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For Immediate Release
May, 13 2011, 10:15am EDT
Contact:
Rachel Myers, ACLU national, (212) 549-2689; rmyers@aclu.org
Christopher Ott, ACLU of Massachusetts, (617) 482-3170 x322; cott@aclum.org
ACLU Sues Homeland Security Over Seizure Of Activist's Computer
Targeting David House For Lawful Association With Bradley Manning Support Network Is Unconstitutional
BOSTON
The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Massachusetts filed a lawsuit in federal court today challenging the suspicionless search and seizure of electronics and personal data belonging to activist David House. The lawsuit charges that the government targeted House solely on the basis of his lawful association with the Bradley Manning Support Network when it seized House's laptop, USB drive and camera, and proceeded to copy and possibly disseminate their contents.
"Targeting people for searches and seizures based on their lawful associations is unconstitutional," said Carol Rose, executive director of the ACLU of Massachusetts. "The government does not have the authority to demand information about whom you spend time with or what you talk about. We need safeguards to ensure that targeting of people based on their political associations does not continue."
The ACLU lawsuit charges that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) singled out House at the border solely on the basis of his association with the Bradley Manning Support Network, an organization created to raise funds and support for the legal defense of Pfc. Bradley Manning, a soldier charged with leaking a video and documents relating to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to the WikiLeaks website. In so doing, the government violated House's First Amendment right to freedom of association and Fourth Amendment right to be free of unreasonable search and seizure of his personal papers and effects. The ACLU lawsuit seeks return or destruction of any of House's personal data still in the custody of the government and disclosure of whether and to whom the data has been disseminated.
In November 2010, DHS agents stopped House at O'Hare International Airport as he returned from a vacation in Mexico and questioned him about his political activities and beliefs. DHS officials then confiscated his laptop computer, camera and a USB drive and did not return them to House for nearly seven weeks - after the ACLU sent a letter demanding their return. House's detention and interrogation by DHS officials and the seizure of his electronic papers and personal effects had no apparent connection with the protection of U.S. borders or the enforcement of customs laws. Seven months later, House has not received an explanation of why his property was confiscated or what the government has done with the information downloaded from the devices.
"I feel like the American government has made me the target of intrusive and intimidating tactics simply because I joined a lawful group in order to stand up for what I believe is right," said House. "The search and seizure of my laptop has had a chilling effect on the activities of the Bradley Manning Support Network, by silencing once-outspoken supporters and causing donors to retreat. Our government should not be treating lawful activists like suspects."
This lawsuit is one in a series of legal challenges to the government's practice of suspicionless seizures of computers containing personal information at the U.S. border. In a related case, the ACLU, New York Civil Liberties Union and National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) last fall filed a lawsuit on behalf of the National Press Photographers Association, the NACDL and Pascal Abidor, a 26-year-old dual U.S.-French citizen who had his laptop searched and confiscated at the Canadian border while traveling home to New York on an Amtrak train. That lawsuit challenges the DHS policy of searching, copying and detaining travelers' laptops, cell phones and other electronic devices at the border when DHS has no reason to believe a search would reveal wrongdoing.
"In this increasingly globalized age, the cost of traveling internationally should not include submitting to boundless searches of the personal, private information we all keep on our laptops and cell phones," said Catherine Crump, staff attorney with the ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project. "Allowing government officials to look through Americans' most personal materials without reasonable suspicion is unconstitutional, inconsistent with American values and a waste of limited resources."
Today's lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts against U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection Alan Bersin and Director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement John T. Morton.
For more information, including a video interview with House on the impact the seizure of his property has had, go to: www.aclu.org/house
The American Civil Liberties Union was founded in 1920 and is our nation's guardian of liberty. The ACLU works in the courts, legislatures and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to all people in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States.
(212) 549-2666LATEST NEWS
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Late last month, Amazon Web Services was also awarded a $581 million contract to support the US Air Force's Cloud One program.
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Amid recent reports that war is "imminent," the US military shot down an Iranian drone on Tuesday as it approached the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier in the Arabian Sea, according to a US official who spoke with Reuters.
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Last week, the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) voted 13-1 to delay voting on a proposed list of mandatory reading for all K-12 public school students until April in order to provide more time for feedback and thousands of corrections to a Bible-infused elementary school curriculum approved two years ago.
"This would bring the Word of God back into schools in a meaningful way for the first time in decades," SBOE member and Christian pastor Brandon Hall said last week in support of the forced Bible reading proposal.
However, as Texas parent Kevin Jackson—who spoke against the proposed list at a public hearing last week—put it, “Religious readings belong in Sunday school, not in public schools."
The Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF), a Wisconsin-based advocacy group, said Tuesday on social media that "mandating Bible readings in public schools isn’t 'education,' it’s state-sponsored religious exercise."
"Public schools are for everyone," FFRF added. "Government has no business promoting or imposing religion on students. Church–state separation protects all Texans."
Carisa Lopez, deputy director of the Texas Freedom Network—a civil liberties and religious freedom group—said Friday that the proposal "enforces a one-size-fits-all approach in one of the largest and most diverse states in the nation."
“This kind of state micromanagement tosses aside local control and makes it harder or even impossible for teachers to tailor instruction in ways that are appropriate for their students," Lopez added. "Even worse is that this list represents another step by the state toward turning public schools into Sunday schools that undermine the right of parents to direct the religious education of their own children.”
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Last year, Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott—a devout Catholic—signed SB 10, which forces display of the Ten Commandments in all public school classrooms. This, despite an earlier ruling from a federal judge, who found that a similar law in Louisiana was an unconstitutional violation of the separation of church and state.
In an extraordinarily pointed ruling last August, US District Judge for the Western District of Texas Fred Biery issued a preliminary injunction blocking parts of SB 10.
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I don’t know who this man is but protect him at all costs!! He finally broke it down. So much she had no come back! See the God yall worshipping is yourself and your opinions!! I love how he use the word, the one she claims to know in his argument! Sadly they still won’t get it.… pic.twitter.com/KHqrVf5SHC
— Leslie Jones 🦋 (@Lesdoggg) January 23, 2024
If the new reading list mandate is approved in April as anticipated, Texas will become the first state in the nation to force every student in the state to read the Bible. Former Oklahoma State Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters—a Republican and Christian nationalist—mandated that all public school districts incorporate the Bible—and specifically the Ten Commandments—into their curricula for grades 5-12.
It would start with a mandate to read material including "The Golden Rule” in kindergarten, "The Parable of the Prodigal Son” in first grade, and "The Road to Damascus" in third grade.
As Hemant Mehta wrote for his Friendly Atheist blog :
The readings get more specific as students get older. Seventh graders would have to read "The Shepherd's Psalm (Book of Psalms, Chapter 23)” from the Old Testament along with “The Definition of Love” from 1 Corinthians 13. High schoolers would be reading Genesis 11:1-9 about the Tower of Babel, Lamentations 3, and the story of David and Goliath as told in 1 Samuel 17.
"What makes this proposal so damning is that Christianity is the only religious book included in the required readings, and even the more secular stories are infused with more direct religious messages," Mehta wrote on Saturday. "That’s on top of the state-sanctioned curriculum itself, which is already Bible-heavy."
"The Texas Board of Education is shoving explicitly Christian narratives into a mandatory, state-sanctioned reading list and pretending it’s objective when it comes to religion," Mehta added. "They want to privilege one (and only one) religion at the expense of all others, treating biblical stories as if they’re foundational truths and the default moral framework for everyone, regardless of their families’ beliefs."
There is an alternative proposal by Republican SBOE member Will Hickman that would increase the number of more contemporary works like The Hunger Games and Ender's Game and swap biblical texts with Judeo-Christian mythology such as the story of Adam and Eve and Noah's Ark "without any Bible thumping involved," as Mehta put it.
"That might be fine! But that’s clearly not what most Republicans are aiming for," he wrote. "They don’t care if kids are culturally literate regarding the Bible; they just want those kids to accept the Bible as true."
As if on cue, the Wiley Independent School District on Tuesday issued a statement announcing an investigation into what it called the "unauthorized distribution of religious materials" on the campus of Wylie East High School. While the announcement does not specify the religion in question, Marco Hunter-Lopez, who leads the school's Republican student club, said it was Islam.
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At the national level, President Donald Trump and his administration have pledged to "protect" prayer in public schools.
“To have a great nation, you have to have religion," the thrice-married adulterer, serial liar, and purveyor of $1,000 branded Bibles said last year. "I will always defend our glorious heritage, and we will protect the Judeo-Christian principles of our founding.”
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