Let People Vote

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Friday January 27, 2012 · 12:42 PM PST

2012/01/27 · 12:42

By Matt Coles, Deputy Legal Director, ACLU

Voting. It’s the key to the most basic American value, the one that makes the others real: self-government. Democracy. It’s why we fought the Revolutionary War. It’s what has made America a glowing aspiration for people around the world. The right to vote is what makes a country a true democracy. Limit the right to only some of the people and you don’t really have self-government anymore.

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Friday January 27, 2012 · 12:37 PM PST

2012/01/27 · 12:37

By Matt Coles, Deputy Legal Director, ACLU

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Monday January 23, 2012 · 1:28 PM PST

2012/01/23 · 13:28

By Chandra Bhatnagar, Senior Staff Attorney, ACLU Human Rights Program

Last Monday, our country commemorated the life and work of the great Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who fought tirelessly for racial and economic justice.

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Tuesday January 10, 2012 · 11:27 AM PST

2012/01/10 · 11:27

By Heather L. Weaver, Staff Attorney, ACLU Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief

Condemning an entire faith and singling out its followers for disfavored and unequal treatment by the government violates the Constitution, it turns out. That principle might seem obvious to anyone who has read the Constitution, but the State of Oklahoma and its voters did not get the message, prompting a federal appeals court today to affirm a decision blocking the implementation of an anti-Islam constitutional amendment.

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Tuesday December 13, 2011 · 9:29 AM PST

2011/12/13 · 09:29

By Jon Sherman, Staff Attorney, ACLU Voting Rights Project

Ruthelle Frank, a resident of Brokaw, Wisconsin since her birth in 1927, has none of the accepted forms of photo ID under Wisconsin’s photo ID law which goes into effect at the February primary election. In order to get a state ID card, she needs to prove citizenship, but since she was born at home, she has never had a birth certificate. The state Register of Deeds, however, does have a record of her birth and can produce a birth certificate at a $20 cost. There’s one problem though — her maiden name (Wedepohl) is misspelled in the record. That record can only be amended by legal proceeding, and the combined fees will run Ruthelle potentially upwards of $200. The state will not waive any of these fees, and under the new law, if she cannot obtain a state ID card, Ruthelle will be sent away from the polls.

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Wednesday December 07, 2011 · 7:11 AM PST

2011/12/07 · 07:11

By Devon Chaffee, Legislative Counsel & Dena Sher, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office

Today the Senate and House Homeland Security Committees will hold a hearing on “Homegrown Terrorism: The Threat to Military Communities Inside the United States.” In their announcement of the hearing, Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) and Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) once again singled out Islam and American Muslim communities as the focus of their terrorism inquiry to the detriment of U.S. counterterrorism efforts and of American Muslims serving their country.

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Friday October 28, 2011 · 9:42 AM PDT

2011/10/28 · 09:42

By Robyn Greene, Lobbyist Assistant, ACLU Washington Legislative Office

3,970. That is how many times between October 1, 2009 and September 30, 2010, federal judges let the government avoid telling someone that their home or office had been searched, and that law enforcement officers rifled through and potentially even seized their personal belongings. We contacted the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts to obtain up-to-date numbers on how frequently the government uses the "sneak and peek" searches (also called delayed-notice searches), a government surveillance tool authorized by the Patriot Act. The report (which we've made available on our website) shows that in 2010, sneak and peek warrants were issued more than twice as often as in 2009, and more than three times as often as in 2008.

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Tuesday October 25, 2011 · 2:17 PM PDT

2011/10/25 · 14:17

By Maria Kayanan, Associate Legal Director, ACLU of Florida

On Monday we got some great news in Florida: following an ACLU lawsuit, the state will no longer be allowed to make people applying for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) take a drug test in order to get the assistance they need.

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Monday September 26, 2011 · 7:50 AM PDT

2011/09/26 · 07:50

By Daniel Bullard-Bates, Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief

A public school in South Carolina flagrantly violated the Constitution recently by holding a Christian rap concert for students on school property during school hours. While most people would go to great lengths to avoid being caught breaking the law, footage of the event, believed to be taken by the event's organizers, was posted online.

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Friday September 16, 2011 · 1:41 PM PDT

2011/09/16 · 13:41

By Larry Schwartztol, Staff Attorney, Racial Justice Program

The editorial page of the New York Times recently weighed in on an important but underappreciated aspect of the financial crisis: The systematic targeting of communities of color for risky and unfair loans. As the Times put it:

Pricing discrimination — illegally charging minority customers more for loans and other services than similarly qualified whites are charged — is a longstanding problem. It grew to outrageous proportions during the bubble years. Studies by consumer advocates found that large numbers of minority borrowers who were eligible for affordable, traditional loans were routinely steered toward ruinously priced subprime loans that they would never be able to repay.

Rampant lending discrimination during the housing bubble exposed black and Latino communities to the harshest consequences of the economic crisis. The link between race, subprime lending, and devastating rates of foreclosure has been crystal clear for some time. Researches at Princeton have found, for example, that "the greater the degree of Hispanic and especially black segregation a metropolitan area exhibits, the higher the number and rate of foreclosures it experiences." That same study found that these disparities are due in large part to the disproportionate chance that minority borrowers will receive subprime loans. Read More

Don’t Let Phone Companies Off the Hook: Demanding Accountability for Warrantless Wiretapping

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Tuesday August 30, 2011 · 11:36 AM PDT

2011/08/30 · 11:36

By Barbara Flynn Currie, Majority Leader, Illinois House of Representatives

As we near the tenth anniversary of the terrorist attacks of 9/11, we can expect to see a number of retrospective pieces in print and broadcast offering commentary on changes to America in the decade since that shocking day. Some of the changes are obvious — heightened security at the airports, U.S. troops involved in two wars overseas, and physical barriers placed at governmental buildings in downtown Chicago and across the nation.

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Thursday August 25, 2011 · 9:38 AM PDT

2011/08/25 · 09:38

By Robyn Greene, Lobbyist Assistant, ACLU Washington Legislative Office

Yesterday, two important news stories demonstrated how new unchecked surveillance programs we've highlighted in our Spyfiles campaign are violating the constitutional rights of innocent Americans.

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Let People Vote

Let People Vote

The Long Path Ahead: People of African Descent and the Realization of Human Rights

Federal Court Rules Discrimination Against Muslims Violates the First Amendment

Out in the Cold at Age 84: Wisconsin’s Ruthelle Frank Fights for Her Right to Vote

Congress: Stop Targeting American Muslims & Protect Muslim Service Members

A Tool in the Government's War on Privacy? Absolutely. But in Its War on Terror? Not So Much…

Victory in Florida: No Illegal Drug Testing For Welfare

A SHOC-king Disregard for the Constitution

Predatory Lending: Wall Street Profited, Minority Families Paid the Price

Don’t Let Phone Companies Off the Hook: Demanding Accountability for Warrantless Wiretapping

Who's Spying on You? Might Depend on Your Race.