Free Republic

[Citing First Amendment, ACLU sues to stop panhandling arrests] PHOENIX - The American Civil Liberties Union wants a federal judge to block police in Arizona from enforcing a law making begging a crime, calling it an infringement on free speech. ACLU attorney Dan Pochoda said the measure is unconstitutional because it makes people subject to arrest not because they are loitering, but because of what they are saying. He contends asking someone for money is no different from politicians seeking support on the same public streets. The lawsuit is most immediately aimed at the city of Flagstaff which, in an...

The Rolling Stone cover photo of Boston bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has been the subject of countless news stories because people across the ideological spectrum have rightly objected to this magazine's glorification of the Islamist killer. But an even bigger scandal is unfolding in Seattle, Washington, as radical Muslims working with members of the Democratic Party and the ACLU have forced the FBI to take down bus ads depicting photos of 16 of the world's Most Wanted Terrorists because some people may perceive the jihadists to be Muslims. Never one to avoid a fight with the global jihad and its lackeys,...

In a letter from the ACLU to Attorney General Eric Holder: *snip* Even though the Supreme Court permits a federal prosecution following a state prosecution, the ACLU believes the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Constitution protects someone from being prosecuted in another court for charges arising from the same transaction. A jury found Zimmerman not guilty, and that should be the end of the criminal case.

Just when I thought the bizarre, destructive Obammunist era  couldn't get any weirder, NOW I find myself siding with the ACLU!!! Watch this clip and tell me you don't, too- not all that far from what one ought to be expecting: once privacy is as fully breached -as the Obama regime is attempting- it's never coming back... doesn't work that way! If you're counting on the Constitution and courts to protect your privacy, what did they do to guard you from (unconstitutional by any sane measure) Obamacare being rammed down your throat? NOTHING- and it doesn't look like there'll be anybody remaining to...

The Justice Department said Sunday it would weigh whether to file federal criminal charges against George Zimmerman after his acquittal in a shooting that set off a searing national debate over racial justice and self-defense laws. Its statement came as groups including the NAACP and the American Civil Liberties Union urged U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to open a federal civil-rights case against Zimmerman, the former neighborhood-watch captain who shot and killed Trayvon Martin....

Pennsylvania attorney general refuses to defend state marriage law Philadelphia, Pa., Jul 13, 2013 / 08:10 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The attorney general of Pennsylvania has said she will not defend a state law defining marriage as a union of a man and a woman in court because she does not agree with it. Thomas Peters, a spokesman for the National Organization for Marriage, said the action shows that the recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings favoring same-sex unions “set a bad precedent” that will allow elected officials “to not represent the will of the people when they find it expedient.” Peters...

Pennsylvania's attorney general Kathleen Kane said Thursday that she will not be defending the state in a recent lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union regarding the state's ban on same-sex marriage. Kane, a Democrat, has decided not to defend the state because she is a proponent of same-sex marriage, and therefore the responsibility to defend the state's same-sex marriage ban will now be passed to Republican Gov. Tom Corbett, who opposes same-sex marriage. Pennsylvania law states that the attorney general may pass her responsibility to defend the constitutionality of state laws to the governor's office or executive branches,...

AG Kane refuses to represent the State in same-sex marriage case.

A challenge to Michigan's constitutional ban on same-sex marriage brought by a suburban Detroit couple could be decided as early as October, a federal judge in Detroit said on Wednesday. April DeBoer and Jayne Rowse, who have lived together for more than six years and have three adopted children, are challenging the ban along with a state law that prevents them from jointly adopting their children. (snip) In the wake of last month's ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court's throwing out a key part of the Defense of Marriage Act, which barred same-sex couples from federal marriage benefits, gay couples...

"When the government has the power to deny legal rights and due process to one vulnerable group, everyone's rights are at risk." So says the American Civil Liberties Union on the section of their website dedicated to the issue of immigrants' rights. "No Human Being Is Illegal" reads the banner at the top of the page, a tacit indictment of any who don't tow the liberal line when it comes to immigration policy. Scroll over to a different section of the website, and you'll find this: "The 'War on Women' describes the legislative and rhetorical attacks on women and women's...

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the ACLU of North Carolina Legal Foundation (ACLU-NCLF) has announced plans to challenge North Carolina's ban on marriage for same-sex couples. The civil liberties group says it will amend a federal lawsuit filed against the state last year on behalf of six same-sex couples and their children. The lawsuit challenges North Carolina's ban on second parent adoptions. The ACLU is asking North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper to agree to allow an additional claim challenging the state's ban on marriage for same-sex couples to be added to Fisher-Borne v. Smith, a lawsuit filed...

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker signed an abortion regulation bill into law that if enacted would be similar to the controversial measure being debated in Texas. Senate Bill 206, also called "Sonya's Law," would among other things require an ultrasound before an abortion and cut down the number of abortion-providing facilities in the state. Walker signed SB 206 into law on Friday and was almost immediately sued by Wisconsin abortion providers questioning its constitutionality. Susan Armacost, legislative director for Wisconsin Right to Life, told The Christian Post that they "greatly appreciate Governor Walker's support for Wisconsin's new law." "He understands that...

It's not completely illegal for law enforcement to get your cellphone records from wireless carriers without a warrant. So, they do it. And wireless carriers seem happy to comply, perhaps because they get to charge lots of money every time someone asks for something, and the ACLU has found out how much money this is.If you're a law enforcement agency of some sort, you have a nice fat à la carte menu of wiretapping, data harvesting, and electronic tracking items to choose from. Here are the going rates as of 2009, broken down by service and then by carrier:...

On the day that attorneys presented opening statements in the second-degree murder trial of George Zimmerman, scores of residents gathered inside a church in Sanford's historic black community of Goldsboro on Monday to present their views on the case. "We are not here to ask for a certain verdict," said Brendien Mitchell of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Florida youth and college chapter. "But a fair and just verdict is all that we ask." The town hall meeting was organized by the Seminole County branch of the NAACP and was held at the Allen Chapel African...

Under President Obama, the United States is “a nation governed by fear,” the American Civil Liberties Union says in an open letter that echoes the criticisms Obama has made of George W. Bush’s national security policies. “[W]e say as Americans that we are tired of seeing liberty sacrificed on the altar of security and having a handful of lawmakers decide what we should and should not know,” the ACLU writes in a statement circulated to grassroots supporters and addressed to Obama. “We are tired of living in a nation governed by fear instead of the principles of freedom and liberty...

ANN ARBOR, MI – The Thomas More Law Center, a national public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, today announces a victory in their lawsuit against teacher Johnson McDowell of Howell High School in Howell, Michigan. Federal District Judge Patrick J. Duggan of the Eastern District of Michigan issued his opinion yesterday. The Court declared the teacher’s actions in punishing Daniel Glowacki for expressing his beliefs against homosexuality violated “Daniel’s First Amendment rights.” In its findings of fact—the Court described how the teacher initiated a discussion about homosexuality. The teacher wore a purple t-shirt and was promoting the...

Yet another glitch seems to be popping up in the immigration reform debate, and I’ll confess that I really didn’t see this one coming. One portion of the proposal regards expanding – and making mandatory in a variety of cases – the use of the E-Verify system. This would ensure that employers were making use of the system to screen out illegal immigrants when hiring. But if it applies to immigrants, in the opinion of some observers, it winds up applying to everyone. And that could lead to the equivalent of a national ID database. “Over time, this could become...

A federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday that a man can sue the state of Oklahoma over its license plates. The man, Keith Cressman, has argued that the state's standard license plate, which depicts a Native American shooting an arrow into the sky, goes against the separation of church and state, according to a report from Tulsa World. He sued a number of state officials in 2011. That lawsuit was initially dismissed in 2012 but has since been reinstated by the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. According to Tulsa World, the court ruled that the image of Allan Houser's...

Homeland Insecurity: The White House assures that tracking our every phone call and keystroke is to stop terrorists, and yet it won't snoop in mosques, where the terrorists are. That's right, the government's sweeping surveillance of our most private communications excludes the jihad factories where homegrown terrorists are radicalized. Since October 2011, mosques have been off-limits to FBI agents. No more surveillance or undercover string operations without high-level approval from a special oversight body at the Justice Department dubbed the Sensitive Operations Review Committee. Who makes up this body, and how do they decide requests? Nobody knows; the names of...

The LA Times reports that sales of the book, which concerns a discontented propagandist working for the Ministry of Truth in a time of endless war, are up 5,771 percent as of Tuesday morning. From a sales rank of 12,507 in the days before The Guardian published top-secret government documents provided by Snowden, "1984" has risen to crack Amazon's top 200.