Press Release:

WASHINGTON, D.C. -– Senators Susan Collins (R-ME) and Ron Wyden (D-OR) have joined in a bipartisan effort to introduce legislation to further protect the civil rights and civil liberties of Americans. Their legislation aims to ensure that officials within the Department of Homeland Security have the ability to balance public safety with the civil right and liberties that are so important to Americans. The legislation will be referred to the Governmental Affairs Committee, which Senator Collins chairs.

“I am pleased to join with Senator Wyden in introducing this important bill,” said Senator Collins. “The Department of Homeland Security was created in response to the need to safeguard our homeland, and it represented the most significant government restructuring in 50 years. But in focusing our attention on protecting the homeland from future terrorist attacks, we also must ensure that we do not trample on the very values that the terrorists seek to destroy,” said Senator Collins. She added “Secretary Ridge has done an outstanding job at taking these sensitive and important issues into account. So it is the responsibility of the Congress to ensure that federal law supports goals that the Secretary has already undertaken.”

Democrats today introduced the Civil Liberties Restoration Act to curtail the abuses of the Patriot Act:

U.S. Sen. Jon Corzine and four other Senate Democrats introduced legislation Wednesday designed to correct what they consider the excesses of the USA Patriot Act and similar national security measures. The legislation would end the special registration program aimed at immigrants from the Middle East, create an independent immigration court and eliminate harsh penalties for some immigration violations.

Civil rights and immigrant groups praised the proposal as a long-overdue effort to protect civil liberties. "This law is necessary to restore constitutional freedoms that are being encroached upon by this administration," said Corzine, D-N.J. "This law, however, will not compromise the nations security. We can be both safe and free."

Here's the good things the bill would do:

The changes proposed in the Senate bill would end the government's blanket right to conduct deportation hearings in secret, allowing closures on a case-by-case basis, and would guarantee prompt release-bond hearings. The legislation also would require detainees to be apprised of the charges against them within 48 hours and would eliminate criminal penalties for minor technical violations of immigration law, such as failure to report a change of address within 10 days. The bill would limit the secret seizure of private databases and individual records.

Co-sponsors include: Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, Richard Durbin of Illinois, Patrick Leahy of Vermont and Russell Feingold of Wisconsin. U.S. Reps. Howard Berman, D-Calif., and William Delahunt, D-Mass., co-sponsored it in the House.

[link via Patriot Watch]

Earlier today, the Senate adopted the Durbin anti-torture amendment by unanimous voice vote. Senators McCain, Specter, Levin, Feinstein, Leahy and Kennedy joined as cosponsors. We just received a copy of Sen. Durbin's floor statement on the amendment and will post it in a few hours.

Update: It's now on the AP wire.

Update: Here is Senator Durbin's floor statement (pdf).

Last week we put out an action alert asking TL readers to write their Senators urging support of Sen. Richard Durbin's "torture amendment" to the defense authorization bill. Today, the Washington Post endorses the Amendment.

It's not clear why interrogation techniques judged improper or illegal by a Pentagon legal team were subsequently adopted in Iraq. Nor is it clear what those standards are today, either in Iraq or elsewhere -- breaking with decades of previous practice, the Bush administration has classified them. Congressional leaders who have vowed to get to the bottom of the prisoner abuse scandal still have much to learn; they will not succeed unless the scale and pace of their investigations are stepped up.

The Senate, however, has an opportunity today to directly address the mess the administration has made of interrogation policy and of America's global standing. An amendment to the defense authorization bill, sponsored by Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), would reaffirm the commitment of the United States not to engage in torture, and it would require the defense secretary to provide Congress with guidelines ensuring compliance with this standard. Sadly, the Bush administration's policy decisions have cast doubt on whether this country accepts this fundamental principle of human rights. Congress should insist that it does.

If you haven't contacted your Senator yet, please do so today.

Here's another bill to support--one that would Restore Rights Undermined by Post 9-11 Policies.

The U.S. government’s roundup of immigrants after the September 11 attacks was plagued by abuses. By passing this legislation, the Congress can help make sure this never happens again.

Wendy Patten, U.S. advocacy, says:

Congress Should Act on Legislation to Protect Basic Rights in the United States. The U.S. Congress should pass legislation to roll back post-September 11 policies that have led to arbitrary detentions and due process violations, Human Rights Watch said today. A bill that will be introduced in Congress today would ensure respect for basic rights and fair treatment in the United States, particularly for people detained under U.S. immigration laws.

The U.S. Congress should pass legislation to roll back post-September 11 policies that have led to arbitrary detentions and due process violations, Human Rights Watch said today. A bill that will be introduced in Congress today would ensure respect for basic rights and fair treatment in the United States, particularly for people detained under U.S. immigration laws.

bq. “The U.S. government’s roundup of immigrants after the September 11 attacks was plagued by abuses,” said Wendy Patten, U.S. advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. “By passing this legislation, the Congress can help make sure this never happens again.”

Read more, here.

Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL) has introduced a bill to Reaffirm US Commitment to Uphold Prohibitions on Torture in International Law:. It needs your support:. We received this by e-mail:

Senator Richard Durbin (IL) has introduced an amendment to the Defense Authorization bill to reaffirm US commitment to the Geneva Conventions, the Convention Against Torture, and the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights, and to affirm unequivocally the prohibition against torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. The notorious photos taken at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq demonstrate that U.S. personnel have been responsible for acts of torture and other forms of abuse, in violation of the US commitments under domestic and international law. It is imperative that the Durbin Torture Amendment receives strong, bipartisan support to send a message around the world that the U.S. opposes such abuse and will uphold international standards for human rights.

Please call or fax your Senator immediately to urge him/her to support the Durbin Torture Amendment to the Defense Authorization bill. If you do not know the number for your Senators’ offices, call the Capitol switchboard: 202-224-3121. We urge you to call your two Senators, given that the Defense Authorization bill is currently under consideration in the Senate.

Here's a sample letter you can send your Senators. Here's the text of the bill. Here's why we need this bill. The main points are:

David Sirota's new column in In These Times addresses five congressional votes every voter should know about, but probably doesn't. They are small ones that no one hears about, and Sirota says they are hugely important. They cover Iraq, homeland security, corporate welfare, and Halliburton.

by TChris

The CLEAR Act, proposed last year by Rep. Charlie Norwood (R-GA) and joined by 121 co-sponsors, would authorize all state and local law enforcement officers "to investigate, apprehend, or remove aliens" in the United States in violation of federal immigation laws. States that refuse to authorize their officers to do the job would be cut off from federal funding for prisons.

This is the kind of legislation favored by the "send them all back where they came from" crowd, but requiring local police to arrest everyone suspected of an immigration violation would flood a system that's already overtaxed while diverting officers from more important duties (as prioritized by the local residents who employ them, if not Rep. Norwood). What happened to the time when Republicans were in favor of states running their own governments?

Another unintended consequence: years of public education urging battered women to call the police will be nullified by the fear that a call to the police will result in deportation.

"This is really putting into danger the lives of immigrant women and children," said Claudia Medina, executive director of ENLACE Comunitario, a pro-immigrant organization that works with victims of domestic violence.

"If this law is approved, it will cause chaos in our community.... Victims aren't going to report abuse. This will give one more tool to abusers against their victims."

The Albuquerque City Council passed a resolution last night opposing the bill. More on the CLEAR Act here.

Columnist Nat Hentoff recounts a Justice Department official's comment that the Government knows it is losing the fight over the Patriot Act.

by TChris

The Unborn Victims of Violence Act of 2004 (a/k/a Laci and Conner's Law, named after Laci Peterson and her unborn child) creates a separate crime when the victim of a federal crime is pregnant and the crime causes death or injury to "a child, who is in utero at the time the conduct takes place." For the most part, "the punishment for that separate offense is the same as the punishment provided under Federal law for that conduct had that injury or death occurred to the unborn child's mother." The law took effect on April 1 over the objection of critics who believe that equating the life of a woman to the life of her fetus is a sneaky way of undermining the right to abortion.

It turns out that the law has a salutary effect, although one not envisioned by the politicians who were eager to exploit Laci Peterson's death for their own political purposes. Relying on that law, a federal judge ruled that a pregnant Mexican woman who is alleged to have falsely claimed citizenship while entering the U.S. cannot be deported because her unborn child is a citizen and the government has no right to deport citizens.

The Constitution provides that every person born in the U.S. is a citizen of the U.S. The woman's child hasn't been born, but under Laci and Conner's Law, that's a minor technicality; if a child who hasn't been born enjoys the same legal protections as a child who has been born, shouldn't the unborn child also be entitled to citizenship? If so, the government can't deport the noncitizen without simultaneously deporting the citizen, something the government is powerless to do.

The judge's decision will likely be overturned on appeal, but by then, the child will have been born and there will be no dispute about citizenship. The child, at least, will be entitled to stay in the country with its citizen father.

Good news from Vermont, via NORML:

Senate Bill 76, which enacts legal protections for people using marijuana to treat AIDS, cancer or multiple sclerosis, passed that Senate yesterday by a vote of 20-7. (See article.) Governor James Douglas, despite his previous opposition, has promised to allow it to become law without his signature.

Vermont now becomes the tenth state to legalize marijuana for medical use,
and only the second to do so through the legislative process. Vermont joins
Maine as the only medical marijuana states on the East Coast.

The article says Vermont becomes the 9th rather than 10th state to pass such a law because it doesn't count Arizona's law:

The other states are: Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Nevada, Oregon and Washington state already have laws allowing marijuana for medical needs. Arizona passed an initiative to allow marijuana by prescription, a largely symbolic law because federal law prohibits doctors from writing such prescriptions.

Ten down, forty to go.

Update : Drug War Rant comments, "patients will be allowed to grow 3 plants -- perfect for the medical marijuana patient who gets sick occasionally."

by TChris

MSNBC is catching up with TalkLeft in its coverage of one of the vital stories of our time. Back on April 23, TalkLeft let you know that the State of Louisiana is trying to protect the state's aesthetic interests by outlawing plumber's butt. Today, MSNBC reports that the Louisiana House Criminal Justice Committee approved the bill. This crucial piece of fashion legislation should go before the full House within the next two months.