it. Washington University law professor Peter Joy says despite safeguards, no system is 100 percent fool-proof.

The story vanished from the Washington Times website just hours after going online. For a few hours, it was big news. And then it vanished. On Monday morning, the American Civil Liberties Union and National Rifle Association published a joint op-ed in the Washington Times urging the Senate to pass legislation that would limit the government's domestic spying powers. It was a meaningful push from two powerful groups that—as the groups themselves noted—rarely agree on anything. And the support came just a day before the Senate is scheduled to take a key (and hotly contested) vote Tuesday on the measure,...

St. Louis — St. Louis County police said they have spent around $100,000 stocking up on riot gear and other items they may need if protests turn violent after prosecutors announce whether a Ferguson officer will face criminal charges in the shooting death of Michael Brown. And CNN reports that citizens are also preparing for the grand jury ruling: gun sales are up in St. Louis. A state grand jury has been meeting since shortly after Brown, who was 18 and black, was shot and killed by Officer Darren Wilson, who is white, on Aug. 9. Brown was unarmed and...

In covering the hearing of the nine bank chief executives on Capitol Hill, it didn’t take long for me to see that Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf was having a hard time of it, valiant effort though he did make to defend his bank’s lending practices. Because to look inside Wells Fargo, you will find the worst of the mortgage lenders housed in this bank, Wachovia, which Wells Fargo bought last fall for $15.4 bn, and housed within Wachovia is Golden West Financial, which Wachovia bought for a stupefying $25 bn, Golden West, the purveyor of some of the worst...

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit Friday challenging Iowa’s tough policies that bar felons from voting, seeking to restore the right to thousands of former offenders before the 2016 presidential election. The case aims to end confusion over rules that followed a 2011 policy change by Gov. Terry Branstad and a criminal investigation into people who improperly voted. Iowa is among three states where felons cannot vote after completing their sentences unless their rights are restored by the governor. “The widespread denial of voting rights on the basis of a felony conviction is the single biggest denial of...

Ebola health care worker Kaci Hickox, who was released from quarantine with the support of the White House, is a Centers For Disease Control and Prevention employee, records reveal. The lawyer who helped earn her release is a recent White House state dinner guest.Hickox was released from Ebola quarantine in Newark, N.J., Monday afternoon after the White House pressured New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie to release the nurse that was working in Sierra Leone with Doctors Without Borders. Hickox’s case for release was also bolstered by New York civil rights attorney Norman Siegel, who took on Hickox’s case.“I feel like...

Liberal and conservative groups are mobilizing armies of poll watchers to battle over the enforcement of voter ID laws on Election Day. The Democratic Party has more to lose if turnout is low on Nov. 4. Liberals want to ensure that the young, black and Latino voters who form a key part of the party’s electoral base are not kept from the polls. Conservatives insist that they just want to uphold the integrity of the electoral process by making sure that all votes cast are legitimate. The Democratic National Committee (DNC) has state directors stationed across the country for its...

The ACLU has filed a lawsuit that asks for a permanent injunction against a Miami-Dade ordinance that states that sex offenders are not allowed to live within approximately half a mile, or 2,500 feet, of a school. The suit was filed this week. The suit, Doe, et al. v. Miami-Dade County, et al., argues that the ordinance puts undue pressure on sex offenders and pedophiles, forcing them to likely become homeless because of the law. The lawsuit alleges that "The law prohibits former offenders from living 2,500 feet (almost half a mile) from any building the county labels a "school,"...

The federal government is opening new family detention centers for newly arrived immigrants in the hope it will speed the process of considering their claims for asylum, but civil rights advocates have challenged this practice of detaining mothers and children who are caught coming into this country illegally. Immigrant advocates are suing the government over changes to the way women with children caught crossing into the country illegally are being processed. Ten plaintiffs are suing the Department of Homeland Security over its policies and practices at the Artesia Family Residential Center, where 648 women and children are being held in...