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ACLU condemns prosecution of Florida teen over lesbian relationship
In a statement released Tuesday, the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida condemned the statutory rape prosecution of 18-year-old Kaitlyn Hunt. “The facts as we understand them suggest that the state is prosecuting Kaitlyn for engaging in behavior that is both fairly innocuous and extremely common,” the organization said. Kaitlyn…
Idaho drops surgery requirement for transgender driver’s licenses
The Idaho state government has dropped its requirement that people undergoing gender reassignment produce proof that they have been surgically altered in order to change the gender their driver’s licenses. According to Reuters, the change comes after the American Civil Liberties Union of Idaho put pressure on the state to…
ACLU to Kansas school district: Cancel creationist assemblies about dinosaurs
The American Civil Liberties Union has warned a southwest Kansas school district against holding mandatory student assemblies that feature a creationist group. “Teaching or otherwise promoting creationism is, simply put, unlawful,” the ACLU wrote in a letter to Hugoton Public Schools superintendent Mark Crawford on Friday. “As the District is…
FOIA documents suggest IRS may have ignored court ruling on email privacy
A bundle of documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request suggests that the nation’s tax collector may have ignored a court ruling in 2010 that ordered it to always obtain a warrant before spying on emails stored on cloud servers, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said…
NAACP president: American drug war’s toll on liberty greater than apartheid
Ben Jealous, president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, appeared on Current TV’s “Viewpoint” Tuesday night to explain why he and 174 other celebrities and activists signed an open letter sent to President Barack Obama this week urging him to take decisive action on drug war…
ACLU accuses Ohio courts of enacting ‘debtors’ prisons’
A report by the American Civil Liberties Union has accused courts in Ohio of jailing indigent defendants for not being able to pay court fines, an apparent revival of the 19th century practice of “debtors’ prisons.” According to the Cleveland Plain-Dealer, the organization named seven courts in the state in…
ACLU: Email reveals feds misled judges to abuse wiretapping powers
Federal law enforcement agents misled judges for years on what type of wiretaps they were carrying out when they requested permission for so-called “pen register” searches, an email obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) reveals. Instead of collecting data on incoming and outgoing callers (among other general information), as…
Washington cops working to ‘desensitize’ drug dogs to marijuana smell
Police in Washington state are working to retrain their drug-sniffing dogs so that they’re less likely to alert when they smell marijuana. The retraining is part of the state’s law enforcement reforms following November’s voter-backed legalization measure, which will ultimately require police to notify judges as to whether a drug…
Bipartisan bill would require a warrant for police to search emails
A bill introduced Tuesday by Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Mike Lee (R-UT) would require police obtain a warrant before scouring a suspect’s email accounts. “No one could have imagined just how the Internet and mobile technologies would transform how we communicate and exchange information today,” Leahy said in an…
Maryland lawmakers ban death penalty
The Maryland General Assembly approved a ban of the death penalty on Friday, CNN reported. The bill, which passed in an 82-56 voted, now goes to Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) for approval. According to WUSA-TV, he is expected to sign the bill into effect and make Maryland the 18th state…
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