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: When school needs counter student rights

The Boston Globe's Kay Lazar wrote this excellent front-page story on what we often call the "school to prison pipeline." The piece quotes Amy Reichbach, our Racial Justice Legal Fellow.

News: Safer Homes Program Questioned

Since Boston police first floated the idea last fall, we've gotten dozens of media inquiries about the proposed "Safe Homes" program. It would ask people in select neighborhoods to "voluntarily" open their doors to police searches for guns.

Boston Channel 5 reporter Rhondella Richardson explores the ongoing controversy in this report. She talks to people like a concerned parent, who says she would support the program because she wants her kids to be safe. Another wonders what would really happen if the police found a gun in their home: "Am I safe, or am I not safe? You gotta think."

Richardson also interviews Carol Rose, Executive Director of the ACLU of Massachusetts, and about the civil liberties implications of the controversial program. The ACLU has been raising concerns about "Safe Homes" from the start, and has distributed this fact sheet in English and Spanish. It's about the right to say no to a warrantless search, and the rights that you might give up if you said yes.

A key danger in "Safe Homes"

On Monday, Bianca Vazquez Toness of WBUR did
a really interesting story that underscores the difficulty the police can face earning the trust of local communities.

One of the reasons the police "are looking to build trust in high-crime neighborhoods," as Vazquez Toness says, is for the proposed "Safe Homes" initiative, in which Boston police plan on going door-to-door in high-crime neighborhoods, asking people to open their doors to "voluntary" searches for guns.

The ACLU of Massachusetts is concerned that people won't understand they have the right to say "no" to these searches, or that anything illegal the police find in the searches (guns, drugs, etc.) can lead to arrests and criminal charges against anyone in the home, including children. This isn't like programs which simply aim to take guns out of circulation, with no questions asked.

In other words, a key danger in "Safe Homes" is the erosion of trust. People could waive their rights to help tackle gun violence, but then feel betrayed if members of their families are hauled off to jail or are suspended or expelled from school, instead of simply having to turn over a gun -- or even if no guns were found at all.

An ACLU of Massachusetts briefing paper with more information on "Safe Homes" is available here.

News: Police Safe Homes plan leads to heated debates

Kyle de Beausset and Howard Manly quote Sarah Wunsch, Staff Attorney for the ACLU of Massachusetts, in this story about the Boston Police Departments controversial "Safe Homes" warrantless search program.

News: Bill aimed at sex offenders

Reporter Steve LeBlanc of the Associated Press quotes Norma Shapiro, our Legislative Director, in this article on proposed new restrictions on sex offenders in Worcester.

One of the ACLU's main concerns is that "get tough" measures actually make us less safe, not more, by increasing the odds of re-offense.

News: Court weighs racial profiling in traffic stops

David E. Frank of Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly cites an ACLU of Massachusetts amicus brief in this story about racial profiling in traffic stops.

"I Do Not Consent to a Search"

Remember those red and white buttons that the National Lawyers Guild distributed during the near police state days of the 2004 Democratic convention? Well, dig yours out and wear it all the time, especially if you live in Dorchester or Roxbury where the Boston Police’s euphemistic “Safe Homes” program wants to search your house without a warrant. A town hall meeting on Thursday, February 21, 2008 will present analysis and discussion by activists and community leaders of the planned police action. Location: MAMLEO Headquarters, 61 Columbia Rd., Dorchester, 6:30-9:00 p.m.

Letter to the Editor: Police gun searches raise concern

The Boston Globe carries a letter today by Carol Rose, our Executive Director. It's about the Boston Police Department's so-called Safe Homes plan, in which police ask for people (in predominantly African-American neighborhoods) to allow them to search their homes for guns, without a warrant.

The program raises many civil liberties concerns. As Rose says:

Boston residents have the right to say no when the police come to their door without a warrant. And when they do, the police should leave.

News: Mayor submits child safety zone ordinance

Joe Cohen of the New Bedford Standard-Times quotes Ann Lambert, our Legislative Counsel, in this story on a proposed ordinance to create "child safety zones" that would ban sex offenders from a variety of public places. The proposal comes in the aftermath of a sexual assault on a young boy in a New Bedford library.

A thousand words....

By now, the government has learned that the old saying is true: "A picture speaks a thousand words." Even though reporters had been writing about torture in Iraq months before the Abu Ghraib photos leaked, it was the images that captured the public's attention. And even though we know that the CIA has used "enhanced interrogation techniques" our lawyers are still fighting in court over tapes the CIA may or may not have destroyed.

That's why, when acting head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Julie Myers was asked at her confirmation hearings about pictures she had taken at an ICE Halloween party with a man in dark makeup, a dreadlocked wig and prison stripes, which she awarded the "most original" costume of the night, she responded that all pictures had been destroyed. Sound familiar? She said that when she realized her error in judgment, she ordered that all pictures of the ICE employee be deleted.

Then along comes CNN with a Freedom of Information Act request and, guess what? The pictures were found!

When the Halloween episode happened, ACLUM's Board President wrote a letter to the editor in the Boston Globe. Now that the photos are available, maybe Congress will step up and ask the questions that naturally follow. Did Julie Myers know about the existence of the photos when Congress asked her for them? Did others in her office? And, is it appropriate for a person with such insensitivity toward issues of race and justice to head the law enforcement agency that plans to detain and deport 200,000 immigrants this year?

News: BPD, residents debate teen searches

The Daily Free Press quotes Sarah Wunsch, our Staff Attorney, in this article about the controversy over the "Safe Homes" program of warrantless searches by the Boston Police Department.

News: BPD Plans Warrantless Searches

Bianca Vazquez Toness of WBUR quotes Sarah Wunsch, our Staff Attorney, in this story about the Boston Police Department's "Safe Homes" plan for going door to door and asking for permission to conduct warrantless searches and seizures.

Press Release: New ACLU Report Reveals Pervasive Racial Discrimination

Group Calls U.S. Report to United Nations a Whitewash

BOSTON -- The American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts is holding a press conference today at 10:30AM in Room B1 of the State House to coincide with the release of a comprehensive analysis by the national ACLU of the pervasive institutionalized, systemic, and structural racism in America.

The report, Race & Ethnicity in America: Turning a Blind Eye to Injustice, is a response to the U.S. report to the United Nations’ Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) released earlier this year. It contains information about the ongoing impact of racism in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and across the country. The U.S. report, which the ACLU called a “whitewash,” swept under the rug the dramatic effects of widespread racial and ethnic discrimination in this country.

“The America we believe in is one where people are treated fairly regardless of their race and ethnicity. But unfortunately, as this report makes clear, the country and the Commonwealth are not living up to our ideals,” said Nancy Murray, Director of Education at the ACLU of Massachusetts.

Addressing the State House press conference will be Steven Watt, one of the report's authors and a senior staff attorney at the ACLU's Human Rights Program; state representative Byron Rushing who is an ACLU of Massachusetts board member; Boston City Councilor Chuck Turner, and representatives from local organizations that are in the forefront of the fight against racism and racial discrimination in Massachusetts.

The U.S. government submitted its report in April to the CERD committee, an independent group of internationally recognized human rights experts that oversees compliance with the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, a treaty signed and ratified by the U.S. in 1994. All levels of the U.S. government are required to comply with the treaty’s provisions, which require countries to review national, state, and local policies and to amend or repeal laws and regulations that create or perpetuate racial discrimination. The treaty also encourages countries to take positive measures, including affirmative action, to redress racial inequalities.

In its “shadow report” to the U.N., compiled jointly by the ACLU’s Human Rights and Racial Justice Programs and based on information provided by the ACLU affiliates in more than 20 states, the ACLU documents the U.S. government’s failure to fully comply with CERD in numerous substantive areas affecting racial and ethnic minorities. The report closely examines policies and practices at the federal, state and local levels which place a disproportionate burden on those most vulnerable in society -- including women, children, incarcerated persons, immigrants, and non-citizens.

Since its ratification, U.S. reporting on compliance has been inadequate, and this most recent report is no exception -- it is a combination of two overdue reports spanning the years 2000-2006. The government’s report is riddled with misrepresentations and inaccuracies and fails to honestly assess the ways in which racial and ethnic discrimination and inequality persist.

The ACLU’s report details the setbacks in the promotion of racial and ethnic equality, including the government’s attack on affirmative action and the courts’ curtailment of civil rights and remedies for discrimination. The ACLU report finds that discrimination in America permeates education, employment, the treatment of migrants and immigrants, law enforcement, access to justice for juveniles and adults, court proceedings, detention and incarceration, the death penalty, and the many collateral consequences of incarceration including the loss of political rights. 

The ACLU report also criticizes major shortcomings in the U.S. government’s report including: a minor mention of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina (and only in the housing discrimination context) and a total omission of the “school to prison pipeline” phenomenon, which involves the overzealous funneling of students of color out of classrooms and into the criminal justice system. The government's report also suffers from a complete lack of information on the dramatic increase in hate crimes and the escalating problem of police brutality.

The ACLU report examines human rights violations that took place before, during and after Hurricane Katrina, a crisis that exposed to the world the persistence of racial and economic inequalities in America, and their impact on African-American and other minority communities. It also documents the epidemic of minorities being subjected to racial profiling, a practice most often associated with African-Americans and Latinos, but one which also affects other minority communities. Since 9/11, racial profiling has increasingly been directed at Arabs, Muslims, and South Asians.

In addition, the report highlights the government’s failure to protect immigrants and non-citizens, and particularly low-wage workers, from racially discriminatory policies and acts such as governmental crackdowns and workplace raids.

December 10th is celebrated worldwide as International Human Rights Day. Today the ACLU and many of its affiliates across the country will hold events as part of the ACLU’s National Day of Action Against Racial Discrimination.

A copy of the ACLU’s report on the U.S. government’s report to CERD can be found online at: http://www.aclum.org/pdf/ACLU_CERD_report.pdf

News: City Council debates controversial Safe Homes program

Scott Wachtler of the Bulletin neighborhood newspapers quotes Amy Reichbach, our Racial Justice Fellow, in this story about the Boston Police Department's "Safe Homes" program to conduct door-to-door searches for guns.

News: Death of immigrant in custody probed

Today the MetroWest Daily News of Framingham quotes Anjali Waikar, our Equal Justice Works Fellow, in its story about the death on Sept. 11, 2007, of a Brazilian immigrant in police custody. Maxsuel Medeiros is the second immigrant living in Massachusetts to die in police custody since July, and his arrest raised new concerns about the role of state police enforcing immigration laws.

Our Human Rights Fellow, Laura Rótolo, also gave an interview about the Medeiros death to WBZ radio.

Press Release: ACLU of Massachusetts calls for thorough investigation into death of second immigrant in custody

BOSTON - The American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts today called for a thorough investigation into yesterday's death of Maxsuel Medeiros, a 25-year-old immigrant from Brazil, who died while in Massachusetts State Police custody. As reported in today's Boston Globe, Medeiros' death is the second time since July that a Brazilian immigrant living in Massachusetts has died while in custody.

"The tragic death of a second young, Brazilian immigrant in detention raises questions that cannot be ignored," said Carol Rose, Executive Director of the ACLU of Massachusetts. "Last month's death of Edmar Alves Araujo after being arrested in Rhode Island raised concerns about the adequacy of medical care for detained individuals. That matter is currently under investigation, and we need to know the facts surrounding the death of Mr. Medeiros as well."

The death of Medeiros early Tuesday following his arrest on Friday, Aug. 31, raises other questions. "Why did police check the identification of Mr. Medeiros, the passenger in the car they stopped for a traffic violation? In addition to the facts surrounding Medieros' death, we need to know why he was in custody in the first place," said Rose.

The ACLU of Massachusetts has expressed growing concern in recent months over the increase in immigration raids and individual arrests, which are carried out in the name of finding undocumented immigrants, but often are conducted in violation of constitutional and legal rights.

News: Study of traffic stops is derailed

The Boston Globe quotes Carol Rose, our Executive Director, in its story about the lack of follow-through on a study of racial profiling in Massachusetts. A review by the Patrick administration found that only 140 of 247 police departments under scrutiny followed guidelines for gathering data on the reason for every traffic stop and the people involved. The guidelines were devised to help measure and monitor problems with racial profiling in Massachusetts.

News: Customs raids spur training on rights

Today the Boston Globe did an extensive story on 'know your rights' trainings done for years by the ACLU and other groups for non-citizens.

It's ironic that 'know your rights' trainings by the ACLU and other groups have drawn condemnation from Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials. What's really an outrage is their suggestion that constitutional rights should be suppressed.

An open and free society functions best when people are aware of their legal and constitutional rights. Our Constitution assumes that people are aware of their rights and may exercise them.

It’s true that non-citizens don’t have all the same rights as citizens. But the constitution guarantees that everyone inside our borders, not just US citizens, have basic rights, including the right to be free from unreasonable searches, the right not to self incriminate, the right not to let officers into their homes without a warrant, the right to due process, and the right to contact an attorney for assistance.

If law enforcement has absolute power to bypass these constitutional protections just because they happen to be looking for undocumented immigrants, then in the end, no US citizen is safe from a loud knock on the door in the middle of the night either.