Date: Tue, 29 Feb 2000 22:1:54 Subject: ACLU News 02-29-2000: Global Spying, Financial Privacy, More! To: news@lists.aclu.org From: owner-news@lists.aclu.org List-Unsubscribe: <mailto:leave-news-492745O@lists.aclu.org> List-Subscribe: <mailto:subscribe-news@lists.aclu.org> List-Owner: <mailto:owner-news@lists.aclu.org> X-List-Host: ACLU <http://www.aclu.org> Reply-To: owner-news@lists.aclu.org Message-Id: <LYR492745-260263-2000.02.29-22.02.11--wevans6368#aol.com@lists.aclu.org> Precedence: bulk02-29-2000 ACLU Newsfeed -- ACLU News Direct to YOU!
IN THE ACLU NEWSROOM**The Latest News Can Always Be Found At:** http://www.aclu.org/news/pressind.html
* ACLU Renews Calls for Congressional Hearings Into Secret Global Surveillance System
* ACLU, Urban League Urge Support for Racial Profiling Legislation in St. Louis
* ACLU Condemns Texas Execution of 62-Year-Old Great Grandmother
* ACLU of Illinois Calls on Legislature To Protect Financial Privacy
* Court Blocks WA School from Suspending Student Over Humorous Web Site
* ACLU Joins Battle Over High-Speed Access to Internet
* Other Recent ACLU Press Releases
ACLU Renews Calls for Congressional Hearings Into Secret Global Surveillance System
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Friday, February 25, 2000
Contact: DC Media Relations Office media@dcaclu.org
WASHINGTON -- The American Civil Liberties Union today renewed its call for Congressional hearings into the threat to the privacy and civil liberties of Americans from the global electronic communications surveillance system known as "ECHELON."
"In light of the controversy engendered by this week's hearings before the European Parliament, Congress must move quickly to investigate to determine if ECHELON is as sweeping and intrusive as has been reported," said Gregory T. Nojeim, an ACLU Legislative Counsel.
The ACLU said that more than 13,000 constituent letters to Congress calling for oversight hearings have been sent from its special website dedicated to monitoring ECHELON -- http://www.echelonwatch.org -- which was launched in November 1999.
Given this week's heightened public interest in ECHELON, the ACLU said it was ratcheting up the pressure on Congress, giving users of its website the ability to send copies of their letters directly to the chairman and ranking minority member of the House Committee on Government Reform, which has oversight authority to call hearings.
"We need Congressional hearings now more than ever to determine whether ECHELON is used by the government's intelligence community to conduct domestic electronic surveillance to circumvent protections Congress has established by law," Nojeim said.
The television news program "60 Minutes" is airing a report on Echelon this Sunday, which, according to the CBS website will feature the story of a woman whose name and telephone number went into the ECHELON database "as a possible terrorist because she told a friend on the phone that her son had 'bombed' in a school play."
"Congress has the authority and the responsibility to get to the bottom of this," said ACLU Associate Director Barry Steinhardt. "Only Congress can pierce the veil of secrecy of the puzzle palace."
ACLU, Urban League Urge Support for Racial Profiling Legislation in St. Louis
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Thursday, February 24, 2000
ST. LOUIS, MO -- At a news conference today, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Urban League, and other community groups joined State Representative Russell Gunn support of his proposed legislation requiring state and local law enforcement officials to collect data on the racial composition of people pulled over for suspected traffic violations.
The bill, expected to be introduced by Rep. Gunn of St. Louis this week, is viewed by proponents as a large step toward ending the discriminatory practice of racial profiling.
"Data collection is the best way to document the problem of racial profiling and will ultimately allow us to work to end this practice," said Matt LeMieux, Executive Director of the ACLU of Eastern Missouri. "Racial profiling has been statistically documented across the country, and the reports we receive suggest that the practice occurs in Missouri as well. Data collection will allow us to see where the problems lie and work collectively to reach solutions."
Racial profiling has been described as practices that "equate race with criminality and use it in the absence of and in lieu of probable cause." The ACLU of Eastern Missouri has received numerous complaints of racial profiling by police.
Just last week, LeMieux noted, the St. Louis Police Board of Commissioners adopted a policy prohibiting St. Louis police officers from stopping motorists based solely on race, and calling for corrective measures such as training and data collection to be implemented. Shortly after its approval by the Board, the president of the St. Louis Police Officers association criticized the resolution as unnecessary and motivated by political correctness. Yet complaints received by the ACLU of Eastern Missouri and statistics documented nationwide tell a different story.
A 1999 report issued by the national ACLU, Driving While Black: Racial Profiling on Our Nation's Highways documented traffic stop patterns in four Ohio cities and concluded that blacks are roughly twice as likely to be ticketed as all other citizens. Similar results were found in Illinois and California, where the ACLU has been actively collecting data on traffic stops. This report, coupled with ACLU-led litigation in Maryland, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and California has forced an increasing number of law enforcement agencies to review how traffic stops are being conducted. Numerous law enforcement agencies nationwide now voluntarily collect data during traffic stops.
Last year, lawmakers in North Carolina and Connecticut passed legislation requiring law enforcement agencies to collect data during traffic stops. This year, at least 25 states have legislation pending that would require data collection.
Common threads among these complaints include:
-- stops made for minor traffic violations like brake lights, changing lanes without a using a turn signal, or not making a complete stop at a stop sign, in which the person is questioned and possibly searched before being released. These are offenses for which non-minorities are rarely stopped, and may be used as pretext to question or search a motorist.
-- stops made for no stated reason, in which the person is detained, questioned or searched and released without ticket.
-- legitimate stops (such as speeding) in which the driver is detained for a long time and questioned or searched instead of just being issued a ticket and released.
-- motorists who get arrested for offenses like "resisting arrest," "not cooperating," or "failure to comply" without some other charge. This suggests the lack of legitimate probable cause.
-- stops that involve extensive, or improper/irrelevant personal questions, such as "do you have a job," "where are you going," "how did you get the money to buy this car," etc.
Frequent targets of racial profiling include black males, those in nice cars or drivers in typically white neighborhoods. For example, one African-American military officer was stopped on I-44 for what the trooper claimed was a broken brake light. When the man showed that the brake light worked, the trooper then said he was pulled over for swerving into the next lane. After detaining and questioning him for some time, the man was released. Similarly, a black man who questioned being pulled over in South St. Louis was given no reason, pulled out of his car, handcuffed, and detained while police searched his car and interrogated the man about his personal life. After an hour, he was released without explanation. In another instance, an African-American woman headed to work at the University of Missouri-St. Louis in her Acura who was pulled over near campus and asked, "Do you have a job," "Do you know what kind of car you are driving," and other humiliating questions before being released. The ACLU also cited the case of a local man detained for more than three hours for a simple speeding ticket.
The national ACLU maintains a special "Arrest the Racism" webpage at http://www.aclu.org/profiling/ to monitor and report on incidents of racial profiling. Those who believe they have been victims of racial profiling can report incidents through the web page or by calling a toll-free number, 1-877-6-PROFILE.
ACLU Condemns Texas Execution of 62-Year-Old Great Grandmother
Statement of Diann Rust-Tierney, Director, ACLU Capital Punishment Project
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Thursday, February 24, 2000
WASHINGTON -- The American Civil Liberties Union opposes tonight's scheduled execution of Betty Lou Beets, a 62-year-old great-grandmother who will be only the fourth woman executed since the Supreme Court reinstituted the death penalty in 1976.
Any discomfort at the prospect of a woman's execution only underscores what should be our discomfort with this practice. Any aversion to killing Beets should encourage a healthy aversion to the practice as a whole.
We have learned to casually watch the government execute a disproportionate number of black men, juveniles, those with mental retardation, those with incompetent lawyers, those who are innocent, and those whose victims are disproportionately white. Now that the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles has denied Beets' appeal for clemency, we are asked to inure ourselves to watching yet another woman be executed by the state.
Why is it that a torch-bearer nation that prides itself on hope, equality, and justice is the only industrialized country in the world that not only sentences people to death by firing squad, hanging, and electrocution, but does so in the face of proof that death row sentencing practices are economically, racially, and gender-biased and do not deter crime?
The issue of gender, which has so occupied the public in this case -- as well as in Texas' 1998 execution of Karla Faye Tucker -- is a determining factor in who receives a death sentence and who is executed. During the 1980s and early 1990s, only about 1 percent of all those on death row were women, even though women commit about 15 percent of all criminal homicides. Significantly, a third or more of the women under death sentence were guilty of killing men who had victimized them with years of violent abuse. Equally significant, since 1930, only 33 women (12 of them black) have been executed in the United States.
As the state that has carried out more executions then any other, Texas should follow the example of Illinois and take a long, hard look at the unjust and discriminatory practice of state sanctioned murder.
Just recently, Illinois republican Governor Ryan, a supporter of the capital punishment, suspended the state death penalty system in order to carefully examine how the death penalty process works -- or rather, doesn't work -- to ensure that innocent people were not put to death. That action should be the first, tangible step towards that ultimate goal of ending sanctioned violence not only in Illinois but across the nation.
ACLU of Illinois Calls on Legislature To Protect Financial Privacy
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Wednesday, February 23, 2000
CHICAGO -- Hailing lawmakers' effort to "protect consumers across Illinois," the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois today announced a formal endorsement for legislation introduced in the State Senate that would enhance preservation of financial privacy for the average bank customer.
The legislation, SB 1946, sponsored by Senator Carol Ronen (D-Chicago), safeguards personal financial information and fills in gaps in privacy protection resulting from landmark 1999 federal banking legislation.
"The Illinois General Assembly should act directly to protect every single person's financial privacy, completing the job left incomplete by Congress," said Edwin C. Yohnka, spokesperson for the organization. "The federal Financial Services Modernization Act leaves consumers in Illinois prey to the narrow interests of financial conglomerates, as well as stalkers, scam artists and other criminals. This legislation will protect consumers across Illinois from becoming victims."
The Illinois bill follows upon the 1999 landmark federal legislation, the Financial Services Modernization Act, which permits banks and other financial services interests to engage in and offer a range of other businesses, including stock sales, insurance and others.
The Act also allows these financial institutions to share information about their consumers with these affiliate businesses, which in turn can sell the data to the growing number of "insurance brokers."
Fortunately, the Modernization Act also contained a provision that allowed the individual states to adopt specific legislation that is more protective of individual privacy -- precisely the type of protection provided for in the Illinois bill.
Specifically, the legislation contains six steps to protect consumer information and privacy:
-- restrictions on the transfer of personal information, requiring the express consent of customers before a financial institution can share personal information with an affiliate or a third-party;
-- provisions allowing customers the right to see and correct their own files;
-- mandates that financial institutions tell consumers about the information they collect, how they use it, who receives the information, and what steps are taken to protect the information;
-- limitations on the re-use of information, broadly preventing recipients of personal information from selling or passing along this data to a third party;
-- provisions for state enforcement against those who violate the privacy of others; and
-- establishment of a private right of action, allowing customers to sue those who violate their financial privacy.
"In an age where our most personal information is often stored and shared in a digital form, it is critical that we take specific, measured steps to protect and assure individual privacy," said the ACLU's Yohnka. "This legislation is a modest, but critical first step to balance the changing face of financial services with the needs of consumers."
The new legislation also has been endorsed by the Public Interest Resource Group and the Illinois Coalition for Consumer Rights.
Court Blocks WA School from Suspending Student Over Humorous Web Site
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Tuesday, February 23, 2000
SEATTLE, WA -- In the latest case involving student free speech in cyberspace, a federal judge in Seattle today blocked school administrators from suspending a student because of a web site he had created on his home computer. The American Civil Liberties Union of Washington represented the student in contesting the suspension.
"The court recognized today that school officials do not have authority to punish students for exercising their freedom of speech outside of school," said Aaron Caplan, the ACLU of Washington Staff Attorney who represented the student. "Schools need to learn that they can't discipline students who create satires on the Internet."
Nick Emmett, the high school senior whom officials in the Kent School District sought to discipline, welcomed the news. "I feel good that the judge understood my rights as a student," he said. "I went to court to fight for my rights because I don't think administrators should be able to make punishments that are unfair."
Emmett is a college-bound senior and a co-captain of the Kentlake High School basketball team. On the weekend of February 12 and 13, Nick and a friend posted their own site on the Internet, using the Emmett family computer and AOL account. Nick's father helped set up the graphics.
Titled the "Unofficial Kentlake High Home Page," the site was intended as a light-hearted vehicle to promote discussion among the King County school's students. Nick posted compliments to the school's administration, and the home page included the following disclaimer: "This website is meant for entertainment purposes only. In no way, shape, or form is it intended to offend anybody. And to the KL (Kentlake) Administration, ...We love you guys!"
At a friend's suggestion, Nick added a fake obituary to the friend's memory; the idea came, in part, from a creative writing class Nick had taken in which students had been assigned to write mock obituaries. This and another obituary written in jest (with the student's permission) proved so popular that other students began posting requests for parody death notices about themselves to be written. As a humorous touch, a feature was added to the Web site enabling people to vote for the next fake obituary. At school, Nick received praise for the Web site from students and teachers alike.
On February 16, a television reporter interviewed Nick about the Web site, and a television news report that night suggested that the site had a "hit list" threatening to injure people. Concerned by coverage he considered misleading, Nick and his co-creator closed the site. On February 17, Nick learned that the Kentlake principal was placing him on emergency expulsion, pending an investigation. The next day, Nick received a five-day suspension, causing him to miss a basketball playoff game. He and his parents contacted the ACLU of Washington and with the ACLU's help contested the suspension.
"I was surprised they were punishing me and thought it was unfair," Nick said. "I had talked with administrators about the Web site, and they didn't say they had a problem with it. I care about school and want to go to class," he added.
After a hearing this morning, Chief Judge John Coughenour of the United States District issued a temporary restraining order enjoining the school district from enforcing the suspension imposed on Nick Emmett.
In his ruling Judge Coughenour said, "Although the intended audience was undoubtedly connected to Kentlake High School, the speech was entirely outside of the school's supervision or control."
Judge Coughenour cited the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal's ruling in a 1988 ACLU of Washington case (Burch v. Barker), holding that student distribution of non-school-sponsored material cannot be prohibited "on the basis of undifferentiated fears of possible disturbances or embarrassment to school officials." The judge noted that the school district presented "no evidence that the mock obituaries and voting were intended to threaten anyone, did actually threaten anyone, or manifested any violent tendencies whatsoever."
The court's ruling comes as increasing numbers of students are taking freedom of speech into cyberspace. Earlier this month, the Lake Washington School Board decided not to punish three Eastlake High School students represented by the ACLU over a Web site they had created. In 1995, in a much-publicized case, the ACLU of Washington won an out-of-court settlement for Bellevue student Paul Kim after his principal disciplined him for creating a parody of his high school from a home computer. Still pending in the state is an ACLU lawsuit on behalf of a Thurston County high school student who was expelled for a month in 1999 for creating a Web site on his home computer lampooning his school's vice-principal.
The ACLU has represented students in similar cases across the country, including Ohio, Missouri and Texas.
The pleading filed in the case, as well as the judge's temporary restraining order are available online from the ACLU of Washington at: http://www.aclu-wa.org/ISSUES/students/Kentlake%20TRO/Kentlake%20High%20School%20Index.htm
ACLU Joins Battle Over High-Speed Access to Internet
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Thursday, February 23, 2000
Contact: DC Media Relations Office media@dcaclu.org
WASHINGTON -- The American Civil Liberties Union today said that it has joined the battle over high-speed access to the Internet and promised to work to ensure that cable providers like AT&T and America Online-Time Warner open their high-speed Internet services to the broadest possible array of service providers.
"The ACLU has led the fight against government censorship of the Internet," said Barry Steinhardt, Associate Director of the ACLU. "Now the very architecture of the Internet is changing in ways in which corporate censorship may prove to be even more dangerous."
Speaking today alongside consumer watchdogs and media advocates at a forum at the National Press Club, Steinhardt said the question of "open access" to high-speed cable Internet service is crucial to maintaining the Internet as a free and open forum. He noted that the issue had become controversial across the nation as a wave of corporate mergers has created a few dominant cable providers that are just now spelling out their plans for offering Internet service.
"High-speed access is the future of the Internet," said Marvin Johnson, an ACLU Legislative Counsel. "But it will be a very different Internet if the few companies who control cable systems also control the service providers who decide what content we receive."
AT&T - which through recent acquisitions is expected to become the largest cable company in the country with 70 percent of the cable market - has already entered into deals in which it gives favorable treatment to some content providers and limits access to video. Any broadband provider could similarly "filter" out any form of content it finds objectionable.
Until recently, Steinhardt said, most people gained access to the Internet at home through a telephone "dial up" connection to a wide variety of Internet service providers. In the last two years, however, companies have started to offer "broadband" high-speed Internet access, which makes viewing content such as video and audio more feasible. Users can now obtain high-speed access to the Internet through two methods: Digital Subscriber Lines (or DSL), which run over existing telephone lines, or through the wires that now deliver cable. DSL service, however, is proving more difficult to deploy than cable, which is dominating the residential market.
And while phone companies, who have historically been recognized as common carriers are required to follow the principle of open access - any Internet service provider can, for a fee, offer its services through a DSL line - cable companies are increasingly entering into negotiations with one or two Internet service providers that could easily filter or otherwise block certain types of content and speech.
The ACLU noted that cable companies operate under franchises awarded by local governments, which give them a monopoly in their service areas. As a result of ATT's recent acquisitions and the Time Warner-AOL merger, dozens of these local cable franchises need to be transferred to new owners.
"When it comes to the provision of Internet access, there is no real difference between high speed access offered by cable or telephone companies," Steinhardt said. "The cable monopolies should be required to open their systems to any Internet service provider and the ACLU plans to be actively involved at the local, as well as the national level, to fight for the principle of open access."
02-23-00 -- New Battle On Reproductive Choice Opens in Senate http://www.aclu.org/news/2000/n022300a.html
02-22-00 -- PA Police Veteran Testifies in Favor of State Death Penalty Moratorium Bill http://www.aclu.org/news/2000/n022200c.html
02-22-00 -- ACLU Urges Quick Resolution of Elian Gonzalez Case; Says Child Should Have Access to Courts http://www.aclu.org/news/2000/n022200b.html
02-22-00 -- High Court Agrees to Review Indiana Law Allowing Random Roadside Drug Searches http://www.aclu.org/news/2000/n022200a.html
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