02-21-2000 ACLU Newsfeed -- ACLU News Direct to YOU! ---------------------------------------------------------------- IN THE ACLU NEWSROOM **The Latest News Can Always Be Found At:** http://www.aclu.org/news/pressind.html * Although Medical Privacy Regulations an Important First Step, ACLU Also Criticizes Loopholes * ACLU Announces Support for New Effort To Strengthen Access to Illinois Records * Chicago City Council Adopts New Gang Loitering Ordinance * ACLU Calls on House Panel To Approve Traffic Stops Bill * ACLU Calls on Los Angeles To Fund Review of Scandal-Plagued Police Department * Federal Appeals Court to Consider Whether Government Can Detain Undeportable Immigrants for Life * ACLU Challenges San Quentin's Secret Execution Procedures * Other Recent ACLU Press Releases ----------------------------------------------------------------- Although Medical Privacy Regulations an Important First Step, ACLU Also Criticizes Loopholes FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Thursday, February 17, 2000 Contact: DC Media Relations Office [EMAIL PROTECTED] WASHINGTON -- The Clinton Administration's proposed medical privacy regulations include several loopholes that threaten the Administration's laudable premise that medical information is private and may not be disclosed to third parties without prior consent, the American Civil Liberties Union said today. "The Administration's proposed regulations are an important first step toward comprehensive federal privacy protections," said Ronald Weich, an ACLU Legislative Consultant. "But there are so many loopholes to the Administration's overall rule that medical records are private that the exceptions threaten to become the rule." While the proposed regulations do a good job of shielding medical information from disclosure for commercial reasons, the ACLU said that they provide a series of exceptions for government access to data, including for law enforcement agencies and public health agencies. "For many patients," the ACLU said, "the fear of government access to private medical information is as chilling as the fear of commercial access. In fact, many Americans regard the government as more of a threat to liberty than the private sector." The ACLU took particularly harsh aim at the Administration's plans to allow law enforcement agencies virtually unlimited access to medical records. This loophole is so large, the ACLU said, that it "permits computerized medical records to become a vast centralized police database." "Medical records of ordinary law-abiding Americans must not be treated like mug shots, fingerprints or other current databases compiled from convicted criminals," the ACLU said. The ACLU's other primary concerns with the regulations include the broad privacy exceptions for medical information collected by the government itself and what the ACLU called a significant omission to the Administration's proposal: there is no requirement that a doctor obtain a patient's authorization before using the patient's medical records for treatment, payment or health care operations. "The ACLU believes that patients own their medical records," the ACLU said. "It follows that those records cannot be used for any purpose without the patient's consent." The ACLU's formal comments came on the last day of the comments period. In addition to filing its own suggested changes, the ACLU said that more than 11,000 people had visited its special medical records web site, filing approximately 10,000 comments with the Administration. The ACLU's comments can be found at: http://www.aclu.org/congress/l021700a.html ----------------------------------------------------------------- ACLU Announces Support for New Effort To Strengthen Access to Illinois Records FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Wednesday, February 16, 2000 CHICAGO -- Seeking to assure that all persons in Illinois have access to the public documents and records to which they are entitled, the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois today announced its full support for House Bill 4341. The measure, sponsored by House Majority Leader Barbara Flynn Currie (D - Chicago), enhances the ability of the average person anywhere in the state to enforce requirements of Illinois' Freedom of Information Act and levies a penalty on those governmental agencies and individuals that purposefully violate the law. "This is an important step toward strengthening accountability from governmental agencies at all levels and in all communities," said Edwin C. Yohnka, spokesperson for the ACLU of Illinois. "HB4341 empowers individuals to fight for their rights, to seek redress in courts and to hold government officials responsible for their actions." A 1999 study directed by the Associated Press and fourteen Illinois daily newspapers revealed a poor record of compliance with requirements of the existing FOIA statute. Across the state, less than one-third of the "tests" performed by reporters posing as average citizens resulted in FOIA requirements being followed. In some instances, employees in governmental offices displayed a shocking lack of knowledge or interest in FOIA requirements. In one disturbing incident, a county law enforcement official shredded a copy of the FOIA law in front of the reporter presenting a request, angrily declaring that he did not have to follow any such law. The vast majority of other states in the nation makes it easier than the Illinois' statute for individuals to collect attorneys' fees if they successfully challenge a denial of a FOIA request, with only one state setting out similar barriers as Illinois. Currently, there is no fine or penalty levied against a governmental agency or governmental official for violation of the Illinois' FOIA statute. Thirteen states provide for a criminal penalty for violations of open government laws, measures similar to Illinois' FOIA. Rep. Currie's legislation places Illinois more in line with the mainstream of state statutes on this issue. It enables individuals to seek and recover legal fees when they are unfairly and unnecessarily denied access to public documents and records. This will, the ACLU said, greatly assist in the process of seeking and securing legal assistance - since a lawyer can expect to be paid a fee and recover litigation costs if an appeal is successful. Without such a provision, few attorneys would take on such cases. The knowledge that legal fees could be recovered also should raise awareness about the importance of adhering to FOIA requirements in government agencies all across the state. The second key component of the legislation is a penalty provision, making a purposeful violation of the Act by a government official a petty offense, one punishable with a fine of up to $1,000. "This measure will finally put teeth in the FOIA law," Yohnka said. "It will allow the public to get all of the information to which they are entitled, which allows them to participate fully in the various public policy debates that take place at all levels of government, state and local. This is the ultimate good government measure and should be supported by each and every member of the legislature." Representative Currie's effort to strengthen FOIA also is supported by the Illinois Press Association. The ACLU of Illinois has been pursuing a significant FOIA enforcement case in state court. The matter, Chicago Alliance for Neighborhood Safety v. Chicago Police Department, seeks to gain basic information from the City of Chicago's Police Department about community policing activities. The City has consistently denied the community group access to key materials about the community policing program, even while sharing the information with academic researchers previously disposed to be supportive of the program. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Chicago City Council Adopts New Gang Loitering Ordinance Statement of Harvey Grossman, Legal Director American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Wednesday, February 16, 2000 CHICAGO -- It is disappointing and disheartening that a majority of the City Council today voted to reinstate the discredited gang loitering ordinance, an approach that failed both in the courts and on the streets. Not only was the previous gang loitering ordinance found to be unconstitutional by the Illinois Appellate Court, the Illinois Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court, but several different evaluations of Chicago crime statistics show the previous ordinance's ineffectiveness as a law enforcement tool. Every neighborhood in Chicago deserves -- and should demand -- safety and security. To be effective, however, law enforcement's role in achieving safe neighborhoods must be focused. It must be defined by strategies designed to secure the arrest and conviction of persons engaged in serious, criminal activities. Loitering laws are a poor substitute for the comprehensive strategies that have proven effective in other cities. The new ordinance will not address or abate the prevalence of crime in the City's neighborhoods. Instead, enforcement of this ordinance adopted today will encourage the type of wholesale "street sweeps" used to enforce the previous law. This insures that thousands of innocent persons of color will be arrested for no good reason. The ACLU's news release about the previous Supreme Court decision can be found at: http://www.aclu.org/news/1999/n061099a.html ----------------------------------------------------------------- ACLU Calls on House Panel To Approve Traffic Stops Bill FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Tuesday, February 15, 2000 Contact: DC Media Relations Office [EMAIL PROTECTED] WASHINGTON -- The American Civil Liberties Union today urged the House Judiciary Committee to approve legislation that would begin to address the national epidemic of racially motivated traffic stops. The Committee is scheduled to vote today on the "Traffic Stops Statistics Act" introduced by Rep. John Conyers, D-MI. The legislation would encourage police departments to keep detailed records of traffic stops, including the race and ethnicity of the person stopped. "This bill should no longer be considered controversial as dozens of police agencies across the country have voluntarily agreed to collect traffic stops data," said Rachel King, an ACLU Legislative Counsel. "Congress must catch up to the 81 percent of the American public who told a recent Gallup poll that police should not use racial profiling." Under the proposed bill, the Justice Department would be charged with collecting the data kept by police departments and determining the full scope of this problem nationwide. ACLU offices around the country have dealt with complaints from African American men who have been stopped by the police for no other reason than the alleged traffic offense derisively referred to as "Driving While Black." In Maryland, for example, the ACLU is engaged in a long-running fight with the State Police Department over traffic stops on I-95. A study of police stops on one strip of this major interstate found that 73 percent of the cars stopped and searched were driven by African-Americans while they made up approximately 15 percent of those violating traffic laws. "While anecdotal evidence abounds, there has been no systematic effort to track this trend from a federal level," said Laura W. Murphy, Director of the ACLU's Washington National Office. "We're optimistic that if Congress approves this modest bill, the result will be a serious documentation of the pattern of discrimination on our nation's roadways. With this evidence," Murphy concluded, "federal, state and local officials will be forced to take a hard look at their practices, and it will hopefully lead communities to address this problem of discrimination." The ACLU has a special web-based collection on racial profiling at: http://www.aclu.org/profiling ----------------------------------------------------------------- ACLU Calls on Los Angeles To Fund Review of Scandal-Plagued Police Department Announces Launch of Regional Advertisement FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Tuesday, February 15, 2000 LOS ANGELES -- Saying that a vote to increase resources to an existing commission is insufficient, the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California today called on Mayor Riordan to appoint an independent, blue-ribbon civilian commission to thoroughly review the operations and policies of the LAPD in the wake of the growing scandal rocking the department. Also today, the ACLU of Southern California announced a regional newspaper ad campaign calling upon Mayor Riordan to take action and bring accountability to the LAPD. The full-page ad will appear in the Wednesday, February 16, 2000 western region edition of the New York Times, as well as other local newspapers. The ad decries Riordan's inaction in the face of revelations of systemic corruption within the LAPD, and calls for Riordan to appoint an independent commission charged with investigating the scandal and overseeing the following reforms: -- The complete overhaul of the LAPD complaint process, which currently does more to discourage civilians from reporting officer misconduct than to keep police misconduct in check. -- The creation of a special prosecutor's office to investigate police corruption independently, with the power to subpoena and prosecute corrupt officers to the full extent of the law. "We are all familiar with Mayor Riordan's crusade for accountability, but as this most recent scandal clearly shows, there will never be true accountability within the LAPD so long as civilians are routinely prevented from bringing police abuse to light and to justice," says Ramona Ripston, executive director of the ACLU of Southern California. "It is past time for the Mayor to stop defending the status quo and to implement meaningful civilian review of the LAPD, once and for all." Commenting on a City Council vote today to increase resources to the present Police Commission, Ripston said that the action will not bring about necessary reform. "The corruption and brutality that have surfaced in the last six months have been festering for years," she said. "The present Commission failed in its oversight function, despite years of outcry from community members who have been trying to bring this problem to the public's attention. "In addition to full and broad subpoena power and an investigative staff independent of the police department, the new, blue-ribbon commission must be given a mandate to look beyond the confines of the Rampart CRASH unit," Ripston continued. "The systemic problems will not be uncovered by the police policing itself, and they have not been uncovered by the present Police Commission. We believe that for true reform to be properly implemented, the new commission must continue its work after it makes its policy recommendations. One of the failings of the Christopher Commission was the lack of follow-through; many of the meaningful reforms suggested were never implemented." A full-color reproduction of the advertisement can be found at: http://www.aclu-sc.org/newsreleases/pressconf/000215nytimes.jpg ----------------------------------------------------------------- Federal Appeals Court to Consider Whether Government Can Detain Undeportable Immigrants for Life FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Monday, February 14, 2000 SEATTLE -- In a case being closely watched around the nation, a federal appeals court will today consider whether the government can indefinitely detain thousands of immigrants -- many for as long as the rest of their lives. "This case raises important questions about fundamental fairness in America," said Judy Rabinovitz, Senior Staff Counsel of the American Civil Liberties Union's Immigrants Rights Project, which has coordinated efforts around the country to overturn indefinite detention. "Even the government concedes that if these individuals were citizens they could not be detained." Today's oral arguments before a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals arises from an important lower court decision that found that the Immigration and Naturalization Service is violating the constitutional rights of five immigrants by imprisoning them indefinitely while it seeks to have them deported. Each of the five immigrants in the case here are longtime permanent residents with family and other close ties in the United States. Each of them has run afoul of the criminal justice system and have therefore been ordered deported by the INS -- even though they have served their (often minimal) criminal sentences. The twist for the five immigrants in today's case -- and thousands of others like them around the United States -- is that their native countries have refused to allow them back. Countries like Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam and Cuba either do not have diplomatic relations with the United States or for other reasons refuse to accept their repatriated citizens. Under harsh anti-immigrant legislation adopted by Congress and signed into law by President Clinton in 1996, the INS has argued that it is permitted to detain -- often for far longer than their original criminal sentence -- such immigrants. The ACLU and other immigrants' rights advocates strongly disagree, arguing that the 1996 law does not, in fact, give the INS such powers. "Even if Congress had permitted the INS to indefinitely detain deportable immigrants," said Jayashri Srikantiah, an attorney with the ACLU's Immigrants Rights Project, "the practice must be overturned as an unconstitutional denial of due process under the law." The five immigrants challenging the INS policies in Seattle are represented by Jay Stansell and Jennifer Wellman of the Federal Public Defenders Office. Dozens of organizations filed friend-of-the-court briefs in the case, arguing that the five should be released from their indefinite detention and that the law should be overturned as unconstitutional. ----------------------------------------------------------------- ACLU Challenges San Quentin's Secret Execution Procedures FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Monday, February 14, 2000 SAN FRANCISCO -- The American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California goes to federal court today to argue that journalists and public witnesses have a First Amendment right to witness executions in their entirety and that there is no evidence that media presence jeopardizes prison security or the safety of prison personnel. The case, California First Amendment Coalition v. Calderon, is being argued today before U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn Walker. The trial begins only weeks before California's next execution, now scheduled for March 15. "It is crucial for public witnesses to see this most irrevocable of governmental acts in its entirety, without the mediation of prison PR people," said Peter Sussman, former president of the Society for Professional Journalists, Northern California Chapter, which is a plaintiff in the case. "It's not a role anyone can relish, but it's essential if the citizens of this state are to be kept informed about the awesome powers exercised in their name," Sussman added. The Society for Professional Journalists is a non-profit association of 250 members, including print reporters and writers, in the northern California area. The ACLU originally filed the lawsuit on April 9, 1996 after William Bonin became the first person in California to be executed by lethal injection. Reporters and other witnesses to Bonin's execution were prevented by San Quentin prison officials from observing his entry into the chamber and how prison officials strapped him to the gurney and attached the execution apparatus. Unable to offer first-hand accounts of the entire process, including the difficulties prison officials admitted they encountered in inserting intravenous tubes, the journalists could not thoroughly inform the public on the execution. As a result, the ACLU says, the public had to rely solely on prison officials for information about how the death penalty is being implemented by this new method of execution. The courts had at first agreed. On May 1, 1996, the U.S. District Court issued a preliminary injunction enjoining prison officials from restricting witness observation of executions. Ten months later, Judge Walker issued his ruling that public witnesses -- including the media -- have a constitutionally protected right to observe executions and that there was no evidence that media presence jeopardizes prison security or the safety of prison personnel. But the Department of Corrections appealed and, in 1998, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed Judge Walker's ruling. While not denying the existence of a First Amendment right, the Court of Appeals remanded the case to the District Court for a trial regarding whether the restrictive witness procedures are an exaggerated response to prison security concerns. "Prison officials claim that they intend to pull the curtain if problems occur during the execution, fearing that their actions might be 'misinterpreted by the media,'" said Alan Schlosser, Managing Attorney for the ACLU of Northern California. "Their desire to present a sanitized view of capital punishment is inconsistent with the First Amendment's guarantee that the public be kept informed of this final act of the criminal justice system." Another member of the legal team, attorney David Fried, said that San Quentin's concerns that execution team members may become targets of retaliation are not based on fact. "Since 1938, when the first gas chamber execution was carried out, there has not been any evidence of a security risk or threat against prison staff," he said. "If prison officials are concerned about the security of their staff, there are reasonable steps they can take, including the use of protective surgical garb, or tinting to plastic face shields already used by prison guards." Attorney Michael Kass of Pillsbury, Madison & Sutro LLP, said that until the 1996 execution of Bonin, the unbroken historical practice was that witnesses to executions, including several members of the media, had an unobstructed view of the inmate from the moment the inmate entered the execution area or chamber. "It is critical that journalists continue to witness the entire execution and act as the eyes and ears of the public," Kass said. Witnesses who will testify on behalf of the First Amendment Coalition include Jason Beaubien, a former KQED radio reporter who witnessed the Bonin execution and the Keith Daniel Williams execution, and Lonny Jay Shavelson, M.D., an emergency medicine doctor. Dr. Shavelson will testify regarding the use of surgical protective clothing during an execution. In addition to Fried, Kass and Schlosser, the California First Amendment Coalition, a non-profit association of more than 160 California newspapers and TV and radio stations, is also represented by Jeffrey Ross of Pillsbury Madison & Sutro LLP and Lynne S. Coffin of the Law Offices of Coffin & Love. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Other Recent ACLU News Releases: 02-11-00 -- ACLU Endorses New Legislation To Protect the Innocent on Death Row http://www.aclu.org/news/2000/n021100b.html 02-11-00 -- ACLU Expands Civil Liberties Reach with Opening of First Staffed Chapter Office in Puerto Rico http://www.aclu.org/news/2000/n021100a.html 02-10-00 -- Personal Stories Provide Compelling Backdrop To Congressional Efforts to End Use of Secret Evidence http://www.aclu.org/news/2000/n021000a.html 02-10-00 -- Illinois Criticizes State Bill on Ten Commandments http://www.aclu.org/news/2000/n021000b.html 02-09-00 -- As Congress Holds Hearings, ACLU Asks White House to Release Guidelines For Drug Propaganda Scheme http://www.aclu.org/news/2000/n020900a.html 02-08-00 -- ACLU Applauds Clinton Order Barring DNA Discrimination in Federal Workplace http://www.aclu.org/news/2000/n020800a.html 02-08-00 -- ACLU of Arkansas Defends Man Ticketed for Distributing Literature in National Park http://www.aclu.org/news/2000/n020800b.html ----------------------------------------------------------------- ONLINE RESOURCES FROM THE ACLU NATIONAL OFFICE ----------------------------------------------------------------- ACLU Freedom Network Web Page: http://www.aclu.org America Online users should check out our live chats, auditorium events, *very* active message boards, and complete news on civil liberties, at keyword ACLU. ----------------------------------------------------------------- ACLU Newsfeed American Civil Liberties Union National Office 125 Broad Street New York, New York 10004 For general information about the ACLU, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscribe to the ACLU Newsfeed, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED], with "subscribe news" (without the quotation marks) in the body of the message. --- You are currently subscribed to news as: [[EMAIL PROTECTED]] To unsubscribe, forward this message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
