TRUMP: Report from the Front Lines
SUMMER 2017 FOR PASSIONATE GUARDIANS OF INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS AND LIBERTIES
United We Resist REP. ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON WHY “GOOD GIRLS” REVOLT Dissent & Surveillance ACTIVISTS FIGHT BACK ACLU RANKS SWELL AS AMERICANS RISE UP strength in
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REMEMBER THE ACLU IN YOUR WILL AND CONTINUE THE FIGHT FOR EQUALITY AND FREE EXPRESSION.
GIVE ONE OF THE GREATEST GIFTS OF ALL: the right of everyone to live as they choose without fear of discrimination. Visit www.aclu.org/love or return the envelope included in this issue. TRUMP: Report from the Front Lines
The Issue THE AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION
11JUSTICE FROM THE INSIDE OUT “Those closest to the problem are closest to the solution” is the mantra of a movement of formerly incarcerated people, includ- ing the Rev. Kenneth Glasgow, right, who have something to teach us all about reforming the criminal justice system. features departments 2 The Bullhorn THE REVOLUTION WILL BE TELEVISED, ARCHIVED & 3 Contributors ANALYZED Police across the country have been secretly using 4 Dialogue a variety of digital tools—including social media platforms—to 18 surveil protesters, particularly people of color. The ACLU is 5 In Brief helping activists protect their rights in the 21st century using a 29 Arts & Culture 230-year-old tool called the Constitution. 37 ACLU Moment
WE THE PEOPLE The election of President Trump has 10 Seek Protection, Risk brought an unprecedented surge of new members to the ACLU, Eviction. State nuisance laws are eager to join the resistance and defend our civil liberties. Meet harming domestic violence survivors, 24 just a few of the 1.6 million (and growing!) members who are says the ACLU’s Sandra S. Park. the force behind the ACLU’s new “People Power” movement. 31 Creative Liberty: In Her Words. TV host Padma Lakshmi writes about her first protest and what America means to her.
RESISTANCE REPORT: FIGHTING TRUMP ON FOUR KEY 36 Together, We Resist. The ACLU FRONTS The ACLU and its allies have been opposing Trump’s will outlast Trump and his allies, says anti-civil-liberties agenda from the moment he took office—but Susan N. Herman. 34 as our report from the front lines shows, the fight for our liberty and dignity has only begun.
ACLU.ORG summer 2017 | american civil liberties union 1
ACLU.ORG THE bullhorn BY ANTHONY D. ROMERO
ABOUT US: Founded in 1920, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is our nation’s guardian of liberty, working daily in courts, legislatures and communities to defend and preserve the rights and liberties that the Constitution and laws of the United States guarantee everyone in this country. Our critical work in the courts and in legislatures across the coun- try is possible only because of and details efforts to help other commu- the generosity of our members. nities organize and push for privacy re- Please give at aclu.org/donate. form. “Justice from the Inside Out” (p. 11) brings you inside a movement for crimi- The ACLU can be reached at: nal justice reform led by formerly incar- 125 Broad Street, 18th Floor cerated people—a group of extraordinary New York, NY 10004 individuals who emerged from a broken 212-549-2500 system, determined to fix it. And in “We aclu.org/contact-us the People” (p. 24), we take a closer look at just a few of the many ACLU members Exchanging Mailing Lists: The ACLU who inspire us every day. defrays the cost of our new member While it’s difficult in a biannual recruitment by renting or exchang- magazine to keep current with ing our list with other nonprofit organizations and publications, but the Trump administration’s lat- STANDING never to partisan political groups or est affront to civil liberties, we to groups whose programs are do our best with “Resistance incompatible with ACLU policies. TOGETHER Report: Fighting Trump on Four All lists are rented or exchanged Key Fronts” (p. 34). It highlights according to strict privacy stan- It was Helen Keller, a founder of the the infamous Muslim ban and attacks on dards. We never give our list direct- ACLU, who said: “Alone we can do so lit- voting rights and LGBT rights, plus takes ly to any organization; instead, we tle. Together we can do so much.” Those a behind-the-scenes look at the launch send the list to a letter shop that words were never truer than today. What of the ACLU’s People Power movement. prepares the mailing for the organi- the ACLU has accomplished over the past And in our infographic “Fail to the Chief” zation that is participating in the six months is due in no small part to people (p. 9), we illustrate the ACLU’s history of rental or exchange. That organiza- tion never sees our list and never coming together to stand up for their rights, speaking truth to presidents. and stand by the ACLU, as never before. knows what names are on it unless It’s clear that standing together is the best an individual responds to the orga- With the power of the people behind us, way—maybe the only way—to face down nization’s mailing. The ACLU always the ACLU is in high gear—in the courts, this unprecedented threat to our civil lib- honors a member’s request not to on Capitol Hill, in legislatures across the erties. With the power of the people on make his or her name available. If country and on the streets—to push back our side, we can and will succeed. Thank you do not wish to receive materi- als from other organizations, write against the Trump administration’s efforts you for standing with us. to undo much of the civil liberties gains of to the ACLU Membership Department, and we will omit your the past quarter-century. name from list rental and exchange. In this issue, we show you what we can ac- Thank you for your understanding. complish when we come together. “The Revolution Will Be Televised, Archived & Analyzed” (p. 18) tells how one commu- nity group shut down police monitoring Anthony D. Romero EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR of black activists through social networks, ®
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2 american civil liberties union | summer 2017 VOLUME 4, ISSUE 2 Contributors SUMMER 2017 ACLU LEADERSHIP PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD Susan N. Herman HARRIET BAROVICK VICE PRESIDENT AND TREASURER OF THE BOARD Robert B. Remar HARRIET BAROVICK IS A FREELANCE WRITER AND EDITOR. As EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Anthony D. Romero a longtime staffer at Time magazine, she covered such issues as DEPUTY EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR LGBT politics, children’s mental health, innovative colleges and Dorothy Ehrlich laughter yoga. She lives with her wife, twin boys and goldendoodle DIRECTOR OF AFFILIATE SUPPORT & NATIONWIDE in New York City. INITIATIVES Geri Rozanski LEGAL DIRECTOR David Cole CHIEF COMMUNICATIONS DAVID W. BROWN OFFICER Michele Moore NATIONAL POLITICAL DIRECTOR DAVID W. BROWN IS A FREELANCE WRITER whose work appears Faiz Shakir in The Atlantic, The New York Times, Foreign Policy and Vox. His next CHIEF DEVELOPMENT OFFICER book, One Inch From Earth, will be published in 2018 by Custom Mark Wier CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER House, an imprint of HarperCollins.. AND GENERAL COUNSEL Terence Dougherty
MAGAZINE STAFF MANAGING EDITOR MEGAN FRENCH-MARCELIN Emily Whitfield SENIOR ART DIRECTOR Casey L. Gradischnig (MXM) MEGAN FRENCH-MARCELIN IS AN AMERICAN COUNCIL OF EDITORIAL AND CONTENT DIRECTION LEARNED SOCIETIES PUBLIC FELLOW and is the policy research Liz FitzGerald (ACLU) manager at the ACLU, where she focuses on issues of criminal Kevin Cox (MXM) justice and school policing. STAND magazine (ISSN 2378-8380) is a publication for members and sup- porters of the American Civil Liber- ties Union (ACLU). Send changes of address and questions about your ACLU membership to membership@ In Brief Contributors The Guide Contributors aclu.org; mail them to ACLU, 125 Broad Street, 18th Floor, New York, NY JUSTIN PETERS is a correspondent for Slate and DENNIS PARKER is director of the ACLU’s 10004; or call 212-549-2500. Send the author of The Idealist: Aaron Swartz and the Racial Justice Program. editorial correspondence specific to the publication to STAND Maga- Rise of Free Culture on the Internet. zine, ACLU, 125 Broad Street, 18th SARAH JANE ABBOTT is a children’s book Floor, New York, NY 10004, or email PHYLLIS ECKHAUS, the ACLU’s manager of foun- editor at Simon & Schuster. to [email protected]. This is not a sub- scription publication, and we do not dation relations, has written for In These Times, HEATHER-ANN SCHAEFFNER is special accept unsolicited manuscripts or The Nation, Newsday and other publications. advertisements. ©2017 American gifts coordinator for the National ACLU. Civil Liberties Union Foundation. All rights reserved. Contents may not be reproduced without the express written consent of ACLU. Requests for reprints should be directed to [email protected]. Published by Meredith Xcelerated Market- ing (MXM), 1716 Locust Street, Des SPECIAL THANKS TO Moines, IA 50309. Printed in the USA. The Guttmacher Institute, for research contributions to “By the Numbers: Reproductive Rights” (p. 5). The ACLU comprises two separate corporate entities, the American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU Foun- Samuel E. Walker, professor emeritus of criminal justice at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, for dation. Although both the American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU providing source material for “Fail to the Chief” (p. 9) from his book, In Defense of American Liberties: Foundation are part of the same overall organization, it is necessary A History of the ACLU (Southern Illinois University Press; 2nd edition, 1999). that the ACLU have two separate organizations in order to do a broad range of work in protecting civil liber- ties. This magazine collectively refers to the two organizations under the COVER PHOTO by Kathryn Gamble name “ACLU.”
ACLU.ORG summer 2017 | american civil liberties union 3
ACLU.ORG dialogue
The ACLU must’ve known people would tear the Trump cover off the winter issue of STAND... — Molly Hodgdon
NO ORDINARY HISTORY HEROES LESSON
I LOVED THE “ORDI- NARY HEROES” piece and wish you’d had space for Susan Watson, a nurse and mother who successful- ly sued the state of Florida to stop Gov. Jeb Bush’s school voucher program. She worked to start the ACLU office in Pensacola and was named director of the Northwest Florida region—an area consistently hostile to ACLU’s work. COVER TO COVER Susan later became execu- THE INFOGRAPHIC ON tive director of the ACLU of PRESIDENTS and civil Alabama, also not the easi- THE ACLU MUST’VE KNOWN people would tear the liberties includes an item on est of locations. She died in Trump cover off the winter issue of STAND—there’s another Japanese internment during December at 62, followed by cover underneath. World War II that implies the tears of many hundreds Molly Hodgdon, via Twitter, South Burlington, VT that Italians and Germans who loved her. Susan was no were not interned. But in Editor’s note: While we wanted to let members know up front ordinary hero—nor were the fact, they were, although that we’re taking on Trump, we’re glad Molly and others “uncov- others you named. In fact, a not to the extent that ered” the whole story! big part of ACLU’s mission Japanese-Americans were. Some 10,000 Italian-Amer- is to let people know that JUST FINISHED READING my Winter 2017 issue of icans and 11,000 German- they are not “ordinary.” STAND. I found the issue fact-filled, eye-catching and uplift- Americans were interned William M. Sloan ing. Already looking forward to the next one. Bravo! or forcibly relocated. In Pensacola, FL Tim Hamilton, Pittsburg, KS addition, 600,000 Italian immigrants were compelled to register as enemy aliens, falsely accused of being a Editor’s note: American and of these, 52,000 were Communist. He sued for Violet (2008), a dramatiza- confined to “exclusionary defamation and won. He tion of an ACLU case, stars zones” that included a strict said he gave the money to Alfre Woodard as a single curfew (among them was Joe “Ordinary Hero” Martin Gill with his son. the ACLU. It’s a great movie mother in Texas wrongly ac- DiMaggio’s father). with a great message. cused of selling drugs. Thanks Anita Guerrini Stanley D. Stevens to others who noted Gideon’s Corvallis, OR Santa Cruz, CA Trumpet, a 1980 TV movie ACLU AT based on a landmark ACLU for movies YOUR STAND THE MOVIES YOU ASKED case, and John Grisham’s A with ACLU lawyers: American Time to Kill (1996). We love your feedback! YOU FORGOT The Violet, in which the ACLU has a starring role. Let us know what you Manchurian Candidate. think about this issue at Nonny Sagalyn Burack The father of Josie was a [email protected]. U.S. senator who had been Amherst, MA
4 american civil liberties union | summer 2017 summer 2017 | american civil liberties union 5 In Brief WHAT‘S HAPPENING, WHAT‘S NEXT BY THE NUMBERS REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS Abortion isn’t under just federal attack. State politi- cians are pushing laws making it difficult if not impossible for a woman to access abortion care. Here’s what we’re fighting: 43 – States that intro- duced abortion restrictions this year to date. 93 – Percentage of women of reproductive age in the South who live in a state hostile or extremely hostile to abortion. 22 – States with six or SANCTUARY CITIES FIGHT BACK more abortion restric- tions, classifying them President Trump’s executive order that Penzone—Arpaio lost his re-election bid after “extremely hostile” to threatened to defund cities and states declining numerous ACLU lawsuits exposed his illegal abortion rights. to become entangled in federal immigration racial profiling and detention of Latinos. And 17 – States that intro- enforcement unleashed a wave of support for the Penzone has pledged to follow the Constitution duced bills in 2017 to ban “sanctuary cities” movement. and release detainees once they’ve posted bail or abortion at certain preg- Since Trump’s election, nearly a dozen localities served their sentences. nancy points, including as declared themselves sanctuaries, and California On the legal front, in March, the ACLU and its early as six weeks. introduced a measure to expand sanctuary policies California affiliates supported a challenge to Trump’s statewide. The Immigrant Legal Resource Center order, saying it threatens public health and safety 5 – States in 2017 says at least 633 counties have sanctuary policies. by making immigrants less likely to come forward considering bills forcing a In January, the U.S. Conference of Mayors and when they are sick or in danger. In April, a federal woman to undergo an the Major Cities Chiefs Association jointly declared, court ruled that the order is likely “unconstitutional ultrasound while a “Immigrants residing in our cities must be able to on its face” and blocked it nationwide. provider shows and trust the police and all of city government.” “As this court decision underscores, cities, describes the image to her One notable change of heart came from counties and states have the right to do what is best even over her objection. Maricopa County, Arizona, long known as hostile for their communities and refuse to become part of to immigrants under “America’s toughest sheriff,” the deportation force,” says Omar Jadwat, director Joe Arpaio. There’s a new sheriff in town, Paul of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project.
KNOW YOUR RIGHTS: DEMONSTRATIONS & PROTESTS UNDER FEDERAL LAW: 2. Permits may be required 3. Governments may impose 1. Generally, speech and protest for large gatherings but are not “time, place and manner” are protected in public areas: necessary for protests that erupt restrictions (such as banning streets, sidewalks and parks. in response to “breaking news.” A amplified sound or rejecting a However, you do not have a permit denial can never be based demonstration in the wee hours) constitutional right to intentionally on your identity or message. but may never target your opinions block pedestrians or traffic, or or viewpoint. engage in civil disobedience. ACLU.ORG/PROTEST
4 american civil liberties union | summer 2017 ACLU.ORG summer 2017 | american civil liberties union 5
ACLU.ORG IN brief
COURTS ACLU’S BIG WINS THE ACLU HAS PAR- TICIPATED IN MORE SUPREME COURT CASES than any other nongovern- mental organization. Here are some of our “greatest hits” over the past 97 years:
>> 1932 Powell v. Alabama. Established the right to effective counsel on behalf of the “Scottsboro Boys,” nine African-Ameri- cans wrongfully accused of Ehlena Fry, now 13, with Wonder at the U.S. Supreme Court raping two white women.
>> 1943 West Virginia v. Barnette. Ruled that A GIRL & HER DOG WIN BIG compelling Jehovah’s Witness children to salute the flag ACLU TAKES DISABILITY RIGHTS CASE TO THE SUPREME COURT violates the First Amendment. Eight years ago, residents in rural Brooklyn, in the class photo and received a staff ID tag. >> 1973 Roe v. Wade and Michigan, embraced Ehlena Fry, holding a com- With the help of the ACLU of Michigan, the Frys Doe v. Bolton. Established munity fundraiser to match the 5-year-old with sued, charging Ehlena’s old school with discrimination. that the Constitution cerebral palsy with Wonder, the service dog pre- The school claimed the suit was premature, say- protects a woman’s right to scribed to help her become more independent at ing that under the Americans with Disabilities Act, decide whether to terminate school and in life. Ehlena must first “exhaust administrative remedies.” her pregnancy. The town’s good work was nearly undone by the Then, in February, following years of litigation, >> 1997 Reno v. ACLU. local public school. According to Ehlena’s mother, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled in favor of Struck down the 1996 Stacy, not only did Ezra Eby Elementary School Ehlena, now 13. Communications Decency doubt the utility of Wonder, the school humili- “This victory will, once and for all, remove un- Act, which broadly banned ated Ehlena by forcing the kindergartener to dem- fair legal hurdles for victims of discrimination “indecent” speech on the onstrate how the goldendoodle helped her move across the country that prevent students from internet. from walker to toilet. Administrators then barred seeking justice guaranteed by the Americans with Wonder from returning to school, claiming an aide >> 2001 Atkins v. Virginia. Disabilities Act,” says ACLU of Michigan Legal Di- Ruled that execution of could take Wonder’s place. rector Michael J. Steinberg, who argued the case people with intellec- Ehlena’s parents took action, transferring before the court. tual disability is cruel and Ehlena and Wonder to a different public school, unusual punishment under where the two were welcomed. Wonder appeared BY PHYLLIS ECKHAUS the Constitution’s Eighth Amendment. >> 2015 Obergefell v. STATS EXPOSE FAILED DRUG POLICY Hodges. Established the EVERY 25 SECONDS, someone is Here are some other startling • On any day, at least 137,000 constitutional right of same- arrested for possessing drugs for per- facts and figures: people are behind bars for sex couples to marry. sonal use. So says a recent report by • The police make more than 1.25 possession. the ACLU and Human Rights Watch, million drug possession arrests every In the time it took you to read this, at detailing the devastating human costs year, more than for any other crime. least one more person was arrested. of America’s failed drug policy—espe- cially for communities of color—and • Black and white adults use drugs at Read the report at calling for decriminalizing personal similar rates, but blacks are arrested ACLU.ORG/EVERY25SECONDS drug use and possession. more than 2.5 times as often.
6 american civil liberties union | summer 2017 summer 2017 | american civil liberties union 7 Q&A WARRIOR FOR RIGHTS CONGRESSWOMAN ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON DISCUSSES HER 26 YEARS REPRESENTING THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA AND HER STINT AS AN ACLU LAWYER (1965-70). HER SUCCESSFUL SEX-DISCRIMINATION LAWSUIT ON BEHALF OF SEVERAL DOZEN FEMALE EMPLOYEES OF NEWSWEEK MAGAZINE WAS DRAMATIZED IN THE AMAZON SERIES GOOD GIRLS REVOLT.
STAND: Your very ment and also from Liberties Union [an first job was assis- my own experience of ACLU affiliate] sent tant legal director at segregation in public me to defend him the ACLU. What are schools. Federal and in Queens Supreme some highlights? state laws discrimi- Court. If his lawyers Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton speaks at a protest held nated against black were surprised, they by striking government contract workers. EHN: With [Legal people, but freely held their cool when speaking out helped Director] Mel Wulf, I I walked in. I argued Do you expect the STAND: What do bring about change. was one of only two the First Amendment Trump administra- you say to people What concerns me lawyers on staff, so segment, and we tion and the current who are looking for A GIRL & HER DOG WIN BIG today is that some I had opportunities I won easily. Interest- Congress to help or hope during a time people don’t seem to wouldn’t have had if ingly, my next job hinder this goal? of turbulence and there were a whole understand the recip- was with Lindsay—he threats to civil liber- slew of lawyers. rocal nature of free appointed me to EHN: It’s up to the ties? Much of the ACLU’s speech rights. If you be chair of the New District to do what it’s work during this insist on shutting up York Commission doing now—arouse EHN: I’m very the other side, you’re volatile era had to do on Human Rights in local and national encouraged that the shutting yourself with people attack- 1970. I think he was public opinion using hope seems to come down, and no one ing the status quo. I looking for someone education, advocacy from the people gets to speak. themselves. There represented people with credibility in the and social media to hasn’t been a week- who objected to the African-American get out the mes- STAND: How did end in D.C. without Vietnam War and also community who sage. The hashtag you feel about repre- some kind of dem- people whose views I didn’t mind taking #HandsOffDC is senting segregationist onstration. Members profoundly disagreed about American George Wallace? on controversy. And of Congress didn’t with. I also got to citizens who live in that job in turn led to bring people out—in No case our nation’s capital argue my first and EHN: my appointment as fact, they’re running with a representative only Supreme Court was more fun than the first woman chair to keep up with their who can’t vote on case at the age of 31. defending George of the Equal Employ- constituents! Repub- the House floor, even It says a great deal Wallace! [New York ment Opportunity licans are being called about the ACLU that City] Mayor John Commission. All that on D.C. issues. And to account in town they didn’t pull rank. Lindsay had denied started with my work our residents have no hall meetings. I think him the right to use at the ACLU. representation in the there’s huge hope out STAND: How Shea Stadium dur- Senate, even though there, and the proof of important was the First ing the 1968 presi- STAND: Why is they pay the high- the pudding is going Amendment to the civil dential campaign. D.C. statehood such est federal taxes per to come in the 2018 rights movement—and The New York Civil an important issue? capita in the U.S. midterm elections. to movements today?
EHN: My views on If you insist on shutting up the otherside, free speech came in you’re shutting yourself down, and no one part from my work in the civil rights move- gets to speak.
6 american civil liberties union | summer 2017 ACLU.ORG summer 2017 | american civil liberties union 7
ACLU.ORG IN brief
POST-TRUMP SURGE
PRESIDENT TRUMP’S ELECTION UNLEASHED AN UNPRECEDENTED SURGE OF SUPPORT FOR THE ACLU:
• Membership almost qua- drupled and is at an ALL- TIME HIGH OF 1.6 MIL- LION and counting. • People Power, the ACLU’s new grassroots DISTURBING mobilization program, is Niya Kenny was arrested for taking the fight to the objecting to a school cop’s aggressive behavior against a fellow student. SCHOOLS streets. The first Resistance Training, March 11 in Miami, drew 2,500 PAR- TICIPANTS IN PERSON POLICING LABELS KIDS AS CRIMINALS AND OVER 200,000 AT an “super-predator” children, erroneous reports of juve- “HOUSE PARTIES;” In 2015, after objecting to the behavior of 1 million watched via overaggressive school cop known as “Officer Slam,” nile crime waves—and racial phobias. livestream. South Carolina high schooler Niya Kenny was arrest- “School policing really is birthed out of the same ed, jailed and charged in adult court with “disturbing racial injustices that have driven the rise in mass in- • Hollywood A-listers, such carceration,” says “Bullies in Blue” coauthor Megan as Lin-Manuel a school.” Kenny is black, as are a staggering 7 out of Miranda and 10 South Carolina students charged under the state’s French-Marcelin of the ACLU. “The same criminal- Ruth Negga, “disturbing schools” law—a vague and pernicious justice policies that we see operating in low-income wore blue statute that willfully conflates disruption with delin- black and brown neighborhoods are really operating ACLU quency. Far from making schools safer, the law and the same way in schools.” LAPEL RIB- others like it simply serve to funnel minority students The report offers nine policy recommendations Lin-Manuel BONS AT THE into the school-to-prison pipeline. that communities can adopt to reverse this trend. Miranda ACADEMY A new ACLU white paper, “Bullies in Blue: Ori- Among them: Keep cops out of schools except in AWARDS in gins and Consequences of School Policing,” takes a case of emergency; prohibit in-school arrest of stu- February, while political hard look at the origins and outcomes of state and dents for behavioral transgressions such as swearing powerhouses, including or burping excessively; and most important, commit Sen. Elizabeth Warren, federal policies that have encouraged many schools to making school a positive and supportive environ- sported them in Congress. to exchange detention slips for handcuffs, and sus- pensions for court dates. These policies generally ment for all students. BY JUSTIN PETERS • A Facebook video of Read the report at ACLU.ORG/BULLIES-BLUE Executive Director Anthony proceed from false pretenses—exaggerated tales of Romero announcing the ACLU’s successful chal- lenge to Trump’s Muslim VOTING RIGHTS: Jeff Sessions No Hero ban went viral, with director of the ACLU’s challenge. Here are three fighting unlawful addi- 19 MILLION VIEWS. WITH PRESIDENT TRUMP’S appointment Voting Rights Project. more of the dozens of tional requirements • Lawmakers are hearing of Attorney General Jeff Within weeks, Sessions cases the ACLU is litigat- to register; ACLU members loud and Sessions, the Justice withdrew DOJ support ing—with or without clear via an Action Alert • North Carolina: Department (DOJ) “went for a lawsuit challenging administration support: email subscriber LIST from being a staunch ally League of Women THAT’S DOUBLED TO 2.6 Texas’ racially discrimina- • Wisconsin: Frank v. on voting rights to one Voters v. North Caro- MILLION since the election. tory voter ID law. Walker, challenging a that we expect will be our lina, targeting rollbacks restrictive voter ID law; Join the resistance adversary in the court- The ACLU filed a sup- of early voting and at PEOPLEPOWER.ORG room,” says Dale Ho, porting brief in the Texas • Kansas: Fish v. Kobach, same-day registration.
8 american civil liberties union | summer 2017 summer 2017 | american civil liberties union 9 FAIL TO THE CHIEF Harry Truman (1947)
Franklin THE ACLU’S FIRST OFFICIAL WORDS TO PRESIDENT TRUMP WERE “WE’LL SEE YOU Roosevelt IN COURT.” SINCE ITS FOUNDING IN 1920, THE (1942) THE ACLU STOOD ACLU HAS SPOKEN TRUTH TO PRESIDENTIAL The ACLU challenged the presi- ALMOST ALONE IN POWER. HERE ARE JUST A FEW EXAMPLES: dent’s FEDERAL EMPLOYEE DENOUNCING THE LOYALTY PROGRAM— FEDERAL GOVERNMENT’S REQUIRING AN ANTI- INTERNMENT OF MORE COMMUNIST PLEDGE—as Ronald THAN 110,000 “antithetical to fundamental Reagan JAPANESE-AMERICANS. principles of American justice.” (1983) George W. Bush (2009) The ACLU secured the WHEN THE ACLU CRITICIZED release of documents detailing the post-9/11 REAGAN FOR DECLARING torture program, including “THE YEAR OF THE BIBLE,” SECRET LEGAL MEMOS HE DECLARED THE PURPORTING TO JUSTIFY WATERBOARDING AND INDICTMENT “A BADGE OTHER ABUSES. Dwight OF HONOR.” Eisenhower (1958) Barack THE ACLU DEFEATED THE GOVERNMENT’S Obama (2014) ATTEMPT TO REVOKE The ACLU sued over the AMERICAN-BORN ALBERT administration’s DETENTION TROP’S CITIZENSHIP AS WITHOUT CHARGE of immigrant PUNISHMENT FOR BRIEFLY women and children fleeing DESERTING THE ARMY. violence in Central America.
Richard Nixon (1973) The ACLU was the first national organization to call for impeachment over Watergate, declaring in The New York Times: “Richard Nixon has not left us in doubt. He means to function above the law.”
8 american civil liberties union | summer 2017 summersummer 2017 2017 | |american american civil civil liberties liberties union union 9 MY stand OPINION BY SANDRA S. PARK
harm domestic violence sur- to court and obtain a protec- vivors who turn to the police tive order. Today, this guid- for help. In some cities, such ance is clearly dangerous for calls are specifically targeted far too many survivors, in far as “nuisances.” too many communities. A recent ACLU and Social Confronted with possible Science Research Council eviction or deportation, many study of two New York cit- survivors simply live with the ies, Binghamton and Fulton, violence. Perpetrators wield determined that domestic these punitive laws and poli- violence was the single larg- cies as weapons, threatening est category of criminal ac- survivors with homelessness tivity triggering enforcement or exile if they disclose the vi- of the cities’ nuisance laws. olence. Ultimately, the safety Harvard sociologist Matthew of families and communities Desmond, author of the book is at risk; often, unchecked Evicted, found that a Milwau- violence can escalate. kee nuisance ordinance dis- The ACLU is determined proportionately targeted do- not to let crime victims be mestic violence survivors who coerced into silence. The are African-American. First Amendment guaran- Similarly, survivors of do- tees the freedom of speech mestic violence who are and the right to petition the immigrants face dire conse- government for redress of quences for contacting law grievances. While we usually SEEK PROTECTION, enforcement. Federal law associate the First Amend- has long recognized that our ment with protests, these RISK communities are more secure constitutional rights extend to EVICTION if crime victims can come domestic violence survivors DOMESTIC VIOLENCE SURVIVORS GET PENALIZED forward, including granting who need to contact the po- —AND TRAUMATIZED—FOR REPORTING ABUSE. special visas to immigrants lice or the courts for assis- who are helpful in investigat- tance. We raised successful First Amendment claims N 2012, THE CITY OF That may sound unfath- ing or prosecuting a crime. when challenging nuisance or- Maplewood, Missouri, omable. But because of laws But under the Trump ad- ministration, the Department dinances in Norristown, Penn- a western suburb of St. and policies punishing people of Homeland Security no sylvania, and Surprise, Arizo- Louis, ordered Rosetta who report abuse, survivors of longer assures such witness- na; the cities repealed their IWatson to vacate her home— domestic violence are being ordinances and compensated and barred her from living es they will not be arrested at evicted—and if they are undoc- courthouses or other places the women we represented. anywhere in the city for six umented immigrants, deport- As the federal and local months. Her offense? She where they may go for legal ed—with alarming frequency. protection or to report a crime. governments double down called police four times to Across the country, thousands on policies that punish survi- ask to be protected from her Immigration officials’ aggres- of nuisance and crime-free or- sive deportation practices have vors of domestic violence for abusive ex-boyfriend. dinances penalize calls for po- led to the detention of crime speaking out, we will continue Under a local ordinance, lice service or criminal activity victims seeking restraining or- to fight to ensure that their more than two calls to police at a property. Rather than re- ders and other court relief. fundamental rights and hu- regarding domestic violence sponding effectively to crime, When I first began work- manity are respected. within 180 days qualifies as these shortsighted policies gen- ing with domestic violence a “nuisance.” The ordinance erally are aimed at stopping 911 survivors 20 years ago, many SANDRA S. PARK is a does not exempt situations hotlines and shelters gave this staff attorney with the ACLU where residents need to call calls and, thereby, reducing city standard advice: Call 911. Go Women’s Rights Project. police for help or whether they budgets. And they especially are crime victims. Watson, who was forced to As federal and local governments double down leave and moved to St. Louis, did not escape her abuser: He on policies that punish survivors of domestic violence found her, broke into her home for speaking out, we will continue to fight. and stabbed her in the legs.
10 american civil liberties union | summer 2017 PB JUSTICE FROM THE INSIDE
story by Megan French-Marcelin photography by Dennis Welsh OUT THEY ALL SERVED TIME…AND SAW INJUSTICE FIRSTHAND. NOW THEY SERVE THOSE STILL BEHIND BARS—AND THOSE TRYING TO MAKE IT ON THE OUTSIDE—BY FIGHTING FOR THEIR RIGHTS WITH ONE VOICE.
HILE HE WAS SERVING A LIFE prison and its frequently turbulent aftermath are among sentence without parole on a wrongful those best suited to produce meaningful incarceration conviction inside Louisiana’s notori- reform. Yet for many years, those fighting for criminal justice ous maximum security Angola prison, reform failed to place formerly incarcerated activists at the Norris Henderson watched as prisons table. So in 2011, Henderson and other formerly incarcerated across the country erupted in violence leaders nationwide created the Formerly Incarcerated due to inhumane conditions. So in 1987, he cofounded the An- People’s Movement, now the Formerly Incarcerated and Wgola Special Civics Project, a group of Angola prisoners dedi- Convicted People and Families Movement (FICPFM). The cated to challenging mass incarceration from the inside. current advisory council—Henderson, Daryl Atkinson, Susan The group spent countless hours in the law library, drafting Burton, Pastor Kenneth Glasgow, Manuel La Fontaine, the legislation, working on appeals and meeting with politicians Rev. Vivian Nixon, Glenn E. Martin and Dorsey Nunn—is now and advocates to discuss prison conditions. By 1990, the Civics spearheading some of the most effective efforts in the United Project, alongside legislators, had helped draft and pass the States to address mass incarceration and its many devastating “20/45 law”—releasing anyone (excluding those serving life collateral consequences. without parole) who had served 20 years or had reached the Powerful entities are listening—including the ACLU, whose age of 45. criminal justice reform efforts are now significantly influenced Upon his release, Henderson continued the work as by FICPFM. The coalition has held regional gatherings, met founding executive director of Voice of the Experienced, with corporate and philanthropic executives and lobbied local which has become a leading force in Louisiana justice reform. legislators around the country. They also met with officials in It may seem a no-brainer that people who have experienced the Obama administration and Justice Department to register
PB summer 2017 | american civil liberties union 11 SUSAN BURTON The founder of the group A New Way of Life, which assists women who are released from prison, embraces a staff member who utilized Burton’s program after leaving prison.
12 american civil liberties union | summer 2017 13 key demands that included easing access to college education Grassroots alliances are at the heart of FICPFM. The planning in prison; changing public housing guidelines; protecting the for the coalition started in 2007, when Nunn and Glasgow began right to vote; and “banning the box” on federal employment a discussion with other activists. Nunn, a native Californian and applications that asks about convictions, a movement that has the executive director of the Bay Area nonprofit Legal Services been championed by Nunn. for Prisoners with Children, had spent over 20 years advocating Their efforts have helped spur a range of significant for restoration of formerly incarcerated individuals’ civil rights. victories. FICPFM members were instrumental in getting Glasgow, an Alabamian, had been organizing around human the Obama administration to reintroduce Pell grants, usually rights as an inmate at Polk Correctional Institution in Florida awarded to students who cannot pay for college, for those and returned home in 2001 to become executive director of the in prison; a pilot program started in 2016 will allow 12,000 advocacy organization The Ordinary People Society (TOPS). incarcerated people to participate in college-level education. Other leaders who took part in the 2007 conversation were In late 2015, FICPFM delivered more than 100,000 spread all over the country—Henderson was in New Orleans; signatures to the White House to raise awareness of Susan Burton was in Los Angeles. employment discrimination and the need to “ban the box.” In Their idea was simple. Here were several organizations, November 2015, President Obama signed an executive order all led by formerly incarcerated advocates and all working eliminating that question. to dismantle systems of mass incarceration and its collateral At their first national conference in September 2016, the consequences, particularly in communities of color. But the leaders brought together some 500 former self-identified work was being done in silos. The challenge was to unite all of political prisoners, activists and philanthropy groups, the them under one banner to address the issue nationwide. largest gathering of formerly incarcerated Burton, who founded the organization people and their families. They persuaded A New Way of Life to offer a wide range the Justice Department’s Office of of critical support for women returning Justice Programs to adjust its language from prison, says becoming a larger in discussing the formerly incarcerated, WHO IS GOING TO entity was essential. “We saw our replacing “ex-con” with “formerly communities being decimated by bad incarcerated,” so the experience did not KNOW BETTER THAN public policy,” she says. “There were define them as people. A PERSON WALKING people [within criminal justice reform The need for substantive, deeply circles] that were willing to make insightful, multifaceted reform is OUT OF A PRISON compromises that, as impacted people, especially pressing in light of the current DOOR WHAT SHE we would never make.” administration’s plan to double down Understanding firsthand what it on draconian and racist criminal justice NEEDS IN ORDER TO meant to be directly impacted by an policies—such as mandatory minimums unjust criminal justice system was a and harsh sentences for nonviolent drug BE SUCCESSFUL powerful common thread. It allowed offenses—that have left an estimated 100 the eight activist leaders, who had million people with criminal records, a accomplished much in their own disproportionate number of them black communities, to defy the predictions and Latino. And their problems do not end upon release from of many well-funded nonprofits and other established justice prison: A conviction can impose a lifetime of discrimination reform players. Glasgow recalls hearing that a coalition of that negatively impacts people’s access to housing, jobs, such magnitude, having such diverse political strategies, education and voting, that only intensifies for those returning would fail to find a unifying voice. Some dismissed them out to underresourced communities. of hand. Yet the leaders persisted. The persistence required to To help fight those battles, the ACLU has come to create such a diverse group says a lot about the tenacity and understand that it must take its cues from the formerly grit of those at the helm. incarcerated if criminal justice reform is to be successful and, With funding from the Drug Policy Alliance, the organizers more important, sustainable. “We have too often wasted the decided to convene in Selma, Alabama, in 2011 for the incredible talent that exists in people who have gone to prison anniversary of “Bloody Sunday,” the police attack on marchers by not having their voices out front,” says Jeffery Robinson, over the Edmund Pettus Bridge that marked a turning point director of the ACLU’s Trone Center for Justice and Equality. in the civil rights era. What followed was a 14-point platform “Who is going to know better than a person walking out of a that unified their policy positions. Among other planks, the prison door what she needs in order to be successful?” platform calls for the end of mass incarceration, humane This philosophy is also at the center of the ACLU’s prison conditions and investment in communities ravaged by ambitious, bipartisan Campaign for Smart Justice. A major overcriminalization. campaign initiative launching this fall aims to build a “There had been a series of twice-a-month phone calls that nationwide movement, working with grassroots alliances, to had been going on to hammer out language; using a working halve jail and prison populations, and reduce racial disparities document, we sketched out what the planks could potentially in the criminal justice system. be,” Atkinson recalls.
12 summer 2017 | american civil liberties union 13 “ ”
In the months and meetings that followed, the movement Martin is now president and founder of JustLeadershipUSA, was born. While individuals moved in and out of the leadership a highly respected advocacy group long committed to cutting council, currently comprising eight members representing the prison population in half by 2030. Martin’s #CLOSErikers six organizations, the advisory members remain steadfast in Campaign, along with his participation in a commission to their commitment to a broader vision of organizing. study that troubled jail, headed by former New York state One thing helping create common ground was that many Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman, led New York Mayor Bill de learned about these priorities, and techniques to address them, Blasio to announce in March that he would close the facility. through their experiences in prison. Prison, Atkinson says, was Martin’s oft-repeated statement, “Those closest to the seen by many as the “way to control, if not eliminate, dissident problem are closest to the solution,” has become the mantra voices.” Instead, it unified them. Henderson says, “I remember for the movement. talking to someone about fighting felony disenfranchisement, FICPFM does not have a single ideology, strategy, and they said, ‘That ain’t gonna happen leadership model or organizing tactic. unless you get out.’ ” Rather the coalition’s aim is to provide Similarly, through political education a unified corrective to policy decisions inside prison, Manuel La Fontaine, now made without input from impacted the project manager at Legal Services for THERE ARE SO MANY communities. As Atkinson puts it: What Prisoners with Children, encountered became clear over time was that their a history of organizing in reading the OTHERS WITH A DEEP leadership was “stronger together.” works of George Jackson, Fred Hampton DESIRE TO REPAIR THE Stronger together, and stronger in and others, which informed the work he increasing numbers, especially with a new would eventually do in the community DAMAGES OF MASS generation of potential activists, Susan when he was released. Burton is convinced there is a wealth of Glasgow’s education in prison is at the INCARCERATION untapped talent. “We are not a special center of his organizational philosophy. crew; we just got a few breaks that have “Everyone has heard of the jailhouse allowed us to develop,” she says. “But lawyer,” he says. “Well, I was the jailhouse there are so many others with a deep desire preacher.” Reading everything from the Bible to the Koran to to repair the damages of mass incarceration in their community. the Bhagavad Gita, Glasgow sought to inject the movement An investment in them would reap such great rewards for this with a sense of unification and healing, which remains a critical country, for those communities.” part of TOPS’ work. In 2008, Glasgow won voting rights for And they have learned from social movements past. Dorsey a portion of individuals incarcerated in Alabama correctional Nunn and other FICPFM activists have often pointed to facilities after finding that the Alabama constitution only the gay rights movement as a model for national organizing revoked voting rights for crimes of “moral turpitude” but not efforts. Says Nunn: “I was too young for the civil rights all felonies, as the law had been applied. movement, but I watched the gay rights movement come Atkinson, now an attorney whose work focuses on the collateral of age. And while it was not my movement, I knew enough consequences of incarceration, graduated in the top third of his to learn from watching that struggle. I knew enough to law class after being incarcerated. He is nearing the end of a two- recognize I needed to learn everything I could, in order to one year “Second Chance” Department of Justice fellowship. day secure the full restoration of my rights.” Thus, lessons
GOOD JOBS ARE GOOD BUSINESS IT’S NO ACCIDENT that some of the job applicant’s criminal record. A tronic recycling company eWaste Tech command, managing the warehouse, country’s most successful corpora- forthcoming report and toolkit from Systems in Richmond, Virginia (whose operating the forklift and attending tions—including Starbucks, Home the ACLU’s Trone Private Sector and business partner is a member of the outside meetings with the CEO. “He’s Depot and Koch Industries—are Education Advisory Council makes Trone advisory council), prioritizes hir- one of the best employees I have,” dedicated to hiring formerly incarcer- the case that doing so is good busi- ing motivated formerly incarcerated Wright says. ated people. Many did so at the ness. The U.S. annual gross domestic individuals. He’s attended court dates, Smith, who had been living hand- urging of David Trone, a businessman product reduces by up to $87 billion spoken to landlords and testified to to-mouth on short-term, low-paying whose personal battle against unjust when it excludes those with records his employees’ good character. gigs, now maintains an apartment, accusations turned him turned him from the workforce. When they are Through a government workforce where he lives with his girlfriend and into a crusader for criminal justice hired, however, retention rates are training program that partly subsi- two children. And he makes clear he reform and a supporter of the ACLU’s higher, turnover is lower and employ- dized his efforts, Wright met Dennis has no plans to leave eWaste. “I’ve efforts to reduce the prison population. ees are significantly more loyal. Also, Smith, a skilled worker who served had offers for other jobs already from recidivism is dramatically reduced. Trone’s company, Total Wine, was four years in prison and couldn’t find the people I’ve met through this one of the first to “ban the box”— Felipe Wright knows this firsthand. a job. Less than three years after be- one,” Smith says. “I would never do eliminating the question about a The founder and CEO of the elec- ing hired, Smith is Wright’s second-in- that to Felipe.”
14 american civil liberties union | summer 2017 15 PASTOR KENNETH GLASGOW The executive director of the advocacy group The Ordinary People Society (TOPS) answers a call outside a soup kitchen in Dothan, Alabama, before lunch.
14 summer 2017 | american civil liberties union 15 VIVIAN NIXON The executive director of College and Community Fellowship speaks with Selina Fulford, left, of the organization’s Theater for Social Change, whose performances show mass incarceration’s impact on women.
about developing sustainable leadership that can organize on continue to be stripped of access to education, housing, public particular objectives at a national–local nexus provide a model benefits and other support services. for FICPFM: Grow leadership, maintain unified objectives, Says Martin, “This is not just a conversation about criminal build supporting institutions. justice reform—this is a conversation about systematic One way to help achieve this goal, oppression.” Atkinson agrees: “This is says Vivian Nixon, is education. “All where we have to be truth tellers,” he those gains won through litigation stresses. La Fontaine adds: “This is a and other constitutional practices are struggle for the full restoration of our subject to reversal unless we do the real, WE WANT TO FEED, civil and human rights. We want to feed, on-the-ground work of helping people clothe, house and nurture our families, understand the structural damage that HOUSE AND NURTURE not continue to be punished for years, has been done,” Nixon says. “Until OUR FAMILIES, NOT and in some cases, decades after our we do that, things will get done … and sentences end.” then they will get undone.” Nixon CONTINUE TO BE The ACLU’s Jeffery Robinson is is executive director of College and betting that the FICPFM coalition Community Fellowship. The New York- PUNISHED FOR will continue to rankle, disturb, raise based organization empowers formerly uncomfortable questions and generate incarcerated women to pursue higher YEARS AFTER OUR change. He knows personally the education not only to reduce recidivism SENTENCES END but also to enrich their lives and develop power of its firsthand experience—and their own places in the movement. determination—to shape the dialogue. As All too aware of the work that remains a member of the Lippman Commission to be done in criminal justice reform, calling for the closure of Rikers Island, FICPFM’s mission nevertheless extends far beyond the end Robinson says, Glenn E. Martin of JustLeadershipUSA brings of mass incarceration. The criminal justice reform issue, or “a credible and powerful voice” to the table, one that has been as Atkinson puts it, “the injustices issue,” provides the wedge missing in many such efforts. Multiply that power by eight, leading to a discussion about the disproportionate harms then by their prospective current and future co-leaders and the lifelong consequences of mass incarceration perpetuate supporters, and one can see that the FICPFM reformers are in black and Latino communities. Those communities will only getting started.
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CITIES WIELD HIGH-TECH SURVEILLANCE TOOLS THAT RECORD WHAT YOU DO, WHAT YOU SAY AND WHERE YOU ARE.
HEN FREDDIE GRAY DIED OF SPINAL injuries while in police custody in 2015, the city W of Baltimore rose up in protest. Concerned citi- zens poured into the streets to make their voices heard and demand change. It was democracy in action. Law enforcement saw something different: poten- tial criminals that needed watching. So police and the FBI switched on a powerful sur- veillance technology first developed for use against insurgents in Iraq. Unbeknownst to protesters, Baltimore police de- ployed an aerial surveillance aircraft provided by the FBI that recorded more than 36 hours of activity in the city below. An attached high-definition camera record- ed everything in 30-square-mile swaths—persistent, real-time surveillance of one-third of Baltimore at any time, streamed to a data center and stored on massive hard drives for later review. The unblinking air force afforded police the ability to see who was doing what and when, where they were going and with whom. The sky-spying was in addition to the existing 700 street-level police cameras.
18 american civil liberties union | summer 2017 summer 2017 | american civil liberties union 19 “Technology has transformed surveillance from something ex- Massachusetts. “We later got actual statistics about how Stingrays pensive and labor-intensive to something that is cheap and per- were used by the Tacoma police almost exclusively to go after sus- vasive,” says Ben Wizner, director of the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy pected drug dealers.” and Technology Project. “It’s now possible for law enforcement Expanding surveillance authority always means intensifying to use technology to find out the identity of everyone at a par- the war on drugs. And because this strategy disproportionately ticular protest. I think that people might be less willing to join a focuses on black and brown people, it is in practice an assault on protest, knowing that electronic records of their participation in communities of color. that event can be collected and stored.” A report issued last year by the ACLU and Human Rights The very people, in other words, who would be most motivat- Watch noted that though black and white adults use drugs at ed to protest law enforcement abuses are the ones with the most similar rates, black men and women are arrested two-and-a-half to fear—and lose—from government surveillance. times more frequently. In 2014, black adults accounted for 14 State legislators, police departments and prosecutors involved percent of the drug-using population but nearly a third of arrests in shaping state and local surveillance law and policy determine for possession. The disproportionate arrest rates hold true for not only what the law looks like but also how those laws will be each of the 39 states for which data is available. used. In practice, this almost always means the use of surveillance According to Crockford, it was nothing new that black and authority not to find terrorists—as is usually claimed when such brown people predominated on the receiving end of Baltimore’s technology is acquired—but for the war on drugs. surveillance machine. “The conversation about surveillance is “Sneak and peek” warrants, for example, were intended to al- not distinct from the conversation about mass incarceration or low officers to secretly enter the home racism and white supremacy in the United States,” she says. IN THE BEST OF of a terror suspect, search computers, “You have to be concerned about the very physical repression install surveillance equipment and that is on the other side of surveillance,” Crockford says. “We TIMES, INTRUSIVE then leave undetected. Only months should think about surveillance not simply as a tool to monitor SURVEILLANCE later are the targets of such a warrant dissidents but as a tool that is used to put black and brown peo- AUTHORITY IS A informed. ple in cages, often for crimes of poverty.” In 2014, it was finally revealed how In the best of times, intrusive surveillance authority is a serious SERIOUS PROBLEM. these sweeping new powers actually problem. With President Donald Trump—who refused to denounce were being used. Of the 11,000 such war- the white nationalists and rants issued, only 51 had anything to do with terrorism. The over- anti-Semitic organizations whelming majority—9,401—were used for drug cases. backing his campaign, and WE SHOULD THINK ABOUT The so-called drug wars have spawned numerous powers such whose record of public, SURVEILLANCE NOT SIMPLY AS A TOOL as aerial surveillance. At least one telephone metadata collection openly racist remarks goes TO MONITOR DISSIDENTS BUT AS A program, which spied on billions of calls a decade before 9/11, back to at least 1993—such was run not by the National Security Agency but by the Drug surveillance threatens TOOL THAT IS USED TO PUT BLACK AND Enforcement Agency. every dissident, activ- BROWN PEOPLE IN CAGES, OFTEN FOR The same goes for “stingray” devices that trick your phone into ist, religious minority CRIMES OF POVERTY. surrendering data. and black and brown “Stingrays were justified on the basis of terrorism in places like person in America. Tacoma, Washington,” says Kade “I want surveillance of these people,” Trump declared of Mus- Crockford, director of the Tech- lims while speaking at a campaign rally in 2015. “I want surveil- nology for Liberty Program lance of certain mosques, OK? ... I want surveillance. And you at the ACLU of know what? We’ve had it before, and we’ll have it again.”
20 american civil liberties union | summer 2017 THE STREETS HAVE EYES Today, it’s difficult to name a major metropolitan area without a spying network. Last year, the New Or- IN CHICAGO, LOS ANGELES How One Community leans police department Group Fought raised private funds to in- AND ELSEWHERE, LAW stall nearly 200 new high- ENFORCEMENT AGENCIES ARE Surveillance & Won definition surveillance RESEARCHING SOFTWARE TAYMAH JAHSI IS A COM- to make sure that our chil- cameras throughout the CAPABLE OF IDENTIFYING FACES MUNITY ORGANIZER with city to bring the total to dren aren’t going through around 3,900. The cameras IN REAL TIME—THE “NAMELESS Faith in the Valley, a move- the same thing we’re are installed on streets, in FACE IN THE CROWD.” ment comprising 120 con- going through now.” gregations in California’s schools, even in churches, Jahsi helped lead the Central Valley. When she each registered diligently with the department’s database. New fight against the spy learned that the city of York City has more than 4,500 cameras in subway stations tool, arguing it had been Fresno, where she’s lived alone. Chicago has a total of about 24,000. implemented without her whole life, was using Combine those cameras with today’s sophisticated facial community consultation. social media surveillance recognition technology, and you get what researchers have de- “We’re trying to change technology to spy on her scribed as a “virtual perpetual lineup.” It is estimated that half the culture in Fresno so of adults in the United States have had their faces analyzed for community, she helped that it’s the community nose length, jawline and eye position, and that data are stored in launch a resistance that’s who decides what’s best law-enforcement-run databases. a model for communities for the community—not In Chicago, Los Angeles and elsewhere, law enforcement everywhere. agencies are researching software capable of identifying faces in the police chief,” she real time—the “nameless face in the crowd” will soon be nothing The surveillance software says. Twice her group has more than a quaint aphorism. In many other cities, automatic used by Fresno police been successful in license plate readers on stop signs, streetlights and police cars involved automated, per- defunding the program. sistent monitoring of scan up to 1,800 license plates per minute, creating a history of Today, Jahsi and Faith in posts to Facebook, Twitter drivers’ movements that can reveal private and intimate details the Valley are working and other services. of their lives. Many agencies retain the information for years; the with the ACLU on a pri- technology can even be used to anticipate a driver’s next move. “It took me back to first vacy ordinance to prevent Smart cameras fixed to police cars amount to a no-escape learning about the surveil- not only social media sur- dragnet in which software spots the license plate of someone lance of Martin Luther veillance but also tech- with an outstanding court fine or warrant, and police officers King and Malcolm X and nologies such as license move in to “enforce the law.” We saw how this played out in the Black Panther Party, plate readers and spy Ferguson, Missouri, where the police used those techniques to and how the FBI was fill city coffers on the backs of its most vulnerable (read: black drones. “Sometimes you looking for things to coun- and brown) citizens. work on passion,” she But while these thousands of automated eyes have a grave ter peaceful protest,” Jahsi says. “Then you develop impact on privacy and free speech, research from around the says. “It was very discour- a strategy.” world has shown that their effect on reducing crime has been aging—it felt like we’re vastly overstated. What technology did government researchers going in circles here. And in England find actually had great success in reducing crime? it made us think of how The lightbulb. Improved lighting was found to reduce all crime, we could take bold steps including violent crime, an average 20 percent.
summer 2017 | american civil liberties union 21 across the country. Fused together are footage from cameras on the street, license plates captured by read- ers, and information about who we are, where we go and what we do recorded by facial recognition or drones. SOCIAL MEDIA SPYING #EXPOSED The ACLU’s work in Fresno, California, is a case study in how these secret surveillance technologies operate, and how they are discovered. “We got a tip from a community member that the city of Fresno was using a surveillance system to spy on what people were saying and doing on social net- works,” such as Twitter and Facebook, says Nicole Ozer, the technology and civil liberties policy director for the ACLU of California. The ACLU submitted a public records request to the city to learn more. What it found out was alarming. The city actively surveilled social networks, with a system that boasted of its capacity to identify so-called “threats to public safety” by monitoring hashtags such as #BlackLives- Matter, #PoliceBrutality and #ItsTimeforChange. “There had never been public debate about it, and THE GREEN-TO-BLUE PIPELINE there were no safeguards in place for how it was going Surveillance is a public-private partnership, and it’s big business. to be used,” Ozer says. Technology designed by defense contractors to help soldiers tar- The ACLU exposed what was happening in Fresno, and com- get enemy combatants almost always finds its way to municipali- munity pressure led to the dismantling of the system. But the dis- ties back home to help covery raised the question: Where else was this happening? law enforcement offi- Upon submitting similar public records requests to 63 other cers target Americans. THE CITY ACTIVELY SURVEILLED SOCIAL police agencies in California, the ACLU learned that 40 percent Thus the tools of war NETWORKS, WITH A SYSTEM THAT also monitored social media. None had first submitted the tech- for soldiers become the BOASTED OF ITS CAPACITY TO IDENTIFY nology for public scrutiny. None had procedures for system use, tools of coercion for law SO-CALLED “THREATS TO PUBLIC and none had policies for safeguarding community members. enforcement. There’s Ozer’s office also learned that the company behind much of this even a name for it: the SAFETY” BY MONITORING HASHTAGS social media surveillance marketed its product to target “overt green-to-blue pipeline. SUCH AS #BLACKLIVESMATTER threats” such as “unions, activist groups, etc.” Defense contractors “So much surveillance technology is being purchased and used aren’t the only private companies cashing in on surveillance. secretly, and with little to no safeguards in place to protect com- Twitter provided access to its “firehose” of tweets to a company munity members,” Ozer says. “Our work here in California has called Dataminr. Twitter holds a financial stake in Dataminr, really been to push that secret surveillance into the light, and to which had lucrative contracts with Homeland Security and intel- empower communities to be in a position to make sure the right ligence agencies. questions are asked and answered about current systems that are But the biggest recipients of surveillance largesse are cities, in place, and any systems that are being considered in the future.” large and small. To that end, many community members not only have fought The process is especially insidious because law enforcement to rid their towns and cities of intrusive surveillance technology doesn’t always have to go through traditional accountability but also have taken the initiative to stop intrusive surveillance channels. In the name of fighting terror at home, the Depart- before it is implemented. ment of Homeland Security and other federal agencies provide Last year the ACLU, in partnership with a dozen other leading money and hardware to state and local law enforcement. Police civil rights groups, started helping community members orga- departments in cash-strapped towns are happy to get new sur- nize and push for privacy reform. The Community Control Over veillance tools. Because the money comes from federal grants, Police Surveillance campaign (CCOPS) works in a dozen states law enforcement agencies often can skip consultations with to enact local surveillance transparency, accountability and over- city councils, bypassing budgetary oversight, skeptical inquiries sight laws. about usefulness, cost-benefit analyses and privacy hearings. In California, the ACLU has been especially successful at the Poor privacy controls mean the data collected from surveil- state and local levels. Santa Clara County enacted the nation’s lance is not always deleted. Because data is shared, it can pro- strongest surveillance ordinance in June 2016. And in January of liferate in regional databases, where it is correlated and catego- that year, the landmark California Electronic Communications rized. So as the grant money flows down, the data collected by Privacy Act (CalECPA), spearheaded by the ACLU of California, this new surveillance gear flows up—to corporate databases and went into effect. Hailed as the nation’s most comprehensive digital Homeland Security “fusion centers.” privacy law, CalECPA protects all digital devices and electronic in- These federal intelligence clearinghouses collect massive formation—emails, text messages, location information, metadata amounts of raw data from scores of national, state and local and more—from warrantless search by the California government. sources and attempt to coordinate, analyze and disseminate it Edward Snowden’s revelations of government surveillance and
22 american civil liberties union | summer 2017 work by the ACLU, among others, made the importance of the law undeniable and helped sustain public pressure for its signing. Surveillance 101: The Devices A WIN FOR PRIVACY That Are Spying on You Long before police recorded and rewound Baltimore residents’ comings and goings in one-third of the city, Persistent Surveil- lance Systems, the contractor responsible for the sky spying, AUTOMATIC LICENSE SHOTSPOTTERS are micro- had approached the city of Dayton, Ohio, about implementing PLATE READERS are phones deployed the same technology. The city government and law enforcement mounted on police cars, throughout neighbor- were on board, but community members were not. street signs and street- hoods to detect gun- Because the city held open hearings on the proposal, the lights, and record the shots. The scarcity of public could weigh in, and their resistance helped scuttle the locations of vehicles and oversight and constraint deal. One community member present at the city council meet- their drivers. Often this on these microphones ing said, according to a news report. “At the hearings, nobody data is stored for long means they could possi- spoke in favor of it except for the people working for the city. periods and can be bly be used to listen in The black community, in particular, said: ‘We’ve seen this type mined by anyone with on private interactions of thing before. This will target us, and you didn’t even come to access to learn where and employed as mass- us beforehand to see how we’d feel about it.’ ” people go, sleep, assem- surveillance devices. After the ACLU of California publicly exposed that Face- ble and worship. book, Twitter and Instagram had data deals with social media SOCIAL MEDIA surveillance companies, the public pushed for change. Major BIOMETRIC SURVEILLANCE MONITORING SOFTWARE platforms were forced to act swiftly and shut those surveil- goes beyond DNA and is deployed by local law lance side doors. More than 500 law enforcement agencies and fingerprint identifica- enforcement to target up to 1,000 police departments across the country, as well as tion. Government enti- people, including by key- the federal fusion centers, were cut off from using secret social ties can identify you word. Hashtags such as media surveillance. using facial features, #policebrutality and Responding to continued pressure from a coalition, includ- voice patterns, even #blacklivesmatter have ing the ACLU of California, Twitter also reinforced its poli- your gait, and compare been used to flag people cies against surveillance, and Facebook and Instagram updated certain features with for scrutiny. their platform policies to clearly prohibit use of data for sur- data from social net- veillance tools. “In the fight against secret and discriminatory works, motor vehicle STINGRAYS simulate cell surveillance,” the ACLU’s Ozer says, “combining strategic departments and other phone towers. Mobile local, state and corporate approaches is essential.” devices connect to them Intrusive surveillance is fundamentally incompatible with databases. and transmit data that human nature, asserts Jay Stanley, senior policy analyst for CLOSED-CIRCUIT include location, plus the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy and Technology Project. “There is SURVEILLANCE CAMERAS voice and text messages. a firm level at which privacy is nonnegotiable for people,” he are ubiquitous and inva- Though law enforcement says. “People need to be able to have intimacy, to have conver- sive, used by law sations that others can’t hear; they need to be able to escape might target a single per- enforcement and private the eye of the community, of authorities. They need to be able son, everyone in range is to unwind and say crazy things to friends and to confess se- entities to monitor and caught in the dragnet, crets and to engage in politics, which means saying something record community mem- meaning thousands of to some people that other people don’t hear. bers from afar. Facial community members are “That’s part of human life, and no matter what the technology recognition software surveilled without cause is, no matter how the culture might change in other ways, there’s a and poor controls on and without warrants. certain core, nonnegotiable privacy that every human being needs.” storage threaten to chill The ACLU is on it, Stanley says, and success will come from people’s rights to freely the grassroots. Through assemble and express CCOPS and other efforts, themselves, and NO MATTER WHAT THE TECHNOLOGY the ACLU works with com- studies of their IS, NO MATTER HOW THE CULTURE munity members across effectiveness at MIGHT CHANGE IN OTHER WAYS, America to get laws passed reducing crime THERE’S A CERTAIN CORE, NON- that put communities back have been vastly in control of important overstated. NEGOTIABLE PRIVACY THAT EVERY surveillance decisions. HUMAN BEING NEEDS. Success, he says, will beget success. “Every- body can see the roof does not cave in,” he insists. “Police are still effective at policing those places; they are just subject to checks and balances commensurate with the power of the tech- nologies that they want to use. And we can use that to show other localities that this is something that they should do.”
summer 2017 | american civil liberties union 23 WE THE
IN THE WAKE OF TRUMP’S ELECTION, AMERICANS OF ALL AGES, RACES, RELIGIONS AND POLITICAL PARTIES HAVE HELPED QUADRUPLE PEOPLETHE ACLU’S NUMBERS. LEARN HOW THEY’RE FIGHTING FOR THE BILL OF RIGHTS.
story by photography by HARRIET BAROVICK KATHRYN GAMBLE
24 american civil liberties union |summer 2017 25 IM KNOX HAD ALWAYS GIVEN TO CHARITIES, USUALLY AF- TER READING A MOVING STORY IN THE NEWSPAPER. SHE WOULD MAKE A GENEROUS DONATION AND THEN, AS SHE SAYS, “FORGET ABOUT IT.” But in November, stunned and friend suggested exploring the election, the number of sity of Miami that zeroed in on worried by the results of the its work. “They were already ACLU members and support- ways to protect immigrants. election—and in fear of the fighting,” says the San Diego- ers has quadrupled, to 1.6 mil- The event drew 2,500 people, growing vitriol that emerged based stay-at-home mother lion. More than 2.6 million and more than 200,000 ACLU in the campaign’s wake—she of two, “and that was ex- people have responded to the supporters viewed it at over felt she needed to participate. actly what I wanted to do.” ACLU’s action alerts, and the 2,300 house parties around the “I had been feeling isolated af- After poring through the number of ACLU social me- country. The site registered 1 Kter the election and wanting to ACLU’s website, she joined. dia followers has quadrupled. million online views, and more get more involved,” she says. In the week that followed, Members hail from a host of than 4,000 follow-up events She remembered having Knox was struck by the ACLU’s ethnic, racial, religious and po- were scheduled. read about the ACLU’s de- response, which included litical backgrounds: conserva- HAADIE ALI, AN ACLU termination to battle any a warm thank-you, as well tive first-time donors, LGBTQ activist and student leader infringements on civil liber- as an invitation to an event ativists, millennials just grasp- at the University of Wis- ties, and a featuring a constitutional ing the urgency of mobiliz- consin in Madison, was in- law expert. She has since at- ing…and everyone in between. tended several ACLU ral- They may not agree with every strumental in organizing his school’sS People Power event, lies and looks forward ACLU position, but they are to “lobby day” in the united in a desire to protect the where some 50 students and California state cap- Bill of Rights. And increasingly, faculty showed up to watch and ital, Sacramento, besides financially supporting exchange contact information where partici- the ACLU, they want to be part for future meetings. pants learn the of the resistance. “There are a lot of relevant issues and then To harness that energy, the hearings of state legislators talk with state ACLU in March launched a na- here in Madison, so we talked politicians. tionwide grassroots initiative, about getting people together Knox is People Power, with the goal to go to those,” says the leader not alone in of organizing and mobilizing of the campus ACLU Student her desire local activists, and furnishing Alliance, who first became in- for engage- them with tools to lobby their volved with the ACLU as a high ment and local and state officials. The school junior in Greendale, Wis- activism. initiative’s interactive website, consin, in 2013. Since PeoplePower.org, livestreamed Ali got involved when he be- the kickoff event, a resistance came distressed by overreach training session at the Univer- in the Obama White House,
KIM KNOX THE ACLU WAS ALREADY FIGHTING AND THAT WAS EXACTLY WHAT I WANTED TO DO.
24 summer 2017 | american civil liberties union 25 WE THE PEOPLE
particularly regarding law en- kids who were driven, but now preme Court case, Obergefell v. reported, Vance joined the forcement surveillance of Mus- I see a lot more mainstream Hodges, which made marriage ACLU for the firsttime early lims. He discovered that the kids interested in supporting equality the law of the land. this year, following President ACLU had filed many of the the ACLU,” De Torre says. Olson is not an ACLU Donald J. Trump’s first execu- cases he was concerned about. “Even Banned Books Week is member but says he has do- tive order banning from the “They have been part of nearly sexy again,” he says of the an- nated, most recently at the United States immigrants and every important civil rights nual event to draw attention end of 2016, “because I ap- refugees from seven predomi- and civil liberties case since to censorship. preciate what the ACLU is nantly Muslim countries. 1920,” he says. “I wanted to be HAT GOES FOR mem- doing. I don’t always agree That order was a watershed a part of that.” bership at large too. The with every litigating posi- moment for the ACLU. After The 21-year-old youth leader, ACLU’s long history as tion they take, or every stand nine decades of taking the lead who sports an ACLU hat in his a nonpartisan organization they have taken, but I very in seminal civil rights cases, Facebook profile photo, is also with a presence in all 50 states much respect the fact that including overturning extreme something of an ambassador Thas drawn respect and sup- someone is there with the voter ID laws, fighting for free- for the organization. (“My en- port from a range of individu- resolve and commitment to dom to marry and defending tire Facebook feed is me pro- als with varying backgrounds. the Constitution, and willing individuals’ privacy and First moting ACLU events,” says Among them: attorney Ted Ol- to take on cases and causes Amendment rights, on January Ali.) He currently serves as the son, former U.S. solicitor gen- and bring them to court for 28, the ACLU once again was on youngest member of the ACLU eral under President George resolution, however popular the frontlines. That was when, of Wisconsin board of directors. W. Bush, who famously rep- or unpopular they might be.” one day after Trump issued his That may sound like a tall resented Bush against Al Gore Olson calls activism in sup- first immigrant ban, the organi- order for a 21-year-old, but before the Supreme Court port of one’s principles “sort zation successfully petitioned Ali had a dedicated and ex- following the 2000 election. of what America is all about,” federal Judge Ann M. Donnelly perienced mentor: Emilio De Olson, whose numerous high- adding that helping facilitate to stay key parts of the order. Torre, the ACLU’s director of profile cases include 62 argued such assembly “seems very youth outreach in Milwaukee. before the Supreme Court, noble to me.” The former schoolteacher, who counts as his proudest career Similarly, former has spearheaded the ACLU’s accomplishment his work as Washington state youth programs since 2006, a lead lawyer in the success- GOP Chairman runs an array of initiatives to ful challenge to California’s Chris Vance has help cement a newly energized Proposition 8, which banned called the ACLU youth membership. During the same-gender marriage. Later, “very consis- last year, De Torre noticed a he worked with the ACLU in tent,” telling The dramatic uptick in participa- its successful fight to strike Washington Post in tion, as well as a broadening of down the Defense of Marriage March, “They stand membership demographics. Act, a win that laid the ground- up for the Bill of “There were always political work for a subsequent Su- Rights.” As the Post
SHAADIE ALI MY ENTIRE FACEBOOK FEED IS ME PROMOTING ACLU EVENTS.
26 american civil liberties union |summer 2017 27 Television cameras captured Executive Director Anthony D. Romero and ACLU attor- ney Lee Gelernt walking out of court, exhausted but elated, and speaking to reporters. “On week one,” read a suc- cinct tweet from the ACLU’s national office that evening, “Trump suffered his first loss in court.” Dale Ho, director of the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project, added on Twitter: EBONY SPEAKES-HALL “We won. Stay is national.” The win’s enormity lit up Twitter with grateful com- WHEN I LEAVE ments, dubbing the ACLU “heroes.” It also sparked of- fers from business leaders and AN ACLU BOARD entertainers, such as Sia and Rosie O’Donnell, to match MEETING, I FEEL I’VE ACLU donations. Actress Sarah Paulson used her ac- ceptance speech at the Screen DONE JUSTICE. Actors Guild Awards to ask people to donate. That week- end alone, the ACLU received with their senators’ offices to criminal justice system. “They cause of its role in empow- a record $24 million in online urge support of the bill. come from highly policed ering marginalized young donations—which, among Anders recalls visiting one of areas, like Chicago or Detroit, people. Last August, Brown other things, has enabled the the politicians’ offices as calls or have a parent who was in- volunteered to help manage hiring of an additional 100 lit up the phones. “It was fun carcerated,” she says. “One the affiliate’s annual one-day staff attorneys to fight the to watch it happen,” he says. of my students was home on Schoolhouse Rights Rock Trump administration’s law- Other factors contributed to break and was humiliated event. A record 300 middle and less proposals. the bill’s passage, adds Anders, when a police officer pulled high school kids traveled by bus but “this was a case where the her over and didn’t believe she F ANYONE DOUBTS the from all over the Delta region support from members really was in college until she showed power of ACLU members to participate in workshops on made a big difference.” her school ID.” Speakes-Hall topics that included LGBTQ to move issues, online and Besides collective action, has enlisted ACLU staffers to rights, the use of restraint and on the streets, they should many ACLU members advo- talk about civil rights to her seclusion in schools and en- talk to Chris Anders, deputy cate individually. Dayton, Ohio, students. Though her ACLU counters with law enforcement. Idirector of the ACLU’s Wash- preacher and college professor board work focuses on bud- In another red state, Salt ington Legislative Office. In Ebony Speakes-Hall, who sits get issues, she enjoys hearing Lake City, Utah, attorney and 2015, Anders organized “push- on the board of the ACLU of about everything else. “I’ve sat through” calls to senators in Ohio, has woven the organiza- ACLU member Heidi Cha- on a lot of boards,” Speakes- support of a bipartisan anti- tion’s cases into her teachings morro also finds comfort in Hall says, “but when I leave torture bill jointly sponsored from the pulpit, for example af- contributing her skills. “Espe- an ACLU board meeting, I feel by senators John McCain and firming LGBTQ congregants by cially here in Utah,” Chamorro I’ve done justice.” Dianne Feinstein. ACLU staff- discussing the ACLU’s historic says, “there’s just no one like the ers called members and 2015 marriage equality win. OING JUSTICE, espe- ACLU.” Chamorro, who sits on activists in key states, At Central State University, cially in conservative the local ACLU of Utah board, explained the is- where she teaches social work, regions, is a strong pull has run workshops to help guide sue, then con- many of her students are the for other members. Timothy undocumented youths applying nected first in their generation to at- Brown, a fixture at the ACLU for Deferred Action for Child- them tend college and have also been Doffice in Jackson, Mississippi, hood Arrivals. The Obama ad- directly touched in some way by the was drawn to the ACLU be- ministration program allows
26 summer 2017 | american civil liberties union 27 WE THE PEOPLE
undocumented immigrants Her inspiration to join the says. “More than ever, [undoc- at the community level, reach- who came to the United States ACLU, however, came at a umented] people need to come ing out to people where they as children to apply for work 2015 Pride festival, when she out and share their stories. are and providing resources for permits and temporary pro- staffed a booth for another Doing that is scary. The fear them,” he says. tection against removal. nonprofit organization. “I re- is never going to go away. But Ali recalls a recent event HAT SENSE of safety the member my booth was right knowing we have the ACLU not long after the immigration ACLU provides made a next to the ACLU booth and and other strong allies backing ban, when the city of Madison big impression on Ne- people kept coming up to us up makes it more bearable.” held a forum on immigrants’ vada immigrants’ rights activ- thank them,” she says. “I don’t Given the agenda of the cur- rights. Organizers expected ist Astrid Silva. She arrived in think I’ve ever seen that many rent White House, the mem- 500 people; 2,000 showed Tthe United States from Mexico people saying thank you!” ber momentum shows no signs up. Ali staffed a table for the with her family at age 4, car- A rising Democratic Party of slowing. At the resistance ACLU. “People were coming rying just a Ken doll and her star, Silva spoke at the party’s training in Florida, the ACLU’s up asking how they could give baptism cross. That makes her national convention last sum- Faiz Shakir, the mastermind of us money, and we ran out of a “Dreamer,” and not just in her mer and traveled to Washing- the People Power initiative, donation envelopes—that had optimism. The term derives from ton in February to give the shared his email address (fsha- never happened before,” he re- the DREAM Act, which would Spanish-language response to [email protected]) and urged the calls, still struck by the memory. grant conditional residency to President Trump’s address to audience to offer their ideas That passion—from ener- undocumented immigrants who Congress. On her way to D.C., for resisting Trump. He says gized members new and old— arrived as children and could she recalls texting with ACLU he now receives about 1,000 will be essential for the long lead to permanent residence. It of Nevada Executive Direc- emails daily—and responds to fight ahead. has never passed Congress. tor Tod Story about the ar- each one. Silva grew up hearing news rest and planned deportation Shaadie Ali, the Wisconsin about the ACLU and came to of Dreamer Daniela Vargas, college student, says respon- know its staffers through her who had spoken out about her siveness to causes big and job as a community activist. family’s experiences. Com- small is what makes Now 29, she has worked with munity pressure has since led the ACLU’s work so the ACLU of Nevada in support to Vargas’ release. meaningful. “They of people at risk for detention “The ACLU has always been are taking big and was among those protest- the ones protecting, sending federal cases of ing Trump’s immigration ban at a lawyer to a protest, making course, but they the Las Vegas airport in January. sure people were OK,” Silva are also here
ASTRID SILVA THE FEAR IS NEVER GOING TO GO AWAY. BUT KNOWING WE HAVE THE ACLU AND OTHER STRONG ALLIES BACKING US UP MAKES IT MORE BEARABLE.
28 american civil liberties union |summer 2017 PB The Guide ARTS & CULTURE
VISUAL ART PAGES THREE QUESTIONS FOR DREAD SCOTT On Our Bookshelf STAND INTERVIEWS ARTIST DREAD SCOTT, WHO FIRST RECEIVED NATIONAL WHAT MOVED PUBLIC OPINION ATTENTION IN 1989 OVER HIS ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO EXHIBIT THAT INVIT- on marriage equality from unthink- ED PEOPLE TO STAND ON THE AMERICAN FLAG. able to inevitable? What led George allow people to engage with ideas, and that W. Bush to curtail so many of his creates a space for new ways of thinking most aggressive “war on terror” that might not even have been the intent of measures? And how did the NRA win the artist. The audience brings something protection of an individual right to of themselves to it as well. As people go to bear arms? museums and plays, read books and listen In Engines of Liberty: The Power of to music, they’re thinking about how to navigate the world. Imagine a World With- Citizen Activists to Make out America (a 2006 Dread Scott work), for Constitutional Law (Basic Books, instance, provokes you to think about what 2016), David Cole, the ACLU’s that reality would look like. national legal director and an acclaimed constitutional scholar, Any advice for activists? takes up these questions. He argues Historically, people have prevented that the true drivers of constitutional monstrous crime by standing in the change are not judges and appellate Dread Scott streets and voicing profound dissent. There is a real imperative to resist fascism lawyers, but citizens, working togeth- Is all art political? and drive it from power. We saw people at er through associations like the Yes. But not all art is progressive or openly the Parks Department defy the president ACLU, that engage in a wide range political. Artists who choose to turn away by tweeting photos of the inauguration of advocacy in defense of liberty. from some of the big questions facing crowds. I hope some people at the TSA will In this inspiring book, never more humanity—that’s a political choice too. say, “No, I’m not going to enforce this fas- relevant than in the age of Donald Those who feel a desire to speak to what’s cist policy—the Muslim ban.” Of course, Trump, Cole examines how citizens going on enable people to transform the others are clearly eager to enforce Trump’s world in the deepest interest of humanity policies. We’re fighting something truly succeeded in bringing about major and at the same time have a joyous monstrous: a guy who’s going to start wars, constitutional reform in a range of aesthetic experience. deport millions, undermine the judiciary areas and offers important lessons and suppress the media. People need to do for activism going forward. How can art transform the world? the right thing, even at personal risk. Art is not the same as a political essay This book and more at or going to a demonstration. But it does More info at DREADSCOTT.NET ACLU.ORG/STORE
DIGITAL MEDIA female-designed games experience is set in a choices affect the reac- revolution France, the A New Kind of featuring diverse subjects college bar. The player, tions of others and build game also features a and styles. Many games waiting for a friend, must empathy with how seem- dash of magic. Game illuminate some social navigate the unwanted ingly simple actions truth by highlighting a attentions of male suit- affect the lives of the By Heather-Ann Schaeffner viewpoint the player ors, who range from socially marginalized. might not otherwise persistent to aggressive. Sexist backlash against First Draft of the encounter. Here are a female video game Mainichi (available at Revolution (available at few of our favorites: designers—including the mattiebrice.com/ inklestudios.com/first- harassment and online Freshman Year (available mainichi): Mattie Brice’s draft): Emily Short’s latest attacks collectively at ninasays.so/freshman- simple game takes play- game explores the dubbed “Gamergate”— year): Nina Freeman’s ers through her daily nuance of gender roles has not impeded the short yet compelling experience as a trans- and expression through release of excellent exploration of the female gender female. Your letter-writing. Set in pre-
PB The opinions expressed by the writers of these reviews are theirs alone and summer 2017 | american civil liberties union 29 do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the American Civil Liberties Union. THE guide
PAGES Chokehold: Policing Black Men (2017, The New Press) FILM A SYSTEM DESIGNED Laura Dern Screening Choice TO DISCRIMINATE
TWO DECADES AGO, By Dennis Parker the breakthrough HBO Deriving its title from the police tactic is a time for being domi- series If These Walls Could designed to force submission of suspects, pre- nated by the state...”—is Talk brought the conversa- dominantly black men, Paul Butler’s Chokehold: particularly painful to tion about abortion into Policing Black Men scathingly denounces racial read, but like the rest of pop culture via three sto- discrimination in the criminal justice system. The the book, demands care- ries set in the same house author, a former federal prosecutor, concludes ful consideration. but in different eras: 1952, that rather than spotlight law enforcement gone There is arguably no 1974 and 1996. wrong, the onslaught of videos depicting police better or worse time for Here are some other films abuses demonstrates that the system does exactly Butler’s book. Better that looked at how access what it was designed to do. because, as highlighted to abortion—or the lack of Butler takes on difficult issues: He examines by the recent election, it—affects women’s lives: black-on-black violence, looks at the impact of de- the aspects of the system that fining black men as an “endangered species” and make it irredeemably infected with racial DIRTY DANCING (1987). The challenges the long-term efficacy of strategies by discrimination seem particularly obvious. Worse, beloved box-office hit, set civil rights organizations, including the ACLU, because Butler’s prescription for addressing the in the early 1960s, includes to reform existing criminal justice practices. His problem—wholesale elimination of the exist- a subplot about an illegal guidance for how black men should interact with ing system—seems particularly difficult to bring abortion. police—“[T]his is not a time for civil liberties. This about in the current climate.
CITIZEN RUTH (1996). In this dark comedy, Laura Dern PAGES plays a troubled, impover- ished woman thrust into TRANSGENDER CHILDREN’S an abortion debate. BOOKS TARGETED OBVIOUS CHILD (2014). This unapologetic film By Sarah Jane I Am Jazz (Dial, 2014) Magenta (Candlewick, follows a 20-something Abbott and My Princess Boy 2014), a nonfiction book comedian’s decision to (Aladdin, 2009), about transgender teens, FOR OVER A DECADE, have an abortion. picture books about a also are among the most And Tango Makes Three transgender girl and a challenged. Reasons GRANDMA (2015). Lily (Simon & Schuster, 2005), gender-nonconforming include being “anti- Tomlin, in the title role, a picture book about boy, respectively, are family” and having a goes on a road trip to help two male penguins identified by the American “political viewpoint.” raising a chick together, her granddaughter raise Library Association as These books provide has made headlines as money for an abortion. frequently banned or much-needed one of the most banned challenged for reasons representation for LGBTQ TRAPPED (2016). An award- and challenged books in ranging from “religious children and families. winning documentary that America. The struggle to viewpoint” to “unsuited Keeping them accessible aired on the PBS series keep LGBTQ children’s for age group.” Books gives all children a Independent Lens reveals books on shelves is for older children, such window into their peers’ how Targeted Regulations ongoing, especially books as George (Scholastic, lives and fosters empathy of Abortion Providers— about transgender and 2015), a novel about and respect. “TRAP laws”—restrict gender-nonconforming a transgender fourth- abortion access. characters. grader, and Beyond
30 american civil liberties union | summer 2017 31 CREATIVE LIBERTY
From left, Top Chef season 11 contestant Justin Devillier and judges Donald Link, Jimmy Fallon interviews Padma Lakshmi and Toby Rodriguez. Lakshmi on The Tonight Show.
STATS IN HER WORDS: AUTHOR & TV HOST personal PADMA LAKSHMI Author and Emmy- nominated host of Bravo’s The Women’s March was my very first protest. I had signed petitions Top Chef since 2006 or added my name to open letters, but I had never held a sign or showed up anywhere to openly protest like that. My daughter, Krishna, who is 7, Age: 46 (born September held a sign that said, “Girls’ rights are human rights,” and my sign said 1, 1970) “Equality. Freedom.” Lives in New York City with her daughter, I’m used to speaking before large crowds, but I’m usually talking Krishna, 7 about paella. When the ACLU asked me to speak at the People Power Resistance Training seminar, I was simultaneously humbled, flattered and career terrified. Like many people, I feel like my understanding of what “makes America great” is not being highlights preserved or respected. And it was a way to channel all of that frustration I feel as a woman, as an im- • First Indian-American migrant and as an American citizen. supermodel Most immigrants come to this country to work toward a better life for themselves and their fami- • Appeared on various lies. I first came here when I was 4 years old to join my mother, a nurse, who’d left me back in India two magazine covers: Redbook, years prior. She had ended an abusive marriage and arrived here in America with exactly $100 in her pocket. Newsweek, Vogue India and Cosmopolitan Being in a privileged position today, I’m not worried that anyone is going to try to send me back to India. But I worry for all those little girls who are this generation’s me, when I was a kid. • Author of three books on food: Easy Exotic (1999), Children are not born racist. I was bullied as a kid because of my ethnicity, but I know that bully Tangy, Tart, Hot & Sweet was projecting learned behavior onto me. That’s why it’s so important that our children meet those (2007) and The Encyclopedia who are different from them, in their schools or on the playground, and they see that their world is of Spices & Herbs (2016) full of different colors and ethnicities, because that is the world we live in. • New York Times best-sell- It’s clear that our culture is enriched by international influences. For Top Chef, I’ve spent six ing memoir, Love, Loss and weeks living in cities all over the United States, and I found it’s true not only with food, but with What We Ate (2016) literature and art and music. It’s hard to separate American culture from world culture. Where else • Recipient of a 2016 can you get Sriracha honey Buffalo wings? Ellis Island Medal of Honor from National Ethnic Democracy is like a garden that you have to tend and water and give sunshine to. It’s some- Coalition of Organizations thing that is a living organism, and so we cannot let the darker forces within us poison that garden. And we have to remind people how that garden came to bloom in the first place. • Cofounder of the Endometriosis Foundation America is more than its borders. America is an ideal. It’s still that shining place on the hill, morally of America and ethically, for so many of us because of its history of inclusion and diversity.
30 summer 2017 | american civil liberties union 31 THE states
THE ACLU IS THE ONLY CIVIL LIBERTIES ORGANIZATION for other states seeking squarely between a woman IN THE COUNTRY WITH A PRESENCE IN EVERY STATE, reforms,” says Margaret who has already made her AS WELL AS THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA AND PUERTO Dooley-Sammuli, criminal jus- decision to terminate her RICO, HANDLING REQUESTS FOR LEGAL ASSISTANCE, tice and drug policy director pregnancy and her doctor LOBBYING STATE LEGISLATURES AND HOSTING PUBLIC with the ACLU of California. who has decided that the FORUMS. HERE ARE HIGHLIGHTS OF SOME CASES AND procedure is appropriate.” PROJECTS HAPPENING AROUND THE UNITED STATES. FLORIDA The court found that the In dozens of states, a ACLU is likely to succeed in new license photo in which woman who has decided to proving the law unconstitu- she wears her headscarf. have an abortion—unlike tional and blocked it from any other patient seeking taking effect while the litiga- CALIFORNIA any other form of medical tion continues. In California, as across the care—must delay her pro-
country, civil asset forfeiture cedure, typically 24 hours or OHIO Prisons are the largest men- laws have allowed police more, after receiving certain tal health service providers to seize innocent people’s state-mandated informa- in Ohio, serving 10 times cash and property, simply by tion. But in Florida and 14 more people with mental alleging criminal connection. other states, a woman has illness than state psychiatric Today, civil asset forfeiture to receive the information Yvonne Allen has been perverted into an hospitals. But instead of in person, thus requiring an focusing on treatment, they ongoing attack on people additional, medically un- who can’t afford to fight use punishment—including ALABAMA necessary trip to the doctor. the government in court, solitary confinement—as In keeping with her These laws especially bur- a burden that falls dispro- “rehabilitation.” On any Christian faith, Tuskegee den low-income women, portionately on low-income day, more than a quarter of resident Yvonne Allen wears who are forced to arrange people of color. those in solitary have mental a headscarf. But when and pay for double the illness, according a 2016 she visited a Lee County California law imposes transportation, double the report by the ACLU of Ohio office to renew her driver’s reasonable restrictions on child care and double the and Disability Rights Ohio. license, the staff insisted civil asset forfeiture, but the time off work. that only Muslim women ACLU of California found Following the report’s could claim the religious state agencies circumvented This year, Florida’s Supreme release, more than 500 accommodation. They also the law by partnering with Court agreed with the Ohioans wrote to the state’s ridiculed Allen’s beliefs; one the federal government ACLU that the requirement prisons director, demanding clerk, who was Christian, on “equitable-sharing” “turns informed consent on reforms to the use of solitary its head, placing the State proclaimed that she felt programs that allowed them and protections for people no need to cover her hair. to keep or sell 80 percent of Teary, the single mother of seized property. two removed the headscarf, Last year, through bipartisan knowing she couldn’t afford advocacy led by the ACLU to be without a car. When of California, the state the ordeal was over, she passed a landmark bill that contacted the ACLU. bars California law enforce- Last year, the ACLU wrote ment agencies from bypass- state officials requesting ing state law in favor of an accommodation for federal seizure rules and, in Allen’s faith and noted that most cases, requires a con- failure to do so violated the viction before permanently Constitution’s religious free- keeping people’s property. dom clause. When officials The law went into effect the ignored the request, the first of the year. ACLU sued. “This new law will not only Curt Freed and his husband, Robert Ingersoll, talk with ACLU of In January, the case was rein in the abuse in California Washington Legal Director Emily Chiang. The couple successfully settled, and Allen received a but also offers a blueprint sued a florist for refusing to provide services for their wedding.
32 american civil liberties union | summer 2017 33 with mental illness. Last accommodations for the November, officials excluded deaf to ensure they are in from long-term solitary con- compliance with the law. finement all individuals with serious mental illness, as well WASHINGTON as juveniles and pregnant Curt Freed and Robert Inger- women. The ACLU of Ohio soll have been a couple since continues to advocate for 2004. In December 2012, further reform, including the soon after Washington state end of solitary. recognized marriage equality, the two became engaged. RHODE ISLAND In planning their wedding, When a birthday celebration Robert visited Arlene’s at a Woonsocket nightclub Flowers, which the couple led to words with a bouncer, had used. He was shocked police were called. Leaving and hurt when the owner the club with his friends, told him she would not sell 25-year-old David Alves, them wedding flowers be- who is deaf, signed the word cause she believed “biblically, “bullshit” at the bouncer. Po- marriage is between a man lice interpreted Alves’ action and a woman.” as giving them the finger DEFENDING DISSENT and arrested Alves for mak- Fearing further discrimina- ing “an obscene gesture.” tion, the couple stopped planning for a big wedding THIS YEAR HAS SEEN HISTORIC LEVELS OF PROTEST, During booking, Alves’ and were married on July 21, starting with the Women’s March in January, said to be requests for a sign language 2013, in a small ceremony America’s greatest one-day turnout in the streets. interpreter were ignored, at their home. Three months The response to democracy in action? Legislators in at least and a friend who aided him later, the ACLU of Wash- 18 states have proposed new laws to criminalize protests. Some was told Alves would be ington sued on their behalf, have been introduced under the guise of protecting public held overnight “as a learning saying state law requires safety, but they all have one intent and effect: Suppress dissent. experience.” After Alves was businesses serving the public released, a municipal court to serve everyone without For example, in response to a year of protests near Standing judge dismissed the charge. regard to race, religion, gen- Rock reservation in North Dakota, that state’s legislature The ACLU and the Rhode der and sexual orientation. attempted to legalize using a car to kill protesters blocking Island Disability Law They won in 2015, and the roadways, as long as the death was “unintentional.” A similar Center sued, charging florist appealed. bill was introduced in Tennessee. In Washington state, a sena- violations of Alves’ rights, In February, the state Su- tor wants to designate as “economic terrorists” those who discriminatory treatment preme Court unanimously block roadways. due to his disability and affirmed the lower court’s failing to accommodate his “Even the legislators who have introduced these bills have finding that the florist’s ac- disability. The city settled in acknowledged that they are responding in large part to robust tions violated the longstand- January, agreeing, among protest that has happened in their area,” says Lee Rowland, a ing Washington Law Against other things, to repeal senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy and Discrimination and the the provision authorizing Technology Project. “They just have a very different take on Consumer Protection Act. Alves’ arrest. The city also those protests. They see them as an inconvenience rather than adopted a policy providing “Religious freedom is a fun- a success story of our democracy.” communications aids and damental part of America. Local ACLU offices have scored major victories on behalf of qualified sign language But religious beliefs do not protesters in Louisiana and Minnesota, but the fight goes on. interpreters for those who give any of us a right to The ACLU will continue to work in legislatures to stop these are deaf or hard of hearing. ignore the law or to harm bills and to overturn them in courtrooms if they are passed. “In Citing the settlement, the others because of who they addition to being unconstitutional,” Rowland says, “these bills ACLU has warned the state’s are,” says Elizabeth Gill, a other police departments senior staff attorney with the are fundamentally un-American.” to review their policies on ACLU’s LGBT Project.
32 summer 2017 | american civil liberties union 33 trump Special report RESISTANCE FIGHTING TRUMP ON FOUR KEY FRONTS
The ACLU is responding on all fronts to an unprecedented assault on liberty. we are at the vanguard of a 50-state movement standing up to autocracy.
OURS AFTER PRESIDENT al Refugee Assistance Project,” says Omar have filed 12 other suits challenging the Donald J. Trump signed his in- Jadwat, director of the ACLU Immigrants’ Muslim ban, including obtaining a pre- famous Muslim ban, airports Rights Project, “just cranking stuff out to liminary injunction preventing version Htipped towards chaos as U.S. prevent people from being deported and “2.0” from going into effect. They’ve also Customs and Border Protection agents be- to prevent them from being detained in coordinated 18 Freedom of Information gan detaining passengers—U.S. citizens, the United States. More broadly, we were Act requests with U.S. Customs and Bor- permanent residents, green card holders, trying to get some relief for what we were der Protection offices to expose the delib- visitors with valid visas—and threaten- hearing were many, many people stuck in erate chaos stemming from the ban. The ing immediate deportation. As its phone the same situation—a growing number ACLU is advising sanctuary cities under lines lit up and email inboxes filled, the by the hour around the country.” economic siege by Trump orders and is ACLU immediately mobilized with other The 24-hour days continued into the building legal challenges to the roundup legal organizations for a round-the-clock weekend. One day after the ban went of immigrants. Only a national organiza- defense of human rights. into force, a federal judge granted the tion with robust affiliates in every state “We spent all night that Friday working ACLU’s request for an emergency hear- could have mounted such resistance. with folks at the Yale Law Clinic and the ing. That night the judge sided with the The ACLU was successful in part be- National Immigration Law Center and ACLU, blocking the deportations and or- cause it foresaw the threat to civil liberties the Internation- dering customs officials to provide a list that could emerge from a Trump pres- of people who were detained be- idency and had prepared to take action, cause of the ban. It was the even before the election. In 2016, the or- first successful challenge ganization issued “The Trump Memos,” a of a Trump executive or- constitutional analysis of Trump’s state- der, and energized na- ments and proposals, noting specifically tional opposition to the that a Muslim ban was on the horizon and president and his inhu- outlining how that might be defeated. mane policies. Before Trump took office, the ACLU The ACLU and its 50 issued a seven-point plan to respond state affiliates to his promised trampling of rights: de- mand accountability; protect immigrants’ rights; defend reproductive, LGBT and First Amendment rights; guard civil rights and civil liberties; and mobilize the or- ganization’s nearly 3 million activists to help in the resistance. In every instance, the ACLU is repelling an assault on the Constitution by a man who seems never to have read it. 34 35 RESISTANCE REPORT
MULTI-FRONT OFFENSIVE BEFORE AGAINST IMMIGRANTS TRUMP THE ACLU’S STOPPING PRESIDENT TRUMP’S FIRST TOOK MUSLIM BAN has not softened his desire to prevent Muslims from entering the United States. In March, a OFFICE, second executive order banned immigrants from six THE ACLU 90-percent Muslim countries. Ruling in an ACLU case, a federal judge in Maryland blocked the core of the ban; ISSUED another federal judge, in Hawaii, found the revised order A SEVEN- as unconstitutional as the first. Continuing his assault, a Trump executive order threat- POINT ened to cut off federal funds to over 200 U.S. “sanctuary PLAN TO Attacks on LGBT Rights cities” that welcome undocumented immigrants and refugees. More than a dozen ACLU affiliates are working RESPOND THERE’S NO QUESTION Carolina continue to press with communities to hold the line against Trump’s TO HIS PRESIDENT TRUMP HOPES forward with laws that bar economic siege. PROMISED TO STOP PROGRESS toward protections for transgender State legislatures have introduced anti-immigrant bills, LGBT equality. He started with people. The Texas House just which ACLU affiliates are laboring tirelessly to oppose. The TRAMPLING some of the most vulnerable: advanced a bill that would al- ACLU also is working hard to thwart other aspects of the OF RIGHTS transgender children. low taxpayer-funded adoption administration’s incredibly harsh immigration agenda. Weeks into his admin- and child welfare agencies to istration, Trump rescinded refuse placements with LGBT Obama-era guidelines that prospective parents, putting protected transgender religious beliefs ahead of the attempts to students from discrimination. best interest of children in Destroy Voting Rights The ACLU was about to argue their care. This year, 22 states a Supreme Court case on have introduced at least 48 PRESIDENT TRUMP’S LIES ABOUT Arkansas, Nebraska and New Hampshire behalf of 17-year-old Gavin religious exemption laws to UNLAWFUL VOTING have emboldened have similar initiatives. Iowa would restrict Grimm, who challenged his limit LGBT persons’ rights. The high school’s restroom policy laws effectively allow discrim- state governments attempting to institute early voting and student voting. Texas and that segregates transgender ination against LGBT people restrictive voting policies and instigated Virginia are considering requiring excessive students from their peers. in everything from adoption to others to join in the suppression. “There is documentation to register. These bills, Because of the change health care to social services a new wave of laws restricting voting rights says Ho, suppress votes disproportionately in guidance, the justices and even to marriage. being proposed since the election, inspired among communities of color, the elderly returned this potentially land- The ACLU is organizing by the lies coming out of the administra- and the poor. mark case to a lower court activists to make their tion,” says Dale Ho, director of the ACLU’s The ACLU has successfully challenged for reconsideration. voices heard in legislatures. Voting Rights Project. such laws for years and is marshaling Emboldened by the admin- Where discriminatory bills Michigan tried to institute a new activism and legal arguments against these istration’s disregard for LGBT become law, we’re fighting restrictive voter identification law. Iowa, latest attacks. rights, states such as North back in court.
EMPOWERING COMMUNITY MEMBERS: TAKE LOCAL ACTION IN MARCH, THE ACLU LAUNCHED PEOPLE POWER, a national move- and police reform. One thousand follow-up events have been scheduled to ment that guides and trains local activists to help the ACLU resist President move this agenda forward. Trump’s policies not only in the courts but also on the streets. At one such event in Oregon, 25 people met with Umatilla County Sheriff The first major initiative, “Freedom Cities,” gives participants the tools to Terry Rowan, who affirmed his office was consistent with the nine policies in ensure their communities are welcoming of all immigrants. The effort builds almost every point. Organizer Miriam Gilmer told the East Oregonian newspa- on the “sanctuary cities” concept to include nine model policies, such per that the group may next ask the city council to adopt the model policies. as bias-free policing and prohibitions on surveillance. As activists make progress, efforts can expand to include issues such as LGBT ordinances Find out more at PEOPLEPOWER.ORG
34 summer 2017 | american civil liberties union 35 THE dispatch BY SUSAN N. HERMAN
TOGETHER, WE RESIST “WE’LL SEE YOU IN COURT.” WITH THOSE FIVE WORDS, THE ACLU WARNED NEWLY ELECTED DONALD J. TRUMP THAT WE WOULD TAKE ACTION IF HE TRIED TO IMPLEMENT HIS THREATENED OFFENSIVE ON OUR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS. AND WE DID.
We went to court and halted the first Trump Responding to demonstrations against the Standing immigration ban just one day after it was signed. Since Rock pipeline, the North Dakota legislature took then, ACLU staff have continued to work overtime on up a bill to legalize the “unintentional” murder of strategies to shut down the revised version of that protestors with one’s car. discriminatory ban, as well as the new administration’s No wonder so many people are reading 1984. myriad other assaults on the Constitution. The ACLU is battling such outlandish proposals The power of those five words lies in the fact in legislatures and courtrooms in virtually every that the ACLU is the only organization with the state. We’ve also launched a major new grassroots resources and national infrastructure to respond so mobilization platform, PeoplePower.org, to take the quickly and effectively to nationwide threats to our fight against Trumpian policies into the streets and rights. Affiliates in New York, Maryland, California, town squares. Washington state and elsewhere joined with national When we began building the power of our state staff attorneys to oppose the Muslim ban. Thousands STATES ARE affiliates more than a decade ago, we could not have of members, supporters and volunteers flooded DREAMING UP predicted a Trump presidency or the surrounding epidemic of horrific state legislative proposals. But airports, demanding release of the illegally detained. NEW\WAYS TO And the ACLU’s 50-plus affiliates organized with because we knew we had to be ready for anything, breathtaking speed to file coordinated demands all SUPPRESS VOTES today we are able not only to resist the states’ and around the country for information about federal AND ENDANGER Trump’s assaults but also to continue advancing our compliance with the order to end airport detentions. affirmative agenda for liberty. REPRODUCTIVE It is indeed possible to make progress in this This remarkable achievement exemplifies the unique environment. In red-state Oklahoma, for example, strength of the ACLU. RIGHTS. we helped pass a November 2016 ballot initiative for We have spent years investing heavily in ACLU criminal justice reform that will reduce the prison offices in states where the threats to civil liberties are population, preserve families otherwise devastated the greatest, and resources the scarcest. Those efforts by a school-to-prison pipeline and reduce recidivism. are about to become even more important. The We hope to see our broad efforts to counter mass Trump administration’s audacity has emboldened incarceration continue to bear fruit, even as we officials in state governments to propose a slew of confront new challenges on other fronts. (To learn measures once unthinkable in a free society. more about such efforts, turn to our feature article, States are dreaming up new ways to suppress the “Justice from the Inside Out,” p. 11, about the ACLU’s votes of people of color. Reproductive rights are in work with formerly incarcerated leaders.) serious danger: Missouri legislators, for example, want Our new game plan will take a tremendous amount to authorize courts to declare custody over embryos. of legal and financial resources, but we are determined Kentucky lawmakers are trying to force sonograms on to outlast Trump and his allies. As always, the support women seeking abortions and coerce those women of our members is vital. We cannot win this without to look at the sonograms as medical personnel you, and win this we must—and will. graphically describe the images. Even the ability to express dissent is under attack. SUSAN N. HERMAN is the ACLU’s president After anti-Trump protests, the Arizona legislature and also holds a chair as Centennial Professor of proposed authorizing the seizure of a community Law at Brooklyn Law School. She teaches courses in organizer’s home if a peaceful protest turns violent. Constitutional Law and Criminal Procedure.
36 american civil liberties union | summer 2017 PB ACLU MOMENT Jan 28 2017
PEOPLE POWER
IN AN ACT OF RESISTANCE FUELED BY SOCIAL MEDIA, Less than 36 hours after the order was announced, a protesters began flooding airports in major U.S. cities federal judge in Brooklyn granted the ACLU’s request the day after President Trump signed an executive for an emergency stay of the ban. By the end of the order banning entry to the United States by citizens week, judges in Massachusetts, Virginia and Washington from seven Muslim-majority countries. By nightfall on state also had blocked parts of Trump’s order. Saturday, the crowds had swelled to thousands chanting, “Let them in!” while ACLU attorneys and their allies And so, two things were born together: an executive worked feverishly to aid those prevented from entering order based on hatred of Muslims, and a movement to the country or threatened with deportation. stop it.
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