On Wednesday, we were pleased to learn that the Supreme Court agreed to hear Crawford v. Marion County Election Board and Indiana Democratic Party v. Rokita, cases that challenge Indiana’s voter ID law.
In 2005, the Indiana state legislature passed Public Law 109-2005, which requires that voters present a government-issued ID to vote in federal, state and/or local elections. A voter who does not have a government-issued ID may vote by provisional ballot, but must verify his identity at a county board of elections or circuit court within 10 days of the election for his vote to be counted.
In agreeing to hear these cases, the Supreme Court is acknowledging ongoing concerns that voter ID laws create unnecessary bureaucracy, and may disproportionately impact minorities, the elderly, and the poor.
According to the Department of Justice, only 120 of the more than 200 million people who cast ballots between 2002 and 2006 were charged with election fraud; among those, only 86 were convicted. Furthermore, despite upholding Indiana’s law, a Federal Appeals Court panel conceded that no one in the state has been prosecuted for in-person vote fraud. When the incidence of election fraud is marginal at best, there is no reason to babysit voters.
A 2005 study conducted by the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee found that 23 percent of people in that state over the age of 65 did not possess a driver’s license. And in the most populous county in the state, less than half of African-American and Latino adults possessed a driver’s license. Overall, as The New York Times recently suggested, as many as 22 million Americans of voting age would not be able to vote today if Indiana’s policy were instituted nationally.
Election fraud is not the pandemic states like Indiana believe it to be. However, states can minimize the risk of election fraud by better publicizing state voting laws, simplifying the registration process, and easing felony disfranchisement policies. If states want to protect the integrity of elections, they ought to invest in voter education, not voter taxation.
The Supreme Court’s decision to hear Baze v. Rees is already having a big impact on scheduled executions throughout the country.
Just last night, the Supreme Court stayed the execution of Carlton Turner Jr., a Texas death row inmate. The Court did not give a reason for the stay: Turner requested it until the constitutionality of the method can be decided by the Justices.
In a separate development yesterday, Alabama Gov. Bob Riley stayed the execution of Tommy Arthur, who won’t be executed until the state can be sure that its lethal injection protocol will ensure that the inmate is unconscious before the fatal dose is delivered.
The federal Real ID Act doesn’t have many friends these days. Eighteen states have passed legislation rejecting the law, Congress has refused to put any money into implementing it, and just this week New York Gov. Elliot Spitzer announced he, not the Feds, would determine New York’s drivers license policy, with officials in his administration indicating the state might opt out of the Real ID program altogether.
The few remaining cheerleaders for this national ID system, which promises to be a nightmare for privacy and identity security, have resorted to classic doublespeak to try to salvage Real ID’s reputation. On the Department of Homeland Security blog Wednesday, Secretary Michael Chertoff claims Real ID would actually protect privacy. (”War is Peace” and “Freedom is Slavery” will be the subjects of future blogs.)
Chertoff isn’t completely alone though. The Information Technology Association of America (ITAA) sent a letter to Congress this week begging for more federal funding for Real ID. Why would an organization, whose membership includes AOL, Microsoft, Verizon and Yahoo, support a national ID card? For the answer, let’s employ that fundamental adage of Washington politics: Follow the money.
Also included in the ITAA membership list are Digimarc and Northrop Grumman, companies that specialize in creating high-tech ID cards, as well as Choicepoint and LexisNexis, data brokers that make their money selling personal information about you to advertisers and the government. These companies stand to make millions in contracts from states who are struggling with a federal mandate to overhaul their licensing systems and share more data by the May 2008 deadline (now widely viewed as impossible to meet).
But there’s one small problem: The American people don’t want a national ID card, and polling has shown they don’t trust the private sector not to harvest their data once it’s collected in a national database. So what are the Department of Homeland Security and the ITAA to do?
Well, Digimarc invited a group of state DMV bureaucrats to Washington this week (as Jim Harper pointed out, that’s a good way to get around those pesky elected officials who oppose Real ID) in order to answer that very question. Their answer? It’s all about PR, baby. In a panel on “Bringing Your Public On Board,” participants discussed how to give Real ID a facelift. According to CNET’s News.com, one panelist even suggested that states use their homeland security grants - the ones that are supposed to go to counterterrorism, disaster response and infrastructure (read: bridge) safety - to take out paid advertising.
Real ID is so unpopular because in addition to being a $23 billion unfunded mandate, it will build a vast national database of personal information, expose us to a greater risk of identity theft, and move us ever closer to a total surveillance society. Spending our homeland security money on spin definitely isn’t the way to fix it.
Instead Congress should scrap Real ID altogether and replace it with a real plan for identity security that protects privacy. And if you don’t like companies you do business with pushing a national ID and increased identity theft, pick up the phone and let them know.
We were happy to learn on Tuesday that the Supreme Court has agreed to hear a death penalty case, Baze v. Rees, in which a death-row inmate claims that the three-drug cocktail the State of Kentucky wants to use to execute him and other prisoners amounts to “cruel and unusual punishment.”
There are a number of potential issues in this case. One is whether the combination of drugs causes unnecessary risk of pain and extreme suffering. When the execution isn’t botched, the first drug is supposed to render the prisoner unconscious, the second drug paralyzes them, and the third drug causes cardiac arrest. The process should take about 20 minutes.
Except for when it doesn’t. The use of this cocktail is barbaric - animals are put down with more humane drug combinations. The potential scenario at issue? The first drug does not fully render the prisoner unconscious, putting them at risk to feel the excruciating pain of cardiac arrest. But the prisoner won’t be able to scream or communicate that they’re in pain because the second drug has paralyzed them. A number of renowned doctors have testified that this horrifying scenario is a very real possibility with the three-drug cocktail.
The decision in this case could well have nationwide implications: 37 of the 38 death penalty states use the same three-drug cocktails. And as recently as last week, a federal court judge ruled against Tennessee’s use of the same cocktail, finding it caused “a substantial risk of unnecessary pain.” Today, The Washington Post reported that a scheduled execution in Virginia will likely be put on hold pending the Supreme Court’s decision in Baze.
If you want to see what the Internet will look like in a few years without net neutrality, you need look no further than this week’s stories about Verizon Wireless’ attempts to censor messages on its text-message network. Today the telecommunications giant reversed a decision it made last week to reject NARAL Pro-Choice America’s request to make a text-message advocacy campaign available on Verizon networks. The program would allow people to sign up for text messages with NARAL by sending a five digit “short code.” These types of programs have become very popular with activist groups and political candidates.
Earlier, Verizon told NARAL it does not accept programs from any group “that seeks to promote an agenda or distribute content that, in its discretion, may be seen as controversial or unsavory to any of our users.” Never mind that you have to sign up for the program so you don’t get unsolicited messages. If Verizon says your program is controversial or unsavory, you can always go elsewhere.
The problem with that philosophy is that “going elsewhere” is becoming less of an option. As companies gobble other companies to become giant behemoths, competition becomes scarce. The same kind of discrimination against content is happening in the Internet broadband world - in which Verizon is a major player - where there is even less competition, and where the threat of this kind of censorship has even broader implications.
Verizon and AT&T, among others, are spending millions of dollars lobbying Congress for the right to discriminate against content on the Internet it deems controversial, unsavory, or even just contrary to its own business interests. Net neutrality would protect your right to see and hear what you wish on the Internet without your service provider acting as a censor. According to the Verizon and AT&T lobbyists, net neutrality would stifle innovation. Translation: it would mean we couldn’t force you to see only what we want you to see.
So now that Verizon’s changed its mind and will allow NARAL’s campaign to move forward, does this mean we don’t need to worry? No. Verizon changed its mind this time, but it can change it again at any time. Only a federal policy of nondiscrimination in content will guarantee this doesn’t happen again.
If the Internet is to truly be a powerful force for freedom of expression, we cannot allow big business OR government to choose the content. Today, it’s Verizon shutting out NARAL. Who will it be tomorrow?
President Bush does a lot of scary Big Brother-type things. The warrantless wiretapping comes to mind first, of course, and there’s also the pervasive surveillance of your comings and goings.  But just as sneaky, and maybe ever scarier, is Bush and his friends at the Department of Homeland Security and Department of State’s attempt to control whose speech you hear. See, they don’t want just anyone coming to our fair shores and spouting off against the war, or criticizing American foreign policy. They’re trying their hardest to keep these naysayers out of the country. One way they do this is by using a provision of the USA Patriot Act called “ideological exclusion,” which lets the administration keep people out, based on their political beliefs. Sometimes they just keep critics out with no explanation or based on vague national security grounds. So far they’ve kept out artists, academics and politicians who don’t agree with the party line.
But it’s not those artists and politicians’ right to free speech we’re concerned about: it’s yours. All Americans have the right not just to express their own opinions but to hear the speech of others, even if they don’t jibe with the Bush administration’s talking points of the day.
That’s why today, we filed a new lawsuit on behalf of the American Sociological Association (ASA) and other groups who invited South African scholar Dr. Adam Habib to speak in the U.S. This past August, the ASA invited Adam to speak at their annual meeting. Adam applied for a visa in advance, but it wasn’t until the last minute that the State Department told Adam that his visa wouldn’t be processed in time for him to attend the meeting. State won’t say why they won’t let Adam into the country. Could it be the fact that he’s spoken out against the Iraq war and other Bush policies? We don’t know, and State isn’t talking. Adam guest-blogged on the Huffington Post today to tell why he’s part of this lawsuit, and what he hopes it will accomplish.
Why do I fight to get into a country where its government obviously does not want me? …First, I have said my relationship with the U.S. extends beyond its government. It is established through my relationships with American citizens. It is also constructed by my fond personal memories…It is part of our world and that should not be taken away by an arbitrary action of a public official.
This is the second ideological exclusion case we’ve filed: the first one was on behalf of the American Academy of Religion and Swiss scholar Tariq Ramadan, who the Bush administration charged - and ultimately couldn’t prove - had endorsed terrorism.
To tell the history and show the pervasiveness of ideological exclusion, we’ve launched a new interactive Web feature today that tells the stories of some of the artists, scholars and politicians the U.S. government has excluded since the practice began in 1952 to keep Communists out. It includes the stories of John Lennon, Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Nelson Mandela: all individuals who have been kept out at one point in this country’s history. Check it out at www.aclu.org/passportflash.
Fifty years ago, the U.S. government took action to make sure school integration was a reality, not just an ideal.
Fifty years ago, “separate but equal” was one step closer to coming to an end.
Fifty years ago, the Brown v. Board of Education decision to integrate schools was enforced in a high school in Little Rock, Arkansas, and the South took one step forward toward respecting civil rights.
This week, Representative John Conyers introduced a resolution recognizing the 50th anniversary of the 1957 enforcement of Brown v. the Board of Education in Little Rock, Arkansas. Federal marshals ordered the Little Rock school district to allow nine students, known as the Little Rock Nine, to attend an all-white public high school. This Thursday, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee will hold a hearing “Pursuing Brown’s Promise: Ensuring Equal Opportunity in Public Education,” coinciding with the week of the Little Rock anniversary.
But 50 years after Little Rock, Brown’s promise of inclusive and integrated schools for our children has not been achieved. Schools are more segregated today than they were in 1970. Even school districts that are voluntarily fighting segregation have faced resistance in the courts, including two school districts that lost their case in the Supreme Court.
Yes, we have moved forward. But we have taken many steps back.
Even the newspaper stories haven’t changed very much. High school divided by racial tensions. White students hang nooses from trees. Segregation throws Southern town into the national spotlight. Is it 1957 or 2007? The Little Rock Nine or the Jena Six? Brown doesn’t seem so far off.
Last week, Americans across the country mobilized against the treatment of the Jena Six, a group of six black students who received much harsher penalties than their white classmates in the midst of racially motivated fighting throughout their high school.
The Congressional Black Caucus is taking up the Jena Six this week in a Braintrust meeting featuring Tory Pegram, the field director of the ACLU of Louisiana, who has been organizing on behalf of the Jena Six, and the parent of one of the Jena Six students.
The American Civil Liberties Union will also hold a news briefing this week with Pegram and Jena Six family members to talk about racism in America.
The Jena Six is just one example of civil rights wrongs not yet righted in America.
Today’s anniversary is a good time to take stock of our accomplishments since the Civil Rights Movement. But it’s an even better opportunity to take stock of how much work we still have left to do.
You can read more about the ACLU’s work to end racial injustice in the United States at www.aclu.org/racialjustice/index.html
Today the American Bar Association (ABA) urged Ohio Governor Ted Strickland to suspend the death penalty in the state, according to The Plain-Dealer. The ABA’s Death Penalty Assessments Team found several flaws in the state’s capital punishment system, including inadequate defense counsel for death row defendants, racial disparities in sentencing and a significant number of mentally ill death row inmates. As the article points out, Ohio is the seventh of eight states assessed by the ABA team; Pennsylvania is currently under assessment.
The Ohio news follows on the heels of last Wednesday’s federal court ruling that found Tennessee’s new lethal injection guidelines unconstitutional. Judge Aleta A. Trauger found the three-drug death cocktail would cause “a substantial risk of unnecessary pain” if the anesthetic drug is not administered properly. John Holdridge, Director of the Capital Punishment Project, commented on the ruling in a Friday AP article.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit heard argument today in Roe v. Crawford, a case dealing with the right of prisoners in Missouri to access timely, safe, and legal abortion care. The ACLU argued the class-action lawsuit on behalf of all pregnant prisoners in the state’s custody.
The U. S. Supreme Court has laid out two basic principles for determining whether a restriction on prisoner’s constitutional right is permissible, namely:
1. Prison regulations that curtail constitutional rights are valid only if they are “reasonably related to penological interests.” (Turner v. Safely (1987)).
2. Correctional facilities must meet the serious medical needs of inmates by ensuring access to proper care. (Estelle v. Gamble (1976)).
Accordingly, a woman’s reproductive rights are violated if a prison or jail:
– Prevents her from having an abortion;
– Pushes her to have an abortion she does not want;
– Forces her to get a court order before she can obtain an abortion or otherwise delay access to abortion care;
– Insists she pay for an abortion with her own money regardless of her ability to pay; or
– Requires her to pay for the costs of transporting her to a clinic or hospital to obtain an abortion if she cannot afford to do so.
Yet throughout the year, the ACLU receives phone calls from women in jails or prisons looking for help in obtaining an abortion or from their advocates looking for guidance in handling these cases. Keep in mind that correctional facilities typically provide pregnant inmates with obstetrical care throughout pregnancy and delivery, transporting pregnant prisoners off-site for such care without a court order. Moreover, facilities regularly transport inmates off-site without a court order for other medical and dental treatments that they do not provide on-site.
For more information on rights concerning pregnancy-related care in prisons read Know Your Rights: Pregnancy-Related Health Care in Prison or Jail.
On September 16, 2007, the U.S. military contractor Blackwater USA was involved in a shooting that left at least eight Iraqi civilians dead. This wasn’t the first time Blackwater was involved in civilian casualties in Iraq. According to the Iraqi Interior Ministry, there have been at least six other incidents involving Blackwater and civilian casualties. A U.S. general keeping his own count tracked at least a dozen shootings in Baghdad between May and July of 2005, with six Iraqis being killed by military contractors.
How many incidents of civilian casualties are attributable to military contractors like Blackwater? It’s unclear. How many such contractors operate in Iraq? This too, is unclear, with some news sources estimating 20,000 to 30,000 and others estimating as many as 50,000 or more.
Earlier this month, the ACLU filed a complaint in federal district court seeking information about civilian deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan so that we Americans can make informed decisions about the war.
Transparency can only lead to accountability. What exactly is the Bush administration afraid of?
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