Re: The ACLU might have a good point on this one
I guess I must be alone in thinking that the ACLU and organisations like it around the world actually perform a useful service in taking up issues like the following three.<br /><br />The Supreme Court heard oral arguments today in a case that will determine whether local governments and police departments can be held accountable for failing to enforce court orders to protect victims from a violent spouse or acquaintance. The case stems from a lawsuit filed by Jessica Gonzales in 2000, which charged that the Castle Rock, Colorado police refused to enforce a restraining order against her estranged husband, who kidnapped and murdered their three young daughters. <br /><br />In 1999, a court granted Jessica Gonzales a protective order barring her estranged husband, Simon, from contact with her and her three daughters, ages seven, nine and ten. Under Colorado state law, police were required to enforce the court order by arresting her husband if he violated the order. A month after the order was issued, Simon abducted the girls. Gonzales made numerous calls to the police after learning her husband had taken the girls and informed them that the restraining order had been violated. However, the police refused to take any action to find her daughters or arrest her husband. Even after Gonzales had made contact with her husband who told her he was with the children at a local amusement park, the police failed to take action to apprehend her husband and return the children. Later that night, Simon Gonzales drove up to the police station and opened fire with a gun he had purchased that same day. After shooting and killing Mr. Gonzales, police officers searched his truck and discovered the bodies of his three daughters whom he had murdered. <br />
http://www.aclu.org/court/court.cfm?ID=17778&c=286 <br /><br />The American Civil Liberties Union of Washington, the American Civil Liberties Union of Montana, and the ACLU Immigrants Rights Project today sued two federal agents for unlawfully stopping, interrogating, arresting, imprisoning, and seeking to deport an Iraqi refugee who was legally admitted to the United States and had broken no laws. As a result of his illegal detention, the man lost his job and suffered serious humiliation and emotional distress. <br /><br />"Federal agents singled out a legal refugee from Iraq solely based on his race and ethnicity. It is important that government officials be held accountable for such abuses of power," said ACLU of Washington Executive Director Kathleen Taylor. <br /><br />Abdul Ameer Yousef Habeeb, who came to the United States as a refugee after suffering persecution by Saddam Husseins government in Iraq, was stopped at a train station in Havre, Montana on April 1, 2003. Habeeb was en route to Washington, DC, to begin a new job with an Arabic-language newspaper. Along with other passengers, Habeeb had stepped off the train during a 30-minute station stop at Havre. He was singled out by two agents of the United States Customs and Border Patrol who demanded to know where he was from. After Habeeb responded that he was from Iraq and produced a copy of a form regarding his admission into the United States as a refugee, Agents Thomas Castloo and Darryl Essing asked whether he had gone through "special registration," a program requiring that certain non-citizens be fingerprinted and photographed. Although Habeebs refugee status meant that he was not required to register, the agents nonetheless arrested him when he answered that he had not registered. <br /><br />Habeeb was questioned at length by additional customs and FBI agents and detained overnight. The next day, Agent Essing initiated deportation proceedings against Habeeb based on the charge that he failed to appear for special registration. The agent erroneously stated that Habeeb "failed to appear for special registration on or before February 7, 2003, as mandated by the order of Attorney General published in the Federal Register," even though refugees were not required to do so. <br /><br />As a result of the officers illegal actions, Habeeb spent three nights in detention at the Hill County Jail in Montana. During that time, he was forced to strip naked in front of a government agent and was humiliated by other detainees who called him "Saddam." Then he was transported publicly through the airport in handcuffs and flown to Seattle where he spent four more nights in a detention facility, terrified that he would be sent back to Iraq. The deportation proceedings against him were not formally terminated until May 16, 2003. <br /><br />"When government officials abuse their power to harass immigrants and refugees who have done nothing wrong, they are acting in complete disregard for the rule of law," said ACLU of Montana Executive Director Scott Crichton.<br />
http://www.aclu.org/ImmigrantsRights/ImmigrantsRights.cfm?ID=17765&c=94 <br /><br />An unprecedented group of national security whistleblowers and family members of 9/11 victims gathered today to demand that the government stop silencing employees who expose national security blunders and called on Congress to hold hearings into the governments actions against whistleblowers. <br /><br />"The government is taking extreme steps to shield itself from political embarrassment while gambling with our safety," said Ann Beeson, Associate Legal Director of the American Civil Liberties Union. "The government has fired whistleblowers, retroactively classified public information and used special privileges not to protect us but to cover-up mistakes." <br /><br />The ACLU is urging the D.C. Court of Appeals to reinstate the case of Sibel Edmonds, a former FBI translator who was fired in retaliation for whistleblowing. Fourteen 9/11 family member advocacy groups and public interest organizations filed a friend-of-the-court brief this month in support of Edmonds. Many of them joined her today at a news conference in Washington, along with national security whistleblowers Michael German, Coleen Rowley, Manny Johnson, Robert Woo, Ray McGovern, Mel Goodman and Bogdan Dzakovic, among others. <br /><br />The ACLU and many of the groups signing the brief today called for Congressional hearings to determine whether the Justice Department withheld from the lower court its knowledge of an internal report concluding that Edmonds was fired for her whistleblowing. The groups are also seeking an investigation into whether the Justice Department retroactively classified documents to perpetuate a cover-up in Edmonds case. <br /><br />"The issues surrounding the Edmonds case are so significant that Congress must hold hearings to investigate the governments actions," said Danielle Brian, Executive Director of the Project On Government Oversight, a watchdog group that signed the appeal brief. "As the peoples representatives, Congress has the duty to protect whistleblowers who seek to uncover and publicize the misuse of government authority." <br /><br />Edmonds, a former Middle Eastern language specialist hired by the FBI shortly after 9/11, was fired in 2002 after repeatedly reporting serious security breaches and misconduct in the agencys translation program.<br /><br />"My case is one of many in which the government has fired those who uncover weaknesses in our ability to prevent terrorist attacks," Edmonds said. "If we truly want to protect America, we must first protect Americas national security whistleblowers." <br />
http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFree.cfm?ID=17369&c=206
