WASHINGTON - June 18 - The end of the current Supreme Court term is fast approaching, and over the next couple of weeks the Court will release its most controversial decisions of the year, which are expected to be decided by close margins. This is the perfect time to let your audience know that the next President will nominate new Supreme Court justices who could drastically affect their lives, rights, and legal protections under the Constitution.

People For the American Way Foundation’s spokespeople are some of the country’s preeminent legal and political experts on this important issue. Let us explain how new, ultra-conservative judges would devastate civil rights, equal rights, privacy, the First Amendment and much more.

Decisions that will be handed down over the next two weeks will answer key questions:

· Can the President deny U.S. citizens the protection of the Constitution and imprison them indefinitely by declaring them to be “enemy combatants” without allowing them any effective way to legally challenge that designation?

· Can the U.S. government do anything at all to detainees in Guantanamo without any court review?

· Can Vice President Dick Cheney keep the public from seeing documents about his energy task force, including the energy industry lobbyists that helped write the administration’s energy policy?

· Can Congress force all Web sites to purge information that could be deemed ‘harmful’ to minors?

PFAWF recently released Courting Disaster 2004, a report documenting that more than 100 key Supreme Court precedents would be overturned if the Supreme Court swings any further to the right.

For more information, see http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oid=12315

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