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For all your bashing of Michael, maybe if you had done your own google search you would have found out that VOLUNTARY school prayer IS LEGAL. Here is a short summary from the ACLU

IS IT EVER OK TO PRAY IN SCHOOL? Sure. Individual students have the right to pray whenever they want to, as long as they don't disrupt classroom instruction or other educational activities -- or try to force others to pray along with them. If a school official has told you that you can't pray at all during the school day, your right to exercise your religion is being violated. Contact your local ACLU for help.

The Supreme court in Good News Club v. Milford Central School upheld an after hours bible study that was held at a public school (they did pray during bible study).

The Supreme Court stated in Santa Fe Indep. Sch. Dist. v. Doe, 120 S.Ct. 2266 (2000). confirmed, "nothing in the Constitution as interpreted by this Court prohibits any public school student from voluntarily praying at any time before, during, or after the schoolday."

Over on our side of the pond in good old blighty the editor of the Sun newspaper once pubblished a top secret document.

A House of Commons lunch menu.

Now why was that classified!

You're lucky! Besides don't the press wiretap Parliament over there? Over here the FBI thinks it is an issue of national security that we never know they paid their agents to go to parties with JOhn Lennon! Most importantly we must never know about the parrot that said "Right on!"

I can see the name of this lawsuit now -- Academia vs. Assholes. <wry grin> If I were Anthony Hamilton, I'd go into hiding to escape the raving hordes of lawyers from the ACLU , EFF , and other organizations concerned with civil liberties and free speech rights. This threat is akin to Microsoft threatening to sue someone who discovers and publicizes a Windows OS security hole.

I hope the first court that sees this alleged case treats it with EXACTLY the respect it deserves. :/

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Please visit this link:
aclu.org.

It describes in detail their program to encourage organizations to punish people for having the wrong skin color as part of a policy of achieving group diversity.

If you mock the President ... then the terrorists win.

Completely offtopic, but...

Well, that's a rather small & narrow-minded view, don't you think? As a voting American, I feel that I have the freedom to mock the President whenever I want to. If we limit mockery, why not limit criticism & all political debate? By your logic, Dennis Miller is guity of aiding the enemy several times over. Howard Dean must be one of the ring-leaders himself! Off with their heads!!!!

Seriously though, you do more to aid terrorism when you buy your fiancee a diamond ring, buy some drugs for the weekend, or attempt to limit my freedom of speech with your tunnel-vision view of GW Bush. Getting elected to the presidency does not give him immunity to questions, criticisms, or even mockery from his constituents.

--Mid

LEILA JEANNE HILL, AUDREY HIMMELMANN, and EVERITT W. SIMPSON, Jr., PETITIONERS v. COLORADO et al.
[June 28, 2000]

Majority opinion, delivered by Justice Stevens:

>> The unwilling listener's interest in avoiding unwanted communication has been repeatedly identified in our cases. It is an aspect of the broader "right to be let alone" that one of our wisest Justices characterized as "the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men." Olmstead v. United States, 277 U. S. 438, 478 (1928) (Brandeis, J., dissenting).24 The right to avoid unwelcome speech has special force in the privacy of the home, Rowan v. Post Office Dept., 397 U. S. 728, 738 (1970), and its immediate surroundings, Frisby v. Schultz, 487 U. S., at 485, but can also be protected in confrontational settings.

That covers all the cases above except for number 5. In that case, assuming the WTO officials include US political leaders, I believe that the right to express one's views to one's political leaders may prevail. See http://www.aclu.org/FreeSpeech/FreeSpeech.cfm?ID=1 3699&c=86.

IANAL, but I can use google and quote things.

The 3-judge decision is available on the web here. It is 100% based on the Constitution's equal protection clause.

I know it's fun to accuse judges of making up the law, but in this case it was a Constitutional question. The full court decided that the 3-judge decision was wrong, but that doesn't make it a non-Constitutional issue, nor does it mean that the 3-judge panel made up law.

This does nothig to protect a person from the abuse of the information when they Rent a car (c.f. the story of the "speeding penalty" enacted by the one rental agency) or when a person has a "company car".

Finally, one wonders whether this separates the purchasers and leasees of cars into two separately and unequally protected classes.

After all, if you lease a car, your leasing company owns it. So the police could end-around and make a request of them to access the black-box.

Then again, section 215 lets the FBI do any dang thing they want in the search and seizure arena despite the Constitution.

If you want to avoid the racist connotations of the chap you quoted, you might want to check out the ACLU website, or google for ACLU and prison rape. They've campaigned a lot about prison conditions.

Really. It has never been this crucial that one be able to make the distinction between those that fight for our rights, freedoms, liberties, livelihood (... here's a clue: It's certainly not those currently in power no matter what they say), and those that see your rights and freedoms as a nuisance that should be exterminated by hook, crook, and propaganda. Know those who care for the common wo/man, and those who are out to screw you while telling you they are out to protect you.

Visit The ACLU and The EFF. And be sure to make a donation. Those are the people on *your* side.

Don't let anyone play on your emotions and 9/11. Open your eyes and see reason. Learn from history, and put two and two together before it's too late.

As of today, 14Sep2003, the ACLU list 162 communities that have made resolutions (or, in a few cases, binding ordinances) against the USA PATRIOT Act. See their list here.

Our current economic woes can be directly attributed to Clinton-administration trade policies.

That makes no sense at all. During the Clinton years, the economy was roaring along on a wave of prosperity. Since Bush has been in office we've been in a terrible recession. How is this Clinton's fault again?

Osama bin Laden died December 5, 2001. Where've you been, man?

Prove it. I guess I must have missed that announcement.

I always get a chuckle when somebody gets on the Internet and publicly maligns the government for "raping" his civil rights. The irony of that statement is just thick, you know?

Ahem.

Which resources would those be? Vacuum? Moon oil? Moon trees?

Ahem again.

The only long-term national priority that matters is winning World War IV. Everything else is just pissing in the wind.

Riiiiiight. You just keep on believing that.

There is a pretty strong consensus among many US citizens that the PATRIOT Act was a power grab by the government during a time when the populace was vulnerable.

People who are very concerned about the PATRIOT Act:
Libertarians
The Green Party
The EFF
The ACLU
EPIC

The only people who don't seem to be concerned about the PATRIOT Act are the Republicans and Democrats who voted it in and stand to gain the most from it. I hope this concerns you, especially if you are a US citizen.

This was the best site i could find:
(little blurb from the article)

Virtual dragnet programs like TIA and CAPS II are based on the premise that the best way to protect America against terrorism is to for the government to collect as much information as it can about everyone - and these days, that is a LOT of information. They could incorporate not only government records of all kinds but individuals' medical and financial records, political beliefs, travel history, prescriptions, buying habits, communications (phone calls, e-mails and Web surfing), school records, personal and family associations, and so on.

In the last decade we have witnessed an enormous explosion in the amount of tracking and information of individuals in the United States, due mainly to two factors... READ MORE

What can I do to help stop this program?

There are at least four things you can do to help stop the blatantly un-American goal of "Total Information Awareness"

* Educate yourself about this program and tell your friends about it.
* Use the ACLU's "Action Alert" page to send a free and easy fax to President Bush asking him to pull the plug on this research.
* Let your member of Congress know how you feel (locate your member here and check out tips on writing your elected representatives.
* Support the ACLU's efforts to fight this program by joining us .

Most of the websites and statistics regarding felon "disenfrachnisement" come from drug and prisoner advocacy groups, like the sentencing project... this makes their statistics suspect from the start. Many of these groups use these statistics to make voting for felons a "racist" issue. Also, some of them consider it "disenfranchisement" if a state does not automatically restore your civil rights after your sentence is served. Personally, I see no problem with making a felon fill out a form to get his voting rights back.

Further, some of the states they cite as "permanently" disenfranchising felons DO have procedures in place to restore civil rights... Florida (where I live) is a good example. Florida is often cited as one of the 10 (some sources cite 14 states) that permanently keep felons from voting... NOT TRUE. Check out this press release from the ACLU

Some states give voting rights back automatically... some have a few hoops you must jump through. Either way, committing a felony costs you. Now, I'm not aware of a single state that does not have procedures in place for restoration of civil rights. If someone wants to correct me, please do so.

It quotes the Logan report saying, "the number of system-generated false positives was excessive."

I realize I'm responding to a troll, but I think this point deserves an explanation.

The ACLU Executive Director, Anthony Romero, came to my school (Earlham College), and was asked about the Second Amendment. He said that the reason they didn't defend it was that someone was already there to defend it: the NRA. He (nor I) doesn't think we are in any danger of losing our Second Amendment rights as long as the NRA is around.

I realize I'm responding to a troll, but I think this point deserves an explanation.

The ACLU Executive Director, Anthony Romero, came to my school (Earlham College), and was asked about the Second Amendment. He said that the reason they didn't defend it was that someone was already there to defend it: the NRA. He (nor I) doesn't think we are in any danger of losing our Second Amendment rights as long as the NRA is around.

All of these lead many Christians to assume that the ACLU is for the protection and advancement of immorality, and well, you can immagine how all the televangelists and (even worse) the radio-evangelists consider this a bad thing, and make a big ruckus.

What I'd like to know is why every American doesn't support the ACLU.

Simple. The ACLU's policy on prayer disagrees with all Americans who have even minimal religious beliefs. Their policy makes no sense: the Constitution guarantees the right to freely exercise religion in prison, but not on public school grounds?!

What I'd like to know is why every American doesn't support the ACLU.

Simple. The ACLU's policy on prayer disagrees with all Americans who have even minimal religious beliefs. Their policy makes no sense: the Constitution guarantees the right to freely exercise religion in prison, but not on public school grounds?!

and your donation can be tax-deductible if you donate to the "ACLU Foundation", instead of the ACLU:


"Gifts to the ACLU Foundation are fully tax-deductible to the donor; membership dues and gifts to the ACLU are not tax-deductible.

This is because the ACLU engages in substantial legislative lobbying, which cannot by law, be supported by tax-deductible funds. The ACLU Foundation, on the other hand, conducts our litigation and communications efforts, and contributions to it are tax-deductible.

Many donors choose to make their larger tax-deductible gifts to the ACLU Foundation and also make smaller gifts to the ACLU in order to maintain their 'card-carrying' membership status with the ACLU."

The ACLU is quite in favor of maintaining privacy in our increasingly technological world, which I think would make it applicable to the Slashdot crowd.

As for the "ACLU is an American thing, Slashdot's international" thing - I watch the BBC, which broadcasts all over the world. I don't bitch when they show something particularly British - they're a British organization. Don't bitch when Slashdot does something particularly American - it's an American organization.

they really do believe that everybody has the right to say anything, no matter what it is and what might be done with that information.

don't

The ACLU says that the second amendment does not apply to individuals, but to state militia.

You could read it before you infer that it says something it does not say.

Precedence is going to be made. Just because SCO(X) is full of shit, does not mean that lawyers will simply drop the case. We will have to deal with the yack-dung that this conflict is bringing about for years afterwards.

Do you think that those who are making decisions over this issue have the ideals of open source in mind? IBM and RH? They only want it for corporate profits. SCO(X)... yeah... big negative. The Courts?! They might be the only one we can get through to. We have to get involved. I recomend starting an e-mail list to protest the abuse of free rights that are being presented in this lawsuit.

or maybee I am just an idiot for thinking that a bunch of /. sheep can do anything.

hate me.

proud member

Right, the ACLU would seem to be a more relevant organization...

Right, the ACLU would seem to be a more relevant organization...

Newsflash, jackass: legal advocacy and aid organizations can't take every case that comes in front of them. That doesn't make them "publicity whores", that just makes them "aware of reality."

When you can point to your eighty-year history of defending civil liberties, then, maybe, you can get away with calling the ACLU "whores" in a public forum. But since you can't, you're just another stone moron with an ill-designed weblog calling his betters names on slashdot.

Idiot.

"the CBDLF donations and giving to the EFF are Good Things.
And what does that make the ACLU? Chopped liver? They deserve your support too!

Hear, hear. If I had mod points they would be yours.

There was a bill called the Prison Rape Reduction Act put before congress, and I assume it was passed because it was jointly introduced. Whether the facilities respect it is another matter... they know what they're doing when they place new prisoners with rapists.

I won't join any organizations like the ACLU to protect my freedoms! NO! I'm going to be an armchair critic and let the government erode my freedoms!

This probably won't be on any .gov sites yet as it hasn't been introduced

I am looking at the ACLU news page and it is right on top!
Certainly a better resource than "Boing Boing".

I saw a piece on an urban school in chicago or something that was a complete disaster. The school had rowdy kids, poor attendance, and poor grades, and horrible test scores. A new principal there instituted a mandatory meditation period of fifteen minutes for all students.

"The entire Senate debate, spearheaded by Senator Exon and Republicans Dan Coats and Charles Grassley, was informed by the sensibilities of the religious right. The Senators read letters from the Christian Coalition and from Bruce Taylor into the record. More significantly, they flaunted statistics from the notorious Marty Rimm "cyberporn" study two weeks before it was released in an exclusive article in the July 3rd Time magazine. Apparently, the proponents of the CDA had been given a preview of the study's contents.

Mike Godwin, staff counsel to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, believes that the religious right acted as the conduit between the Georgetown Law Journal, then preparing the Rimm study for publication, and the pro-censorship Senators. Godwin discovered that as early as November 1994, Bruce Taylor was assisting Marty Rimm, then a junior at Carnegie Mellon, in preparing his study, a thesis project. Deen Kaplan, a Georgetown Law student and editor of the Law Journal, shared office space with Taylor in a complex which also housed the National Coalition for Children and Families and Donna Rice's organization, Enough is Enough. Another protege of Taylor's, John McMickle, was now on Senator Grassley's staff, and assisted him in drafting his own Internet indecency legislation. Deen Kaplan compiled Senator Exon's "Blue Book" of Internet pornography, which he brandished to great effect during the Senate discussions."

• "Yes, I was detained and harrassed by federal airport security without cause or explanation because my name is David Nelson. I am not allowed to know that I am on a do-not-fly list or what criteria put a person there in the first place."
• "Yes, I was forced to drink my own breast milk out of three bottles by federal airport security to prove it was not a "security risk."
• "Yes, my right to freely assembly has been infringed my Bush and his cronies with their establishment of (incredibly cyncially named) 'First Amendment Zones' that stipulate that demonstrators who are protesting the president must remain in specific "safe distances" often blocks away from presidential appearances, while "supporters" are allowed to demonstrate in the immediate vicinity.
• "Yes, my government is developing a system that will systematically spy on everyone, all of the time, in an effort to provide me better "security." Thankfully, budgetary politics in the Senate will hopefully kill this monstrosity."
• "Yes, my ability to fairly use information and art I paid for is being stifled and criminalized, to outrageous degrees."
• "Sorry, what was the question?"
  

Oh, my apologies. I meant to include a link. Here.

For those of you who don't aggre with this kinda of stuff I should point out the ACLU has been fighting it for a while now.
They have a section on libary filters if your intersted.
http://www.aclu.org/Cyber-Liberties/Cyber-Libertie s.cfm?ID=12017&c=55

You know, you don't need to present your ID to a police officer...They can't even prevent you from walking away from them if you aren't being charged with a crime...

Read up on some ACLU stuff...their site is pretty interesting. I think they have a little card you can carry in your wallet which lists your Civil Rights. I find it very informative.

A few years ago, the Censorware Project, one of the most important sites on the entire Internet, fell prey to the most grave injustice ever. Michael Sims, a pear-shaped mother's boy who lives in his parent's basement watching porn and wearing Adbusters t-shirts like he's some kind of counterculture revolutionary, took my web site and destroyed it. It was, in a word, goatse'ing.

I'd like to read from my journal about the prosecution that followed.

As I awoke at 8:15 AM on the day in question, my first item on the ol' agenda was to check on my web site, "The Censorware Project." I went to my computer, punched in www.censorware.org into Mozilla (not Internet Explorer) and depressed the "Enter" key on my computer's key-board.

"The Censorware Project," it said, "is now closed."

Knowing my rights, I immediately dialed 911. There, I spoke to some clueless cop. I don't even know whether he knew who I was (Seth Finklestein) or what a "web site" was. He was probably too busy eating doughnuts and watching Jerry Springer.

After that debacle, I immediately called the ACLU, the FBI, the CIA, and the Army Corps of Engineers. Nobody wanted to help me. Finally, I was forced to take Michael Sims to court. I sued him for murder in the second degree (a web site can't be considered a person, so I couldn't make him fry for his actions) and criminal negligence. Lawyers are just overpriced nerds, so I decided to represent myself.

The judge said the most ignorant, hateful words I have ever heard at the pre-trial hearing. "Your web site," she explained, "was not 'murdered.'" She even did the "air quotes" thing! She was talking down to me! Me, Seth Finklestein! I tried to yell back at her, but these awful Negroes dragged me out of the court room.

Now I sit here, at my high-paying job, plotting revenge. And you will get yours, Michael Sims. I guaran-fucking-tee it.

If you what to make a tax deductible donation to the ACLU, then donate to the ACLU Foundation. Fight Uncle Sam with your own tax dollars!

ACLU and ACLU Foundation, What is the Difference?

Although both the ACLU and the ACLU Foundation are part of the same overall organization -- it is necessary to have two separate corporate entities of the ACLU to receive two separate types of funding. This allows for the over-arching support of all the ACLUâ(TM)s various activities. Gifts to the ACLU Foundation are fully tax-deductible to the donor; membership dues and gifts to the ACLU are not tax-deductible.

Is that "if you can not afford a lawyer, one will be appointed to you" only valid in criminal cases?

forcing their version of Christian prayer into public schools

No, you've got that backwards. Rightist Christians have been trying to get the right to have their children be allowed to pray in school - again. It was never a requirement, but now it's not allowed.

Your flat statement that "it's not allowed", in reference to children praying in school, is wrong. No one is stopping kids from praying on their own time in school. What courts have ruled unconstitutional, and what groups like the ACLU continue to file lawsuits to prevent, are situations like this one, where a school's graduation ceremony and other activities are routinely opened with prayers.

In fact, the ACLU regularly stands up for students' religious expression when it's threatened by school authorities.

trying to outlaw the burning of the American flag as a form of protest

The only flag burning I've heard of being protested, and the only attempted legislation I've read about, is that in relation to white power supremists. [...] Maybe you could point out to me whatever article refers to these Christian Nazis wanting to outlaw it as a form of protest?

...

You're right on with the firearms issue.

forcing their version of Christian prayer into public schools

No, you've got that backwards. Rightist Christians have been trying to get the right to have their children be allowed to pray in school - again. It was never a requirement, but now it's not allowed.

Your flat statement that "it's not allowed", in reference to children praying in school, is wrong. No one is stopping kids from praying on their own time in school. What courts have ruled unconstitutional, and what groups like the ACLU continue to file lawsuits to prevent, are situations like this one, where a school's graduation ceremony and other activities are routinely opened with prayers.

In fact, the ACLU regularly stands up for students' religious expression when it's threatened by school authorities.

trying to outlaw the burning of the American flag as a form of protest

The only flag burning I've heard of being protested, and the only attempted legislation I've read about, is that in relation to white power supremists. [...] Maybe you could point out to me whatever article refers to these Christian Nazis wanting to outlaw it as a form of protest?

...

You're right on with the firearms issue.

forcing their version of Christian prayer into public schools

No, you've got that backwards. Rightist Christians have been trying to get the right to have their children be allowed to pray in school - again. It was never a requirement, but now it's not allowed.

Your flat statement that "it's not allowed", in reference to children praying in school, is wrong. No one is stopping kids from praying on their own time in school. What courts have ruled unconstitutional, and what groups like the ACLU continue to file lawsuits to prevent, are situations like this one, where a school's graduation ceremony and other activities are routinely opened with prayers.

In fact, the ACLU regularly stands up for students' religious expression when it's threatened by school authorities.

trying to outlaw the burning of the American flag as a form of protest

The only flag burning I've heard of being protested, and the only attempted legislation I've read about, is that in relation to white power supremists. [...] Maybe you could point out to me whatever article refers to these Christian Nazis wanting to outlaw it as a form of protest?

...

You're right on with the firearms issue.

So, instead of just feeling bad, powerless, screwed, angry about this mess, do something about it. I did. Go to ACLU Action page to send nice boiler plate text e-mail/faxes to each of the various decision makers in this process.

> The problem is that they are enabling technologies for what could be very, very evil.

So are many other technologies. But I think it is less the question of what technologies you are employing, but wether you are aware of the risks and what counter-measurements are installed.

The states of the EU have enacted relatively strict privacy-laws. And those requiring a national ID are especially precaucious arbout what data is stored and can be connected with the ID. I think that is the critical part.

> "what if Nazi Germany could have done a SELECT WHERE against a central citizen-unit database?"

Unless they didn't had build up a db storing "religion" and "parents" over two, or three generations back in history, it would not help them much. Not to mention, that your friendly neighbourhood "blockwart" is much more effective.

On a side-note: Stalin let execute several million people based on quota, which had to be fulfilled. The randomness of the murdering was intentional. It fueled the fear among people of each other. A national ID, would not add much to it.

Anyway, I think it boils down who stores, what kind of data, and who else has access to it.
I'd say, an ID, unless it enables one to trace your habits, is not "evil" per se.
In contrast, a database with nation wide profiling information, based on buyed or lend books, diving schools, racial or political is.

An national ID would be a "plus" for Total Information Awareness, but you don't need one to do datamining.

exactly, they are more focused on defending child molesters like NAMBLA than defending the rights of every man woman and child in the country in copyright law chalenges.