WASHINGTON - September 24 - As a key House subcommittee met for a hearing entitled "A Report Card on Homeland Security Information Sharing," the American Civil Liberties Union today urged subcommittee members to ask the witnesses tough questions to ensure information sharing benefits our security without endangering the rights of innocent Americans.  The House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Intelligence, Information Sharing and Terrorism Risk Assessment heard testimony from national and local security experts about efforts to increase information sharing among law enforcement, including the use o

WASHINGTON - September 24 - Today the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee and the Elections Subcommittee of the House Administration Committee are scheduled to hold a joint hearing, entitled "Federal, State and Local Efforts to Prepare for the 2008 Election." As part of this hearing, Grace Chung Becker, Acting Assistant Attorney General, Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, will testify. Recently, Attorney General Mukasey told voting rights advocates that there was no greater priority in the next two months for DOJ than to en

WASHINGTON - September 23 - The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence will hear testimony today on proposed changes to the attorney general guidelines.  The guidelines govern FBI investigations and were adopted in the mid-1970's after it was discovered that the agency was engaged in widespread abuses and violations of constitutional rights - including politically-motivated spying on figures like Martin Luther King, Jr.  FBI Director Robert Mueller also answered questions about the guidelines last week during hearings before both the House and Senate Judiciary Committees.  The American Civil Liberties Union

NEW YORK - September 22 - A federal court today ordered the Department of Defense to release photographs depicting the abuse of detainees by U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit rejected the government's appeal of a 2006 order directing the Defense Department to release the photos. Today's decision comes as part of an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit seeking information on the abuse of prisoners held in U.S. custody overseas.

GUANTANAMO BAY - September 22 - Appearing before a Guantánamo military commission today, military attorneys and civilian lawyers sponsored by the American Civil Liberties Union's John Adams Project sought to interject a degree of fairness into the deeply flawed system. Among several requests, defense lawyers are asking that all charges be dismissed against the detainees accused of crimes related to the 9/11 attacks because of a history of political interference from Brig. Gen. Thomas Hartmann, a top Pentagon general.

DALLAS - September 22 - City officials in Farmers Branch, Texas today agreed not to fight a request from residents' to block the city's latest anti-immigrant ordinance from taking effect while a legal challenge continues. The American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Texas and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) filed a request in federal court on the residents' behalf for a preliminary injunction blocking the ordinance. The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas is expected to enter the injunction today.

WASHINGTON - September 18 - The ACLU of the National Capital Area, Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the American Civil Liberties Union filed a federal lawsuit today challenging the District of Columbia's plan to grant more than $12 million in public property and cash to the Central Union Mission, a religious homeless shelter.

WASHINGTON - September 18 - Today, the Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to mark up a bill that reauthorizes a Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) program, called the Deaths in Custody Reporting Program, which is designed to report the deaths of prisoners and immigration detainees in local and state custody. The ACLU urges senators to strengthen the House-passed bill, H.R. 3971, the Deaths in Custody Reporting Act of 2008, by requiring federal detention facilities to report in-custody deaths to the attorney general.

The following can be attributed to Joanne Lin, ACLU Legislative Counsel: