Bush Signs Un-American Military Commissions Act, as Polls Show Voters Seek a Stronger Congress Justice Scalia, Rachel Maddow, and 1,500 ACLU Members Converge for Biannual Conference "60 Minutes" Report Highlights Need to Overhaul Watchlists New Documents Detail Military Surveillance of Peace Activists Punishment: The U.S. Record: A Conference on Punishment in the U.S. In the States: Arizona's Harmful Voter ID Law Halted by Federal Court Arkansas Students Wrongly Punished for Wearing Armbands to School YOU CAN HELP PROTECT OUR BASIC FREEDOMS by joining with over 550,000 card-carrying members of the ACLU. Our rights as individuals—the very foundation of our great democracy—depend on our willingness to defend them, and as an ACLU member, you'll be doing your part. Click now to safeguard our Bill of Rights by becoming an ACLU member. Arizona's Harmful Voter ID Law Halted by Federal Court The state of Arizona has been ordered by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals from implementing Proposition 200's voter ID requirements in connection with the upcoming November 7 elections. Passed in 2004, Proposition 200 dramatically altered Arizona election law by requiring citizens to present documentary proof of citizenship in order to register to vote, and by imposing a restrictive identification requirement as a condition of casting a ballot at the polls. For those voters who cannot meet its strict and unnecessary requirements, Proposition 200 requires that voters purchase acceptable forms of identification, which has already blocked nearly 21,000 Arizonans from registering to vote. The court's ruling will help ensure the fundamental right to vote for tens of thousands of Arizonans who otherwise would have faced unnecessary barriers to full participation in federal and state elections. It will remain in effect until the court considers an appeal that will be decided after the election. By creating a price tag to vote, Proposition 200's unconstitutional burden disproportionately disenfranchised Arizona's minority voters, Native Americans, the elderly, the disabled and students, said the ACLU. In addition, women who have changed their names, citizens who use a P.O. Box, and people who have moved but not received new identification may have been prevented from voting in the election. Arkansas Students Wrongly Punished for Wearing Armbands to School The Watson Chapel school district in Arkansas has violated students' free speech rights by suspending students for wearing black armbands in opposition to the school uniform policy, according to a lawsuit filed by the ACLU last week. Students planned to wear the black armbands, which are about a quarter-inch wide with no writing, to school Friday, October 6th to silently protest the policy. After reports of the plan appeared in the media, school officials announced that students wearing the armbands would be suspended from school for three days. Several students wore the bands anyway and more than 30 elementary, junior high and high school students were disciplined and forced to remove the bands. Sixteen junior high students and four high school students received suspensions. "When government officials try to intimidate people from exercising their free speech rights, and punish them because they don't like what they have to say, it's a serious free speech violation," said ACLU of Arkansas staff attorney Holly Dickson. The ACLU is asking the court to stop the school district from suspending any more students for wearing the armbands, to tell the district to clear the disciplinary records of any students already suspended and have privileges restored to them that may have been lost as a result of the suspension (such as participation in a club or other extracurricular activity), and allow students to make up for any lost work due to the suspensions. "What kind of citizens do we expect to send out to the world with instruction like this about 'the Land of the Free'?" asked ACLU of Arkansas Executive Director Rita Sklar. "Hopefully students and school officials alike are getting the civics lesson of their lives: that people have rights, and the right to fight for them." Click here to read the complaint. Do you know somebody who would be interested in getting news about the ACLU and what we're doing to protect civil liberties? Help us spread the word about ACLU Online—forward this newsletter to a friend. October 20, 2006 Bush Signs Un-American Military Commissions Act, as Polls Show Voters Seek a Stronger Congress The above ad highlighting the ACLU's concerns with the Military Commissions Act ran in the Washington Post this Tuesday. Civil liberties suffered an historic setback this week, when President Bush signed the un-American Military Commissions Act of 2006. The president now has Congress's blessing to hold people indefinitely without charge, take away protections from horrific abuses, use hearsay to put people on trial, authorize death penalty trials based on testimony literally beaten out of witnesses, and slam shut the courthouse door for those accused, lifting our time-honored habeas corpus rules. "Nothing separates America more from our enemies than our commitment to fairness and the rule of law," said Anthony Romero, Executive Director of the ACLU. "But the bill signed today is an historic break because it turns Guantánamo Bay and other U.S. facilities into legal no-man's-lands." Americans across the political spectrum have serious concerns about this unconstitutional law. From now until the November elections, the ACLU is urging everyone who cares about justice and liberty to tell Congress we need them to stand up to the administration—not rubberstamp these abuses of power. And voters in four battleground states have voiced a strong preference for House and Senate candidates who will oppose the president's policies on Guantánamo detainees, torture and CIA kidnapping, and secret searches of Americans' private records. Last week the ACLU announced the findings of a poll conducted in Connecticut, New Mexico, Ohio and Pennsylvania, four states that will play a strong role in the makeup of the next Congress. What the poll found is heartening: Those of us who care about liberty and justice are not the minority. For most voters, no matter their party, protecting the civil liberties of all Americans and upholding the Constitution are key issues in the mid-term election. Now, it is essential that concerned citizens speak out as they head to the polls this November. You can take action today to help make civil liberties one of the top issues as people head to the polls next month. Sign our "This November, I'm Voting My Values" pledge and please ask your friends to sign as well. To see the detailed results of our voter poll, answer the questions yourself and compare your answers to official poll results online at: www.aclu.org/poll Justice Scalia, Rachel Maddow, and 1,500 ACLU Members Converge for Biannual Conference ACLU Associate Legal Director Ann Beeson with Abdullah al-Kidd, one of the ACLU's national security clients. Al-Kidd and other ACLU clients were presented Messages of Support from thousands of ACLU members and supporters. It's not every day that a conservative Supreme Court justice sits before a room full of civil libertarians for a chat, but that's exactly what happened at the ACLU's biennial membership conference, where over 1,500 ACLU members, including 300 high school students, converged upon Washington, D.C., for three days of leadership discussions, lobbying meetings and festivities. Among the highlights: The Supreme Court justice in question was Justice Antonin "Nino" Scalia, who held a collegial debate with ACLU president Nadine Strossen on everything from Hamdi v. Rumsfeld (in which he voted in the ACLU's favor), to his anti-abortion and pro-death penalty stances. NBC correspondent Pete Williams moderated the contentious, but very polite, exchange. The first day concluded with a "Slam for Civil Liberties," with adrenaline-filled performances by spoken word duo Sekou (tha Misfit) and Steve Connell, and all-female, Brooklyn-based, hip-hop dance group DecaDanceTheatre. A panel on "Torture, Secrecy and Surveillance: Holding Government Accountable" featured retired Ambassador Joe Wilson, who suffered White House attacks on himself and his wife Valerie Plame after he questioned the administration's pre-war intelligence on Iraq. "I've lived in authoritarian dictatorships a good part of my life," said Wilson. "From Franco's Spain…to Saddam's Iraq, I have looked into the abyss of tyranny. I never thought that I would have to come back and fight for the values here at home, and I'll be damned if I'm going to be looking into that abyss here in my own country." The ACLU honored nearly 30 clients from recent national security, racial profiling, discrimination, dissent, torture, and detention cases with a special reception. Associate Legal Director Ann Beeson thanked the clients for their courage challenging the goverment and enduring the difficulties of a trial. Beeson also presented each of the clients with a bound collection of thank-you notes from thousands of ACLU members expressing gratitude and admiration for these champions of civil liberties. A gala tribute honored five long-time ACLU members and philanthropist and ACLU benefactor Peter B. Lewis. Performances by Phillip Glass, Deborah Harry, Greg Proops, and Maxi Priest ended the evening. Monday morning, ACLU members braved rain and the daunting civil liberties climate on Capitol Hill to meet with their representatives and voice their concerns as constituents and activists. In the final conference session former youth activist Mary Beth Tinker presented a special award for youth involvement, and an audience including hundreds of youth attendees heard from ACLU clients Alondra Jones, who fought for equality in her public school; Ron Bilbao, who challenged the Miami-Dade school board's attempt to ban books; and Hope Reichbach, lead plaintiff in a lawsuit to opt out of the Department of Defense's recruitment database. To learn more about this week's event, watch webcasts of the plenary sessions, hear audio podcasts from conference attendees, and see photo galleries, go to www.aclu.org/conference Hear Voices from the Membership Conference Members, leaders and guests speak out in their own words in audio podcasts from the conference Action Center: "I'm particularly concerned about the chilling effect of making protest unpatriotic, when it's probably the most patriotic thing you can do." "Knowing the ACLU was there gave me courage to speak up ... knowing they were there to help back me up." "That's why I'm an ACLU member, because I see it as my duty as an American to defend our civil liberties." Hear more and learn how to download all our Conference audio at www.aclu.org/podcasts. "60 Minutes" Report Highlights Need to Overhaul Watchlists In light of a recent "60 Minutes" report, the ACLU called for the government to shut down its fatally flawed aviation watch lists and instead focus on known threats to aviation. "60 Minutes" obtained a copy of the secret aviation watch list and, according to a CBS written report and excerpts from the broadcast, the list: Includes numerous names of people who are dead, in prison, or are international dignitaries, such as the president of Bolivia; Includes numerous common names such as "Robert Johnson;" Contains 119,000 names (44,000 on the "no-fly" list and 75,000 on a "selectee" list of people who are given extra security); and Has resulted in many ordinary, innocent individuals being pulled aside and interrogated, sometimes for hours, nearly every time they go to the airport. CBS also echoed the fact—long pointed out by the ACLU—that the list does not even include the names of many of the worst suspected terrorists because agencies don't want to share them outside the government. For example, the suspects in the "liquid bomb" plot in the United Kingdom were not on the list even though they had been under surveillance for over a year. "These lists are virtually worthless. They don't contain the names of the greatest threats to aviation and are bloated with tens of thousands of names that result in hundreds of thousands of innocent Americans being repeatedly delayed or denied the chance to fly," said Tim Sparapani, an ACLU Legislative Counsel. "Until Homeland Security can figure out a way to create a genuine, narrow, targeted list of real terrorists rather than harming innocent people, Congress needs to shut this monstrosity down." Visit our website to read a complete ACLU background analysis of the five-year failure of the no-fly lists. New Documents Detail Military Surveillance of Peace Activists This month the ACLU released new details about military surveillance of Americans opposed to the Iraq war, including Quakers and student groups. The documents show that the Pentagon was keeping tabs on non-violent protesters, amassing information and storing it in a military anti-terrorism database. The documents were produced in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the ACLU after evidence surfaced that the Pentagon was secretly conducting surveillance of protest activities, anti-war organizations and groups opposed to military recruitment policies. The Pentagon shared the information with other government agencies through the Threat and Local Observation Notice database. Among the documents are reports on protest activities across the country organized or supported by the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker peace group. One document, which is labeled "potential terrorist activity," lists events such as a "Stop the War NOW!" rally in Akron, Ohio on March 19, 2005. The source noted that the rally "will have a March and Reading of Names of War Dead" and that marchers would pass a military recruitment station and the local FBI office along the way. "When information about non-violent protest activity is included in a military anti-terrorism database, all Americans should be concerned about the unchecked authority this administration has seized in the name of fighting terrorism," said ACLU attorney Ben Wizner. For more information on government surveillance of Americans, go to: www.aclu.org/spyfiles. Punishment: The U.S. Record ACLU co-sponsors conference on who, what, why and how we punish Our nation's prison population has soared by more than 600% since the 1970s, despite a drop in crime rates. As of 2005, over two million people were imprisoned in this country: almost one in every 136 U.S. residents. Black men, who make up 6% of the U.S. population, comprise over 40% of our prison population. A black male born today has a 32% chance of spending time in prison. Eleven states do not allow ex-cons to vote. Nearly 2,800,000 American children have at least one parent in prison or jail. What does this mean for our democracy? Where do our concepts of punishment come from? What is the effect on our families, communities and the economy of our staggeringly high incarceration rate? The ACLU is co-sponsoring this conference—aimed to examine the foundations of our ideas of punishment, explore the social effects of current practices and search for viable alternatives to our carceral state. This social research conference will be held at The New School in NYC Nov. 30 - Dec. 1, 2006. For information and to register, visit www.socres.org/punishment. Privacy Statement This mail is never sent unsolicited. You, or someone on your behalf, has subscribed to receive this information from the American Civil Liberties Union. At the ACLU Web site, the ACLU gathers anonymous summary statistics on the responses to our email newsletters in order to better serve list subscribes and ACLU members. To review our Privacy Statement, click here.