A lot has happened in the abstinence-only world as of late.

Earlier this month, Congress reauthorized funding for abstinence-only programs at least until September 30, 2007. James Wagoner of Advocates for Youth had this to say about the extension:

In one inglorious motion, Democratic leaders sold out the health and well-being of young people, delivered a public slap in the face to evidence-based public health and made a mockery of their ‘prevention first’ message.

Katha Pollit of The Nation was none too pleased herself and offered this take on Congress’s sudden lack of courage:

Practical explanation: throwing Republicans this trivial bone would build a veto-proof majority for a bill Bush has promised to reject — a $152 billion bill crammed with good things, from more funding for Pell grants and for math and science education to $27.8 million more for Title X, the family planning program for low-income people. $27.8 million for claptrap, $27.8 million for reproductive health care. That’s only fair.

Did the strategy at least succeed? Apparently not. Republicans did not provide that veto-proof majority. Instead, the reality-based community has been demoralized, while the Purity Ballers whirl happily round the dance floor.

Meanwhile, an op-ed in The Boston Globe declared that now is the perfect time for Congress to “reverse the health policy disaster that abstinence-only programs promote” after recent evidence demonstrating that these programs don’t work and allegations by former Surgeon General Richard Carmona that the Bush Administration repeatedly silenced his opinions on the issue. It remains unclear, however, whether Congress is ready to step up to the plate.

And things remain heated at the state-level. The debate over abstinence-only is raging in several Florida counties. Teens in St. Lucie County are still waiting for a revamped sex ed curriculum — a process that started in 2004. An article in The St Petersburg Times reports that many students in Hillsborough and Pinellas counties are receiving abstinence-only-until-marriage instruction, and Brevard County continues to struggle with agreeing on a curriculum. A local doctor, and parent of two teenage daughters, had this to say about the controversey in Brevard:

As a physician, I learned long ago that my job is to help people without expecting everyone to have the same values as I. The school board needs to realize its job is to educate our children without being judgmental.

Teaching abstinence-only denies half of our high school students the information they need for their health and well-being.

As a physician and as a father of two teenagers, I am for abstinence — but against ignorance.

An article out of South Carolina examines how potential cuts in federal funding for abstinence-only-until-marriage programs could affect that state. In particular the article looks at the Heritage program which has received over $12 million in state and federal money since 1995 and notes that several school districts in the state have stopped using the Heritage curricula over concerns about inaccurate information.

And finally, I’ve blogged a number of times about the controversy over the Montgomery school district sex ed curriculum. There are no shortage of parents, students, administrators, and community members who are willing to weigh in on the debate. Last week, the Washington Post featured a large section of letters-to-the-editor — the majority of which support the new comprehensive and tolerance-promoting curriculum. Here’s a small sampling:

– The more students learn about how to use contraceptives and condoms in particular, the better.

– Teenagers, particularly those who are gay or transgender, need this information [on sexual orientation and gender identity], as do their families. I wish that it had been available to my children when they were in middle and high school.

– The question of whether schools should present factual material about a subject that the average teenager thinks about every couple of seconds kind of answers itself. To think that the presentation of scientifically solid information about sexual orientation and the use of condoms will turn a straight youth into a homosexual (or modest behavior into debauchery) confers superpowers on mere teachers and belittles our children.

– Instructions on the proper use of matches, knives and power tools does not presuppose adolescents’ aggressive/violent use of these things with other people. Truly, knowledge can produce strength and thoughtfulness in youth.

– If youths aren’t educated about sex and its responsibilities, diseases and consequences, where will they get truthful answers when they need them? When youths are given the right information, they are better equipped to make decisions that can affect their whole life.

– As a researcher and professor of higher education who teaches sexuality issues, I am appalled at how much abstinence-only education and other repressive measures have attenuated my students’ education by the time they get to college. They are much less informed on basic health issues than students their age used to be. We need to go forward, not backward.

– Schools may be where formal sex education takes place, but it’s at home where kids soak in the truly meaningful aspects of these topics. Parents are the ones who can go beyond the “what” to the “why.” Schools can’t, nor should they be expected to, do all that. So whether you’re a parent in favor of the new content or opposed to it, you’ve got plenty of work to do with your kids after the school bell rings.

– Let’s keep our children informed and educated. Hiding our heads in the sand will not curb the behavior of our young people. The more education that our children have, the better equipped they will be to make decisions and to deal with the world we live in today. Sexual orientation is not a choice, and homophobia is all about lack of education.

The New York Times editorialized on last week’s Hazleton decision, calling the town’s anti-immigrant ordinance a “legal and moral dead end.” The editorial continues:

As long as people like [Hazleton Mayor] Barletta persist in misusing the law to serve their prejudices, they will make the immigration system an ever more incoherent muddle. They will thwart reasonable efforts to grapple with the opportunities and problems borne in with the influx of newcomers. And they will continue to dehumanize not only their victims, but themselves.

Also of note in the post-Hazleton decision round-up: The Wilkes-Barre Times Leader applauded the ruling, calling it “the proper decision.” The Chicago Tribune opined: “Illegal immigration is a national problem that requires a national solution. That’s why the patchwork approach attempted by Hazleton, Carpentersville and others is doomed to fail.” Albor Ruiz of the New York Daily News called the ordinance “draconian,” and wrote the decision was a “hopeful sign, despite the current climate of unmitigated hostility toward immigrants and their families.” Finally, from the Philadelphia Inquirer: “Congress has the responsibility of crafting immigration law. It didn’t need a court to tell it that.”

In towns across the country with laws similar to Hazleton’s, legislators are reconsidering whether it’s worth the court fight to enforce their local measures. In Escondido, Calif., the city council is now split on whether to revive the law that was tabled last year. In smaller towns surrounding Hazleton, such laws have been put on the backburner.

Two side notes: Could Hazleton Mayor Lou Barletta be using his crusade against immigrants as a springboard for great political aspirations? Pennsylvania papers The Morning Call and the Times-Tribune both point out that Barletta is pondering a run for a Congressional seat. (Since when has divisiveness and intolerance hit home with Pennsylvania voters?) And the Standard Speaker delves into the financing of the town’s legal team.

Part II: Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, the Military Commissions Act, and Boumediene v. Bush

The Hamdan case, which reached the Supreme Court in 2006, involved two critical and distinct legal issues. Salim Ahmed Hamdan, alleged to have been Osama Bin Laden’s driver, had been charged with “conspiracy” in a military commission and had filed a habeas corpus petition challenging the legality of the commission system. The threshold question was whether the Court had jurisdiction over Hamdan’s case - or any Guantanamo case, for that matter. The Bush administration argued that the Detainee Treatment Act (DTA) had stripped federal courts of jurisdiction over all habeas corpus petitions filed by Guantanamo detainees. Hamdan, in turn, argued that the DTA foreclosed only future challenges, and that, in the alternative, any such revocation by Congress of the right to file habeas petitions would itself be an unconstitutional suspension of the writ.

The second issue in the case involved the legality of the president’s Military Commission system. Hamdan contended that the president lacked the unilateral authority to create a military trial system out of step with U.S. and international law and inconsistent with the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The administration claimed that the president’s wartime authority as Commander in Chief granted him the power to establish military commissions to prosecute detainees in the “war on terror.”

The Court’s decision was a stunning repudiation of the administration’s legal theories. First, the Court held that its jurisdiction over pending cases was intact, and that the DTA applied only prospectively - leaving for another day the question whether the Constitution would permit Congress to eliminate habeas corpus rights for Guantanamo detainees. Second, the Court held that the president had exceeded his authority by concocting a military commission system that disregarded the minimum safeguards required by the Geneva Conventions, and ordered that the military trials be halted.

The decision severely undermined the edifice of nearly all of the administration’s post-9/11 legal claims, including its claim that it could eavesdrop on American citizens in contravention of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

However, the basis of the Court’s opinions in both Rasul and Hamdan rested on the administration’s disregard of Congress - not of the Constitution. And so, following the Hamdan rebuke, the administration persuaded a compliant Republican Congress to enact the disgraceful Military Commissions Act (MCA) of 2006. The MCA, passed in the run-up to the midterm elections, purported to overrule both the Rasul and Hamdan decisions: Rasul, by expressly revoking the right of Guantanamo detainees to bring habeas corpus petitions, and Hamdan, by authorizing a military commission system nearly identical to the one struck down by the Supreme Court.

And so, after four years, the legal challenges were seemingly back to square one. The military commission trials recommenced - only to be halted, yet again, when the commissions’ presiding officers unexpectedly declared that the new procedures failed to comply with the MCA.

Of greater significance, the administration once again sought the dismissal of all Guantanamo habeas petitions then pending in the lower courts. In Boumediene v. Bush, the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, in a 2-1 decision, agreed with the administration that the MCA had stripped Guantanamo detainees of the right of habeas corpus - and ruled, for the first time, that the Constitution offered no protection to the detainees against Congress’s suspension of the writ. The same court held that the detainees should contest their detention through the Combatant Status Review Tribunal (CSRT) process - with the option for a limited circuit court review if they were dissatisfied with the results.

At first, the High Court declined to hear the detainees’ appeal in Boumediene - preferring to wait until a lower court had reviewed the CSRT process. But in June, the Court announced that it would hear the appeal after all. (Many observers believe that the Court was influenced by the affidavit of a military reserve officer who participated in the CSRT process and described it as an effective sham. This fall, the Court will finally consider whether the Guantanamo detainees have a constitutional right to challenge their detention through habeas corpus petitions.

If the Court reverses the D.C. Circuit and upholds the historic right of habeas corpus against congressional interference, the Guantanamo endgame will enter its final phase. Once habeas is restored, the government will be compelled, at long last, to provide evidence to a neutral court supporting its assertion that the detainees are, uniformly, “enemy combatants.” And if the quality of that evidence resembles the government’s submissions in the CSRT process, no judge will conceivably permit the indefinite detentions to continue.

But the administration is unlikely to allow such a public dismantling of its claims that Guantanamo houses the world’s most dangerous terrorists. If yet another Supreme Court loss seems likely, watch for renewed White House attempts at a political solution to the Guantanamo mess.

Read Part I of “Guantanamo: The Road to Closure” >>

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We’re elated about yesterday’s big victory over Hazleton’s Illegal Immigration Relief Act, but we know our work is far from over. Executive Director Anthony Romero reflects on the ruling in today’s Huffington Post:

What the hatemongers who want to roll back the American dream don’t seem to grasp is that this is a fight for our heritage. It’s a fight for those who seek to work hard and make a living as have all the waves of immigrants who came before them. And it’s a fight for simple justice regardless of accent or skin color.

While we hope this decision will make other local politicans think twice about adopting these discriminatory laws that clearly won’t stand up in court, there are still more than 100 towns across the country that have proposed or passed similar ordinances. Hazleton Mayor Lou Barletta claims he’ll take this to the Supreme Court if he has to. Mayor Barletta: we’re ready for this fight.

Guantanamo has been in the news again: Several congressional bills would restore habeas corpus to detainees or close the prison camp altogether; the Supreme Court has agreed to hear a third Guantanamo-related case, reversing its own recent decision to delay review; and the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has ordered the Defense Department to produce all relevant information, not just cherry-picked evidence, regarding the detainees who are challenging their “enemy combatant” designations.

We’re now in the sixth year of the national disgrace that may one day be remembered as the Guantanamo Era. Here, in two parts, is a review of how we’ve gotten to where we are:

Part I: From Camp X-Ray to the Detainee Treatment Act.

Our government brought the first detainees to Guantanamo in January 2002, with the express goal of avoiding the jurisdiction of U.S. courts by placing the detainees outside U.S. territory. For 2 1/2 years - until the Supreme Court’s historic 2004 decision in Rasul v. Bush - the Bush administration’s position and policy was that detainees could be held indefinitely, without access to lawyers and without being charged with any crimes, on the sole authority of the president.

The most extreme articulation of that position occurred in a federal courtroom in California. Family members had filed a habeas corpus petition seeking the release of their relatives in Guantanamo, and the administration argued that the court lacked any jurisdiction: Detainees could be held without charge or trial, without access to lawyers, and without any recognized rights under U.S. or international law. Would this be the case, the judges inquired, even if the claims were that [the government] was engaging in acts of torture or that it was summarily executing the detainees? “Yes,” replied the government lawyer. The judges were incredulous. “To our knowledge,” they wrote in their decision, “prior to the current detention of prisoners at Guantanamo, the U.S. government has never before asserted such a grave and startling proposition.”

In June 2004, the Supreme Court’s Rasul decision held that because the naval base at Guantanamo Bay was under the exclusive control of the United States, the federal habeas corpus statute extended to detainees held there. In other words, detainees could challenge their detention in U.S. courts by seeking writs of habeas corpus, the fundamental protection against arbitrary imprisonment developed under the common law, and the administration would have to provide evidence supporting its cursory and wholesale designation of the detainees as “enemy combatants.”

Nine days later, the administration scrambled to create the now notorious “Combatant Status Review Tribunals” (CSRTs) - a transparent attempt to avoid meaningful federal court review by providing the illusion of legal process at Guantanamo. The CSRTs served as a Pentagon rubber-stamp: Detainees were brought before military panels without lawyers, without access to the key government “evidence” being used against them, and without the opportunity to present evidence on their own behalf. Unsurprisingly, virtually all of the detainees were designated “enemy combatants,” though a miniscule number earned the Orwellian moniker “NLEC” - “no longer enemy combatant.”

In a separate development, the administration created and convened “Military Commissions” to bring war crimes charges against a small subset of the detainees. (The vast majority of detainees will never be charged as criminals, but are being held solely as “enemy combatants,” subject to detention until the “cessation of hostilities” in the “war on terror” - in other words, forever.) One of those detainees, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, challenged the authority of the military commission system, and his case reached the Supreme Court in 2006. (I’ll discuss that case in the next entry.)

In the meantime, hundreds of volunteer lawyers had arrived at Guantanamo to provide representation to detainees in habeas proceedings. Federal courts in the District of Columbia began to consider the detainees’ claims that they were being held without justification. In an effort to put a halt to those proceedings, the administration urged Congress to revoke the right of habeas corpus for Guantanamo detainees, and Congress complied by enacting the Detainee Treatment Act (DTA) in 2005, as an amendment to the Defense Appropriations and Defense Authorization Acts. The administration then sought the dismissal of all pending habeas corpus challenges - including Hamdan’s, which was pending before the Supreme Court.

Read Part II of “Guantanamo: The Road to Closure” >>

Yesterday we saw the beginning of what the media is calling a “showdown” between Capitol Hill and the White House. We hope it grows into a full-on rumble. The House Judiciary Committee voted to hold former White House Counsel Harriet Miers and White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten in contempt for violating their subpoenas over the firing of Justice Department Officials.

It’s a good start. We hope Congress sticks to their guns and holds members of the Bush administration in contempt for flouting their subpoenas on NSA wiretapping.

One day before Bush administration’s deadline to turn over information about the illegal NSA wiretapping program, the date was extended. We hope that extension ends soon. Congress has a choice: get the documents in their hands or hold the President in contempt.

Congress keeps resetting their clock on subpoenas, but Americans are keeping their own count. Reset the stopwatch, and we ratchet up the Subpoena Watch. It’s been eight days since the deadline passed and the President is still dragging his feet. Congress must put an end to this President’s excuses soon and make him own up to the laws this administration has broken.

Checks and balances define us as Americans and prevent any of the branches from grabbing too much power. If one of the branches grows complacent or corrupt, trouble starts brewing and the balance collapses. It’s a civics class staple, but with Bush abusing his power and Congress waiting in the wings, it’s a lesson that demands repeating.

We’ve got our eye on Congress. We hope they follow through and hold Harriet Miers and Josh Bolten in contempt. And we’re counting the days until Congress does the same for the NSA program.

Yesterday, U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn Walker refused to stop five states from seeking information about phone company participation in the NSA’s warrantless surveillance program. He expressed doubt about the government’s argument that trying the case would jeopardize state secrets, but said he would wait to decide the case until the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals rules on Hepting v. AT&T, the class-action lawsuit brought by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). Judge Walker had previously rejected a state secrets challenge in that case, which charges AT&T violated its customers’ privacy by cooperating with the NSA’s request for phone records, and the government appealed. The appeal hearings in Hepting is scheduled for August 15 in San Francisco. Harvey Grossman, Legal Director of the ACLU of Illinois, is co-class counsel in this case.

If you aren’t familiar with the all of these NSA spying cases, a great primer can be found in the PBS documentary Spying on the Home Front. (It also happens to feature ACLU of Nevada executive director Gary Peck, who talked about the FBI’s attempts to strong-arm Las Vegas casinos into handing over customer information.) The documentary also interviews Mark Klein, the AT&T engineer who discovered the supercomputer the telecom installed for the sole purpose of monitoring internet traffic at the behest of the NSA.

Executive Director Anthony Romero’s appearance on The Colbert Report last night was even more explosive than his first appearance. In the span of only a few short minutes, the pair duked it out over habeas corpus rights of detainees in Guantanamo, the NSA wiretapping program, separation of powers, and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’ misleading statements to Congress:

You can learn more about Anthony’s book, In Defense of Our America, and find out where he will appear next on his book tour, at www.aclu.org/ouramerica.

Executive Director Anthony D. Romero returns to The Colbert Report tonight to promote his new book, In Defense of Our America. This is Anthony’s second appearance. You can watch him go head-to-head with Colbert the first time here:

President Bush signed a new executive order Friday afternoon that outlines his administration’s interpretation of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions. As the Supreme Court held last year, when it struck down another Bush policy on detainees, Common Article 3 applies to the treatment of Taliban and al Qaeda fighters.

The new order reaffirms what Bush laid out in the Military Commissions Act: the U.S. will conform to all statutes that prohibit “cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment.” The new, nebulous guidelines prohibit “acts intended to denigrate the religion, religious practices, or religious objects of the individual” (stomping on a detainee’s Koran might fall in there) and acts that are “beyond the bounds of human decency, such as sexual or sexually indecent acts undertaken for the purpose of humiliation [like at Abu Ghraib, perhaps?]…”

The guidelines are still too vague. Does the CIA consider waterboarding cruel and inhuman? You won’t get an answer from the White House: it will neither confirm no deny that it tortures at all, much less give a straight answer as to which “interrogation techniques” are banned under this new order and which are still permitted. The AP reports that White House officials don’t consider sleep a necessity, raising the question of whether the president is approving sleep deprivation.

But as ACLU senior legislative counsel Chris Anders points out, this executive order is “only as good as the people applying it. If any of the recent past presidents, Republican or Democrat, were applying this order, we wouldn’t have any doubt that it means an end to torture and abuse by the CIA.”

But President Bush? We’re skeptical, to say the least.