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ACLU Minute: February 2, 2010
A true American Hero, Howard Zinn, has died. But how can someone who is known as a radical, as Zinn was, also be known as an American Hero?
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ACLU Minute: February 2, 2010
In late January 2009, President Obama pledged to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility within one year. That year has come and gone.
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ACLU Minute: February 2, 2010
The presiding justice of the highest criminal court in Texas refused to keep the courhouse open late in order to receive a request for a stay of execution to which an inmate on death row was entitled. The result of the ethics complaint is what?
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ACLU Minute: February 2, 2010
You may recall the story about Tariq Ramadan, the Muslim scholar prevented from taking his job as a professor at Notre Dame by the Bush Administration in 2004. This story has a new conclusion.
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ACLU Minute: February 2, 2010
An FBI agent who wants to surveil and inspect telephone records doesn't go to court to get a warrant and doesn't have probable cause or even reasonable suspicion to conduct the surveillance. The FBI agent doesn't get the telephone records, does he?
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ACLU Minute: January 26, 2010
A law that prohibits a motorist from text messaging while driving clearly is an unconstitutional, government-imposed restriction on free speech. Or is it?
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ACLU Minute: January 26, 2010
America is Canada's largest trading partner, and that country recently imported something from The United States that should make us proud.
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ACLU Minute: January 18, 2010
Almost all of the 100 people in the world serving a sentence of life without parole for crimes committed as a juvenile in which no one was killed are locked up in one country.
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ACLU Minute: January 18, 2010
Today's freedom of speech question: In a venerable democracy, when a citizen posts online a video of a government official lying, what's the likely result?
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ACLU Minute: January 11, 2010
Can WikiLeaks.org survive? It's a website that publishes documents that someone, somewhere thinks should be made public, and then dares the government, any government, to try to shut it down.
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ACLU Minute: January 4, 2010
Today, for a change of pace, we have a hot stock pick. Though the interested investor probably needs a Teflon-lined stomach.
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ACLU Minute: January 4, 2010
An automobile driver, as the New York Times so delicately put it, "gestured offensively with his middle finger," at another driver who, whoops, turned out to be a cop. The result may surprise you.
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ACLU Minute: January 4, 2010
Ed Meese, Ronald Regan's law-and-order Attorney General, who once blasted the ACLU for being what he called, "part of the criminals' lobby," now is standing before the US Supreme Court, shoulder to shoulder, with the ACLU.
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ACLU Minute: December 22, 2009
We need to have a talk about sex. We're also going to talk about the federal budget, but we'll get to the sex part soon, I promise.
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ACLU Minute: December 17, 2009
In order to understand the importance of New York Governor, David Patterson's recent executive order that requires state agencies to include gender identity in their non-discrimination policies, you might want to know a couple of numbers.
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ACLU Minute: December 17, 2009
YOUR ATTENTION PLEASE, YOUR ATTENTION PLEASE: If you Twitter, have friends on Facebook, or chat electronically, law enforcement is probably monitoring you.
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ACLU Minute: December 17, 2009
A funny thing happened to Cecil Bothwell on his way to being sworn into office as Asheville, North Carolina's newly-elected city councilor.
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ACLU Minute: December 10, 2009
Are you now or have you ever used drugs, received counseling, engaged in homosexual behavior, illegal gambling or loitering? Careful before you answer, your job may be on the line.
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ACLU Minute: December 10, 2009
The former Chief Military Prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay has been fired from his present job as a researcher at The Library of Congress for, get this, writing an opinion piece for The Wall Street Journal and a letter to The Washington Post.
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ACLU Minute: December 1, 2009
What does a housing authority rule that says don't affix anything to the outside of the door of your apartment have to do with the first amendment?
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ACLU Minute: December 1, 2009
From time to time, school administrators try to impose patriotism on students by requiring them to recite the Pledge of Allegiance.
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ACLU Minute: November 20, 2009
A Transportation Security Administration screener at Logan Airport is highly regarded, described by his supervisor as hard-working and loyal. So why did the TSA want to fire him?
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ACLU Minute: November 20, 2009
Can one of those TSA airport screeners have your locked up and interrogated because something in your carry-on luggage, which has nothing to do with airline safety, makes them suspicious?
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ACLU Minute: November 12, 2009
Since 2008, the state of South Carolina has been issuing licence plates that show an image of a cross, in front of a stand glass window, along with the words "I believe."
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ACLU Minute: November 12, 2009
A United States Supreme Court Justice gives a speech at a high school assembly. So, for sure, the high school paper can report on what the justice said, right?
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ACLU Minute: November 5, 2009
Let's say a US health organization wants to have a conference to plan for the future fight against AIDS. Obviously, some people who are HIV-positive would attend. So, can you hold that conference in America?
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ACLU Minute: November 5, 2009
A newspaper reporter promises a whistle-blower or another source that he will keep his identity secret, but then a prosecutor subpoenas the reporter to a grand jury or a trial and demands that the reporter reveal his source. What happens?
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ACLU Minute: October 29, 2009
Here's a quick quiz on law in America: An interracial couple is denied a marriage license because the justice of the peace doesn't believe in race mixing. What's the last year this happened?
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ACLU Minute: October 29, 2009
Can we spend a minute talking about a bill pending in the Massachusetts legislature designed to prevent surveillance abuses and protect first amendment and privacy rights in Massachusetts?
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ACLU Minute: October 29, 2009
As a result of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, the FBI's rules for surveillance of law-abiding Americans has just been released.
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ACLU Minute: October 23, 2009
Here's a question: A pregnant woman commits a crime and is sentenced to jail. How many states allow the woman to be shackled to the railings of her bed while delivering her baby? 7? 10? 14? 21?
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ACLU Minute: October 23, 2009
When a person is being held in prison illegaly, do the Constitutional guarantees of habeas corpus and due process mean he actually will be set free? We're about to find out.
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ACLU Minute: October 23, 2009
What lessons did a school system recently teach when it sentenced a well-behaved 6-year-old Cub Scout to 45 days of reform school? You decide.
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ACLU Minute: October 14, 2009
Here's a fact about supposedly-liberal Massachusetts that may surprise you: The Commonwealth has the harshest law for juvenile murderers of any state in the country.
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ACLU Minute: October 2, 2009
May a Massachusetts city or town legislate a curfew on teenagers and make it a crime for young people to be out at night?
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ACLU Minute: October 14, 2009
How far can the state go in regulating your sex life? For an answer, you might want to check out the recent ruling in Love Stuff V. The City of Hoover.
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ACLU Minute: October 2, 2009
The score is 30-7, but this is not a football story. These are the results of the trials of the Guantanamo detainees.
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ACLU Minute: September 25, 2009
Should a 13 year-old middle school girl be strip searched when her vice principal suspects her of bringing Ibuprofin to school? Many educators and quite a few judges in America say yes.
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ACLU Minute: September 25, 2009
In George Bush's America, the Federal Government could imprision you indefinitely while it investigated to see if you did anything wrong. How could this happen? And will anyone be held responsible?
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ACLU Minute: August 27, 2009
In 2006, the ACLU of Massachusetts, in honor of Senator Edward Kennedy's passionate dedication to liberty and justice, awarded the Senator its highest honor. That award was richly deserved.
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ACLU Minute: September 9, 2009
The US Supreme Court consistently has denied relief to persons convicted of capital murder, regardless of the egregious Constitutional violations at their trial. Now, two justices have gone even further.
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ACLU Minute: August 21, 2009
You weren't meant to hear this. The Government didn't want you to. So now, probably, you should close your ears.
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ACLU Minute: August 7, 2009
The difference in the federal sentencing law between crack cocaine and powder cocaine tells us more about ourselves than it does about cocaine.
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ACLU Minute: July 7, 2009
Holyoke Police Chief Anthony Scott's recent call for picketing outside of courhouses to influence judges to set higher bails, lockup more defendants, and impose longer sentences raises disturbing Constitutional questions.
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ACLU Minute: June 25, 2009
The recently released Justice Department memorandums on prisoner interrogation raises disturbing questions about the lawyers who wrote them.
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ACLU Minute: June 17, 2009
There is a chance that The House of Representatives of The United States Congress may actually examine the most egregious parts of The Bush Administration's war on civil liberties.
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ACLU Minute: October 2, 2009
Do fourth graders have First Amendment rights? This is a question to which fouth grader Nathan Johns is about to learn the answer.
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ACLU Minute: September 25, 2009
Who do you think recently said the following about tasers? "I am not willing to see an individual on the 6 o'clock news bouncing around like a basketball with 50,000 volts of electricity being pumped into their body."
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ACLU Minute: September 16, 2009
Cameron Todd Willingham\'s three young daughters all perished in a house fire in Corsicana, TX. There was no justice in that. There was even less justice in what happened next.
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ACLU Minute: September 9, 2009
Harvard University recently tried to implement a policy that prevented any medical student from speaking to the media, unless that student first received permission to speak from the Dean of Students.
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ACLU Minute: August 27, 2009
Want to get out of jury service? Well, bills are pending in the Judiciary Committee of the Massachusetts Legislature that could help you out. There is one problem: these bills are a terrible idea.
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ACLU Minute: August 7, 2009
A federal district court has ordered Mohammed Jawad released from Guantanamo. Even by Guantanamo standards, this case is extraordinary.
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ACLU Minute: July 22, 2009
We Americans love to commemorate milestones, and we've just passed another. In the modern era of the death penalty, we have now used lethal injection to execute people 1,000 times.
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ACLU Minute: July 15, 2009
What do political conservatives think about Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis' description of states as the laboratories of democracy?
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ACLU Minute: July 7, 2009
Here's a disturbing fact: The United States, which has less than 5% of the world's actual population, has almost 25% of the world's prison population.
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ACLU Minute: June 25, 2009
Before Bush, the "state secret rule" meant that in a lawsuit, when the government has a legitimate national security concern about a piece of information becoming public, the judge could keep that evidence out of the case. President Bush changed that,and
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ACLU Minute: June 17, 2009
Because questions still remain about The CIA's torture progam, The ACLU has filed a new lawsuit to try to find out some answers.
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ACLU Minute: September 25, 2009
In September 2009, convicted murderer Romell Broom was strapped down on the execution gourney at the state prison in Lucasville, Ohio. For over 2 hours technicians tried to inject the lethal chemicals. The attempt to execute him failed.
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ACLU Minute: September 16, 2009
You would think that in 2009 in America, a person who has health insurance and a need for medical equipment that would restore her ability to speak would receive the device that she needs to communicate. But you would be wrong.
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ACLU Minute: September 9, 2009
Bill Clinton and Dick Cheney adamantly shared at least one position, one policy. They both wanted to keep secret the documents that showed who had been at The White House. That policy is about to change.
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ACLU Minute: August 21, 2009
Schools in America are family friendly -- places where kids are taught and taken care of. Schools don't hurt kids. Right?
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ACLU Minute: July 22, 2009
The Cambridge Massachusetts Police recently responded to a report of two black males breaking into a house, and they arrested the perpetrator. Ho Hum. Big Deal. Why should anyone care?
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ACLU Minute: July 15, 2009
Take me out to the ballgame, take me out with the crowd, buy me some peanuts and ... beer? Red Sox Nation will love the reason why the words temporarily have changed.
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ACLU Minute: July 15, 2009
For sheer hypocrisy, some of The United States Senate's confirmation hearing on Judge Sonia Sotomayor takes the cake.
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ACLU Minute: July 7, 2009
Listen to the story of Tanveer Ahmad, whose name recently was added to the list of detainees who have died in US Immigration custody.
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ACLU Minute: June 25, 2009
Last November, Massachusetts voters approved Question 2, decriminalizing marijuana. Now certain law enforcement and public officials are trying to undo Question 2.
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ACLU Minute: June 17, 2009
It's the middle of 2009, and The Federal Government is still routinely collecting millions of phone calls and e-mail messages of law-abiding Americans.
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ACLU Minute: June 10, 2009
The First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of speech belongs not only to the person who wishes to speak, but also to the person who wishes to hear. So, I have the right to talk, and you have the right to listen, or not. I hope you'll hear me out.
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ACLU Minute: June 10, 2009
Has your phone company allowed the National Security Agency to listen in on your phone calls and read your e-mails?
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ACLU Minute: June 10, 2009
The American Civil Liberties Union has issued a report on Judge Sonia Sotomayor, President Obama's nominee to The Supreme Court. Here's a summary.
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ACLU Minute: June 3, 2009
Dr. George Tiller recently was shot and killed in his church. The apparent reason: Dr. Tiller performed abortions.
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ACLU Minute: June 3, 2009
The public rarely can look behind the high walls and the razor wire that surrounds our state prisons, but in Massachusetts, that may change.
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ACLU Minute: May 27, 2009
In America, the Government cannot throw a person in prison and keep him there forever without charging him with a crime. At least, that's how it used to be.
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ACLU Minute: May 27 ,2009
As The New York Times Editorial put it, "It's no surprise that the IT (Information Technology) candidate, Barack Obama, is intent on becomming the IT President." This is all to the good.
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ACLU Minute: May 27, 2009
It's 2009 and the British are coming! The British are coming! Didn't we win the war for our rights over a couple hundred years ago?
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ACLU Minute: May 20, 2009
The ACLU is suing to try to force a company to give up its patents on two human genes linked to breast and ovarian cancer. Here's why.
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ACLU Minute: May 20, 2009
On April 18, an Air France plane flying from Paris to Mecico City was diverted from American airspace because a passenger, a journalist, was found to be on a US Government watch list.
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ACLU Minute: May 20, 2009
The Obama Administration has reversed its promise to release photographs that depict detainee abuse by us personnel overseas. That decision betrays Obama's commitment to transparency and the rule of law.
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ACLU Minute: May 13, 2009
Northwestern Distric Attorney Elizabeth Scheibel recently was slammed by Superior Court Judge John Agostini over her investigation called "Pottygate."
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ACLU Minute: May 13, 2009
We all are indebted to the press for standing up to Northwestern District Attorney Elizabeth Scheibel, and reporting on "Pottygate."
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ACLU Minute: May 13, 2009
Information is power. Law enforcement in Massaschusetts has recently proven itself dangerously hungry for both.
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ACLU Minute: May 6, 2009
The First Amendment to the United States Constitution says Congress shall pass no law abridging freedom of speech. It does not have an exception for words that we don't like.
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ACLU Minute: May 6, 2009
In downtown Northampton recently, 10,000 people marched in the Pride Parade. But it hasn't always been like that.
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ACLU Minute: May 6, 2009
Five men, who the Bush Administration kidnapped and secretly flew oversees to be interrogated and tortured, will finally have their day in court.
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ACLU Minute: April 29, 2009
A Freedom of Information Act suit may reveal how and why the FBI has targeted Muslims because of their faith.
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ACLU Minute, April 29, 2009
Congress should hold hearings before voting to reauthorize provisions of The Patriot Act that expire this year.
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ACLU Minute: April 22, 2009
Immigrants not charged with a crime are languishing in Massachusetts jails. We can help remedy this injustice.
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ACLU Minute: April 22, 2009
The Bush Administration’s use of National Security Letters continues to threaten the privacy of law abiding people.
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ACLU Minute: April 15, 2009
We should end discrimination against transgendered people. A bill in the Massachusetts legislature would help do that.
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ACLU Minute: April 15, 2009
Western Massachusetts Attorney Jonathan Souweine was a shining star in his use of the First Amendment. He died in April at age 61.
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April 8, 2009
ACLU Attorney Bill Newman explores one of the truly shocking and disappointing legacies of the Bush era.
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April 8, 2009
ACLU Attorney Bill Newman explains why it is important that President Obama has chosen to close the terrorist detention facility at Guantanamo Bay
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April 8, 2009
Muslim scholar and author Tariq Ramadan is another individual the United States has excluded from our country because of his political views, but the fight to allow him to speak in the United States goes on.
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