ACLU of Washington | Annual Membership Conference 2008. interesting line-up of topics including one on the rights of non-citizens. i’d attend if i was in town that day. it’s hosted up at UW and it’s open to non-members as well.

Conflicts Of Interest: Why Do Microsoft, AOL, Yahoo, Red Hat And Others Support The National ID Card?. everyone loses their scruples when there’s a chance for a fat government contract.

Naomi Wolf: Ten Steps To Close Down an Open Society - The Huffington Post. reminder to everyone: give the aclu your money.

patriot act ruling

On Thursday, a federal court struck down the National Security Letter provision of the Patriot Act. The provision allows the government to serve a warrant and prevents the party who received the warrant for telling anyone that they recieved the warrant or what was divulged. In the related case, the plantiff was an Internet Service Provider who, presumably, couldn’t tell it’s customers that it had divulged information about them. Oddly enough, the case’s title is John Doe vs (former Attorney General) Alberto Gonzalez. Why? Well, the ISP also can’t be named because of the National Security Letter.

The ACLU, who represented John Doe, has a pretty thorough press release on the ruling and about the case in general. The press release makes an interesting point about how anyone who is served with a NSL is then under a gag order to not talk about it and essentially can’t criticize it. From the release:

In its case, the ACLU and the NYCLU said that the gag provision has had significant effects on the John Doe plaintiff. John Doe was prevented from participating in the contentious Patriot Act reauthorization debate that raged across the nation in late 2005 and early 2006. Even though Doe had firsthand knowledge of this sweeping FBI power, he could not speak about the fact that he had received an NSL, divulge the breadth of the letter, or discuss the ramifications on his business relationships.

But here’s the part of the press release that blew me away. You would think that something like this isn’t used that widely. That, is definitely not the case. In the last two years the government has issued… wait for it… over 143,000 NSLs. That’s one NSL for every 2000 Americans in just 2 years.

While reports previously indicated a hundred-fold increase to 30,000 NSLs issued annually, an extraordinary March 2007 report from the Justice Department’s own Inspector General puts the actual number at over 143,000 NSLs issued between 2003 and 2005. The same investigation also found serious FBI abuses of the NSL power and numerous potential violations of the law.

Anyways, I’m so glad I renewed my membership to the ACLU last week.

This reminded me why I should renew my membership with the ACLU. on that note, I renewed it.

daily dose of queer ยป Washington Initiative Requires Proof of Procreation From Married Couples. oh my.

Tracked in America. profiles of people who have been under surveillance by the us government.

Jon Stewart schools Bill Bennett on gay marriage. fyi, gay marriage has ruined holland and norway.

Olbermann: the death of habeus corpus. some good ole’ sarcasm. i love the bit about the hurry they were in to pass this bill, only to have the President sit on it for 2 weeks.

Olbermann: the beginning of the end of America. yet another blistering comment on Bush and the loss of habeus corpus.

The New McCarthy: Bill O’Reilly (Aaron Swartz’s Raw Thought). just a couple comparitive quotes from McCarthy and Bill O’Reilly.

aclu

I’ve been thinking about this for the last couple weeks but after reading this random post about NSA oversight I decided that I’ve had enough. Since Congress doesn’t want to do it’s job of government oversight, I can’t think of a better way to spend my money than giving it to people who will. So moments ago I became a card-carrying member of the American Civil Liberties Union.