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The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit on Apr. 6 against the federal government to obtain “documents related to how groups that are awarded government funding contracts are restricting refugee and undocumented immigrant teenagers’ access to reproductive health services, including contraception and abortion.” The lawsuit is seeking the release of documents from the Health and Human Services Administration for Children and Families about contracts awarded to religious groups that are helping unaccompanied minors, many of whom have crossed into the United States from Mexico. Brigitte Amiri, an ACLU senior staff attorney, said that...

Religious groups such as the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) are the target of an imminent ACLU lawsuit that hopes to order the federal government to release information about how the groups are awarded government funding contracts to assist illegal unaccompanied minors, yet refuse to allow the minors access to contraception and abortion. According to a press release, the ACLU states, “The U.S. government has committed to providing services to meet the basic needs of these teens. Reports indicate that between 60 and 80 percent of women and girls who cross the border are sexually active.”“Some of these organizations...

The pro-abortion American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is suing the Obama administration for documents it says will show that the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) is restricting access to abortions for unaccompanied immigrant children.In February 2014, the USCCB objected to a new regulation proposed by the Obama administration that would require contractors to provide access to contraception and abortion for unaccompanied immigrant children who have been raped.  In an official letter, the USCCB as well as World Relief, the National Association of Evangelicals and Catholic Relief Services, explained that the new regulation violates religious liberty, specifically the federal...

One of the numerous hostels provided by the Catholic Church for illegal immigrants. This one is in Los Angeles (CNS) Charities providing help to immigrant children must provide contraception to youngsters, according to government regulationsThe American Civil Liberties Union is taking the US federal government to court to find out whether Catholic Charities are providing abortions to illegal immigrants.According to Vox, the ACLU is filing the unusual lawsuit to find out whether illegal unaccompanied migrants have access to contraception and abortion while being cared for by Catholic charities.The Catholic Church works as a federal contractor in its work housing...

The American Civil Liberties Union wants religious organizations to provide abortions to illegal immigrant children. The ACLU is petitioning for a court order that would force the U.S. government to release documents related to their dealings with religious organizations that assist illegals. “Many unaccompanied teenagers come into the U.S. fleeing abuse and torture in their home countries. Many have been sexually abused or assaulted or forced into prostitution,” Brigitte Amiri, an attorney with the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project, said. “We believe deeply in religious freedom. But religious freedom does not include the right to take a government contract that requires...

The American Civil Liberties Union, theoretically a non-ideological defender of the Constitution but in practice increasingly hard left, is running into financial difficulties and just announced (memo to staffers here) layoffs for 7 percent of its lawyers. Why the difficulties? It’s a little unclear, but Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit writes, “What I hear is that they’ve moved too far left, too fast, and it’s hurt their donations.”

The American Civil Liberties Union this week laid off 23 employees, about 7 percent of the organization’s national staff. The cuts affected employees in New York, D.C., California and Wyoming. ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero announced the impending reductions internally in a March 26 email to employees, and the affected staffers were notified Monday. In the email, which was obtained by The Washington Post, Romero cited the need for the ACLU to cut costs. In addition to the layoffs, the organization during the fiscal year ending March 31, eliminated ten national staff positions, postponed its nationwide staff conference to 2016...

Two black women who said their hairstyles made them targets for airport security pat-downs said on Thursday the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) had agreed to stop singling out women for screening based solely on their "sisterlocks." Malaika Singleton, a neuroscientist based in Sacramento, said she was on her way to London last year for an academic conference on dementia when a TSA agent at Los Angeles International Airport began pulling and squeezing her hair. "I was going through the screening procedures like we all do, and after I stepped out of the full body scanner, the agent said, 'OK, now...

The Justice Department is seeking an amendment proposal that will give the federal government express power to locate and hack into the computers of anyone suspected of criminal activity. However, many organizations, including Google and the American Civil Liberties Union, are concerned that the broad language of the proposal leaves potential for Fourth Amendment violations.Federal Prosecutors claim that this revision to the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure  has become necessary now that crime can be committed and concealed on the internet under a veil of anonymity and masked location. But in a memo responding to the concerns civil libertarians have...

Chicago police officers initiated stop, question and frisk encounters at a much higher rate last summer than their New York City counterparts ever did, and just like with New York’s heavily criticized program, Chicago blacks and other racial minorities were disproportionately targeted, according to a civil liberties group. The American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois released a report Monday saying it identified more than 250,000 Chicago stop-and-frisk encounters in which there were no arrests from May through August 2014. African-Americans accounted for nearly three-quarters of those stopped, even though they make up about a third of the city’s population. On...

The US must release photographs showing abuse of detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan, a federal judge has ruled in a long-running clash over letting the world see potentially disturbing images of how the military treated prisoners. US district judge Alvin Hellerstein’s ruling Friday gives the government, which has fought the case for over a decade, two months to decide whether to appeal before the photos could be released. The American Civil Liberties Union has been seeking to make them public in the name of holding government accountable.

Earlier today I noted that the American Civil Liberties Union—ostensibly a pro-First Amendment organiztion—had articulated a baffling position on the University of Oklahoma's expulsion of two students for racist behavior: namely, that said actions were the right ones. But the ACLU has walked back its earlier comments, and now recognizes that OU can't abridge its students' free speech rights, offensive though their conduct may be. "It is difficult to imagine a situation in which a court would side with the university on this matter," writes the ACLU: As a state-run institution of higher education, the University of Oklahoma must also...

New details tonight about a secret Pentagon database used to monitor anti-war protests and activists. Recently-disclosed documents reveal that some of the surveillance targets include an organization with ties to the Central Coast. Secret Pentagon documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union provide details of how the organization called "Veterans for Peace" was considered a threat. Every Sunday for the past three years, members of the Santa Barbara Chapter of Veterans for Peace place a cross in the sand near Stearns Wharf for every American soldier killed in Iraq. First started in Santa Barbara, the "Arlington West" display has...

ST. LOUIS — The US Court of Appeals has ruled that the House of Worship Protection Act, which bans anyone from intentionally disturbing the order or solemnity of a house of worship through profane discourse, rude, or indecent behavior, is a violation of the First Amendment. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that the St. Louis-based court ruled against the state law Monday after the American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri filed a lawsuit challenging the law in 2012. The lawsuit was on behalf of various groups, including the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. The groups argued that the...

The American Civil Liberties Union is siding with the Washington Redskins in a court battle over the team’s name. The ACLU filed papers last week supporting the team’s position that canceling the Redskins trademark violates the team’s free-speech rights. […] On Monday, lawyers for the Native Americans who challenged the trademark said the ACLU should not be allowed to intervene in the case. …

The Washington Redskins’ have gained a new ally in their fight to defend their trademark against offended liberal activists: The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).Last year, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) ruled that the Redskins name is disparaging towards Native Americans, and as a result weakened the team’s trademark protections that allow it to keep individuals from selling unlicensed team gear. The Redskins have appealed the ruling, and in January also filed a new lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of such bans on disparaging trademarks. (RELATED: 12 Trademarks Less Offensive Than Redskins According To The PTO) The ACLU filed a...

A court ruling clears the way for hundreds and perhaps thousands of immigrants improperly expelled to Mexico from Southern California to be allowed to return to seek legal U.S. residency, an official with a civil rights group said on Saturday

President Barack Obama’s government is inviting many repatriated illegal immigrants back to work in the United States under a deal approved approved this week by a federal judge. The deal was finalized by Obama’s deputies and their ideological allies in the American Civil Liberties Union, via a courtroom negotiation under the supervision of an Obama-app0inted judge. The deal also provided $700,000 to the ACLU for the lawyers’ fees. The lawyers had claimed that illegals were unfairly and unlawfully pressured to sign so-called “voluntary return” documents as they were being deported. The illegals should have been invited to fight repatriation via the courts, said...

A Washington grandmother and florist of 40 years who refused to service gay weddings because of her faith will now be forced to arrange flowers for gay ceremonies, a judge ruled Wednesday. On top of that, the woman, Barronelle Stutzman, will have to pay the legal penalties imposed by the judge as well as attorney’s fees. Benton County Superior Court Judge Alex Ekstrom ruled in a summary judgement that Stutzman violated anti-discrimination and consumer protection laws. Ekstrom ruled that the gay couple could collect penalties not just from her business, but also from her personally, according to Alliance Defending Freedom,...

New York City, N.Y., Feb 13, 2015 / 04:02 am (CNA).- Questions are being raised over two U.S. foundations that have poured more than three million dollars into abortion rights, LGBT activist, and legal groups to push the message that exemptions based on religious beliefs are “un-American” and an abuse of liberty. The Arcus Foundation and the Ford Foundation have spent over $3 million in combined spending against religious liberty exemptions since 2013, according to a CNA review of tax forms and grant listings. John Lomperis of the Institute for Religion and Democracy – a D.C.-based ecumenical Christian think tank...