Free Republic

If her first interview is any indication, the new leader of Planned Parenthood is doubling down on abortion as “one of our core services.”On July 16, Alexis McGill Johnson became the acting president and CEO of Planned Parenthood and Planned Parenthood Action. The move came after her predecessor, Leana Wen, claimed she was fired for not prioritizing abortion enough while at the helm of the nation’s largest abortion provider.While Wen served for a short eight months, McGill Johnson may head Planned Parenthood for more than a year. In one press statement, Planned Parenthood revealed that its search for a more permanent leader...

The Salvation Army on Tuesday settled a decade-old lawsuit that charged it with engaging in religious discrimination by requiring its government-funded social service employees to reveal their beliefs and to agree to act in accordance with the Christian gospel. As part of the settlement, approved by a federal judge in Manhattan, the Salvation Army will distribute to its New York employees who work in programs that receive government financing a document stating that they need not adhere to the group’s religious principles while doing their jobs, nor may they be asked about their religious beliefs. The Salvation Army, which is...

ALBANY -- The state Education Department this week issued guidelines to school districts on avoiding questions that could disclose a student's immigration status. That means inquiring about citizenship status, Social Security numbers and similar information are out of bounds when a student enrolls for school. The guidelines issued Monday were a response to a New York Civil Liberties Union study that found 139 of the state's 694 districts intentionally or unintentionally asked about citizenship status. Fourteen Capital Region districts were cited in the NYCLU study. Jonathan Burman, a department spokesman, said Tuesday the guidelines will help districts make sure their...

NEW YORK -- The New York Civil Liberties Union has demanded that city officials explain why they ordered a private art school to remove a banner displaying an image of Josef Stalin. In a letter Thursday to the Department of Buildings, NYCLU executive director Donna Lieberman expressed concern that the banner was taken down from The Cooper Union after some residents of the local Ukrainian community complained that it "seemed to promote" the Soviet dictator on the 75th anniversary of a famine he imposed. The famine, called the Holodomor, killed millions of Ukrainians. The banner was part of an art...

Just for reference, the ACLU was founded by a Communist on Communist ideals, so it isn't a surprise they are freaking out a private art school to remove a banner displaying an image of Josef Stalin. The New York Civil Liberties Union has demanded that city officials explain why they ordered a private art school to remove a banner displaying an image of Josef Stalin. In a letter Thursday to the Department of Buildings, NYCLU executive director Donna Lieberman expressed concern that the banner was taken down from The Cooper Union after some residents of the local Ukrainian community complained...

Peeping Toms beware. You could soon face harsh punishment for looking up a woman's skirt or spying through holes in bathroom and dressing room walls. Sometimes a look is just a look. Sometimes, it's not. Just ask the women of New York City. "I would feel violated," Queens resident Amy Dannenmueller said. Topacia Petraglia of Queens agreed. "No one wants to be observed when in your natural being walking around," Petraglia said. Added Coleen Lloyd, also of Queens: "It makes you uncomfortable, but people do gross things." "Anyone's trying to look up my skirt, I want it prevented," Erin Downhour...

Judging by the sustained and ill-informed criticism of it in recent months, the New York City Police Department appears to be the victim of its own success. In the nearly six years since the destruction of the World Trade Center, multiple terrorist plots against the city have been thwarted, while conventional crime has been driven down to historic lows. As a result of our own recruitment efforts, the Police Department has never been more ethnically or racially diverse. One-fifth of our recent police recruits are foreign-born American citizens with impressive language skills. And despite the controversial Sean Bell shooting, fatal...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Six New York teen-agers sued Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld on Monday, alleging the U.S. Department of Defense broke the law by keeping an extensive database on potential recruits. The suit in federal court in Manhattan follows a series of allegations last year of misconduct by recruiters, who have experienced difficulty meeting targets because of the war in Iraq. The Pentagon last year acknowledged it had created a database of 12 million Americans, full of personal data such as grades and Social Security numbers, to help find potential military recruits. The Pentagon has defended the practice as...

NEW YORK — A civil liberties group accused police yesterday of lying about the circumstances surrounding the arrests of hundreds of protesters during the Republican National Convention. In a letter to police and prosecutors, the New York Civil Liberties Union demanded a review of cases brought against protesters arrested on Aug. 31, 2004, at demonstrations near the World Trade Center site and Union Square. “We are concerned that false police statements may have tainted hundreds of cases of people arrested at the two largest mass arrests during the convention,” wrote the group’s attorney, Christopher Dunn. City law officials have said...

Last fall, on a gray, pouring-rain morning, Bruce Beyer drove his daughter, Elizabeth, and her friend Jennifer Brown to Hutchinson-Central Technical School. When he picked up Brown, she was decked out in military dress, part of her uniform for the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC) class she was enrolled in at school. Glancing in his rearview mirror, Beyer casually asked her how she liked the JROTC program, one his daughter had opted out of at summer orientation. “I hate it,” Brown said. “So why do you do it?” Beyer asked. “Every freshman was forced to enroll,” she answered, and...

The New York Civil Liberties Union charged a private Catholic school in November with discriminating against an unmarried Catholic school teacher by firing her because she became pregnant. Feminists for Life supports the NYCLU in protecting women from pregnancy discrimination because it pits a woman against her own child by forcing her to choose between her career and her pregnancy, and because it effectively discriminates against female employees by providing a different standard as compared to similarly situated male employees. According to court documents, Michelle McCusker was hired to teach pre-kindergartners at the St. Rose of Lima School in Rockaway...

NEW YORK — The New York Civil Liberties Union sued the city yesterday, challenging restrictions on people's right to photograph public places after an award-winning filmmaker from India was blocked from videotaping near the MetLife building. In its lawsuit, the civil rights group highlighted the plight of Rakesh Sharma, who said he was left feeling ashamed and humiliated when he was detained in May 2005 after police saw him use a hand-held video camera on a public street in midtown Manhattan. Sharma was taping background footage for a documentary examining changes in the lives of ordinary people such as taxi...

A series of recent disclosures about political spying by the federal government was capped by the revelation last week that members of the NYPD have been participating undercover in political demonstrations and perhaps even instigating confrontations between police officers and legitimate protesters. Just as the disclosures about federal abuses have prompted congressional leaders to schedule oversight hearings, the recent disclosures about the NYPD justify similar actions here. It came as no surprise that Police Department officials once again have gone too far when it comes to monitoring political activity. Anyone following the department during Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly's tenure knows...

The New York Civil Liberties Union is in court to stop the Department of Homeland Security from detaining interrogating, fingerprinting and photographing American citizens at the border because they attended an Islamic conference. The NYCLU and the American Civil Liberties Union brought the case to Judge William W. Skretny in Buffalo, N.Y., on behalf of five Muslim American citizens who attended the Reviving the Islamic Spirit conference in Toronto in December 2004. Federal officials argue such conferences have been used to provide cover for pro-terrorist operatives. The men were stopped at the U.S-Canada border, where agents detained, frisked, photographed and...

Random police searches of riders' bags to deter terrorism in the nation's largest subway system do not violate the Constitution and are a minimal intrusion of privacy, a federal judge ruled Friday. "The risk of a terrorist bombing of New York City's subway system is real and substantial," U.S. District Judge Richard M. Berman said in a 41-page ruling tossing out a lawsuit brought by the New York Civil Liberties Union. Citing testimony that up to 50 percent of terrorist acts were directed at transportation systems, he said the need to implement counterterrorism measures was "indisputable, pressing, on-going and evolving."...

NEW YORK - A federal judge Friday upheld the police department's practice of randomly searching subway riders' bags, saying the intrusion on people's privacy is minimal while the threat of a terrorist bombing is "real and substantial." Police tightened security in the nation's largest subway system in July after the deadly terrorist attacks in London's underground. "The risk of a terrorist bombing of New York City's subway system is real and substantial," U.S. District Judge Richard M. Berman said. The New York Civil Liberties Union had challenged the searches, arguing that riders were being subjected to a pointless and unprecedented...

NEW YORK — A civil rights group on Monday asked a judge to stop city police from routinely videotaping political demonstrations as part of efforts to fight terrorism. The New York Civil Liberties Union filed the legal challenge in Manhattan federal court. NYCLU attorney Arthur Eisenberg said the videotaping "has a wide impact on the common citizen exercising fundamental constitutional rights." The surveillance was noted by participants in protests during the 2004 Republican National Convention, especially those who wanted to exercise their First Amendment rights anonymously, Eisenberg said. The city's law office was evaluating the legal papers, special counsel Gail...

Due to a recent crime wave by a New York-based Latino gang, which has declared war on the United States and has persistently targeted civilians, law enforcement agencies began random searches of all persons. Experience shows that the modus operandi of the Latino gang is to sneak weapons into a crowded NYC mall and open fire, causing mass casualties. In response to this information, the police officers are stopping every 5th, 12th, or 20th person entering the mall, being sure not to target or be particularly suspicious of Latinos. Even so, the area’s council has asked police departments to begin...

A solemn handful of plaintiffs surrounded New York Civil Liberties Union head Donna Lieberman last week as she announced the agency's latest lawsuit--this one targeted at new procedures allowing for the random inspection of bags carried onto the subways. This will not come as a surprise--the agency has had an exceptionally busy few years, since 9/11, campaigning against expanding police powers, increased surveillance and other antiterror measures, all of which, the NYCLU and likeminded watchdogs regularly inform us, pose a greater danger than any that might come from the terrorists themselves. How Americans of normal intelligence respond to this reasoning...

Jackson, Ms., September 14, 1964 (AP) — The U.S. Attorney in Mississippi announced today that a cross had been burned outside the Natchez home of Ben and Tillie Smith. "All signs point to the Ku Klux Klan," said federal prosecutor Ross Hencken, noting that the Smiths had been registering Negro voters. Consistent with the federal government's ban on racial profiling, Hencken announced that he was ordering the National Guard to stop every fifth driver on Highway 61 between Natchez and Vicksburg to search for the perpetrators. Were the guard to look only at white people, explained Hencken, it would "give...