Category Archives: Civil Liberties

This has all the markings of a very strange story: Rev. Lennox Yearwood Arrested at Petraeus Hearing.

I hope we get to hear more about what exactly happened; certainly the first, perhaps one-sided, report is disturbing; on the other hand, the video is less clear-cut — after being singled out for some reason and denied admission after waiting in line (could it really be for wearing a button that said “I love the people of Iraq?”) did Rev. Yearwood really lunge for the door saying “I will not be arrested”? And even so, does that justify breaking his leg?

Rev. Yearwood is the same person who recently won a stay or delay in his case against the Air Force which had tried to honorably (not dishonorably) discharge him as a chaplain; according to his supporters, his offense was preaching against the war. And indeed, when he got an opportunity to preach at Andrews Air Force Base, “the message that I preached was 'Who Would Jesus Bomb?'”—not the best way to be popular on the base, I'd imagine.

I spent some time trying to find out if there's a Senate rule about what you can wear to a committee hearing, and whether buttons are prohibited. Couldn't find anything. Links to facts most welcomed.

It Came From Airport Security, the anthology announced about a year ago of fiction based on new security measures at airports, is now available (and is forwardthinkingly licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5).

In a big win for the rule of law, Federal District Judge Marrero issued a 103 page decision today holding National Security Letters unconstitutional despite their being blessed by the reauthorization of the Patriot Act.

Text of the decision in .pdf

Congratulations to the legal team from the ACLU and others who won this big victory — sure to be appealed.

Feds pay $80,000 to couple arrested for wearing Bush protest T-shirts.

It's nice when the Constitution wins one.

A Case So Shielded One Side Is in the Dark (behind Times paywall; archived Copyright violation?)

Mr. Eisenberg is suing the government on behalf of clients who say they were illegally wiretapped by the National Security Agency. Yet he was required to write an appellate brief in a government office, supervised by a Justice Department security officer.

…

“Yesterday, under the auspices and control of my litigation adversaries, at their offices and on their computer, I wrote a brief, of which I was not allowed to keep a copy, responding to arguments which I was not permitted to see, which will be met by a reply which I will not be permitted to see.”

That this doesn't make for justice as we (ought to) know it will, I hope, go without saying.

Privacy News:

Four days after President Bush signed controversial legislation legalizing some warrantless surveillance of Americans, the administration is citing the law in a surprise motion today urging a federal judge to dismisss a lawsuit challenging the NSA spy program. The lawsuit was brought by lawyers defending Guantanamo Bay prisoners. The lawyers and others alleged the threat of surveillance is chilling their First Amendment rights of speech, and their clients' right to legal representation. … Justice Department lawyers are asking (.pdf) U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker to toss the case, citing the new law — which says warrantless surveillance can continue for up to a year so long as one person in the intercepted communications is reasonably believed to be located outside of the United States.

Tell me again why the Speaker allowed this FISA revision to come to a vote so quickly?