Hurricane Katrina was a catastrophe and a natural disaster, but the U.S. government’s response to the storm has been even more catastrophic and disastrous. The severity of the storm, combined with governmental inaction, incompetence, callousness, and discrimination in providing relief to individuals in need created a second disaster, and was a stark reminder of the enduring impact of American apartheid and the contemporary forms of racial and economic inequality that persist.

Against this bleak backdrop, Mr. Doudou Diène, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, was welcomed by Gulf Coast residents and local and national advocates, as an independent and internationally recognized human rights monitor who could document the very real human rights abuses that continue in the Gulf Coast region. During his visit, Mr. Diène toured New Orleans, Biloxi, Miss., and other parts of the Gulf Coast and heard testimony from affected community members and advocates in issue areas ranging from criminal justice, education, the rights of immigrant and African-American low-wage workers, housing, immigration detention and deportation, and environmental justice.

As part of his tour of New Orleans, Mr. Diène was taken to the Crescent City Connection Bridge where police fired guns to block African-American residents seeking refuge from the flood waters during the storm, he also visited the Lower 9th Ward, where he met with residents and saw the devastation that the community has endured.

Mr. Diène began his day by driving by the notorious Orleans Parish Prison, where he heard about serious human rights violations chronicled in the ACLU’s report, Abandoned and Abused. During the tour and in the hearings later in the day, Mr. Diène was told the decision to not evacuate the prison before the storm resulted in some prisoners dying before officers finally came to evacuate them. He heard how guards used pepper spray to subdue prisoners, assaulted them with rifle butts, shot at them with beanbag guns — some in the back, and made them lie down on the muddy prison floor with the explanation that the guards needed to “restore order” or to prevent prisoners “escaping” rising floodwaters. Most of all, he heard about rampant racial discrimination that prisoners faced. One story is expressed very poignantly by Mr. Clarence Norman in the ACLU report to the United Nations’ Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination:

I witnessed several inmates with various medical conditions suffer from dehydration— we were forced to live off toilet water, and lie in our own waste and bodily fluids. We were drinking out of toilets because that is all we had…They used to set the food trays on the floor…I asked why they did that, and they said we were like monkeys, and that’s what you do with animals at the zoo.

Later in the day during the hearings, Mr. Diène was told about the exploitation of low-wage workers in the Gulf Coast region and the relationship between the lack of economic opportunity offered to African-American workers and the severe exploitation and abuse suffered by immigrant workers. He heard about undocumented immigrant workers being harassed and racially profiled by police, being cheated out of their wages, and suffering discrimination and health and safety abuses on the job. He heard about immigrant “guest-workers” being lured to the region with promises of good-paying, steady jobs, and paying exorbitant amounts of money to recruiters contracted by hiring companies, and once they arrive deep in debt, the workers are denied basic workplace protections.

He was told of the inherent abuses in the U.S. guest-worker program, including the lack of visa portability and workers’ reliance upon “employer-sponsors” to remain in the U.S. This creates a Catch-22 for workers, as they’re effectively unable to challenge employer abuse and exploitation without facing the threat of deportation and being forced into labor to pay off debt.
Mr. Diène was told that these factors, combined with exploitative working conditions, and fraud and abuse in recruitment and subcontracting, leave guest-workers in extremely vulnerable situations that are often compounded by physical and linguistic isolation, racial discrimination, and on occasion violence and physical abuse. He also heard that low-wage South Asian and Muslim workers are particularly vulnerable, as they face anti-immigrant hostility, employment abuse, and post-9/11-related discrimination.

It has been said that “Sunlight is the best disinfectant.” Sadly, more than 2 1/2 years after one of the most severe natural disasters to ever impact a major American city and entire region, residents are still in search of “sunlight,” or accountability for the serious and systemic human rights violations that occurred. We have yet to have a 9/11 Commission-style investigation into what happened before, during, and after Katrina; moreover, even today, people are still in desperate need of governmental assistance in returning to their homes and communities and rebuilding their lives. Mr. Diène saw and heard much during his time in the Gulf Coast, it is the hope of many residents here that the “international sunlight” that his visit and report brings will create additional pressure on the federal, state, and local governments to comply with their human rights obligations and to allow residents the opportunity to return and rebuild.

This week’s Boston Globe reports on a successful instructional program developed by a local nurse at a private medical practice. The pilot Smart Sex Education Program seems to have “taken the edge off for many parents by pitching sex education to them as well as to youngsters.” Offered free and conducted outside of school, the private, voluntary course has “drawn rave reviews from parents, who say it has made them more comfortable about discussing the awkward subject with their children.”

In addition to teaching the facts of life to middle and high school students, the creator of the course, Thu Anh Lewin, a nurse at Pediatrics West, holds classes for parents, “encouraging them to become the primary teacher about sexuality, sexually transmitted diseases, and healthy relationships.”

Beverly Jean Pinney, a local mother and course participant, said she appreciated Lewin’s advice. “One thing that surprised me is, [Lewin] said don’t have ‘The Talk’ with the kids. It’s not one talk. It’s a whole bunch of little talks [and] finding teachable moments.”

For the entire Boston Globe article, and more on Lewin’s instructional program, including her format and curriculum for different groups, click here.

My name is Nikki Anthony and I just finished eighth grade at Breckinridge County Middle School in Kentucky. The ACLU is representing me, my younger sister, and five other students in a case against our school district and the U.S. Department of Education because our rights are being violated by my school segregating students by sex. I was raised in a house where rights are very important, and I was told, "if you don’t stand up for your rights then they will be taken away." People in the United States don’t tolerate segregation by sex in everyday life, and yet they want us to tolerate it in our school system when we are supposed to be learning what being free really is.

For this reason my family and I are attending the ACLU Membership Conference this June in Washington, D.C., our Nation’s capital. Most people look at the capital as a place that keeps our country held together and that’s the way that it should be. Our capital is the seat of justice and equality in our Nation — EQUALITY being the key word. Separating students into different groups based on sex is wrong, and it doesn’t make things equal for all students. Our society is not based on your gender, and the schools are supposed to prepare us for when we enter the real world. How does separating students by sex prepare us for society when society is not segregated that way?

One day before school started last summer, I went into the school to find out who my teachers were and I was happy with those results. All the trouble started when I found out that I had five all-girls’ classes, and my parents and I had no say in what kind of classes I was put in. The past two years that I was at Breckinridge County Middle School, we were given the choice to be in "gender-specific" or co-educational classes. My family and I had always chosen co-educational classes, but this year my rights and my fellow students’ rights were taken away because we no longer had the right to choose.

The even bigger problem is that the all-girls’ classes and the all-boys’ classes are supposed to be equal, but that’s not the way it worked at my school. The all-girls’ math class that I was in was much more advanced than the all-boys’ math class. The other part of this problem is that the single-sex classes were the only Algebra 1 classes in the eighth grade; there wasn’t a co-educational class to match the single-sex classes like there is supposed to be. We were offered the chance to switch into a new co-educational class but our teacher told us that the class would be made up of a combination of Algebra and Pre-Algebra students and would not move as fast as the all-girls’ math class. Most of the students, including me, were afraid to switch because we would not be moving at a pace that would challenge us and allow us to learn at our capability level.

My family and I are so excited about coming to Washington, D.C., for the ACLU Membership Conference. We can’t wait to meet other people who care about civil rights as much as we do. I am hoping to meet other young people who care about human rights. This trip means a lot to me and my family; we can’t wait to tell our story. I am also very excited to learn about the other types of rights the ACLU fights for!

Listen to a podcast of Nikki, her father Frankie, and sister Stacey, talk about their case.

Six years ago today with a simple stroke of a pen U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft diminished our constitutional protections as he signed into existence new guidelines governing domestic spying by law enforcement. The result was that he and subsequent Attorneys General have been able to send G-men to “investigate” Americans who don’t agree with President Bush.

Fortunately, Rep. Robert C. “Bobby” Scott has taken a long overdue step to rid Americans of the Ashcroft approach to FBI investigation and return us to an older, better system. On May 20, Congressman Scott introduced a sense of the House resolution that would replace the Ashcroft guidelines on domestic spying with ones that actually protect American civil liberties.

These guidelines, developed by Attorney General Edward Levi following the release of a report by the famed post-Watergate Church Committee, enable reasonable investigations of suspicious activity.

The Ashcroft Guidelines announced May 30, 2002, swept away protections that had been in place since 1976, when the Church Committee detailed the disturbing extent to which the FBI had spied on Americans like Martin Luther King, former Navy officer Father Roy Bourgeois, and Holocaust surviving grandmother Edith Bell, who were peaceful protestors or advocates from across the political spectrum.

As is so often the case, there is much to learn from History Repeated, an ACLU report released in 2002 and updated last year detailing The Dangers of Domestic Spying by Federal Law Enforcement. The report and its update were written by Marv Johnson, the respected and courageous ACLU first amendment counsel who died earlier this year due to complications from diabetes.

“It appears that the FBI is using America’s fear of terrorism to dramatically increase its power in areas that have little to do with terrorism,” wrote Johnson, “Despite its inability to manage and analyze the information it already gathers, it now wants to gather more information free from the constraints previously imposed. This not only makes the FBI less effective in preventing terrorism, but it chills Americans’ freedom to associate and speak without the fear that their associations and speech will end up in an FBI database.”

The House Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with respect to Intelligence Activities (known as the Church Committee) also found the FBI had developed over 500,000 domestic intelligence files on Americans and domestic groups and in 1972 alone opened 65,000 new domestic intelligence files.

More recently The Progressive described The New McCarthyism, including an FBI visit to an un-American college student’s apartment in part because she had a poster of George W. Bush with a noose that said “we hang on your every word.”

We hope the next attorney general reinstates the Levi guidelines for the FBI. But it would be even better if Congress acts, because then no president and no attorney general would ever again be able to tell the FBI to spy on Americans without reasonable suspicion of criminal conduct.

Yesterday the courts dealt another blow against the disturbing trend of cities, towns and counties across the country attempting to enact unconstitutional anti-immigrant ordinances. On Wednesday, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas issued an order permanently preventing the City of Farmers Branch, Texas, from enforcing its discriminatory anti-immigrant housing ordinance. The ordinance prohibited landlords from renting to noncitizens (including legal immigrants here on visas) who did not fall into a narrow class of lawful immigrants. The Farmers Branch ordinance is just the latest unsuccessful attempt by cities and states to legislate immigration law locally, as several of these laws have subsequently been repealed (e.g., Riverside, N.J.; Valley Park, Mo.) or shot down by the courts (e.g., Hazleton, Penn.; Escondido, Calif.).

In December 2006 the ACLU, along with the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, filed suit to challenge the ordinance. After the court issued a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction to stop the enforcement of the ordinance, Farmers Branch kept attempting to alter it, but it was still found to violate the 14th Amendment’s Due Process Clause and to be preempted by federal law.

When a city tries to deny housing to immigrants, it does nothing to help the immigration issues facing our country, but instead helps to feed the fire of anti-immigrant sentiment and perpetuate the misconceptions that immigration is a threat against public safety or our economy. Instead of punishing landlords and creating a patchwork of inconsistent and discriminatory laws, our cities should address immigration concerns by supporting rational solutions which do not violate American laws and values of fairness, equality, and due process.

Stay tuned, as the saga will certainly continue; Farmers Branch has recently adopted a new anti-immigrant housing ordinance.

The battle over Real ID — the Bush Administration’s backdoor national ID card — has been getting quieter in the last few weeks, but is by no means cooling down.

First, the statutory deadline for all states to comply with the Real ID Act — May 11, 2008 — came and went without a single state participating in the program. The Department of Homeland Security tried its best to bully states into agreeing to comply, but the best they got was half-hearted responses like that of California, which said it could not commit one way or the other.

A few states, like Montana and South Carolina, outright refused. Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina sent Michael Chertoff a five-page letter explaining in detail why his state would not participate, and called Real ID “the worst piece of legislation I have seen during the 15 years I have been engaged in the political process.” It’s no wonder DHS chose to extend the implementation deadline to 2017, when all of its top officials will be comfortably out of office, and on the lecture circuit.

That seemed to be that. Real ID was supposed to sleep-walk into the next president’s administration, who would have to decide whether to put the multi-billion dollar unfunded mandate on life support, or drive the final steak through its vampiric heart.

Yesterday, however, the state of Alaska upset the balance…again, quietly. The Legislature passed a bill in early May that would prevent the state from spending any money to implement Real ID. Since Congress has appropriated only 1 percent of the total $9.9 billion cost, states have to shoulder almost the entire burden, so no state money effectively means no Real ID in Alaska. The bill sat on Governor Sarah Palin’s desk for the last few weeks, and yesterday she returned it to the legislature unsigned.

That might seem like a defeat for the bill, but take a look at this key section of the Alaska Constitution:

A bill becomes law if, while the legislature is in session, the governor neither signs nor vetoes it within fifteen days, Sundays excepted, after its delivery to him. If the legislature is not in session and the governor neither signs nor vetoes a bill within twenty days, Sundays excepted, after its delivery to him, the bill becomes law.

You needn’t have aced Civics to see what this means: By waiting the required twenty days after receiving the bill (excluding Sundays), the Governor allowed the bill to become law, making Alaska the ninth state to pass a statute against implementing Real ID.

We can expect to see other states quietly move to reject Real ID. Similar bills are awaiting final approval by the legislatures in Arizona and Louisiana, and others are pending in Pennsylvania and North Carolina. As the anti-Real ID rebellion continues to grow in the states, Congress would be wise to prick up its ears to the sounds of silence.

After the New York Civil Liberties Union’s victory in the same-sex marriage case Martinez v. Monroe County, New York Governor David Paterson has urged state agencies to change its policies to recognize the unions of gay and lesbian couples who are married out-of-state. Any agencies that do not honor these marriages will be in violation of the state’s human rights laws, according to the governor’s counsel, David Nocenti.

As California prepares to begin issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples on June 17, Gov. Paterson’s decision is especially timely. The California Supreme Court’s landmark decision in In Re: Marriage Cases cleared the way for gay and lesbian couples to marry in that state.

NYCLU Executive Director Donna Lieberman said in statement:

For the first time, couples in New York who have never known true security for their families will be officially entitled to treatment by our state government that respects their rights. They should now finally get a taste of the family protections other married couples and their children enjoy…Now it’s time for our legislature to allow all of New York’s families to live with dignity. New Yorkers shouldn’t have to leave the state to protect their families.

You can read Nocenti’s full order (PDF) to state agencies on the NYCLU website, and check out the video of Lieberman talking about the Martinez case.

Please let Governor Paterson know that you appreciate his support. His office is taking a poll. It will only take a minute to call (518) 474-8390 and say "I support the Governor’s directive on marriage." Be sure to give your 5-digit zip code. And encourage your friends and family to call too.

As ACLU activists protecting civil liberties in Florida, I know several of us often feel like we are always on the defense; our guard is always up. I am sure this is a sentiment shared by other ACLU members in the less civil-liberties-friendly regions across the country. The ACLU Membership Conference offers an oasis for ACLU members to congregate and feel supported simply for being a protector of the Constitution. Not to mention the fact that ACLU Members are just plain interesting and a blast to hang out with.

At the last Membership Conference (2006 — Washington, D.C.), I met and had a great conversation with an ACLU board member from Alaska. It was incredibly fascinating to hear about the civil liberties battles the ACLU of Alaska is facing and realize how remarkably familiar they sounded to our own issues in Florida. Where else would an ACLU member from Miami, Florida get to meet an ACLU member from Juneau, Alaska?

The other really motivating thing about the ACLU Membership Conference is how it brings together people from across generational lines. We — as a society — often talk about how we wish more young people were engaged and active in civic life. Some adults make comments about how it seems like young people these days pay more attention to the latest iPod and Facebook mini-feeds than to what the Senate Judiciary Committee discussed at this week’s hearing. And there are plenty of young people who do just that — just like there are plenty of adults who are not active in civic life as well. The ACLU Membership Conference is a chance for adults to meet and interact with young people who are active in their community.

This year’s conference will provide the opportunity for cross-generational interaction again! For the 2004 Membership Conference in San Francisco, the ACLU of Florida brought 10 young activists. In 2006, we sponsored 17 young activists to attend. This year, we are chartering two buses to take 100+ Florida young activists on an 18-hour bus ride to the ACLU Membership Conference.

Did you know that ACLU luminaries like founder Roger Baldwin and plaintiff Mary Beth Tinker, only a junior high school student when she wore a black armband to school to express her protest of a government policy, were young activists when they stood up to protect civil liberties? The Florida youth who will attend this year’s Membership Conference may not have the legal degrees or the monetary finances to contribute to the work of the ACLU, but it is undeniable the effect that they will have when making persuasive, impassioned presentations to Capital Hill staff has on impending legislation.

If you haven’t registered to attend the Membership Conference yet, it’s not too late. Just visit www.aclu.org/conference

I’m sure you’ve heard about Senator Bond’s proposed "compromise." He floated an outline late last week at a press conference that represents what he calls his last offer in the negotiations about whether and how to expand our foreign intelligence wiretapping laws. While we’ve only seen a couple key pieces of the legislation, the summary and Congress’ past actions, speak volumes. Watch out for these so-called "concessions" that very well may be sold to you as moderate compromises that protect civil liberties:

Immunity. The draft moves pending lawsuits against the telecoms to the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (bad). It apparently allows parties to file briefs with the court (good — but possibly could have happened without the fix). In the end, this so-called "compromise" might actually be worse than where the Senate bill started and will still result in immunity.

Expect people to make hay out of the fact that the proposal raises the level of judicial review from "abuse of discretion" to "preponderance of the evidence." Evidence of what, exactly? As written, the Senate bill says that the existence of an order — whether legal or not — is enough to dismiss the cases. The court will only review whether 1) the certifications were issued between 9/11 and January of 2007, 2) were issued by the AG or an element of the intelligence community, and 3) were approved by the President. We already know all of these conditions are going to be met. In the end, the cases are going to be dismissed if the government sent them a piece of paper, regardless of whether that piece of paper was legally sufficient under FISA.

This is immunity pure and simple because the companies are NOT being judged on whether they followed the law. If the intent was truly to just have the FISA court review whether the orders were legal — as Mr. Bond and the media keep repeating — the drafters could have in literally in one or two sentences transferred the pending cases to the FISC, and permitted litigation to continue there as to whether the orders satisfied FISA’s requirements.

Prior Court Review. The press release states there is court review before surveillance starts. However, the court review can be eliminated when there are "exigent circumstances" that include situations where information will be lost if is time taken to apply for an order from the FISA court. By definition, it takes time to apply for a court order. With that soft of a trigger, when wouldn’t there be an exigent circumstance? And that’s the whole point — you don’t get information until you apply for a court order and it is approved.There are true emergencies that are reflected in the original FISA — as drafted this "compromise" will probably go way too far. This is quite possibly the quintessential case of the exception engulfing the rule.

For example, under FISA’s current emergency provision, if the court denies the retroactive application after collection has started, the government is required to stop surveillance immediately. The government is prohibited from ever using or distributing the information if it pertains to a U.S. person, except to protect life or limb. These strict back end protections served as a strong disincentive to fudge the true meaning of emergency. However, you can bet money on the fact these protections won’t be in the final draft — they weren’t even in the House Democrats’ last bill. That version instead allowed them to continue surveillance for 30 days while resubmitting the request for an order, continue surveillance through formal appeals if the order is denied, and ultimately, keep and use all the information at the end of the day even if finally the court finds that no emergency or exigent circumstance existed. This problem is amplified because the orders are for entire programs of surveillance, and not individualized warrants as required by FISA. Even if some form of this Democratic formulation ends up in the bill, the "exigent circumstances" provision blows a huge whole through both the letter and the spirit of the prior court review requirement.

Exclusivity. It’s already in FISA. This is not a "concession," period.

Why did we highlight these three issues? Because these are the three issues that Dems have been demanding. Now that they have at least the specter of court review, exclusivity and an immunity fix — they may just take it and run. Right now it is more important than ever that people call their Representatives and let them know that they are watching — and they know the difference between truly protecting civil liberties and a bum deal.

Upon returning from his last trip to Guantánamo, Jamil Dakwar told us that iguanas are a protected species there. We were incredulous, but it turns out, it’s no joke; as the AP reported back in December:

U.S. law protects endangered iguanas on the naval base, but the Supreme Court is struggling to determine whether it also applies to the 305 men imprisoned there.

The San Diego Zoo even had a team there to study the Cuban rock iguanas back in 2001. The irony hasn’t escaped the detainees there. In a chat session with Amnesty International, former Guantánamo detainee Moazzam Begg said:

According to the US admin, “Geneva Conventions” do not apply; US law does not apply, US Code of Military Justice does not apply, International [law] does not apply. Even the iguanas on Gitmo are protected by laws. Not so the detainees…

The attorneys who represent those detainees have also noted it:

Tom Wilner, an attorney who represents detainees, said his team has raised the iguana issue in briefs to the Supreme Court.

“Anyone, including a federal official, who violates the Endangered Species Act by harming an iguana at (Guantánamo), can be fined and prosecuted,” Wilner said. “Yet the government argues that U.S. law does not apply to protect the human prisoners there. … Pretty absurd.”

The Supreme Court is expected to deliver a decision in Boumediene v. Bush before the end of June. At issue in Boumediene is whether Guantánamo detainees can use habeas corpus to challenge the lawfulness of their detention. A decision is expected by the end of June. Let’s hope the nine justices find that the men at Guantánamo have at least as much protection under the law as the iguanas.