Featured
ACLU-NCA Announces Executive Director Position Is Open for Application
January 06, 2012The American Civil Liberties Union of the Nation’s Capital (ACLU-NCA) seeks a dynamic, experienced Executive Director to lead our office in expanding a civil liberties agenda in Washington, D.C.
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ACLU Reveals High Rate of Suspensions at D.C. Charter Schools; Says Fairness in Discipline Is Good Law and Good Education
February 15, 2012In dramatic testimony to the D.C. Council Committee of the Whole on February 8, ACLU Senior Staff Attorney Fritz Mulhauser revealed new ACLU findings -- that public charter schools in the District in 2009-2010 (the latest year for which there is adequate data) suspended 4,500 of their 29,000 students--16 per cent of the enrollment.
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- Topics: Featured, Due Process, Student Rights
ACLU Cites First Amendment in Letter to D.C. Jail on Book Censorship
February 12, 2012"A jail full of prisoners quietly reading," said ACLU Senior Staff Attorney Fritz Mulhauser, "is exactly what every warden should want. But apparently not in the District."
Based on complaints to the ACLU of the Nation's Capital from numerous inmates, the ACLU on January 19, 2012, asked Thomas Faust, Acting Director of the D.C. Department of Corrections, to investigate arbitrary and inconsistent censorship of ordinary books inmates tried to buy from Amazon during 2011.
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- Topics: Featured, Criminal Justice
ACLU Challenges Another "Contempt of Cop" False Arrest: Transit Police At Fault, Suit Says, In 2011 U Street Incident
January 26, 2012Lawrence Miller saw his friend, Dwight Harris, thrown from his wheelchair last June 2011 by Metro Transit Police, and he spoke up--asking the officers why; urging them to take more care of a disabled person; and questioning why a peaceful U Street vendor lay bloody on the sidewalk. Police told him to be quiet and he turned to leave.
Even so, despite committing no crime and aopparently just for asking his questions, Miller was arrested and locked up, charged with inciting a riot and assaulting an officer--charges a prosecutor tossed out at the first opportunity.
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- Topics: Featured, Police Misconduct
Mayor, D.C. Council Take Bold Steps To Secure D.C.'s Immigrant Community
November 21, 2011Described as a Hero by those he has helped, Jai Shankar, father of a ten year old, has lived in America for 20 years. His son is a citizen. He is not. When his friend’s camera was stolen, Jai called the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department. Instead of seeking out the thief, the Police questioned Jai, determined he was out of status and held him for ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement). After more than five months of incarceration and two years of wearing an ankle bracelet, a cloud of deportation remains over his head. Last year, America set a new record for deportations, sending 400,000 to uncertain fates; breaking up families; separating children from their parents; making those exposed reluctant to cooperate with the police, even when facing domestic violence at home.
The Department of Homeland Security recently changed course for its failed Secure Communities Program. After rejections by state and local governments, the Department has unilaterally abandoned its so-called “voluntary” program and declared it a “mandatory” program. Those powers ordinarily reserved to the states are apparently being taken by the federal government. When the “voluntary” program was launched, Washington, D.C. was the first in the nation to reject it. Illinois, Massachusetts, New York and others followed. Under the new “mandatory” program, immigrants, like Jai, who have committed no crime or have committed a minor offense can be held for ICE, without ever having been convicted of anything.
The affects of the mandatory Secure Communities Program was the subject of a Forum held recently at the UDC-David A. Clarke School of Law and co-hosted by the ACLU of the Nation’s Capital. View pictures and learn more »
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- Topics: Featured, Immigrants' Rights, News & Events
ACLU Welcomes Start of Public Discussion of Privacy Implications of License Plate Tracking By Law Enforcement
November 21, 2011The ACLU of the Nation's Capital today urged executive and legislative branches of government in the District to take note of the report in the Washington Post November 20 on the "vast system that tracks the comings and goings of anyone driving around the District."
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- Topics: Featured, Police Practices, Privacy
D.C. Police Agree To Allow Religious Head Scarves In Police Lock-Ups
October 17, 2011The Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) has agreed to a new policy that will for the first time respect the First Amendment right to wear religious head scarves in police holding facilities such as district stations and the central cellblock.
ACLU of the Nation’s Capital Offers Assistance to “Occupy D.C.” Demonstrators
October 07, 2011Know-Your-Rights Pamphlet Provides Advice to Demonstrators, Offers Help
ACLU-NCA Attorneys Art Spitzer, Fritz Mulhauser and Johnny Barnes to provide "On Site" Training Session for Demonstrators
In response to planned demonstrations in Washington, D.C., the American Civil Liberties Union of the Nation’s Capital has released a demonstrator’s know-your-rights informational pamphlet. The pamphlet offers basic information about the rights of demonstrators, the limitations on those rights, and what to do when rights are violated.
“Peaceful protests are a culturally accepted and constitutionally protected practice,” said ACLU of the Nation’s Capital Executive Director Johnny Barnes, “but we have had some problems in the past with overreaction by law enforcement.”
"While this pamphlet is designed for demonstrators, we hope law enforcement personnel will read it also," added Barnes. “If everyone – protesters and law enforcement – knows the law and their limits, we will all come through these protests uneventfully.”
Protest groups are emerging around the states, many affiliated with the “Occupy Wall Street” movement in New York City. The demonstrations in New York attracted national attention when over 700 protesters were arrested while marching on the Brooklyn Bridge.
“At bottom, demonstrators who believe their free speech rights have been violated should call us,” said Barnes. “We can help.”
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ACLU Wins Apology for Photographer: Guard Hassled Him Snapping HUD Headquarters Building
October 03, 2011ACLU commended the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) recently for promptly acknowledging a weekend guard was wrong ordering an amateur photographer to stop taking pictures on a Sunday afternoon on 7th Street, S.W., in Washington, DC, across the street from the dramatic HUD headquarters building.
Transit Police Sued in New ACLU Case
September 25, 2011Carlos Cardenas was carrying his friend's bicycle down a Metro escalator one evening in September 2010, but a Transit police officer came up behind him and aggressively demanded he move along and eventually pushed the bicycle out of his hands and sent it crashing downwards. When Mr. Cardenas asked too many times at the borttom of the escalator why he'd been pushed and shoved, the officer responded by calling in reinforcements and the group of officers threw Mr. Cardenas to the ground and arrested him. After a night in police lockups, Mr. Cardenas was finally released the next day. Now, with the assistance of the ACLU, he's asking the Metro Transit Police to answer the reasonable questions the officer refused to hear in the station that evening.
