Tag: aclu

ACLU, Once a Defender of Free Speech, Goes After a Whistleblower

Among the unfortunate changes of recent years has been the transformation of the American Civil Liberties Union from an advocate for free speech and other individual rights into just another progressive political organization. Historically, despite much pushback, the group defended the right of people from across the political spectrum to advocate and protest. But the organization has become unreliable on the issue; most recently in the very 21st century debate over gender identity, which sees the ACLU of Missouri targeting a whistleblower who is critical of medical transitions for minors.

“Strange evening,” journalist Jesse Singal wrote March 7 on X (formerly Twitter). “The ACLU of Missouri subpoenaed Jamie Reed, demanding (among other stuff) all her communications w/me. I emailed them saying (politely) wtf, you’re the ACLU. Got a call from a lawyer there saying it was a mistake – ‘It’s a big team.’ Okay.”

The subpoena Singal attached (supposedly since modified, though a redacted version of the original remains publicly available through the Missouri courts website) demanded of Reed “all communications, including any documents exchanged, between you and Jessie Singal concerning Gender-Affirming Care provided at or through the Center.” It also sought “all communications, including any documents exchanged, concerning Gender-Affirming Care involving media or between you and any media outlet or any member of the media” (journalist Benjamin Ryan says that would include him). The subpoena also demanded Reed’s communications with state officials, legislators, and advocacy organizations.

Jamie Reed, it should be noted, isn’t a party to the case behind the subpoena, which is a challenge to Missouri’s 2023 ban on “gender transition surgery” and “cross-sex hormones or puberty-blocking drugs” for minors. But she was a motivator for that legislation as a former staffer at the Washington University Transgender Center at St. Louis Children’s Hospital who developed significant doubts about what she believed to be a lack of safeguards in place regarding permanent changes to children’s bodies and lives. In a widely read piece for The Free Press, she described such interventions as “medically appalling.”

Whether you agree with Reed or not, she’s a sincere advocate for a position on an issue that commands attention and has serious policy implications. Just this month, New York magazine published a piece arguing that minors have an absolute right to change their bodies, while Britain’s National Health Service stopped prescribing puberty blockers for children in gender identity cases because of doubts about their safety or effectiveness. Reed is engaged in public debate of the sort that civil libertarians defend, so it’s bizarre to see the ACLU of Missouri putting the screws to her over her advocacy. Or it would be if the ACLU wasn’t undergoing a painful and very public transformation.

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SOUTH CAROLINA BAN ON PRISONERS’ MEDIA INTERVIEWS VIOLATES FIRST AMENDMENT, LAWSUIT SAYS

South Carolina violates the First Amendment by forbidding incarcerated people from speaking with the press, according to a lawsuit filed today by the American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of South Carolina against the state’s Department of Corrections.

“The South Carolina Department of Corrections (“SCDC”) enforces the nation’s most restrictive policy on media access to prisoners,” the complaint says. The suit alleges that the state “bans interviews by anyone, on any topic, and by any real-time means: in person, by video, or by phone. And although correspondence by mail is allowed, publication of a prisoner’s written speech is similarly prohibited.”

According to a copy of the SCDC’s media policy, the agency prohibits “personal contact interviews with any SCDC inmate, untried county safekeeper, or death row inmate by anyone,” and bans “news and non-news media representatives” from taking photographs, or audio or video recordings of SCDC prisoners.

In a press release last summer, the SCDC said, “Inmates in the custody of the S.C. Department of Corrections are not allowed to do interviews.”

“The department believes that victims of crime should not have to see or hear the person who victimized them or their family member on the news,” the press release said. “Inmates lose the privilege of speaking to the news media when they enter SCDC.”

The press release also included a copy of a letter from an SCDC official to the attorney of Richard Murdaugh, a former lawyer convicted of murdering his wife and son. (Murdaugh maintains his innocence.) The letter scolded Murdaugh and his legal team for speaking to the press.

The department’s letter stated that, in violation of the SCDC policy, Murdaugh read excerpts of his journal to his attorney, who recorded Murdaugh’s voice and sent the audio files to the media. Murdaugh received a disciplinary infraction. The letter warned the violation could jeopardize Murdaugh’s access to his attorney.

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Court revives lawsuit over Connecticut rule allowing trans girls to compete in school sports

Opponents of Connecticut’s policy letting transgender girls compete in girls high school sports will get a second chance to challenge it in court, an appeals court ruled Friday, which revived the case without weighing in on its merits.

Both sides called it a win. The American Civil Liberties Union said it welcomes a chance to defend the rights of the two transgender high school track runners it represents. The Alliance Defending Freedom, which represented the four cisgender athletes who brought the lawsuit, also said it looks forward to seeking a ruling on the case’s merits.

In a rare full meeting of all active judges on the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan, judges found the cisgender runners have standing to sue and have described injuries that might qualify for monetary damages. The runners also seek to alter certain athletic records, alleging they were deprived of honors and opportunities at elite track-and-field events because they say “male athletes” were permitted to compete against them.

The case had been dismissed by a Connecticut judge in 2021, and that decision was affirmed by three-judge panel of the 2nd Circuit a year ago.

At least 20 states have approved a version of a blanket ban on transgender athletes playing on K-12 and collegiate sports teams statewide, but a Biden administration proposal to forbid such outright bans is set to be finalized by March after two delays and much pushback. As proposed, the rule announced in April would establish that blanket bans would violate Title IX, the landmark gender-equity legislation enacted in 1972.

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Affiliate ACLU Members Revolt After Left-Wing Group Agrees To Represent NRA

Infighting at the American Civil Liberties Union shortly began after the group revealed on X on Saturday that it would represent the National Rifle Association in an upcoming Supreme Court case. 

Several of the ACLU’s affiliates, such as the ACLU of Montana, the ACLU of North Carolina, and the New York Civil Liberties Union, wrote on X that they disagree with the ACLU’s move to provide legal representation to the NRA. 

As clarified yesterday, the ACLU emphasized that their support is not for the NRA’s Second Amendment goals but instead on the First Amendment issue, opposing the federal government’s blacklisting of an advocacy group based solely on its viewpoints.

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Ohio ACLU Slams GOP Plan To Gut Voter-Approved Marijuana Law

Less than a month ago, Ohio voters approved marijuana use, possession, and sales for adults. It was a 57 percent to 43 percent vote, a considerable landslide in voting terms. The margin was not a surprise. Legalization is popular across numerous demographics and, apparently, across the state.

Issue 2 also passed as an initiated statute, not a constitutional amendment. The difference is the initiated statute process, by design, invites some level of input from state legislators. In fact, because it was state law—not the Ohio Constitution—that was changed, legislators have the power to tinker with, improve or entirely scrap all of Issue 2 anytime they want.

No one expects legal sales to start when Issue 2 is officially enacted this week, 30 days after its passage. Understandably, there is a regulatory framework that takes a little time to put together. This is true even if Statehouse politicians were 100 percent on board with every word of Issue 2.

However, “on board” is the opposite of what Senate Republicans have in mind. Before this week, House Bill 86 was a non-controversial bill tweaking state liquor laws. It passed the House 85–6. On Monday, with very little notice, it became the vehicle for the Senate GOP’s planned demolition of Issue 2.

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ACLU: Trump’s gag order in federal case is unconstitutional

For four years during former President Donald Trump’s presidency, the American Civil Liberties Union was one of his biggest courtroom adversaries. Now, the group is taking his side in a high-profile fight over what Trump can say as a criminal defendant.

The ACLU on Wednesday stepped into the battle over Trump’s federal gag order, arguing that U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan violated Trump’s First Amendment rights as well as the public’s right to hear him when she issued the order earlier this month. Chutkan is presiding over the criminal case special counsel Jack Smith is pursuing against Trump for trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election results.

“The obvious and unprecedented public interest in this prosecution, as well as the widespread political speech that it has generated and will continue to generate, only underscores the need to apply the most stringent First Amendment standard to a restraint on Defendant’s speech rights,” ACLU attorneys wrote in a friend-of-the-court brief.

The group urged Chutkan to reevaluate her order, calling it both vague and overbroad, with aspects of its meaning “unknown and perhaps unknowable.” One particular uncertainty the ACLU seized on was the meaning of Chutkan’s prohibition on statements that “target” Smith, his prosecutors, court personnel, defense attorneys or witnesses.

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Federal Judge Orders School District To Allow After-School Satan Club

A federal judge on Monday ordered that a Pennsylvania school district must allow The Satanic Temple (TST) to use school property for its clubs, according to the ruling.

The ACLU filed a lawsuit against Saucon Valley School District (SVSD) after it allegedly denied an application from TST to host its “After School Satan Club,” despite having accepted the request earlier. A federal judge in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania issued a preliminary injunction Monday, requiring the district to allow the club while the lawsuit continues, according to the ruling.

“When confronted with a challenge to free speech, the government’s first instinct must be to forward expression rather than quash it,” the ruling read. “Here, although The Satanic Temple, Inc.’s objectors may challenge the sanctity of this controversially named organization, the sanctity of the First Amendment’s protections must prevail. Indeed, it is the First Amendment that enumerates our freedoms to practice religion and express our viewpoints on religion and all the topics we consider sacred.”

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Satan Clubs Should Be Allowed in Schools

On March 31, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed suit against Pennsylvania’s Saucon Valley School District after it dismantled the “After School Satan Club,” an after-school program sponsored by the Satanic Temple with chapters across the country, allegeding the club failed to communicate that it was not formally sponsored by the district. The ACLU argues that the removal was actually motivated by the hundreds of angry messages the district received from local parents and the general public. 

Saucon Valley is not the only American community bedeviled by Satan clubs. Similar clubs in Colorado, Ohio, Virginia, California, and New York have all generated controversy. The primary concern, as one Pennsylvania parent put it, is that “Satan is here to kill and destroy.” Other parents have asserted that the United States is “one nation under God” and that to deny Satan a place in public schools is therefore a necessary and prudent measure. The Napa Legal Institute’s Frank DeVito even used Satan clubs to justify restoring the pre-World War II tradition of blasphemy laws. 

After School Satan Clubs (and most modern Satanists) do not literally worship Satan. Satan clubs espouse “free inquiry and rationalism,” and “[do] not believe in introducing religion into public schools and will only open a club if other religious groups are operating on campus.” The Satanic Temple openly rejects the supernatural, using Satan’s name and image for shock value. 

But even if Satan Clubs were actually worshiping Satan, there’s little that can (or should) be done about them. A defense of American pluralism requires a defense of, or at least apathy toward, Satanism. 

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Another Facial Recognition Snafu Leads to False Arrest, Wrongful Imprisonment; ACLU Asks Lawmakers to Ban Police Use

Instead of enjoying a late Thanksgiving meal with his mother in Georgia, Randal Reid spent nearly a week in jail in November after he was falsely identified as a luxury purse thief by Louisiana authorities using facial recognition technology.

That’s according to Monday reporting by NOLA.com, which caught the attention of Fight for the Future, a digital rights group that has long advocated against law enforcement and private entities using such technology, partly because of its shortcomings and the risk of outcomes like this.

“So much wrong here,” Fight for the Future said Tuesday, sharing the story on Twitter. The group highlighted that many cops can use facial recognition systems without publicly disclosing it, and anyone’s “life can be upended because of a machine’s mistake.”

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How did free speech become a right-wing value?

Canadian Conservative politician Andrew Scheer picked up on this strange phenomenon back in April, saying that that the corporate media framing free speech as a “right wing value” was just plain weird. As though to drive home the point, Twitch’s Zachary Ryan called Musk a right-winger on Monday. And over the weekend, entrepreneur Samir Tabar had a question for a whiny Robert Reich:

Stop using Musk as your punching bag. Twitter was full of people who had opinions before Musk was around. What you label as ‘misinformation” are just views you don’t like. Deal with it. Since when is free speech a right wing value?

— Samir Tabar (@SamirTabar) December 11, 2022

Answer: since, well, now.

The evolution of this trend is not new. It was less than three years ago that the American Civil Liberties Union — which for decades was committed to an absolutist vision of free speech — signaled that it was no longer interested in defending the speech of those who don’t share the organization’s values.

Former ACLU head Ira Glasser has been vocal in opposing this shift not just at his old place of employment but among the left at large. As Spiked reported back in February 2020 (emphasis added), “This idea, Glasser laments, is alien to a lot of young people today, who see the ‘First Amendment as an antagonist to social justice’. Indeed, on US campuses ‘progressives’ constantly agitate for right-wing speakers, from Charles Murray to Ben Shapiro, to be banned or forcibly shut them down. ‘Hate speech is not free speech’ is a common refrain.”

That last sentence is key.

The ACLU, which in 1978 famously defended arguably the worst hate speech there is — Nazi speech — is now following the left-wing trend of labeling things it doesn’t like, and even Musk’s dedication to free speech, as promoting hate speech.

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