civil liberties

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• SOURCE: Editorial Board
  12/21/2021
  

  Should Your Taxes Fund Religious Schools? Why SCOTUS Might Say Yes

  Christopher Jon Sprigman of NYU Law discusses the oral arguments in Carson v. Makin, and how the conservatives on the Court seem to be maximizing "free exercise" over "establishment." 

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• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  11/17/2021
  

  Law Enforcement Has Long Practiced Double Standards for Activists

  by Denise Lynn

  Nobody should be shocked that the FBI has aggressively surveilled Black Lives Matter organizers while deciding that the online organizing of the January 6 attack on the Capitol was protected speech; this double standard has characterized law enforcement's approach to racial justice protest. 

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• SOURCE: Boston Review
  9/9/2021
  

  9/11 Forever

  by Joseph Margulies

  "By creating the impression that the stakes were not merely consequential but existential, the attacks of September 11 normalized previously unimaginable cruelty."

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• SOURCE: The Guardian
  7/1/2021
  

  The ACLU on Fighting Critical Race Theory Bans: ‘It’s About Our Country Reckoning with Racism’

  Historian Adam Laats give background to an interview with ACLU Staff Attorney Emerson Sykes about the climate of backlash and censorship around teaching the history of racism in America, comparing it to the 1920s uproar over the teaching of evolution. 

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• SOURCE: The New Republic
  5/27/2021
  

  The Lies Cops Tell and the Lies We Tell About Cops

  by Stuart Schrader

  "The core of policing is not safety. It is social control. All the other lies obfuscate this function."

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• SOURCE: The New Republic
  4/14/2021
  

  How Americans Lost Their Fervor for Freedom (Review of Louis Menand)

  by Evan Kindley

  Before lamenting the death of "freedom" as the highest social ideal, it's important to reckon seriously with what the term means outside of the context of the Cold War.

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• SOURCE: Reason
  1/13/2021
  

  Reviving Sedition Prosecutions Would Be a Tragic Mistake

  by David Beito

  A libertarian historian argues that the use of sedition law to charge participants in the Capitol riots would revive a dangerous pattern of prosecuting ideology instead of action, one which those on the left should also treat with suspicion. 

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• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  12/3/2020
  

  A Lesser-Known Trump Immigration Policy Needs Biden’s Attention

  by Smita Ghosh

  Biden should reverse the Trump policy of using "expedited removal" to deport migrants without a hearing, which is part of a historical pattern of deportation programs that harm communities, separate families, and sometimes result in legal residents being expelled from the United States.

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• SOURCE: CNN
  11/2/2020
  

  Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Black Lives Matter Organizer

  "The Supreme Court has long recognized that peaceful protesters cannot be held liable for the unintended, unlawful actions of others," said American Civil Liberties Union National Legal Director David Cole.

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• SOURCE: Mother Jones
  10/29/2020
  

  The Dossier That Destroyed Frank Wilkinson’s Dream of Public Housing in LA

  by Eric Nusbaum

  Frank Wilkinson's advocacy for racially integrated public housing in Los Angeles set off a red-baiting campaign that landed him in prison. 

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• SOURCE: Slate
  8/4/2020
  

  The Police Lie. All the Time. Can Anything Stop Them?

  A 1961 Supreme Court ruling establishing the Exclusionary Rule--that evidence obtained illegally is inadmissible in trial--spurred a host of police practices to circumvent the rule, most involving lying in reports about the circumstances of a search or arrest.

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• SOURCE: NBC News
  7/19/2020
  

  The Holocaust Survivor Hoping To Change American Police Culture

  Psychologist Ervin Staub has pioneered active bystander training to limit violence between police and the public.

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• SOURCE: ProPublica
  6/9/2020
  

  The Police Have Been Spying on Black Reporters and Activists for Years. I Know Because I’m One of Them.

  by Wendi C. Thomas

  Wendi C. Thomas is a black journalist who has covered police in Memphis. One officer admitted to spying on her. She’s on a long list of prominent black journalists and activists who have been subjected to police surveillance over decades.

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• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  June 2
  

  Trump’s Grotesque Violation of the First Amendment

  by Garrett Epps

  The people own the streets—not the police, not the military, and not Donald Trump.

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• 4/5/2020
  

  US v. Sineneng-Smith Echoes the Fugitive Slave Act

  by Alan J. Singer

  A Supreme Court decision in United States v. Sineneng-Smith that broadens the authority of the federal government to suppress the rights of advocates for undocumented immigrants could divide the nation irreparably.

• 
• SOURCE: Quartz
  4/1/2020
  

  The US Government Has a Long History of Using Crises to Justify Indefinite Mass Detention

  Governments, both federal and local, are already flirting with emergency powers to fight the spread of coronavirus that contravene the rights residents normally take for granted.

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• SOURCE: TomDispatch
  3/26/2020
  

  Judgment Day for the National Security State

  by Andrew Bacevich

  Deferred for far too long, Judgment Day may at long last have arrived for the national security state.

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  3/16/2020
  

  How the Coronavirus Could Trigger a Backslide on Freedom Around the World

  by Allie Funk and Isabel Linzer

  Authorities worldwide are using the coronavirus as a pretext to crack down on human rights for political purposes. 

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  5/15/19
  

  Why we can — and must — create a fairer system of traffic enforcement

  by Sarah A. Seo

  Its discretionary nature has left it ripe for abuse.

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• SOURCE: WSJ
  2-5-18
  

  David J. Garrow, who exposed abuses by the FBI under Hoover, warns that liberals are blind to today’s civil liberties violations

  by David J. Garrow

  In an op ed in the Wall Street Journal he argues that the FBI surveillance of Carter Page is comparable to the Bureau’s wiretapping of MLK.