News: Bartenders serve up drinks, customs checks

Boston Globe reporter Maria Sacchetti quotes our Equal Justice Works Fellow, Anjali Waikar, in this story about bartenders at the Orpheum Theatre and Bank of America Pavillion who have reportedly been told to check the validity of passport stamps when serving customers who aren't U.S. citizens.

Waikar says this is "ridiculous."

News: In more public places, cameras are on watch

Globe correspondent Connie Paige quotes our Staff Attorney, Sarah Wunsch, in this story on the growing use of surveillance cameras.

"We used to think of the United States as a place where the government was not spying on citizens," she says, as part of our overall concerns.

News: Bill bars gangs from 'safety zones'

Maria Cramer and Shelley Murphy from the Boston Globe quote our Legal Director, John Reinstein, in this story about a bill that would make it a crime for gang members to stand together or talk to each other on public property.

There are all sorts of problems with the bill, such as the constitutional right to meet, and the fact that people who are simply mistaken for "gang members" could suffer under the law.

News: RSU fights for poster rights, ACLU speaks

Derrick Perkins reports for the Daily Collegian in this article about a free speech rally at UMass Amherst. The story quotes Bill Newman, director of our Western Massachusetts Legal Office, who spoke at the rally.

News: ACLU queries Harvard's police

Reporter David Abel of the Boston Globe has written this story on our work to find out why the Harvard University Police Department has apparently been using an undercover photographer to take pictures of political protestors. The story quotes John Reinstein, our Legal Director, and refers to the fact that the ACLU of Massachusetts is representing two protestors who were arrested in March after trying to take pictures of Harvard's undercover photographer himself.

We'd like to know what they're doing and why, and whether Harvard is part of the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force, which some other schools around the country have joined.

Reporter Jamison A Hill of the Harvard Crimson broke the story yesterday, and followed up today with an HUPD rebuttal that raises new questions.

Here's one "Visitor" no one should miss!

How often do you get a chance to be simultaneously entertained, informed and inspired to take action at the movies – and emerge with your paycheck intact?

This can be your experience on Wednesday, April 16 when "The Visitor" is screened for free at Boston's Regal Fenway (7 PM; 201 Brookline Ave., near Fenway T stop). To make sure you are assured of a seat, email jmathews@alliedadvpub.com, call (617) 425-8930, or just plan to be there early.

How can I vouch in such positive terms for a film that has yet to be released? Last night I introduced it on behalf of the ACLU of Massachusetts at another special screening at Coolidge Corner, and afterwards moderated a discussion with the audience and the film's convincing lead actor, Richard Jenkins, of "Six Feet Under" fame. The ACLU is involved because Participant Media, one of the film's producers, has launched a consciousness-raising campaign around the film, taking on one of our most poorly understood issues, the rights of immigrants.

I don't want to give the story away. Suffice it to say that if you don't know much about the detention and deportation polices of the Bureau of ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement), director Tom McCarthy ("The Station Agent") provides the basics in "The Visitor." The film bridges the gap between "them" and "us" with such sweet grace that it can be a great conversation-starter, judging from last night's lively Coolidge Corner discussion.

So plan to visit "The Visitor" when it is shown in Boston on April 16 – and then work with us to restore fairness and humanity to our immigration system.

Nancy Murray
Director of Education
ACLU of Massachusetts

News: Barnstable police take shocking step

Reporter Hilary Russ of the Cape Cod Times wrote this article on Barnstable police use and testing of Tasers -- on themselves.

In a way, that's admirable, but the fact remains that there are serious concerns about the safety of Tasers. As the article says, there have been no deaths from Tasers in Massachusetts, but there have been deaths elsewhere, and concerns that the "non-lethality" of Tasers encourages their use.

Washington Post sheds more light on Fusion Centers in Massachusetts, nationwide

Both here in Massachusetts and across the country, the ACLU has been working to tell more people about the Fusion Centers: massive government clearinghouses of data on all of us. The Washington Post has done a story which sheds more light on exactly what kinds of data the Fusion Centers are pulling together.

One quoted source in the story says, "There is never ever enough information when it comes to terrorism." But there can be. As ACLU Policy Counsel and former FBI Special Agent Mike German has said, when you're looking for a needle in a haystack, it doesn't help to make the haystack bigger. The 9/11 attacks didn't happen because we didn't have the information we needed -- it's that the information we had wasn't followed through on.

Exposure: The woman behind the camera at Abu Ghraib

One of the speakers at our annual Bill of Rights Dinner this year will be Errol Morris, director of the Berlin Film Festival prize-winning film, S.O.P.: Standard Operating Procedure. In this film, Morris examines the incidents of abuse and torture of prisoners at the hands of U.S. forces at the Abu Ghraib prison.

In last week's New Yorker, Morris has co-written a long, fascinating article about Specialist Sabrina Harman, the soldier who took many of the infamous photos of abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison. It's about what conditions were like and why she did what she did.