Category Archives: Civil Liberties

It seems that the ACLU case with Studs Terkel as a lead plaintiff has been dismissed for some combination of lack of standing and national security grounds:

JURIST – Paper Chase: Illinois lawsuit over NSA phone records turnover dismissed: A federal judge in Chicago on Tuesday dismissed [ACLU press release] a lawsuit filed by the ACLU of Illinois [advocacy website] on behalf of state residents against AT&T [corporate website] for allegedly turning over phone records to the National Security Agency (NSA) [official website] as part of its domestic surveillance program [JURIST news archive]. US District Judge Matthew Kennelly [official profile] noted that the plaintiffs, including author Studs Terkel [JURIST report], lacked standing to bring the complaint since they had no evidence that their records were given to the NSA. Kennelly based his ruling on preventing the federal government’s intelligence procedures from being revealed to terrorists.

Don’t confuse this with the superficially similar case against the NSA brought by the EFF, which survived its first challenge and is still pending.

A veteran arrested for having a cup of coffee in a VA facility while wearing a “Veterans For Peace” T-shirt asks, Has This Country Gone Completely Insane? (via Ann Bartow)

Supreme Court Rejects Guantanamo Tribunals

Justices rule the Bush administration overstepped its authority in creating military war crimes trials for detainees as part of its anti-terror policies.
–Associated Press 10:09 a.m. ET

I have a lot of meetings today, so it may be a while before I can write about the decision. This is good – it remains to be seen how good….

I’m in partial agreement with Eric Muller’s Japanese Internment Gets A New Breath of Life in the Eastern District of New York.

Turkmen v. Ashcroft (EDNY, per John Gleeson) is an ugly decision, ratifying ugly conduct (but not ratifying the claims as to cruel conditions of confinement nor as to violations of the right of free speech while confined). I do not think that the court is right that if the plaintiffs could prove that the government singled them out on grounds of religion, race or ancestry and chose to hold them longer than necessary before deporting them that this can never state a legal claim for relief. It will be appealed.

But here’s the caveat: It’s important to note that the decision applies only to admittedly illegal immigrants (“plaintiffs concede that they were lawfully arrested for violating the terms of their admission to the United States”). I think that significantly limits the ill of this ruling, although it doesn’t excuse it. It doesn’t actually justify anything close to the Japanese internment camps, which included many US citizens, legal residents, and others who were in the country legally.

But Eric knows much more about this than I do, so perhaps he’ll let me know what I’m missing…

Update: Eric explains.