US: Reject Proposal to Mark Birth Certificates | Human Rights Watch

Image via WikipediaUS: Reject Proposal to Mark Birth Certificates | Human Rights Watch

State Lawmakers’ Plan Would Discriminate Against Citizens Based on Parents’ Status

January 6, 2011

(New York) - State legislatures in the United States should reject a proposal to mark birth certificates of US citizens on the basis of their parents' immigration status, which would violate the internationally protected right to equal protection, Human Rights Watch said today.

The proposal made on January 5, 2011, by the group State Legislators for Legal Immigration, calls for states to enact laws to make a distinction among children who are US citizens when issuing birth certificates. With approval from the US Congress, states would be able to mark the birth certificates of children born in the US to parents who are not citizens or not entitled to live permanently in the United States differently than the birth certificates of other children who are US citizens.

"International law, as well as US law, requires governments to guarantee equal treatment under the law," said Alison Parker, US program director at Human Right Watch. "This invidious proposal seeks to thwart that cherished right."

Under the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution, every person born in the United States is entitled to US citizenship. The proposal made on January 5 does not attempt to alter the citizenship status of children born in the US of non-citizen parents. It instead proposes legislation that would allow state governments to differentiate these US citizens from other US citizens through markings on state-issued birth certificates.

Although the proposed model statute claims not to confer any particular benefit or penalty on the basis of the different markings, differentiating citizens on the basis of their parents' immigration status would inevitably result in discriminatory treatment, Human Rights Watch said.

"The 14th Amendment not only addressed the evils of slavery but a range of discrimination against minorities in the US," Parker said. "Any proposal that would diminish equal protection under the law would be a major step backward."

Article 26 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), ratified by the United States in 1992, states that, "All persons are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to the equal protection of the law." The Human Rights Committee, the independent expert body that monitors implementation of the ICCPR, has stated that discrimination includes "any distinction" on the basis of national origin or birth that has the purpose of undermining rights, in this case, the right to citizenship.

"Equal protection under law is a cornerstone of US and international law," Parker said. "States should reject this proposal as abhorrent to US values."

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Azadeh Shahshahani: Georgia Must Enact Anti-Profiling Laws

Azadeh Shahshahani: Georgia Must Enact Anti-Profiling Laws

When I testified this month before the Special Joint Committee on Immigration Reform, a committee of 14 Republicans convened to draft legislative proposals for the upcoming legislative session, I reminded them about the continued obligation of Georgia under international human rights law to protect and preserve the human dignity of all people regardless of immigration status.

As documented by the ACLU of Georgia, racial profiling and other human rights violations against immigrants or those perceived to be noncitizens continue in Georgia. In Gwinnett County, many Latinos have been stopped without reasonable suspicion or probable cause by the police in their cars or on the street.

Juan Vasquez, a legal permanent resident who lives in Sugar Hill, reports having been stopped and harassed by police on multiple occasions for no apparent reason. On one occasion, rather than tell Vasquez why he was pulled over, the officers screamed at him for asking questions before releasing him without any citation. Vasquez now avoids certain areas of Sugar Hill where he has come to expect harassment by the police.

Prompt action by the state is necessary to combat racial and ethnic profiling in Gwinnett and Georgia. The Legislature should pass anti-racial profiling legislation to give law enforcement agencies, policymakers and the public the tools necessary to identify and address the problem of racial profiling in the state. Data collection about traffic stops is an important supervisory tool. You can't manage what you don't measure. Annual training for law enforcement regarding racial profiling will also help ensure that stops and arrests are undertaken in a fair manner.

The Georgia Legislature should also carefully consider all the proposed bills in the upcoming session to ensure that they are consistent with the Constitution and our international human rights obligations, as reaffirmed by both Republican and Democratic administrations. In February 2008, the Bush administration told the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination that "United States is in profound agreement with the committee that every state must be vigilant in protecting the rights that noncitizens in its territory enjoy, regardless of their immigration status, as a matter of applicable domestic and international law."

Last month, the U.N. Human Rights Council (HRC) issued a set of recommendations for the U.S. to bring its policies and practices in line with international standards. The recommendations are the result of the first-ever participation by the U.S. in the Universal Periodic Review process, which involves a thorough assessment of a nation's human rights record. State and local laws, such as Arizona's SB 1070, that aim to regulate immigration and lead to racial profiling were examined and decried by the Human Rights Council.

One of the recommendations issued by HRC was for the United States to end racial and ethnic profiling by law enforcement, especially with respect to immigration. Harold Koh, the U.S. State Department legal adviser, stated in response to this recommendation that "we will leave no stone unturned in our effort to eliminate racial profiling in law enforcement."

Georgia legislators should be wary of any measure similar to Arizona's racial profiling law that would encourage law enforcement to stop people on the street based on how they look, rather than based on individualized suspicion or evidence of criminal activity.

Laws that promise to turn the state into "show me your papers" territory would violate the Constitution and human rights commitments and tarnish Georgia's reputation as a state welcoming to new immigrants.

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BBC News - Malaysia urged to stop caning 'epidemic'

BBC News - Malaysia urged to stop caning 'epidemic'

Caning as a form of judicial punishment in Malaysia has reached "epidemic" proportions and should be banned, according to a human rights group.

Blows administered to the body with a long cane are a legal punishment for more than 60 offences in the country.

Amnesty International claims at least 10,000 prisoners and 6,000 refugees are caned there each year.

The government says caning is a legal and effective deterrent from criminal activity.

Malaysia's law minister would not comment on the report but told the BBC that there are no plans to review the law.

Migrant workers

Amnesty says the practice amounts to cruel and inhumane treatment as it leaves both physical and psychological damage, and should be banned.

"Across Malaysia, government officials regularly tear into the flesh of prisoners with rattan canes travelling up to 160km/h. The cane shreds the victim's naked skin, turns the fatty tissue into pulp, and leaves permanent scars that extend all the way to muscle fibres," Amnesty says in a report on the practice.

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ACLU sues city police over 'stop and frisk' | Philadelphia Inquirer | 11/04/2010

ACLU sues city police over 'stop and frisk' | Philadelphia Inquirer | 11/04/2010

Civil rights attorneys filed a federal lawsuit today seeking to have the Philadelphia police department's "stop and frisk" policy declared unconstitutional.

The suit argues that police disproportionately target minorities, often stopping them and frisking them without sufficient grounds.

The suit was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania and the law firm of Kairys, Rudovsky, Messing & Feinberg.

Among the named plaintiffs are an African-American, Georgetown-educated lawyer who the suit says has been stopped four times since 2008 in West Philadelphia "without probable cause or reasonable suspicion," and a Hispanic University of Pennsylvania ethnographer stopped four times this year in neighborhoods around Kensington without ever facing charges.

Another plaintiff is state Rep. Jewell Williams, who was arrested in 2009 near his North Philadelphia home after he witnessed what he described as overly aggressive police tactics and attempted to intercede.

The lawsuit says pedestrian stops have more than doubled since 2005, to 253,333 in 2009. Of those pedestrians stopped, 72 percent were African-American and only 8 percent led to arrests.

"The majority of these arrests were for alleged criminal conduct that was entirely independent from the supposed reason for the stop and/or frisk in the first place," the suit says.

The plaintiffs are seeking class status and rulings to prevent the police from conducting pedestrian stops based on race or national origin.

The suit also asks the court to order more police training, supervision and monitoring to ensure that "stops, frisks, searches and detentions comport with constitutional requirements."

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US judge blocks Mass. Internet obscenity law - The Boston Globe

US judge blocks Mass. Internet obscenity law - The Boston Globe

A federal judge blocked yesterday a new state Internet obscenity law meant to shield children from sexually explicit material, ruling that the statute was written so broadly that it would criminalize legitimate websites and general electronic communication.

The decision was celebrated by civil rights advocates, but it frustrated prosecutors who have encountered difficulty in convicting Internet predators under outdated laws that fail to cover new technologies.

“Due to this preliminary injunction, we are unable to enforce this much needed law,’’ said Plymouth District Attorney Timothy J. Cruz, whose office prosecuted the online predator case that led to yesterday’s ruling.

In that case, a Beverly man was convicted of sending sexually explicit instant messages to a deputy sheriff posing as a 13-year-old girl. But the convictions were overturned in February by the Supreme Judicial Court, which said Massachusetts law did not cover Internet communication and urged the Legislature to update the statute.

After lawmakers hastily passed new language, a coalition of booksellers and website publishers sued, arguing that the new law would hold criminally liable anyone who operates a website with nudity or sexual material, potentially including a vast range of subjects, from art to health information on pregnancy. They said the law failed to distinguish between open websites and obscene material sent knowingly to a child.

In granting a preliminary injunction against the law yesterday, US District Judge Rya W. Zobel said the plaintiffs demonstrated “without question’’ that the law violated the First Amendment by inhibiting free speech, which civil rights advocates called a clear victory.

“This resolves the cloud that was hanging over Internet communication,’’ said John Reinstein, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, one of the plaintiffs in the case. “This lifts a substantial burden of self-censorship on Internet users.’’

Attorney General Martha Coakley’s office, which helped draft the new obscenity law earlier this year, said it was undecided on whether to appeal the judge’s order or change the law. In a statement, Coakley said her office’s goal is “to ensure that our laws keep up with modern technology in order to protect kids from sexual predators on the Internet.’’

The office “will examine whether a legislative change is necessary to ensure that law enforcement has the necessary tools to protect children online,’’ Coakley said.

Through a spokesman, Coakley declined further comment.

In its case before Zobel, the state argued that the language it added to the obscenity law did not need to specify that it applied only to those who intentionally target minors because a previous SJC ruling had made that clear.

“Both sides agreed the statute would otherwise be unconstitutional,’’ Zobel said.’’

The case dates to February, when the state’s highest court ruled that state law banning people from showing pornography to children and banning bookstores from selling sexually explicit books and magazines to children did not cover “electronically transmitted text’’ or “online conversations.

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Wrongly Convicted Man Receives $18.6 Million in Lawsuit Against NYC - BV Black Spin

Wrongly Convicted Man Receives $18.6 Million in Lawsuit Against NYC - BV Black Spin

Alan Newton (pictured above), who spent the last 20 years behind bars for a crime he did not commit, was awarded $18.6 million yesterday by a New York City federal jury.

He was convicted in 1985, according to a New York Post report, for rape but never gave up on proving his innocence. In 1994, he made his first request to test the victim's rape kit, but the New York Police Department couldn't find it.

It wasn't until 11 years later, in 2005, that officials located the evidence. They tested it the following year and it proved Newton never committed the crime.

So 12 of those 20 years were because of shoddy police work by the NYPD.

Newton filed suit in 2007 after years of legal wrangling with the city.

He now works for the City University of New York and says he'll use part of the money to pay for law school to help people in need in the justice system.

A spokeswoman for the city's law department said: "We are disappointed with the verdict and plan to appeal."

I'm not exactly sure what is disappointing. Is she disappointed that they couldn't keep an innocent man imprisoned for the rest of his life?

A 2002 examination by the Associated Press of 110 inmates whose convictions were overturned by DNA tests showed that even when men (or women) are released from prison after being exonerated for a crime they didn't commit, many of them still have problems re-entering society and often there isn't a happy ending.

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OFFICIALS PUSH TO BOLSTER LAW ON WIRETAPPING - NYTimes.com

OFFICIALS PUSH TO BOLSTER LAW ON WIRETAPPING - NYTimes.com

WASHINGTON — Law enforcement and counterterrorism officials, citing lapses in compliance with surveillance orders, are pushing to overhaul a federal law that requires phone and broadband carriers to ensure that their networks can be wiretapped, federal officials say.

The officials say tougher legislation is needed because some telecommunications companies in recent years have begun new services and made system upgrades that create technical obstacles to surveillance. They want to increase legal incentives and penalties aimed at pushing carriers like Verizon, AT&T, and Comcast to ensure that any network changes will not disrupt their ability to conduct wiretaps.

An Obama administration task force that includes officials from the Justice and Commerce Departments, the F.B.I. and other agencies recently began working on draft legislation to strengthen and expand a 1994 law requiring carriers to make sure their systems can be wiretapped. There is not yet agreement over the details, according to officials familiar with the deliberations, but they said the administration intends to submit a package to Congress next year.

To bolster their case, security agencies are citing two previously undisclosed episodes in which major carriers were stymied for weeks or even months when they tried to comply with court-approved wiretap orders in criminal or terrorism investigations, the officials said.

Albert Gidari Jr., a lawyer who represents telecommunications firms, said corporations were likely to object to increased government intervention in the design or launch of services. Such a change, he said, could have major repercussions for industry innovation, costs and competitiveness.

“The government’s answer is ‘don’t deploy the new services — wait until the government catches up,’ ” Mr. Gidari said. “But that’s not how it works. Too many services develop too quickly, and there are just too many players in this now.”

Under the 1994 law, the Communications Assistance to Law Enforcement Act, telephone and broadband companies are supposed to design their services so that they can begin conducting surveillance of a target immediately after being presented with a court order.

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Indonesia writes off book-banning law - UPI.com

Indonesia writes off book-banning law - UPI.com

JAKARTA, Oct. 15 (UPI) -- Indonesia turned a page by ripping up a 50-year-old law that allowed the government indiscriminately to ban books it considered dangerous or too controversial.

Human rights groups said freedom of speech to a leap forward when Indonesia's constitutional court struck down the book banning law that has been in place since the days of former President Suharto in the 1960s.

Successive governments have used it to clamp down on any form of public dissent, to bolster public order and to improve sensitive national security situations.

Suharto was well known for cracking down on dissent during his 32-year rule up to 1998. But since then, there has been a gradual widening of freedom expression for the nation's nearly 240 million people, the vast majority being Muslim.

Even so, in the past six years, the law was used to ban 22 books. Most have dealt with the 1965 coup attempt but one dealt with the mass killing of suspected communists in 1965 and 1966, another on the insurgency and free-Papua movement in Papua and two books were on religion.

The legal challenge to the law was mounted by several authors and publishers who argued that the government's banning powers curtailed freedom of expression.

In the landmark verdict, the Constitutional Court took away the powers of the Attorney General's Office to unilaterally ban books, saying such power should rest with a judicial court.

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Court Issues Decision On Civil Rights Coalition Lawsuit Against Arizona Racial Profiling Law | American Civil Liberties Union

Court Issues Decision On Civil Rights Coalition Lawsuit Against Arizona Racial Profiling Law | American Civil Liberties Union

PHOENIX, AZ – Plaintiffs in Friendly House et. al. v. Whiting et al. won an important legal victory in their constitutional challenge to SB 1070, Arizona’s racial profiling law. Among other things, the court found that the plaintiffs’ claim that “Racial discrimination was a motivating factor for [S.B.] 1070’s enactment” establishes a valid constitutional challenge to the law. This decision was filed in response to the defendants’ motions to dismiss the case and the plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction.

Today’s order is an important first step in challenging this unconstitutional law. The civil rights coalition will continue its legal fight until all of SB 1070 is taken off the books.

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Judge Advances Civil Rights Groups’ SB 1070 Lawsuit - COLORLINES

Judge Advances Civil Rights Groups’ SB 1070 Lawsuit - COLORLINES

On Friday a federal judge issued a ruling allowing a lawsuit against SB 1070 brought by a coalition of civil rights groups to move forward. U.S. District Court Judge Susan Bolton partially struck down motions from Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu to have the case dismissed. (Scroll down for a breakdown of the lawsuits against SB 1070.)

Bolton dismissed complaints from plaintiffs that said that SB 1070 would restrict immigrants’ speech and travel. The groups had argued that SB 1070 would make people afraid to speak languages besides English, and that is why it had to be struck down. Bolton rejected that complaint because she said the civil rights coalition was not the correct party to be bringing such claims. Nevertheless, civil rights groups are celebrating the broader ruling.

“Today’s order is an important first step in challenging this unconstitutional law,” the coalition said in a joint statement Friday. “The civil rights coalition will continue its legal fight until all of SB 1070 is taken off the books.”

The ACLU, National Immigration Law Center, Mexican American Legal Defense Fund, Asian Pacific American Legal Center, and NAACP filed their case against Arizona in May, charging that the state violated the Constitution by passing its own immigration law. The coalition of civil rights groups have argued that only the federal government has the right to create and enforce immigration policy.

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ACLU Video: Would You Ask This Man for His Papers? | Immigrant Rights | Change.org

ACLU Video: Would You Ask This Man for His Papers? | Immigrant Rights | Change.org

Barring any last-minute court action from one of the seven lawsuits levied against Arizona's SB 1070, the draconian anti-immigrant law that civil rights groups and law enforcement alike agree will promote racial profiling is scheduled to go into effect this Thursday.

Well, the American Civil Liberties Union has something to say about that. What they want to know is: Would you ask this man for his papers?

Brown skin. Spanish-speaking. Doing lawn work. Nothing says undocumented immigrant quite like those three characteristics, am I right? Watch the video.

The kicker is that the "suspicious" hombre in question is Roberto Reveles, a U.S. citizen and the president of the Board of Directors the ACLU of Arizona.

I can only hope that, if SB 1070 goes into effect, a prominent person like Reveles gets stopped and harassed for his papers. Have you seen the West Wing episode where another Roberto, Supreme Court nominee Roberto Mendoza, gets wrongfully arrested for drunk driving based on the color of his skin? He had to back down and decline to sue the police department in the interest of the "greater good," so he could focus on making it through the confirmation process. That wouldn't be necessary in this case; if Reveles were detained, the ACLU would throw another lawsuit at Arizona so fast it'll make nativist heads spin.

Unfortunately, the many Arizona residents who are vulnerable to harassment and racial profiling under this law, citizen or otherwise, won't necessarily have the ability to stand up against violations of their rights. The ACLU, though, does have another cheeky suggestion for the everyday person on an Arizona street.

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Conservative Group Sues DOJ for Info on Its Decision to Sue Arizona « The Washington Independent

Conservative Group Sues DOJ for Info on Its Decision to Sue Arizona « The Washington Independent

Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group, announced today that is has filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the Department of Justice to try to get at the government’s reason for suing Arizona over its SB 1070 immigration law. The law’s most controversial provisions, including instructing local law enforcement officers to check immigration status while enforcing other laws, were blocked by a federal judge July 28. Before the case appears before an appeals court in November, Judicial Watch hopes to obtain “any and all communications between the Department of Justice and any third parties.”

Translation: They want to know whether the ACLU and other civil rights organizations that spoke out against the law influenced the DOJ’s decision to file a lawsuit July 6. The DOJ lawsuit was one of seven legal challenges to SB 1070, including a suit filed May 17 by the ACLU and a coalition of civil rights groups.

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Supreme Court Term Offers Hot Issues and Future Hints - NYTimes.com

Image via WikipediaSupreme Court Term Offers Hot Issues and Future Hints - NYTimes.com

WASHINGTON — The new Supreme Court term, which begins Monday, includes cases on some of the most contested issues of the day, including protests at military funerals, illegal immigration, support for religious schools, violent video games, DNA evidence and prosecutorial misconduct.

The term’s arguments and decisions will be scrutinized for insights into the thinking of the court’s newest member, Justice Elena Kagan, and for hints about how the court will rule when even more highly charged cases reach it, probably in a year or two, on federal health care legislation, same-sex marriage, the treatment of gay members of the armed services and the recent Arizona law giving the police there greater authority to check the immigration status of people they stop.

The marquee case on the docket so far is a suit brought by the father of a fallen Marine against a small Kansas church whose members protested at his son’s funeral. The case, to be argued Wednesday, is freighted with rage on both sides.

“Since when did any of our military die so that a group of people could target their families and harass them?” asked the Marine’s father, Albert Snyder, who won an $11 million jury verdict against the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan., saying the church had caused him emotional distress.

An appeals court threw out the award on First Amendment grounds, saying the signs carried by the protesters — featuring messages like “God Hates Fags” — were not directed at the Marine, Lance Cpl. Matthew A. Snyder, or meant to convey factual assertions about him, but were instead protected commentary on matters of public concern.

Mr. Snyder said that ruling was perilous. “If the law can’t help us and the courts won’t do something,” he said, “someone is going to take this into his own hands.”

Margie J. Phelps, a daughter of the pastor of the church, will argue the case in the Supreme Court. She agrees that the case arrives at the Supreme Court at a volatile moment.

“We are a little church in the middle of the country that will not back down from the mob rule mentality that has taken over this country,” she said. “We are bringing the words of life and faith to a nation threatened with destruction.”

Rodney A. Smolla, the president of Furman University in Greenville, S.C., and an authority on the First Amendment, said the court’s decision to hear the case, Snyder v. Phelps, No. 09-751, indicates that “some number of justices would at least entertain the idea that special circumstances such as grief at funerals may warrant an exception to a robust conception of free speech in the general marketplace.”

Mr. Smolla added that aspects of the case were reminiscent of the controversy over the proposed Islamic center near ground zero in New York. While the law may treat the site of a terrorist attack and a military funeral differently, he said, “the cultural feeling is that each is close to a sacred space.”

The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and 21 news organizations, including The New York Times Company, filed a brief supporting the Kansas church. “To silence a fringe messenger because of the distastefulness of the message,” the brief said, “is antithetical to the First Amendment’s most basic precepts.”

In a second major First Amendment case, Schwarzenegger v. Entertainment Merchants Association, No. 08-1448, the court will decide whether states may restrict the sale of violent video games to minors. The lower courts in the case and many courts considering similar questions have uniformly said no.

Indeed, the Supreme Court has never extended to violent materials the principles that allow the regulation of sexual materials. But the justices agreed to hear the video games case in April, just days after striking down a federal law making it a crime to sell dogfight videos and other depictions of animal cruelty.

The court’s business docket will be busy, too. After a one-year hiatus, the court will resume its scrutiny of an issue that often divides conservatives: who should prevail in tensions between federal and state efforts to regulate matters like vaccines, seat belts and arbitration?

“This is the issue that separates business conservatives and states’ rights conservatives,” said Catherine M. Sharkey, a law professor at New York University.

Business groups generally say there should be a national standard rather than a patchwork of state and local laws. But conservatives committed to federalism say that states have an independent role in regulating products and practices that could harm their residents.

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Intellectual property rights protection improving in China - People's Daily Online

Intellectual property rights protection improving in China - People's Daily Online

China's intellectual property rights protection system is improving thanks to a cooperative project between China and the European Union, senior officials said.

At an event at the Belgium-EU Pavilion in the Expo Garden on Saturday, Benot Battistelli, president of the European Patent Office (EPO), said China has now become one of the world's most important countries in filing for patents among non-EPO entities.

Statistics from the EPO show that Chinese companies have increased their share of European patent applications filed with the EPO from 163 in 2000 to 1,621 in 2009.

The progress is partly due to cooperation over intellectual property rights between the State Intellectual Property Office of China (SIPO) and the EPO, Battistelli said.

"Cooperation between the EPO and the SIPO has been pivotal in the creation of a modern system of intellectual property rights protection in China and has also paved the way for larger intellectual property rights projects in the context of the EU-China cooperative programs," Battistelli said.

The project, coded IPR2, focuses on strengthening the enforcement of intellectual property rights by targeting the reliability, efficiency and accessibility of the intellectual property protection system in China.

As China becomes more reliant on innovation and less on production, the importance of intellectual property rights will continue to rise. The IPR2 project will enable China to set up and manage a modern and efficient system for the legal protection of technical inventions, he said.

The joint work plan for 2011 was announced at the pavilion on Saturday to commemorate 25 years of cooperation.

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Malaysia 1st women Islamic judges get equal powers - The China Post

Malaysia 1st women Islamic judges get equal powers - The China Post

Updated Wednesday, August 11, 2010 3:20 pm TWN, By Julia Zappei, AP

Malaysia 1st women Islamic judges get equal powers

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia -- Malaysia's first women Islamic court judges are starting to hear cases this month after Shariah legal authorities empowered them with the same authority as their male colleagues, an official said Wednesday.

The two female judges were appointed in May to combat perceptions that Islamic courts unfairly favor men. But one senior judge said Shariah law provisions in this Muslim-majority country barred them from presiding over cases involving divorce and matters involving morality crimes, such as drinking and gambling.

However, a panel of top Malaysian Islamic judges subsequently decided the two women would have the same jurisdiction as male judges "in light of Shariah principles" to uphold justice, said Mohamad Na'im Mokhtar, an official in Malaysia's government-run department for the Islamic judiciary.

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Judge 'inundated' with death threats after Arizona ruling :: CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: Nation

Judge 'inundated' with death threats after Arizona ruling :: CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: Nation

U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton received hundreds of threats at her court offices within hours of her ruling last week on Arizona's tough and controversial immigration law.

"She has been inundated," said U.S. Marshal David Gonzales, indicating his agents are taking some seriously. "About 99.9 percent of the inappropriate comments are people venting. They are exercising their First Amendment rights, and a lot of it is perverted. But it's that 0.1 percent that goes over the line that we are taking extra seriously."

Bolton put on hold key provisions, including the heart of the statute that would give police the authority to check a suspect's immigration status during routine stops if there was reasonable suspicion that the suspect was in the country illegally. Her decision also blocks sections of the law that would require documented immigrants to carry their registration papers.

She agreed with the Obama administration that the Arizona law was unconstitutional because legal immigrants and U.S. citizens "will necessarily be swept up" by it.

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White House proposal would ease FBI access to records of Internet activity

White House proposal would ease FBI access to records of Internet activity

The Obama administration is seeking to make it easier for the FBI to compel companies to turn over records of an individual's Internet activity without a court order if agents deem the information relevant to a terrorism or intelligence investigation.

The administration wants to add just four words -- "electronic communication transactional records" -- to a list of items that the law says the FBI may demand without a judge's approval. Government lawyers say this category of information includes the addresses to which an Internet user sends e-mail; the times and dates e-mail was sent and received; and possibly a user's browser history. It does not include, the lawyers hasten to point out, the "content" of e-mail or other Internet communication.

But what officials portray as a technical clarification designed to remedy a legal ambiguity strikes industry lawyers and privacy advocates as an expansion of the power the government wields through so-called national security letters. These missives, which can be issued by an FBI field office on its own authority, require the recipient to provide the requested information and to keep the request secret. They are the mechanism the government would use to obtain the electronic records.

Stewart A. Baker, a former senior Bush administration Homeland Security official, said the proposed change would broaden the bureau's authority. "It'll be faster and easier to get the data," said Baker, who practices national security and surveillance law. "And for some Internet providers, it'll mean giving a lot more information to the FBI in response to an NSL."

Many Internet service providers have resisted the government's demands to turn over electronic records, arguing that surveillance law as written does not allow them to do so, industry lawyers say. One senior administration government official, who would discuss the proposed change only on condition of anonymity, countered that "most" Internet or e-mail providers do turn over such data.

To critics, the move is another example of an administration retreating from campaign pledges to enhance civil liberties in relation to national security. The proposal is "incredibly bold, given the amount of electronic data the government is already getting," said Michelle Richardson, American Civil Liberties Union legislative counsel.

The critics say its effect would be to greatly expand the amount and type of personal data the government can obtain without a court order. "You're bringing a big category of data -- records reflecting who someone is communicating with in the digital world, Web browsing history and potentially location information -- outside of judicial review," said Michael Sussmann, a Justice Department lawyer under President Bill Clinton who now represents Internet and other firms.

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Secret Jails Used To Enforce China's 'Hidden Rules' : NPR

Secret Jails Used To Enforce China's 'Hidden Rules' : NPR

If you consider that as recently as a generation ago, China did not have any trial lawyers or a criminal law, the country has come a long way in establishing a legal system.

But there are many instances in which the laws on the books don't have much effect, and society runs according to a completely different set of unwritten rules. Some Chinese call these "hidden rules."

An example of how these hidden rules work can be found just a couple minutes' walk from one of Beijing's busiest downtown intersections.

There sits a small hotel run by the government of South China's Guangxi province. Provincial officials occasionally use the hotel to secretly detain people who come to the capital to complain about local government abuses. They are kept under a sort of house arrest until they can be shipped home.

China has denied the existence of "black jails" to the United Nations' human rights commission, but almost anyone petitioning the government can show you one.

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U.S. Senate passes 'libel tourism' bill - Blog - Committee to Protect Journalists

U.S. Senate passes 'libel tourism' bill - Blog - Committee to Protect Journalists

This week, the U.S. Senate unanimously passed a bill shielding journalists and publishers from “libel tourism.” The vote on Monday slipped past the Washington press corps largely unnoticed. Maybe it was the title that strove chunkily for a memorable acronym: the Securing the Protection of our Enduring and Established Constitutional Heritage (SPEECH) Act. Journalists and press freedom defenders outside the United States did, however, pay attention to the legislation, which they hope will spur libel law reform in their countries.

The bill, which is expected to sail through the House of Representatives and become law soon, protects U.S. journalists and writers from libel suits filed by repressive governments or wealthy tycoons in foreign jurisdictions such as England, where the law is heavily skewed in favor of the plaintiff. I wrote about the practice, known as libel tourism, last year.

Ehrenfeld's book sparked a libel tourism action.

The Senate vote comes after a long campaign by Israeli-American author Rachel Ehrenfeld who found herself slapped with a multi-million-dollar defamation suit by a Saudi billionaire she accused of funding terrorist groups. No problem, you’d think, if the suit was filed in a U.S. court, where the Saudi financier would have to prove Ehrenfeld’s material was false. But this action was brought in London, the libel tourism capital of the world, where the court would demand that Ehrenfeld prove her accusations were true.

Under the new U.S. law any such libel tourism judgment will be unenforceable in the United States. “This will make a difference in how other countries, people in other countries will look into suing Americans,” Ehrenfeld told CPJ. “It’s a victory for everybody who writes in America.”

It’s also a weapon for libel reform advocates overseas.

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