Free Republic

If, as Franklin Roosevelt said, "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself," we might have to redefine "fear." To the progressive Left, "fear" means taking common-sense precautions to protect our citizens, such as the House's 289 to 137 vote on Thursday rejecting President Obama's Syrian refugee plan. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has assailed the more than 30 governors who don't want Syrian migrants placed in their states, accusing them of "fear mongering." In a press statement, the ACLU said that, "For more than 75 years, the Supreme Court has made it clear that the federal...

Jails are NOT profit centers, and people in custody are not slaves. Privatization of jail system phones and commissary has resulted in overcharging inmates, and a lucrative revenue source for the Contra Costa County Jail. Remember our justice system is based around the presumption of innocence, "Innocent until proven Guilty". In fact, in 78% of Contra Costa County jail detainees are awaiting trial. These are people who could not make bail and are in the jail awaiting their day in court. Pre-sentence inmates are milked like revenue cows to make money for the County. The Contra Costa Jail makes $1.5Million...

Free speech advocates are expressing concern that instructions from University of Missouri police on how students should report "hateful and/or hurtful" speech could stifle legitimate differences of opinion. [...] The university's student conduct code prohibits harassment, which it defines as "unwelcome verbal or physical conduct" against "actual or perceived membership in a protected class ... that creates a hostile environment." The conduct code also forbids bullying, retaliation and threatening or intimidating behaviors. The American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri responded with a statement calling for the university to not compromise the right to free expression in its efforts to fight...

Before the Russian Airbus 321 was blown apart 30,000 feet over the Sinai by what a growing consensus of intelligence experts believe to be a bomb planted by a passenger or airport worker, a man who would later fight and die for the Islamic State (IS) worked at the Minneapolis airport with security clearance and access to the tarmac and aircraft. It could have happened here. It may yet. As Investor’s Business Daily reported in September, 2014: Fox affiliate KMSP-TV in Minneapolis-St. Paul has reported the case of Abdirahmaan Muhumed, who, before he went to Syria to fight and die...

An American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) lawyer representing a biologically male transgender student in Illinois says that his client should be allowed to shower in the girls’ locker room because "as a matter of science," he is “a girl through and through”. Although the Palatine-Schaumberg Township High School District 211 allows transgender students to use locker rooms of the gender they identify with, it requires them to use private shower stalls or changing areas so as not to appear naked in the company of the opposite sex. The student filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of...

BALTIMORE —The FBI was flying spy and surveillance planes over west Baltimore during the April riots. Two surveillance planes were spotted flying over west Baltimore during the riots, circling for days. "We've done it in Baltimore, we did it in Ferguson as well, as I recall," FBI Director James Comey told members of Congress this week. The American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland said Friday that it has obtained reams of documents through a Freedom of Information request from the FBI and the Federal Aviation Administration that detail the flights.

The New York Police Department has equipped x-rays in some of its vans but it’s refusing to talk about them due to “security concerns.” Even though these x-ray vans reportedly cost $825,000 a piece, NYPD is staying completely silent about them and their purpose. “Those are issues I’d prefer not to divulge to the public at this time,” NYPD Police Commissioner Bill Bratton said, NYMag reports. “I will not talk about anything at all about this — it falls into the range of security and counter-terrorism activity that we engage in.” Bratton was asked to comment on a request from the NYCLU...

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has brought a lawsuit against a Catholic health-care system based in Michigan, seeking to force the Church-run hospitals to perform abortions. The ACLU suit against Trinity Health Corporation alleges that affiliated hospitals, guided by the US bishops’ health-care directives, refused to perform abortions for women who had incomplete miscarriages. The suit claims that in these cases, the breaking of amniotic sac leaves the unborn child defenseless, with no realistic chance of survival, while exposing the mother to risk of complications. ACLU sues Catholic hospital chain over emergency abortions (USA Today)

The visit to the United States by Pope Francis left a lot of goodwill behind. But there are areas where that goodwill slams into a church-state wall. The views of the church are completely out of step with American law and values when it comes to health care for women. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has just announced a lawsuit against Trinity Health Corporation, one of the largest Catholic health systems in the country. The suit highlights a key area where the Catholic Church and the law of land are colliding.The lawsuit says Trinity is failing in its duties...

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit last week against Trinity Health Corporation, one of the nation’s largest Catholic health care groups, for refusing to provide emergency abortions. The formal complaint is based on the health system’s “repeated and systematic failure to provide women suffering pregnancy complications with appropriate emergency abortions as required by federal law,” according to an ACLU press release. Fox News religion correspondent Father John Morris said this is another example of religious institutions being forced to do things against their beliefs. "The ACLU wants no religious belief whatsoever to get in the way of their...

The American Civil Liberties Union has sued a Catholic health care provider for refusing to provide abortions. They claim Trinity Health Corporation has violated federal law by “refusing to provide pregnant women suffering emergency medical conditions with abortions necessary to stabilize them”. The 86 hospitals that fall under the corporation are required to abide by “Directive 45” which states abortion is never permitted. In June, U.S. District Judge Robert Holmes Bell dismissed a similar ACLU lawsuit against Trinity Health. He ruled federal courts have no jurisdiction over hospital policy and that patients who believed they received inadequate care should file...

Detroit, Mich., Oct 4, 2015 / 06:01 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Trinity Health Corporations, one of the largest Catholic health care operations in America, is seeking the dismissal of a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union over its refusal to provide women with abortion services at their medical facilities.   "This case has no merit.  A federal court already dismissed a similar ACLU claim, and we will seek dismissal of this suit for the same reason," stated Eve Pidgeon, the manager of public relations at Trinity Health Corporations. Trinity Health Corporations is a multi-facility operation headquartered in Livonia, a...

Catholic hospitals’ refusal to perform birth control services that run counter to the Church’s beliefs came under fire from the American Civil Liberties Union this week as it launched a lawsuit aimed at compelling these institutions to comply with federal policy on this subject. “We’re taking a stand today to fight for pregnant women who are denied potentially life-saving care because doctors are forced to follow religious directives rather than best medical practices,” Brooke Tucker, an ACLU attorney, said. “That the Catholic Church considers abortion and sterilization intrinsically evil must not be allowed to grant them an exemption from abiding...

Kiriakou, 47, was a source for stories by The New York Times and other news organizations in 2008 and 2009 about some of the agency’s most sensitive operations after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. ......... that the information Kiriakou supplied to journalists ... enabling defense attorneys there to obtain photographs of CIA operatives suspected of being involved in harsh interrogations. Some of the pictures were subsequently discovered in the cells of high-value detainees.

Classified U.S. government information was found in the cells of high-value detainees at the Guantanamo Bay military prison that houses the world’s most dangerous terrorists, according to the Department of Justice (DOJ).

WASHINGTON — Looking back, John C. Kiriakou admits he should have known better. But when the F.B.I. called him a year ago and invited him to stop by and “help us with a case,” he did not hesitate. Only an hour into what began as a relaxed chat with the two agents — the younger one who traded Pittsburgh Steelers talk with him and the senior investigator with the droopy eye — did he begin to realize just who was the target of their investigation. On Jan. 25, Mr. Kiriakou is scheduled to be sentenced to 30 months in prison...

Kim Davis went back to work as a Kentucky county clerk last week after a stint in jail and a pledge that she wouldn't interfere with deputies who were issuing wedding licenses to same-sex couples. But in a court motion filed Monday, the American Civil Liberties Union said that she was doing just that. After returning to her job on Sept. 14 as the Rowan County clerk, the filing said, Davis "immediately" began meddling with licenses that the office's deputy clerk, Brian Mason, was issuing. Kim Davis went back to work as a Kentucky county clerk last week after a...

ACLU announces civil rights complaint filed against police department A civil rights complaint filed by a 23-year-old man against the San Francisco Police Department claims he was beaten by officers simply for being black. Travis Hall says three plainclothes officers assaulted him. Wednesday, he, his lawyers and the American Civil Liberties Union went public with their accusations. “That night, the officers automatically assumed I was doing something wrong because I’m black,” Hall said. The San Francisco man described an encounter he says he had with three undercover officers in April. “Not all police do terrible things,” he said, “but...

Tie her tubes, or we’ll sue you for sex discrimination, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) told a Catholic-affiliated hospital in California. So after first declining to do so, Mercy Medical Center in Redding has now slated a tubal ligation for a woman after her scheduled C-section to deliver a baby in late September. The ACLU’s demand is cut from the same cloth as the Obama Administration’s order under Obamacare to the Little Sisters of the Poor to violate their beliefs and provide contraceptives and abortifacients or pay crushing fines. That case is still in litigation. The latest manifestation of...

The ACLU of Kentucky filed a motion in federal court Tuesday asking a judge to hold county clerk Kim Davis in contempt of court for failing to comply with the Supreme Court and issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. In court papers, the ACLU lawyers note that following the Supreme Court's order late Monday night, the plaintiffs in their case went to the Rowan County Clerk's office at 8 a.m. Tuesday to obtain a marriage license. "Unfortunately , they were again denied by a deputy clerk who asserted that no marriage licenses would be issued," the ACLU said in a...