ACLU-NM Friends,

It’s all over the national media that the National Security Agency is data mining millions of private citizens’ phone records. No one likes it.

But what can we do about it?

File a complaint about this assault on our privacy in two important ways:

(1) Go to http://www.nmprc.state.nm.us/consumers/pdf/utilitiescomplaint.pdf and download the New Mexico Public Regulatory Commission Informal Complaint. Return it to:

Public Regulatory Commission
P.O. Box 1269
Santa Fe, New Mexico 87504

or FAX it to #505.827.4463. (The PRC regulates telephone service.)

(2) Go to www.aclu.org/dontspy and file a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission.

Tell them you know what the telephone companies are doing are doing, and that you know it is both a violation of customer trust and a violation of the law. It violates our expectation that the government will not pry into our lives without probable cause.

It is not up to AT&T or Verizon or any other phone company to decide what the government gets to see about our medical calls, our professional or very personal calls.

We can stop this illegal spying now. But they won’t stop if we don’t tell them.
So tell them. Today.

Join Us for a Panel Discussion: Policies Tear Families Apart in New Mexico

Award winning journalist, and former Soros Justice Media Fellow, Nell Bernstein, author of ALL ALONE IN THE WORLD: CHILDREN OF THE INCARCERATED

AND Professor Renny Golden, criminologist, published poet, well known activist for social rights in El Salvador and Guatemala, and author of WAR ON THE FAMILY: MOTHERS IN PRISON AND THE CHILDREN THEY LEAVE BEHIND

will discuss their books which reveal how children
and parents are torn apart by the American penal system

Youth from PB&J Family Services, Inc. (a non-profit social service agency that serves families of the imprisoned) will share their personal experiences on how the penal system has affected their lives.

Wednesday, April 19, 2006 6-8 pm
UNM Law School Room 2402

Sponsors: NM Women’s Justice Project, Inc. and PB&J Family Services, Inc.

Co-sponsors include: The Women’s Agenda, Coalition for Justice, American Civil Liberties Union of NM; NM Voices for Children; Drug Policy Alliance-NM; New Mexico Coalition to Repeal the Death Penalty; New Mexico Criminal Defense Lawyers Association; Southwest Women’s Law Center.

For more information call: Diane Wood, 505.379.9470

ACLU Challenges Overcrowding in Women’s Prison

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Wednesday, April 5th, 2006 CONTACT:
Peter Simonson, Executive Director, ACLU of New Mexico at 505-266-5915 ext. 1002
Maureen Sanders, ACLU-NM Legal Co-Director, 980-8889

Santa Fe—Attorneys for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of New Mexico filed legal papers Tuesday asking a state court to force NM Corrections Secretary Joe Williams to relieve overcrowding in the New Mexico Women’s Correctional Facility in Grants. According to the ACLU, inmates are being housed in public communal areas that are not designed for long-term custody, causing increased tensions and fighting among inmates and the backup of sewage into living areas. NM Representative Mimi Stewart and the New Mexico Women’s Justice Project have joined the ACLU in the lawsuit.

“We gave the Corrections Department every opportunity to fix the situation and it failed to relieve the overcrowding,” said ACLU executive director Peter Simonson. “The current conditions seriously threaten the health and safety of the inmates and of the staff. If it takes a court order to force the DOC to resolve the problem, then so be it.”

Specifically, the ACLU is demanding that the Department of Corrections comply with a state law called the Corrections Population Control Act, passed by the NM legislature in 2002. When the inmate population of a correctional facility “exceeds one hundred percent of rated capacity” for a period of sixty consecutive days, the law requires the Corrections Secretary to notify a special legislatively-created commission and provide it with a list of nonviolent offenders who are within one hundred eighty days of their projected release date. The Commission is required to approve people on this list for emergency release to relieve population pressures within the facility.

ACLU legal co-director Maureen Sanders said, “Our records show that the population at the women’s prison has exceeded the six-hundred-person capacity by sixty inmates for more than sixty days. The Secretary has a legal obligation to convene the commission, or he is short-circuiting the wishes of the legislature. The legislature acted responsibly in addressing the overpopulation problem and the safety problems that result by requiring that nonviolent offenders be released. As a society we have a responsibility to ensure that our inmates are housed in safe facilities.”

The ACLU expects that the court will set a hearing within the next ten days.

###
Peter G. Simonson
Executive Director | ACLU of New Mexico
PO Box 566 | Albuquerque, NM 87103
Tel: (505) 266-5915 | Fax: 266-5916

Who is going to hold the President accountable for breaking the law?

That question should be on the tip of every American’s tongue following revelations that President Bush authorized the illegal wiretapping of an undisclosed number of U.S. citizens and legal residents.

On Tuesday, April 11 from 7:00 to 8:30 PM, ACLU members will have a rare opportunity to tune in via webcast to a national ACLU townhall meeting discussing the legal implications and most recent developments in Congress regarding President Bush’s illegal order authorizing the National Security Agency to spy on Americans.

This webcast (see details for access below) will include Anthony Romero, ACLU Executive Director, John Dean, former White House counsel, and Laurence H. Tribe, Harvard Professor of Constitutional Law, among other panelists.

Please, invite friends and civil liberties advocates to watch this critical event.

The Senate Republican leadership is sponsoring two bills that would retroactively ratify the president’s illegal actions, thereby whitewashing this stunning civil rights abuse. It is imperative that ACLU members contact their Congressional representatives to:

* oppose legislation allowing warrantless surveillance of Americans, and
* support appointing a special counsel to investigate President Bush’s misuse of authority regarding surveillance without warrants on private citizens.

Unless Americans act now, Congress will allow this issue to go unchallenged.

Our Congressional delegates will be home April 10-21. E-mail or call them at

Senator Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico @ 346.6601
Email Address: senator_bingaman@bingaman.senate.gov

Representative Heather A. Wilson of New Mexico @ 323.9017
Email Address: http://wilson.house.gov/Contact.asp

Representative Thomas Udall of New Mexico @ 994.0499
Email Address: http://www.tomudall.house.gov/feedback.cfm?campaign=Udall&type=Helping%20You%20

Here’s what you need to watch the webcast. If a group is interested in watching from the Albuquerque affiliate office, please call Joyce @ 266.5916 ext. 1003 or e-m at communications@aclu-nm.org

WATCH NOW
Windows Media Player format
Real Player format (broadband) Real Player format (dial-up)
Audio only (mp3)

Read more about illegal spying on Americans and the ACLU’s lawsuit challenging the NSA. At www.aclu.org

Joyce Briscoe
Legislative Advocate
ACLU of New Mexico
PO Box 566
Albuquerque, NM 87103
go to our website at www.aclu-nm.org

NEWS Former Hobbs Police Chief Vindicated
in ACLU Suit

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
CONTACT:
Peter Simonson, Executive Director, ACLU of New Mexico at 505-266-5915, ext. 1002

HOBBS – The City of Hobbs has agreed to pay $70,000 to former Hobbs Police Chief Kenneth Bohn to resolve civil rights claims that the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of New Mexico brought on his behalf last September. The suit stemmed from Bohn’s firing on August 11th, a move that surprised leaders in the Black and Hispanic communities and spurred protests at city council meetings. The ACLU will receive roughly $17,000 in attorneys fees and costs from the settlement.

“We are very pleased with this outcome,” said ACLU Executive Director Peter Simonson. “The amount of the settlement offer reflects the seriousness of the civil rights violations that city officials committed against Chief Bohn. Unfortunately, the real losers in this deal are the citizens of Hobbs. Not only have they lost an upstanding leader for their police force, but also they are left with the problems that Chief Bohn tried to clean up.”

The ACLU alleged that Bohn was fired in retaliation for raising concerns about pay inequities within the police department and for insisting on a full investigation of the police evidence room. Complaints of missing weapons, transfer records, and homicide evidence had plagued the evidence room stemming from policies and practices that predated Bohn. When Bohn arrived, he also discovered what he believed to be evidence that the department had used proceeds from drug investigation forfeitures to buy video and audio recording devices that Bohn found to be secretly planted throughout the department. In May, 2005, Bohn requested an independent audit of the police department’s evidence room by the State Auditor and District Attorney’s office.

Bohn also voiced his concerns about disparities in the pay level of different officers at the June 27th Hobbs City Commission meeting. Shortly thereafter, Bohn received a “draft performance evaluation” from the City Manager Dan Dible. Although Bohn received excellent marks for job performance, Dible criticized him for speaking up about safety concerns related to pay inequities.

Bohn reiterated his concerns about pay equity at a subsequent meeting of the Commission on July 17th. On August 10th, mere days after Bohn received a substantial pay raise, Dible issued Bohn an ultimatum that he was to resign or be terminated the following day. The letter confirming Bohn’s termination gave no reasons for the firing.

Simonson said, “I think the Chief is just glad to conclude this episode of his life. It’s a hard thing for anyone to face unfair treatment in their job, even a guy as tough as the Chief.

The ACLU’s relationship with Hobbs is not over though. That’s a troubled police department. I have no doubt that we will see more civil rights problems arise in the coming years. The ACLU will be there when it does.”

Peter G. Simonson
Executive Director | ACLU of New Mexico
PO Box 566 | Albuquerque, NM 87103
Tel: (505) 266-5915 | Fax: 266-5916

Civil Rights Groups Achieve Agreement to Overhaul NM Juvenile Justice System

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Friday, February 17, 2006
CONTACT:
Peter Simonson, Executive Director, ACLU of New Mexico, 505-266-5915 or (cell) 505-620-0775
Daniel Yohalem, ACLU-NM Cooperating Attorney, 983-9433

ALBUQUERQUE - Civil rights groups have agreed to hold off on a major class action lawsuit against New Mexico’s Children Youth and Families Department in return for promises of major reform in the juvenile justice system. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of New Mexico and the Youth Law Center (San Francisco) signed a settlement agreement with CYFD last Wednesday that requires sweeping improvements in security, mental health programming, and rehabilitation services in juvenile detention facilities across the state. It also mandates the closure of the New Mexico Boy’s School in Springer.

“The ACLU had two key aims in this litigation,” said ACLU executive director Peter Simonson. “Protect the safety of children in CYFD’s facilities and make sure that youthful offenders in our state get a fair shot at putting their lives back on a positive track. We think this agreement has the potential to transform our juvenile detention facilities from warehouses of problem kids to centers of genuine rehabilitation.”

ACLU cooperating attorney Daniel Yohalem said, “While the threat of the ACLU’s litigation was the spur to action, CYFD Secretary Mary Dale Bolson and her team have shown great leadership and responsibility in agreeing to redraw the future for New Mexico’s juveniles. If CYFD faithfully implements the ground breaking plan of action contained in the Agreement, fewer children will need to be in placed in custody because new community-based services will be available. Rehabilitation and safety will become much more available to those children who are placed in custody.”

Highlights of the 36-page settlement agreement include:

• Transfer of all 107 youth currently housed at Springer to other facilities around the state;

• Improved security in all CYFD facilities, including the installation of security cameras, increased ratios of staff to youth in all living units, and elimination of the practice of isolating youth from programs and general population as the means for ensuring safety;

• Development of comprehensive behavioral health screening and treatment programs headed by separate directors for facility-based and community-based behavioral health services and adequately staffed by psychiatrists and other mental health professionals;

• Requirements that female youth be granted comparable access to services and programs as male youth;

• Creation of classification and placement procedures to ensure that youth are located in the most appropriate settings in CFYD facilities.

• Creation of an Office of Quality Assurance that will independently monitor compliance with CYFD policies and investigate all serious internal grievances;

The settlement will affect over five hundred youth that are now on probation or housed in juvenile facilities run by CYFD.

Yohalem described the settlement agreement as “comprehensive and innovative.”

“In many ways, what this agreement does is break open the ‘closed’ corrections approach and put decision making in the hands of mental health and corrections professionals rather than in the hands of jailers,” Yohalem said. “From now on CYFD will try to place kids in facilities that allow them to keep in touch with their families and communities. And they will have to provide behavioral health services and other programming in the least restrictive setting possible.”

In addition to Yohalem, ACLU attorneys included Peter Cubra, Phil Davis, Larry Kronen, and Lee Hunt. Alice Bussiere represented the Youth Law Center.

“Even though we settled the lawsuit, the ACLU’s job is just beginning,” Yohalem said. “For the next four years, we’ll be monitoring CYFD’s progress very carefully to make sure that all the reforms are fully implemented.”

###

Peter G. Simonson
Executive Director | ACLU of New Mexico
PO Box 566 | Albuquerque, NM 87103
Tel: (505) 266-5915 | Fax: (505) 266-5916

Thank you, ACLU Friends, for your many phone calls and e-mails this legislative session. The prospect for civil liberties looked pretty grim right up to the end. But much happened in the crush of closing the session:

The bill expanding the collection of DNA from conviction to arrests for felonies did pass.
Please call Governor Richardson’s office @ 1.505.476.2200 to veto this bill.

We opposed several bills requiring tougher, mandatory penalties (rather than treatment programs) for certain
gang-related crimes
sex offenders.
We are happy to report these bills did not pass.

However, the increased penalties for trafficking of meth did pass.

Other Good News:

Medical Rights: “Kendra’s law” on court-ordered treatment for mentally ill people, in spite of much publicity, did not pass
Gay Rights: no bills or Constitutional amendments proposed on the Defense of Marriage Act
Womens’ Rights: no bills or Constitutional amendments proposed on limiting abortion or defining when life begins
Students’ Rights: no bills or memorials on intelligent design were proposed
Voter Rights: strict voter identification requirements did not pass
although we anticipate fighting all these issues next session.

Once again, it isn’t over until the Governor is done. Please call the Governor concerning the DNA bill at 1.505.476.2200.

Diane Wood, our Most Excellent Lobbyist, and I will be reaching out and touching you before the next legislative session. This year, we want to involve you in gathering support for our civil liberties issues, especially privacy issues, statewide well before the 2007 session begins!

Joyce Briscoe
Legislative Advocate
ACLU of New Mexico
PO Box 566
Albuquerque, NM 87103
go to our website at www.aclu-nm.org (the web blog is in the upper right corner)

ACLU Members – especially in Gallup and Espanola areas:

Please call Senator Rainaldi @ 1.505.986.4310 and Senator Martinez @ 1.505.986.4389 to oppose Representative Tom Swisstack’s Bills (# 60 and # 65) adding additional, mandatory penalties for crimes involving gangs.

These bills will be in the Senate Judiciary Committee. We are opposing Representative Swisstack’s bills because

1. Generally the ACLU opposes mandatory sentences and enhancements of any kind because they lessen the judge’s ability to consider individual cases and their specific circumstances – such as the age or mental ability of the defendant, or the past criminal history (or lack of one) of the defendant, and especially the rehabilitative potential of the defendant through education or treatment programs.

2. These bills threaten the individual’s right to freedom of association primarily because they are vague in defining what a gang is. In addition, the bills do not define what constitutes being a member of a gang; e.g., Is being in the same room with other gang members who have felony records “membership” in a gang?

3. In practice, we believe these bills would most negatively impact Hispanics and African- Americans and would increase the use of racial profiling

4. We believe the taxpayers’ monies are better spent on educational and treatment programs than on additional prisons.

Please call State Senators Rainaldi and Martinez today to oppose HB 60 and 65

Joyce Briscoe
Legislative Advocate
ACLU of New Mexico
PO Box 566
Albuquerque, NM 87103

ACLU Members – especially in Las Cruces, Carlsbad, Roswell
& Santa Fe:

Please call Representative Andy Nunez @ 1.505.986.4233, Representative Joe Stell @ 1.505.986.4423
and House Speaker Ben Lujan @ 1.505.986.4782

to vote YES on SB 258, Medical Marijuana,
the Lynn Pierson & Erin Armstrong Compassionate Use Act.

This bill is in the House Agriculture & Water Resources Committee; Representative Joe Stell is the Chairman of this committee.
1. This bill would not legalize marijuana. Sponsor Senator Cisco McSorley emphasizes, “It allows doctors to recommend for clients who have severe ailments – to obtain medical marijuana from a licensee of the state of New Mexico. It is strictly regulated.”

2. New Mexico has a precedent for this bill. In 1978, New Mexico had a law establishing a controlled program allowing glaucoma and cancer chemotherapy patients to use marijuana for their illnesses. This program ended in 1986 because of budget cuts. The Lynn Pierson Research Program was named for a cancer patient who lobbied for the law; Pierson died before receiving federal approval.

3. This bill passed the Senate last week with wide approval from both political parties (34-6).

Please call State Representatives Nunez, Stell and Lujan today to SUPPORT SB 258, Medical Marijuana.

Joyce Briscoe
Legislative Advocate
ACLU of New Mexico
PO Box 566
Albuquerque, NM 87103

ACLU Protests Investigation of
VA Employee for ‘Sedition’

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Tuesday, January 31, 2006
CONTACT:
Peter Simonson, Executive Director, ACLU of New Mexico at 505-266-5915 or (cell) 505-620-0775

Albuquerque—In a letter to the US Department of Veteran Affairs, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of New Mexico is demanding an explanation for the department’s investigation of a federal employee for publishing an editorial in a local newspaper criticizing the Bush administration. In September, 2005, VA Information Security employees seized Laura Berg’s office computer due to the professed belief “that government equipment was used inappropriately…during government time for drafting an editorial letter.” No evidence was recovered to support that belief.

“The VA had no reason to suspect that Laura Berg used government resources to produce her editorial,” said ACLU Executive Director Peter Simonson. “She signed the letter as a private individual. From all appearances, the seizure of her work computer was an act of retaliation and a hardball attempt to scare Laura into silence.”

In her letter to the weekly Alibi, Berg, a clinical nurse specialist, criticized the Bush administration’s handling of Hurricane Katrina and the Iraq War, noting that, “[a]s a VA nurse working with returning…vets, I know the public has no sense of the additional devastating human and financial costs of post-traumatic stress disorder.” She urged readers to “act forcefully to remove a government administration playing games of smoke and mirrors and vicious deceit.”

In a November 9th memorandum to Berg, the VA’s Human Resource Chief, Mel Hooker, conceded that no evidence was found implicating the use of Berg’s work computer in the writing of the editorial. However, he justified the investigation by saying that “[the] Agency is bound by law to investigate and pursue any act which potentially represents sedition.”

Simonson described the reference to ‘sedition’ as “shocking".

“Even if Laura had used the office computer, neither that fact, nor her criticism of the government, nor her appeal for a change in the heads of government approach an act of unlawful insurrection,” Simonson said. “Is the government so jealous of its power, so fearful of dissent, that it needs to threaten people who openly oppose its policies with charges of ‘sedition’?”

ACLU attorneys George Bach and Larry Kronen plan to submit a request under the Freedom of Information Act for all documents related to the VA’s actions towards Berg. They have asked Hooker for a public apology “to remedy the unconstitutional chilling effect on the speech of VA employees that has resulted from these intimidating tactics.”
###

NEWS

ACLU Settles Lawsuit Over Release of
Student Information to Military Recruiters
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

CONTACT:
Peter Simonson, Executive Director, ACLU of New Mexico at 505-266-4622 or (cell) 505-620-0775

Karen Meyers, ACLU Cooperating Attorney, Aguilar Law Offices, P.C., 242-6677

ALBUQUERQUE – The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of New Mexico has settled a civil rights lawsuit against Albuquerque Public Schools for sending students’ contact information directly to military recruiters without properly notifying parents of their right to opt out of such information sharing. The federal No Child Left Behind Act grants secondary school students and their parents the right to deny the military access to a student’s name, address, and telephone listing. Legal papers filed by the ACLU claim that, in 2004, several APS high schools failed to notify parents of this right until weeks, and in some cases, months, after those schools had already shared students’ information with the Army, the Air Force, and the Navy.

The ACLU lawsuit is the first of its kind anywhere in the country.

“We live in a time when a student’s decision to sign up for the military is likely to land him or her right on the field of battle,” said ACLU Executive Director Peter Simonson. “Understandably, many parents want to limit the access that recruiters have to their children. Schools have an ethical and legal obligation to give them that control and to respect students’ privacy.”

Under a settlement agreement, APS will adopt and implement a policy that requires the district to include information about the No Child Left Behind Act in the registration packet that each secondary school mails to parents before registration. The materials will include a form by which parents may request that a student’s name, address, and telephone listing not be released to military recruiters. Once parents have made such a request, their wish will remain in effect until it is changed in writing by the student or the parents. In addition to making the policy change, APS paid $20,000 in attorney fees.

ACLU volunteer attorney Karen Meyers (of Aguilar Law Offices, P.C.) said, “It’s not enough to bury the notice of parents’ opt-out rights somewhere on a school website or in a student handbook. The notice to parents has to be ‘meaningful’. The school has to bring the information to parents’ attention so that they can make an informed and conscious choice. APS wasn’t doing that and we suspect that many other districts around the state aren’t doing it.”

Asked if the ACLU would consider bringing similar legal action against other non-complying school districts, Executive Director Simonson said, “Absolutely. We expect to go to other school districts and say, ‘Here’s what APS did. We expect you to do the same.’”
###

Peter G. Simonson
Executive Director | ACLU of New Mexico
PO Box 566 | Albuquerque, NM 87103
Tel: (505) 266-5915 | Fax: (505) 266-5916

NEWS

American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico
Media Relations Office
PO Box 566
Albuquerque, NM 87103
Tel: 505-266-5915
Fax: 505-266-5916
www.aclufl.org

ACLU Claims Sexual Abuse by Jail Guard

Corrections company, Warden accused of ‘gross negligence’

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Tuesday, January 24, 2006
CONTACT:
Peter Simonson, Executive Director, ACLU of New Mexico at 505-266-4622 or (cell) 505-620-0775

Stephen Pevar, Senior Legal Counsel, national ACLU (860) 293-1559

Albuquerque – Attorneys for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) have filed claims of sexual abuse and ‘cruel and unusual punishment’ against a McKinley County detention officer, Brian Orr, on behalf of two female inmates from Wyoming. The lawsuit also accuses the jail’s acting warden, Gilbert Lewis, the board of McKinley County commissioners, and the company that managed the jail, Management and Training Corporation, of negligence and failure to properly train and supervise officer Orr.

During 2003, Sheila Black and Cristy Herden were incarcerated at the McKinley County jail pursuant to a housing contract between McKinley County and the Wyoming Department of Corrections to relieve overcrowding in Wyoming’s main prison for women. Orr repeatedly sexually assaulted the two women and photographed them in the nude, causing the women physical injury and severe psychological and emotional distress.

“If proper safeguards had been in place, these assaults may never have occurred,” said Peter Simonson, Executive Director for the ACLU of New Mexico. “Jails aren’t supposed to be pleasant places. However, prisoners are entitled to basic rights, and protection against predatory guards certainly is one of them.”

New Mexico ACLU attorneys Kari Morrissey, Phil Davis, and George Bach are litigating the case in collaboration with Stephen Pevar, Senior Staff Counsel for the national American Civil Liberties Union.

###

Peter G. Simonson
Executive Director | ACLU of New Mexico
PO Box 566 | Albuquerque, NM 87103
Tel: (505) 266-5915 | Fax: (505) 266-5916

ACLU-NM Members:
The legislature convenes today for a short (30 day) session ending on February 16.
Although ACLU-NM is not initiating any new legislation, we will be watching and opposing several possible bills.

These bills may include issues around

Real ID (a federal driver’s license law – see our press release on our web blog)
Mandatory enhancements on sentences (for crimes involving gang members)
Mandatory outpatient mental health treatment for prisoners (religious freedom issues)
Mandatory life sentences for convictions involving victims under 10 years old (or with the intent to kill or torture a child)
DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act proposing a Constitutional amendment defining marriage as only between a man and a woman)
Definition of beginning of life (Constitutional amendment, anti-choice/abortion)
Teaching Intelligent Design (memorial possibility)

We, Diane Wood, our lobbyist, and me, Joyce Briscoe, will be keeping our ACLU-NM members (and coalition partners, such as Religious Freedom Coalition and Equality New Mexico) informed of legislative actions through e-mail list serves and web blog updates. You can reach our web blog by clicking on the upper right corner of our website, www.aclu-nm.org.

R e m e m b e r
To call the legislative switchboard at the Roundhouse: 1.505.986.4300
Write your Representative or Senator at the NM Legislature
State Capitol
Santa Fe, NM 8750l

Thank you for your active membership during this legislative session !

Joyce Briscoe
Legislative Advocate
ACLU of New Mexico
PO Box 566
Albuquerque, NM 87103
go to our website at www.aclu-nm.org

We’re experiencing some difficulties with aclu-nm.org. For the time being, you can connect using this address:

http://mjhinton.net/aclu/index.php

Bill of Rights Mock Trial
The Youth Advisory Board, the Center for Civic Values, and the New Mexico Foundation for Open Government are pleased to be co-sponsoring the first ever Bill of Rights Mock Trial. The Bill of Rights Mock Trial is a mock trial competition centering around an civil liberties issue. It is structured and formatted exactly like the annual Mock Trial sponsored by the Center for Civic Values. Please download the registration form for the BoRMT if you would like to start a team. If you have already started a team, please download the case, Sandy Hills vs. Midway School District and Dale Greene, Principal Midway High School , and the rules for the Bill of Rights Mock Trial. We have a number of handouts available to help you, your attorney coach, and your students. Please feel free to download them and use them.
Handout - Suggestions for Student Witnesses
Handout - Suggestions for Student Attorneys
Handout - Master the 10 Most Difficult Things
Hadnout - Making the Most of Your Presentation
Handout - Guidelines for Teacher Sponsors
Hadnout - Guidelines for Attorney Coaches
Handout - Glossary of Legal Terms
The registration deadline for the Bill of Rights Mock Trial is November 4, and the competition is November 19.

2005 ACLU Bill of Rights Dinner
Friday, December 9, 2005
Hotel Albuquerque at Old Town (Formerly Old Town Sheraton) 800 Rio Grande Blvd. NW · Albuquerque, NM 87104

Cash bar at 6 p.m. · Dinner at 7 p.m.

Tickets: $85 · Ticket Information: 505-266-5915 or www.aclu-nm.org

Register by Friday December 2, 2005. Reservations will be held at the door.

KUNM talk-show host Arcie Chapa will moderate the event.

A leader in national media reform efforts, Donahue will deliver a keynote speech critical of corporate owned electronic media. Donahue will reveal the inside story of corporate media censorship and how First Amendment protections guaranteeing a “free marketplace of ideas” have been steadily eroded with each new merger.

Honoring

Civil Libertarian of the Year: Bennett Hammer, for his years of dedication as a member of the ACLU-NM Board of Directors, as the New Mexico representative to the national ACLU Board of Directors, and for his efforts in creating a permanent office place and home for the ACLU-NM.

Cooperating Attorneys of the Year: Ousama Rasheed and Roger Smith for their successful efforts to challenge the City of Albuquerque’s over-zealous DWI property-seizure law.

Volunteer of the Year: Joyce Briscoe, for her work to promote civil liberties in schools, the state legislature, and for her organizing efforts against reauthorization of the Patriot Act.

Crisis on the Border?: A Discussion of Security, Immigration, and New Mexico’s Reality

WHO: American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of New Mexico Law School Chapter

WHAT: Panel discussion focusing on the New Mexico/ Mexico borderlands. Invited speakers:

Tim Manning, Director of the New Mexico Department of Homeland Security

Gary Mitchell, President of ACLU-NM Board of Directors,

Christina Rosado-Maher, Director of Immigration, Catholic Charities

Bob Wright, Director for the New Mexico Minuteman Corps

WHERE: UNM School of Law, Room 2401

WHEN: November 1st, 2005 from 5:30 P.M. to 7:30 P.M.

WHY: Diverse panelists concerned about immigration issues debate current policies and the perception that New Mexico’s borderlands are in crisis.

Reminder:
The Youth Advisory Board and the Center for Civic Values are pleased to be co-sponsoring the first ever Bill of Rights Mock Trial. The registration deadline for the Bill of Rights Mock Trial is November 4, and the competition is November 19.
For more information please refer to the October 12 posting on this blog.

ACLU spokesperson Ray Ybarra on Public T.V.s “In Focus” program TONIGHT at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday October 16 at 7:00 a.m. Ray is a featured speaker in a roundtable discussion focusing on the “Minutemen” and vigilante activity.

ACLU New Mexico Presents : UNDOCUMENTED: THE OTHER SIDE OF THE MINUTEMEN PROJECT at the Guild Cinema in Nob Hill ALBUQUERQUE – This SATURDAY OCTOBER 15 at 12:00 Noon a free screening at the Guild Cinema on 3405 Central Ave. NE! We still need legal observers on the border - to sign-up for legal observer dates please send an email to cguevara@aclutx.org or call 915-532-0921 at least several days in advance.

Film “Unconstitutional: the War on Our Civil Liberties” to be Shown at the Unitarian Universalist Church on Carlisle ALBUQUERQUE – TONIGHT Friday, October 14 at 7:00 PM, there will be a showing of the film “Unconstitutional: the War on Our Civil Liberties” at the Unitarian Church on Carlisle. The 1-hour film will be followed by discussion. “Unconstitutional", an independent documentary film, presents the director’s view of the effects on individuals and communities of new laws and government actions that went into effect after 9/11. The film addresses such areas as passage of the USA Patriot Act, secret government surveillance, detention of immigrants and “unlawful combatants,” racial profiling, and prison conditions at Guantanamo Bay. All members of the public are invited to attend this free event.

ACLU of New Mexico Southwestern Chapter Annual Meeting Saturday ,October 22 SILVER CITY – The ACLU of New Mexico Southwestern Chapter will hold its annual meeting at 5:00 pm on Saturday, October 22 at the First Church of Whats Happening at 609 N. Arizona Street. ACLU of New Mexico Staff Attorney George Bach will give a talk entitled “The Bill of Rights is NOT discretionary: Defending the Constitution in New Mexico in the 21st Century.” George Bach will speak about the ACLU of New Mexico’s work in defending privacy, liberty, and the separation of church and state. For more info CONTACT: Barbara Tegge, President, ACLU of New Mexico Southwest Chapter at 505-388-3407 .

MORE DETAILS SOON TO FOLLOW:

ACLU of New Mexico Northern Chapter Bi-annual meeting in November

ACLU of New Mexico Bill of Rights Dinner on Friday December 9 at the Hotel Albuquerque in Old Town (formally the Old Town Sheraton).

Please pass our emails on to friends! For those not on the main ACLU-NM public listserve, it is easy to sign-up! Please go to - http://mailman.swcp.com/mailman/listinfo/aclu-nm to sign yourself up. This is the main ACLU-NM e-listserve where we send out press releases, updates, and alerts.

WHEN: Thursday Evening, October 6 at 5:30

WHERE: UNM School of Law, room 2401 - Refreshments Provided

Mikey Weinstein, Albuquerque attorney and businessman, is the leader and spokesperson for the much-publicized movement to restore constitutionally-mandated separation of church and state at the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

In his talk, he will describe his personal and family background which includes three generations of military academy graduates, how he became involved in and brought events at the Academy to significant national and international awareness, how this serious situation impacts the United States Air Force, the entire Department of Defense and our nation as a whole, particularly in a time of war against an enemy that already sees us as invading Christian crusaders. He will share his unique perspective about the potential catastrophic dangers that may be wrought from the concerted efforts of the fundamentalist religious right to destroy the wall separating church and state and what this means for our lives, the future of America and our place in the world.

This event is co-sponsored by:

ACLU New Mexico

ACLU University of New Mexico Undergraduate Chapter

Central New Mexico ACLU Chapter

Ecumenical Voices for Democracy

Film “Unconstitutional: the War on Our Civil Liberties” to be Shown at B’nai Israel Synagogue

ALBUQUERQUE – On Wednesday, September 28, 2005, from 7-9 PM, there will be a showing of the film “Unconstitutional: the War on Our Civil Liberties” at B’nai Israel Synagogue at 4401 Indian School Road NE. The 1-hour film will be followed by a panel discussion with UNM School of Law Professor Robert Schwartz and attorney Tova Indritz.

“Unconstitutional", an independent documentary film, presents the director’s view of the effects on individuals and communities of new laws and government actions that went into effect after 9/11. The film addresses such areas as passage of the USA Patriot Act, secret government surveillance, detention of immigrants and “unlawful combatants,” racial profiling, and prison conditions at Guantanamo Bay.

All members of the public are invited to attend this free event.

The Film Mexican Refugee will be shown this Wednesday, September 28, 2005 7:00 – 9:00 p.m at St. Michael & All Angels Episcopal Church 601 Montano Rd. NW, Albuquerque.

ALBUQUERQUE – Mexican Refugee humanizes the emigration, immigration, and political asylum experiences. It is essential viewing for anyone interested in social justice and gay rights struggles. Five interwoven stories reveal the ironies of government policies, inadequate enforcement, and international impunity for human rights violations. Film followed by community discussion. Bilingual English / Spanish Event.

For more info please call:Rachel Lazar at 505-246-8972 ext.113

“Undocumented: The Other Side of the Minuteman Project” will be shown at the Guild Cinema Saturday October 1 and October 15 from noon to 1:15.

ALBUQUERQUE – New film documents how communities are standing up to vigilante patrols in the Mexico-U.S. border region. During April 2005 the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona and the American Friends Service Committee of Arizona joined forces to train ‘legal observers’ to monitor the Minuteman Project. The Minuteman Project was founded on the precept that people of color are ‘destroying’ our society and the ‘invasion’ from the south will result in the destruction of the United States of America. This documentary contains detailed footage from patrols last April. Legal Observing is currently under way in California and will begin in New Mexico and Texas during the month of October.

Whistle Blower Mikey Weinstein To Speak on “The Fight to Keep Church and State Separate”

ALBUQUERQUE – The event will be held on Thursday, October 6, at 5:30 P.M. in Room 2401 at the University of New Mexico Law School. The talk will be followed by a question and answer session. Mikey Weinstein, Albuquerque attorney, businessman, and political activist, is the leader and spokesperson for the much-publicized movement to restore constitutionally-mandated separation of church and state at the United States Air Force Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado. In his talk, he will describe his personal and family background, which includes three generations of military academy graduates, how he became involved in and brought events at the Academy to significant national and international attention, how this serious situation impacts the United States Air Force, the Department of Defense and our nation as a whole.

CHICAGO - Robert Cormier’s “The Chocolate War” tops the list of most challenged books of 2004, according to the American Library Association’s (ALA) Office for Intellectual Freedom. The book drew complaints from parents and others concerned about the book’s sexual content, offensive language, religious viewpoint and violence. This year marks the first in five in which the Harry Potter series does not top or appear on the ALA’s annual list.

The ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom received a total of 547 challenges last year. A challenge is defined as a formal, written complaint, filed with a library or school requesting that materials be removed because of content or appropriateness. According to Judith F. Krug, director of the Office for Intellectual Freedom, the number of challenges reflects only incidents reported, and for each reported, four or five remain unreported.

“With several news reports just in the past week of books like “Bless Me, Ultima,” by Rudolfo Anaya being removed from schools, we must remain vigilant,” said ALA President Carol Brey-Casiano. “Not every book is right for every person, but providing a wide range of reading choices is vital for learning, exploration and imagination. The abilities to read, speak, think and express ourselves freely are core American values.”

Anaya’s award-winning book was banned from the curriculum in Norwood High School, Colo., for offensive language. Young adult novelist Chris Crutcher’s books also have come under fire in Kansas, Alabama and Michigan this year.

Three of the 10 books on the “Ten Most Challenged Books of 2004″ were cited for homosexual themes - which is the highest number in a decade. Sexual content and offensive language remain the most frequent reasons for seeking removal of books from schools and public libraries. The books, in order of most frequently challenged, are:

“The Chocolate War” for sexual content, offensive language, religious viewpoint, being unsuited to age group and violence

“Fallen Angels” by Walter Dean Myers, for racism, offensive language and violence

“Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture” by Michael A. Bellesiles, for inaccuracy and political viewpoint

Captain Underpants series by Dav Pilkey, for offensive language and modeling bad behavior

“The Perks of Being a Wallflower” by Stephen Chbosky, for homosexuality, sexual content and offensive language

“What My Mother Doesn’t Know” by Sonya Sones, for sexual content and offensive language

“In the Night Kitchen” by Maurice Sendak, for nudity and offensive language

“King & King” by Linda de Haan and Stern Nijland, for homosexuality

“I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” by Maya Angelou, for racism, homosexuality, sexual content, offensive language and unsuited to age group

“Of Mice and Men” by John Steinbeck, for racism, offensive language and violence

Off the list this year, but on the list for several years past, are the Alice series of books by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor, “Go Ask Alice” by Anonymous, “It’s Perfectly Normal” by Robie Harris and “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” by Mark Twain.

For more information on book challenges and censorship, please visit www.ala.org/bbooks.

At the second meeting of the Youth Advisory Board, Wednesday, the members elected Rachel Veroff as secretary and Lauren Hawk as treasurer. A vice-chair will be elected in December. Until that time the secretary will serve as an interim vice-chair. Both Veroff and Hawk were elected unanimously.

The ACLU of New Mexico is organizing concerned individuals to keep an eye on vigilante groups that are forming on the U.S./Mexico border.

The ACLU will train teams of volunteer “legal observers” to follow, photograph, and videotape vigilante groups who are expected to begin hunting for undocumented immigrants on the border in October. The legal observers will gather evidence for possible civil rights lawsuits.

Our next trainings will be 5:30 p.m. Thursday, 9/22/05, at the St. Francis Xavier Church, 820 Broadway SE, Albuquerque, NM

For more information go to www.vigilantewatch.org

Questions or comments?
Contact Kimberly at the ACLU of New Mexico 505-266-5915 or klavender@aclu-nm.org

The ACLU of New Mexico is organizing concerned individuals to keep an eye on vigilante groups that are forming on the U.S./Mexico border.

The ACLU will train teams of volunteer “legal observers” to follow, photograph, and videotape vigilante groups who are expected to begin hunting for undocumented immigrants on the border in October. The legal observers will gather evidence for possible civil rights lawsuits.

Our next trainings will be 5:30 p.m. Thursday, 9/22/05, at the St. Francis Xavier Church, 820 Broadway SE, Albuquerque, NM

For more information go to www.vigilantewatch.org

Questions or comments?
Contact Kimberly at the ACLU of New Mexico 505-266-5915 or klavender@aclu-nm.org

HOBBS – In a letter to Hobbs Mayor Monty Newman, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of New Mexico demanded that Kenneth W. Bohn be reinstated as the Hobbs police chief. Bohn was terminated on August 11th, 2005 for unspecified reasons. The ACLU believes that Bohn was fired in retaliation for raising concerns about pay inequities with the police department and for insisting on a full investigation of the police evidence room.

“Bohn was a ray of hope within a seriously troubled police department,” said ACLU executive director Peter Simonson. “He enjoyed strong support from the Black and Hispanic communities. People were thrilled because someone finally showed the courage to try to clean up the department.

“Evidently Bohn’s commitment to improving the place threatened some people.”

In recent months the Hobbs police department has come under fire for complaints, all pre-dating Bohn’s tenure, of missing weapons, transfer records, and homicide evidence from the evidence room. Additionally Bohn discovered what he believed to be evidence that the department had used proceeds from drug investigation forfeitures to buy video and audio recording devices that Bohn found to be secretly planted throughout the department. In May, 2005, Bohn requested an independent audit of the police department’s evidence room by the State Auditor and District Attorney’s office.

On June 27th, Bohn raised concerns in a Hobbs City Commission meeting about disparities in the level of pay for different police officers. Shortly thereafter, Bohn received a “draft performance evaluation” from the City Manager Dan Dible. Although Bohn received excellent marks for job performance, Dible criticized him for speaking up about safety concerns related to pay inequities.

Bohn reiterated his concerns about pay equity at a subsequent meeting of the Commission on July 17th. On August 10th, Dible issued Bohn an ultimatum that he was to resign or be terminated the following day. The letter confirming Bohn’s termination gave no reasons for the firing.

Simonson said, “The City denied Bohn any opportunity to explain his side of the story. In fact, to this day, he still does not know the formal reason for his termination. He was just cast out.”

The ACLU has given the City Commission a deadline of August 31, 2005 to reinstate Mr. Bohn immediately and according to the exact terms and conditions of employment that existed as of August 9, 2005.

The Minutemen have announced their intent to patrol areas along the U.S./Mexico border in Texas and New Mexico starting the month of October. In volunteering as a Legal Observer, you can help to achieve our goals of preventing abuses and highlighting the suffering of migrants. The first training for Legal Observers takes place Wednesday August 24 in Albuquerque at St. Francis Xavier Church on 820 Broadway SE. Two trainings will follow in Las Cruces.

What is a Legal Observer?
Traditionally, a legal observer is a volunteer who attends demonstrations, protests and similar events to ensure that everyone’s rights are upheld. In this instance we follow the minutemen to ensure there is no violence.

Why should I become a Legal Observer?
While observing the Minutemen, Legal Observers are also deterring abuses with their presence, documenting illegal activity and highlighting the real problems that occur on the U.S.-Mexico border, namely the deaths in the desert of migrants in search of the work this country offers.

What are the duties of the Legal Observer?
During this event, Legal Observers will position themselves alongside Minutemen volunteers, but will remain separate from them. They will at all times remain non-violent and non-confrontational with both Minutemen and law enforcement.

Can Legal Observers discuss issues with the Minutemen?
While most legal observers feel strongly about the issues, they have chosen to protect the rights of others at the sacrifice of our own personal expression. Your presence alone is your statement. While you may feel a strong impulse to engage in dialogue or be confrontational with the minutemen volunteers, you must resist this temptation.

Is it safe to become a Legal Observer?
Legal Observers will be sent in groups out into the middle of the desert with nothing more than a two-way radio, cell phone and video camera to observe armed individuals. Additionally, legal observers are likely to find themselves in the middle of the desert with no governmental protection. Nevertheless, legal observers are to adhere to strict non-violence and will be unarmed. It is our greatest hope that there will be no violence.

If you or your organization is interested in becoming trained or hosting a training to become a Legal Observer in preparation for the October arrival of the Minutemen please contact:

ACLU Texas
Claudia Guevara
(915) 532-0921
(915) 532-4822 (fax)
rybarra@aclutx.org or cguevara@aclutx.org

ACLU New Mexico
Kimberly Lavender
(505) 266-4622
(505) 266-5916
klavender@aclu-nm.org

For More Information Please Visit www.vigilantewatch.org

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20050812/tell_it_to_the_judge.php

August 12, 2005

Louise Melling is the director of the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project and Karen Pearl is the interim director of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

Imagine a loved one facing a medical emergency. Where would you take her?
If the Bush administration has its way, and the person in your life facing an emergency happens to be your pregnant daughter, sister, mother or wife, and she needs an emergency abortion, you might end up racing to a courthouse to find her a judge instead of racing to a hospital to find her a doctor.

On Monday, the administration weighed in on the question of women’s health and abortion with a friend-of-the-court brief in Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood of Northern New England . The case centers on a 2003 New Hampshire law that prevents doctors from performing an abortion for a young woman under the age of 18 until 48 hours after a parent has been notified. Contrary to Supreme Court precedent, the law contains no exception for circumstances in which the delay would seriously threaten a young woman’s health. Two lower courts struck down this law precisely because of this omission.

Enter the Bush administration. At a pivotal moment in the Supreme Court’s history, the solicitor general intervenes with a call to unravel years of legal protection for women’s health. A decision in Ayotte could reach far beyond harm to teens in New Hampshire. A ruling by the Supreme Court in this case could significantly change the legal landscape for all abortion restrictions, leaving lawmakers free to enact laws that disregard women’s health, and leaving women and their doctors few avenues to block these laws before they cause real damage.

For example, a pregnant woman who develops an infection in the uterus is at risk of serious complications, including future infertility. If left untreated, the infection can spread throughout the body and severely endanger her health.

Under the existing legal framework, women and their doctors can stop laws like New Hampshire’s from taking effect before they face an emergency and any harm is done. This is the world we have lived in for the past three decades.

In its brief, the government poses a different approach. It acknowledges the possibility that pregnant women may face health-threatening emergencies for which they need abortions. Yet the government would have these women find a judge to waive a waiting period requirement or other abortion restriction before they can get the medical care they need.

Women in medical emergencies forced to seek out judges instead of doctors: Does this sound like an administration that values women’s health and lives? Is this the kind of world you want your daughters, sisters, mothers or wives to live in?

Although this case may not result in a ruling that reads “Roe overturned,” it may signal the day when Roe has been so eviscerated that even women facing serious medical emergencies will be forced to put their care on hold while they try to find a judge who will be sympathetic to their plight. Come November, the Supreme Court will have to consider the degree to which the law must protect women’s health. Let’s hope that the justices understand that preserving women’s fundamental right to access medical care is nonnegotiable.

Rachel Hart
Public Education Associate
ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project
125 Broad Street, 18th Floor
New York, NY 10004
T: (212) 549-2638
F: (212) 549-2652

www.TakeIssueTakeCharge.org

ALBUQUERQUE – The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of New Mexico registered an important victory in state court on Tuesday when Judge Theresa Baca struck down an Albuquerque ordinance that empowered city officials to permanently take away motor vehicles for a first time arrest, not conviction, for “driving while intoxicated.”

Judge Baca said the ordinance had “huge problems with procedural due process.”

“The Constitution guarantees people a chance to defend their innocence in court before suffering the government’s punishment,” said ACLU-NM Executive Director Peter Simonson. “This ordinance tried to take that right away. The ACLU doesn’t condone drunk driving, but it also doesn’t believe people should be punished for a crime that they may not have committed.”

During the hearing, Judge Baca underscored the importance of “the presumption of innocence that we have in this country.” She added, “Non-guilty people can be arrested for various reasons. That has long been recognized.”

In his arguments, ACLU cooperating attorney Paul Kennedy accused the city of “perverting nuisance laws to make up for perceived insufficiencies of the criminal justice system.” He urged Judge Baca to consider striking the ordinance down on grounds that it was “so poorly drafted.”

Simonson said, “The Mayor had an opportunity to write a law that would have had a real impact on drunk driving. Instead, he created a law that demonstrates his disdain for drunk drivers, but that was so poorly conceived; it immediately crumbled under the court’s scrutiny. It seems that the Mayor was satisfied with meeting his political needs rather than practical purposes.”

Judge Baca granted a permanent injunction which, she emphasized, was based on constitutional grounds and applied to the law “in its entirety.” In addition to due process problems, the ACLU claimed that the ordinance violated New Mexico Common Law and state law prohibiting double jeopardy and excessive fines.

ACLU Staff Attorney George Bach and cooperating attorneys Paul Kennedy, Ousama M. Rasheed, and Roger I. Smith argued the case on behalf of the ACLU of New Mexico.

Saturday, July 30. 2005
Proposal for Modest Improvements Passes Senate by “UC”
Around five o’clock last night, before the Senate broke for its annual August recess, the Specter-Feinstein bill to reauthorize the expiring provisions of the Patriot Act passed. This bipartisan bill was approved through a process called “unanimous consent,” where the leaders of both parties get consent to take action on a measure and none of the other Senators object.

The good news is there were also no amendments to make the bill worse or try to strip out some of the modest improvements made to the Patriot Act. As we prepared for the summer break in the congressional session, we were developing a strategy to make sure the Roberts bill approved by the Senate Intelligence Committee would not be dueling on the Senate floor with the Specter bill.

As you recall, the Senate Intelligence Committee had passed a bill to expand the Patriot Act and did so behind closed doors. Just this past Wednesday, the FBI was asking again for expanded powers to write its own search orders without any court approval in advance and without demonstrating to any court that there were any facts connecting any personal records sought to an agent of a foreign power.

This terrible idea, called “administrative subpoena” power by the Justice Department and called the FBI’s “write-your-own-search-order” by us, was not embraced by the three other Committees in Congress that considered the Patriot Act (though an amendment by Congressman Flake on the House floor takes a step backward in that direction–more on that later).

Still, had the Specter bill not been approved by “UC,” in the lingo of the Senate, it would have been subject to potentially unlimited amendments and debate unless there were consent by both parties to limit these or if “cloture” had been invoked (a Senate rule allowing a super majority to force a vote). Unlike the House, the Senate is the last bastion of the democratic principle of freedom of debate and amendment, where the tyranny of any majority party is not allowed to gag the minority or limit amendments to only those approved by the party in power–as happened in the House Rules Committee a week ago.

So, now the Senate bill which the ACLU has praised for being a truly bipartisan effort that take some modest steps toward reforming the Patriot Act (but which we cannot endorse due to the significant flaws that remain) goes to conference.

This is the process for reconciling differences between bills passed by both houses of Congress about the same subject. We know the Senate conferees, but not the House ones yet. They are Chairman Specter and Chairman Roberts, as well Senators Hatch, DeWine, Kyl, Sessions, Leahy, Rockefeller, Kennedy, and Levin (members of either or both the Judiciary and Intelligence Committees).

The ACLU and its allies across the nation still have a lot of work ahead of us to help ensure that in the conference committee of House and Senate members the modest improvements are not lost and that the worse provisions of the severely flawed House bill do not become the law.

We’ll be reaching out to you in the coming weeks as we work toward a vote in both the House and Senate on a final bill, likely in September.

Thank you again for your tremendous efforts! We still have much to do to reform the Patriot Act so that we can be both safe and free.
Posted by Lisa Graves, Senior Legislative Counsel, ACLU in Congressional updates at 12:38 www.reformthepatriotact.org

Join us on Monday August 8 in Santa Fe to hear a talk by Al Bronstein Director Emeritus, ACLU National Prison Project and U.S. Board Member, Penal Reform International.

Al Bronstein is the founder of the ACLU’s nationally-renowned National Prison Project and an expert on prison reform, international corrections, and repeal of the death penalty. He will be giving a talk entitled: “America’s Criminal Justice Policies: Wasting a Generation” . This will be a broad discussion regarding incarceration rates, drug policy, privatization, and the death penalty.

When & Where: Monday August 8 from 6:30 - 8:00 pm at the NEA -New Mexico building in Santa Fe 2007 Botulph Lane (off St. Michaels across from St. Vincent’s Hospital)

This event is being organized by ACLU of New Mexico and co-sponsored by:
New Mexico Criminal Defense Lawyers Association
New Mexico CURE/Faces
New Mexico Women’s Justice Project
New Mexico Coalition to Repeal the Death Penalty
Drug Policy Alliance New Mexico
Santa Fe NAACP
ACLU Northern New Mexico Chapter

Please Join Us in a MARCH and RALLY on JULY 23, 2005

MARCH Starts at 11:00 am from the FEDERAL COURT HOUSE to KLINE PARK, 155 N. Mesquite Street in Las Cruces, NM.

GUEST SPEAKERS FROM NM, CA, TX AND AZ
PRESS CONFERENCE
ENTERTAINMENT
FOOD AND REFRESHMENTS

Sponsored by: LAS CRUCES LULAC COUNCIL 120 & VECINOS UNIDOS DE NUEVO MEXICO

For more information please contact Phillip Archuleta, Civil Rights Chairperson 505-524-9136/505-496-8822

Tonight at 6:00 we’ll be distributing Restrict the Patriot Act information with our friends outside the salsa concert for one hour.

Meet us at the Albuquerque Museum (Tijeras NW) for one hour!

Thank you for giving us your time – literally – this great holiday week-end.

Joyce (for Kimberly)

You can catch the ACLU on several news programs tonight and tomorrow providing reaction to today’s Supreme Court rulings. Tonight at 6:30 p.m. Eastern on NBC Nightly News, Steve Shapiro weighs in on the Ten Commandments decision.

Tomorrow at 7:30 a.m. Women’s Rights Project Director Lenora Lapidus will be on ABC’s Good Morning America in-studio to discuss the Castle Rock v. Gonzalez domestic violence case with Diane Sawyer. She will be joined by remote by the plaintiff in the case, Jessica Gonzalez.

A release about the Castle Rock ruling is online at http://www.aclu.org/WomensRights/WomensRights.cfm?ID=18588&c=173

A release about the Ten Commandments ruling (with some fabulous quotes from Justice O’Connor’s opinion) is online at http://www.aclu.org/ReligiousLiberty/ReligiousLiberty.cfm?ID=18590&c=38

A release about the Brand X and Grokster rulings is online at http://www.aclu.org/Privacy/Privacy.cfm?ID=18589&c=252

Please join the ACLU of New Mexico in the shortest Pride Parade in the nation - marching from the Roundhouse to the Plaza in Santa Fe this Saturday June 25! Line up begins at 10:30 am in the parking lot west of the PERA building - we are entry number 11. The parade begins at noon. Wear your ACLU t-shirt or a blue or black shirt.

Visit us on the Plaza between noon and 4 pm - we will have a table at the northwestern corner by FNB and Lincoln Avenue.

Look forward to seeing you there! For more information on the ACLU’s nationwide work on LGBT Rights and HIV/AIDS go to www.aclu.org/getequal.

The House of Representatives passed the Flag “Desecration” Amendment on a vote of 286-130. While we are saddened that the amendment passed the House again this year, we are excited to see the margin decrease compared to the last vote. The vote in the House two years ago was 300-125 - so we are gaining ground. The amendment passed with just an eight vote margin – a closer vote in the House than we have seen in 15 years!!

You can see the ACLU press release on the amendment at: http://w ww.aclu.org/FreeSpeech/FreeSpeech.cfm?ID=18564&c=50

In the end, five members of the House who had voted in favor of the amendment in past years switched their positions and opposed the measure today – Kucinich (OH), Gutierrez (IL), Meek (FL), Millender-McDonald (CA), and Napolitano (CA). A number of freshman House members also voted to oppose. Picking up these votes was a major step forward as we head toward a likely Senate vote on the amendment.

You can see the complete vote breakdown at: http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2 005/roll296.xml

The House action means we will soon face the flag amendment in the Senate. Information on timing is sketchy, but we could see a Senate committee hearing as soon as next month. The amendment is closer to passing the Senate than ever before. If one or two senators fail to show up for the vote, or if any amendment opponents cave under pressure and vote in favor, the measure will pass and head to the states for ratification.

Call our New Mexico Senators today and remind them that the flag belongs to the nation - not the government!

President Threatens to Veto Patriot Act Reform Legislation,
Dismisses Bipartisan Calls for Checks and Balances

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Will Potter
Thursday, June 16, 2005 (202) 675-2332

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration has threatened to veto legislation passed Wednesday by the House of Representatives that would reform the controversial “library records provision” of the Patriot Act. The “Freedom to Read” proposal, offered by Rep. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), denies funding for FBI access to library and bookstore records under section 215 of the Patriot Act, and was approved by a bipartisan majority (238-187).

The following can be attributed to Lisa Graves, Senior Counsel for Legislative Strategy:

“This threat is the latest indication that the administration is willing to go to extreme lengths to maintain its power grab. Nearly 400 communities, including seven states, have passed Patriot Act reform resolutions. Conservative groups have lined up in opposition to some of the worst provisions of the act. And now lawmakers have come together, across the aisle, for change. But the administration continues to turn a deaf ear to these concerns.

“The legislation passed by the House puts reasonable checks on government power, without compromising the ability of law enforcement agents to investigate criminal activity where there is sufficient evidence. It merely safeguards against fishing expeditions into the reading habits of ordinary Americans. Yet again, the people have spoken that they want the Patriot Act brought in line with the Constitution by restoring proper checks and balances. It’s time for the administration to listen.”

For more on the ACLU’s concerns with the Patriot Act, go to:
http://www.reformthepatriotact.org

DATE: June 16, 2005
RE: ACLU Debates Patriot Act on PBS Newshour Tonight!

Tune into the Lehrer Newshour on PBS tonight to see a debate on the Patriot Act between Greg Nojeim, Acting Director of the Washington Office and Michael Battle, director of the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys in the White House. See bio at http://www.whitehouse.gov/government/mbattle-bio.html

They’ll be talking about the bipartisan majority vote on the “Freedom to Read” amendment, which de-funds FBI searches of library and bookstore records, as well as other Patriot Act issues. (Check local listings for air times).

And for the latest on this issues, check out these news releases:

“Freedom to Read” victory: http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFree.cfm?ID=18485&c=206

President’s threat to veto Freedom to Read:

http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFree.cfm?ID=18492&c=262

Finally, for more on this topic, don’t miss the latest on Anthony’s blog:

http://www.tpmcafe.com/author/anthonyromero

The partisan attack on public broadcasting continues. First, they targeted PBS and NPR news programs for signs of “liberal bias.” Now they’re sharpening their knives for Big Bird.

A congressional subcommittee has voted to slash more than $200 million in funding for public broadcasting, including $23.4 million earmarked for “Ready to Learn” children’s educational programming – the money that keeps shows like “Sesame Street,” “Arthur,” and “Clifford the Big Red Dog” on the air.

Thousands of phone calls are needed today to save public broadcasting. Call your member of Congress now.

The subcommittee slashed the Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s budget by $100 million and voted to “zero out” all federal money for CPB within two years. Small television and radio stations that serve rural communities and minority audiences will be devastated by these cuts.

The CPB is already embroiled in controversy over Chairman Kenneth Tomlinson’s attempts to withhold funding from PBS programs that don’t follow his conservative political line. Apparently dissatisfied with this effort to make public broadcasting more “fair and balanced,” the Republican majority is now trying to bankrupt the entire system.

We must stop these cuts from passing in the House of Representatives. Here’s what you can do:

1. Call your U.S.representative and ask him or her to restore full funding for public broadcasting. Tell your representative: “Like millions and millions of other Americans, I rely on public broadcasting’s superb children’s programming and trustworthy news and information. Please protect public broadcasting and restore full federal funding for PBS, NPR and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.”

2. Send a letter to Reps. Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.) and Ralph Regula (R-Ohio), the chairman and vice chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, letting them know that the American public opposes these cuts and doesn’t want partisan interference in public broadcasting.

Congress needs to hear from the tens of millions of Americans who tune in every day – whether it’s for Big Bird or Bill Moyers, “Reading Rainbow” or “Morning Edition.” Despite overwhelming popular support for public broadcasting, the Republican leadership and partisan board members at the CPB are attempting to gag and starve public media in America.

Don’t let them. Call your representatives right away – and forward this message to everyone you know.

Onward,

Timothy Karr
Campaign Director
www.freepress.net

P.S. To learn more about Free Press’ campaign to put the public back in public broadcasting, visit our new Web site at www.freepress.net/publicbroadcasting.

P.P.S. More than 85,000 concerned citizens have signed our petitions calling for CPB Chairman Kenneth Tomlinson to resign. Free Press will deliver the petitions on June 20, when the CPB’s board of directors meets in Washington. Sign the petition now.

A bill just introduced in Congress would take away the right of cities and towns across the country to provide citizens with universal, low-cost Internet access.

Giant cable and telephone companies don’t want any competition – which might actually force them to offer lower prices, higher speeds and service to rural and urban areas.

U.S. Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas) – a former telephone company executive – has introduced a bill (HR 2726) that would let cable and telecom companies shut down municipal and community efforts to offer broadband services.

No less than the future of all communications is at stake. In a few years, television, telephone, radio and the Web will be accessed through a high-speed internet connection. Low-cost alternatives to telephone (DSL) and cable monopolies are emerging across the country, as cities, towns, nonprofits and community groups build low-cost “Community Internet” and municipal broadband systems.

Companies like SBC, Verizon and Comcast have been introducing laws state by state that would prohibit municipal broadband, undercut local control and prevent competition. But we’ve been fighting back – and winning.

An alliance of public interest groups, local officials, high-tech innovators and organized citizens have defeated anti-municipal broadband measures in nine of the 13 states where they’ve been introduced this year.

What the industry couldn’t pass in the states, they’re trying to push through in Washington. Sessions’ bill – the “Preserving Innovation in Telecom Act” (an Orwellian title if there ever was one) – would prevent state and local governments from providing “any telecommunications service, information service or cable service” anywhere a corporation offers a similar service.

Congressman Sessions worked for telephone giant SBC for 16 years, and his wife currently serves as a director of Cingular Wireless, an SBC subsidiary. SBC and its employees have been Sessions’ second-biggest career patron, pouring more than $75,000 into his campaign coffers.

We can stop this legislation and send a clear message to Congress that local communities – not the giant telephone and cable companies – should determine their own communications needs. But you must act now.

Onward,

Josh Silver
Executive Director
Free Press
www.freepress.net

P.S. For all of the latest news on Community Internet and municipal broadband, visit the Free Press Web site at www.freepress.net/communityinternet.

P.P.S. Want to get more involved in bringing Community Internet to your hometown? Join the Free Press Action Squad at www.freepress.net/action/squad/signup.php.

Peter Simonson, Executive Director, and George Bach, Staff Attorney,
will present the work being done by the ACLU of New Mexico.

ATTEND THIS TAOS EVENT TO HEAR ABOUT RECENT LITIGATION, INCLUDING:

Santa Fe Veterans for Peace v. Veterans’ Administration: defending the free speech rights of war veterans who were prohibited from holding a memorial service on national cemetery grounds because their mission in support of peace allegedly makes any event that they organize “partisan” in nature.

Buck v. City of Albuquerque: sued the Albuquerque Police Department and city officials for their brutal handling of an anti-war protest on the day following the announcement of the invasion of Iraq.

Bessett v. Descheenie, et al.: defended a Navajo advocate for bilingual education against a frivolous defamation lawsuit brought by Central Consolidated School District Superintendent Linda Bessett for Descheenie’s factual article in the Farmington Daily criticizing the school district.

City of Albuquerque: prevented the City of Albuquerque from implementing a string of boldly unconstitutional ordinances, including laws that would have made panhandling illegal and that would have prohibited teenagers from leaving their homes at night. Currently, ACLU-NM is challenging ordinances that would empower the City to seize people’s automobiles without proving them guilty of a driving-related crime.

Whipple v. Lordsburg School District: ended the routine practice of locking 5th–12th-grade students in classrooms and forcing them to sit at their desks while dogs were led up and down the aisles, sniffing them for evidence of drugs.

Ayers v. Perry, et al.: challenged abusive conditions in New Mexico’s “Supermax” prisons, resulting in a settlement that brought sweeping reforms and is considered a model for the incarceration and treatment of people with mental illness.

Roybal v. Jones, et al.: restored the free speech rights of 4 Albuquerque Public School teachers who were suspended for putting up posters, artwork, and other materials in their classrooms that encouraged a full analysis of the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

SIGNIFICANT LEGISLATIVE EFFORTS, INCLUDING:

In 2005: The ACLU-NM succeeded in convincing Governor Richardson to issue an executive order that requires state police to have suspicion of criminal activity before inquiring about an individual’s immigration status. As a key member of the NM Coalition to Repeal the Death Penalty, ACLU-NM narrowly failed to repeal our state’s capital punishment law.

In recent years: The ACLU-NM was instrumental in helping to pass laws that prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and on the basis of genetic background in employment, housing and other public accommodations; require hospitals to offer emergency contraceptive services; and prohibit government officials from filing frivolous lawsuits to ‘chill’ the free speech of community advocates. Almost every legislative session, the ACLU-NM works with coalition partners to stop laws that would force a pregnant teenager to obtain parental permission before seeking an abortion; empower local governments to establish “teen curfews,” criminalizing youth for being outside of their homes at night; and add new and excessive penalties to an already-bloated criminal code, overcrowding our jails and prisons with more and more non-violent offenders.

June 24, 2005, 4:00 – 5:30 p.m.
Council Chambers at the Taos Civic Center
Light refreshments will be served.

Free and open to the General Public – Members and Non-Members

BECAUSE FREEDOM CAN’T PROTECT ITSELF

• www.abffe.org AMERICAN BOOKSELLERS FOUNDATION FOR FREE EXPRESSION

• www.aclu-nm.org ACLU OF NEW MEXICO

• www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/ AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION

• www.ala.org AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION

• www.eff.org/Privacy/Surveillance/Terrorism ELECTRONIC FRONTIER FOUNDATION

• www.epic.org/privacy/terrorism/usapatriot/ ELECTRONIC PRIVACY INFORMATION CENTER

• www.cdt.org CENTER FOR DEMOCRACY TECHNOLOGY

• www.bordc.org BILL OF RIGHTS DEFENSE COMMITTEE

• www.slate.msn.com MSN SLATE MAGAZINE posted a series of articles on the USAPA entitled “A Guide to the Patriot Act, Part1-4 by Dahlia Lithwick and Julia Turner. September 8-11, 2003.

• www.crs.org CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE(CRS) part of the Library of Congress, prepares its reports for the US Congress. Also, you can go to government documents in your library to find these reports.

• www.gpoaccess.gov/serialset/creports/911.html CONGRESSIONAL REPORT Congressional report detailing the intelligence failures that prevented the DOJ from anticipating and possibly preventing the 9/11 attack.

• www.usdoj.gov/oig/special/03-06/press.html INSPECTOR GENERAL OF THE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE Link to report by the Inspector General of the DOJ detailing the abuse of immigrants detained after 9/11.

• www.lifeandliberty.gov DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE web page that attempts to dispel USAPA “myths”.

Resolutions Adopted by Communities and Associations Throughout New Mexico

• Santa Fe 10/30/02
• Socorro 3/17/03
• Rio Arriba County 4/10/03
• Taos 6/17/03
• Aztec 6/17/03
• Farmington 8/19/03
• Albuquerque 9/15/03
• Las Vegas 9/17/03
• Grant County 10/9/03
• Los Alamos County 10/14/03
• Bayard 10/20/03
• Silver City 10/ 28/03
• Valencia County 2/04/04
• New Mexico House of Representatives

Associations
• American Association of University Women
• New Mexico Library Association
• New Mexico Municipal League

Coalition for Civil Liberties and Civil Rights

Professional Associations
• American Association of University Women, ABQ Branch
• League of Women Voters of New Mexico
• New Mexico Criminal Defense Lawyers Association
• New Mexico Library Association
• New Mexico Press Association

Businesses and Libraries
• Ark Bookstores, Inc. - Santa Fe
• Alphaville Video – ABQ
• Bird Song Used Books - ABQ
• Leslie Lakind DDS PC
• Moby Dickens Bookstore – Taos
• Millennial Light Library – Santa Fe
• Page One Bookstore – ABQ
• Sisters & Brothers Bookstore –ABQ

Religious Organizations
• New Mexico Conference of Churches
• Social Justice Office of Archdiocese-Santa Fe
Labor
• Central New Mexico Labor Council
• Four Corners Central Labor Council
• NM Building and Construction Trades Council
• South West New Mexico Central Labor Council

Educational & Advocacy Organizations
• American Civil Liberties Union- New Mexico
• Animal Protection Voters
• Bill of Rights Defense Committee
• Common Cause New Mexico
• Common Ground – Santa Fe
• Drug Policy Alliance
• Global Dialog Project
• Humanist Society of New Mexico
• NAACP- Santa Fe Branch
• New Mexico Foundation For Open Government
• New Mexico Voter Services Coalition
• Peace Action New Mexico
• Rio Grande Foundation
• Somos Un Pueblo Unido
• Veterans for Peace, Santa Fe Chapter

NEW YORK – Calling it another blow to government secrecy over post-9/11 policies and practices, the American Civil Liberties Union today hailed a unanimous federal appeals court ruling that requires the Justice Department to disclose a secret legal memorandum that outlines the government’s legal position advocating for unprecedented power by local police to enforce civil immigration laws.

“The court has issued a powerful rebuke to the Bush Administration’s attempt to shield its radical legal views from public scrutiny and debate,” said ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project attorney Omar Jadwat, who argued the case. “The Justice Department’s attempt to evade the Freedom of Information Act has been resoundingly rejected.”

The ACLU, the New York Civil Liberties Union and a coalition of eight civil rights and immigrants’ rights groups brought the lawsuit in April 2003 against the Justice Department after filing a Freedom of Information Act request seeking disclosure of an unpublished Office of Legal Council memorandum. The secret memorandum, which was prepared for the Justice Department in April 2002, was used by then-Attorney General John Ashcroft to justify a major change in federal policy to try to cause state and local police to enforce civil, non-criminal federal immigration laws.

This policy was roundly criticized by the ACLU and many other groups, including chiefs of police and law enforcement officials. Yet, despite repeated requests, the government refused to disclose the supposed legal justification for its new policy and sought to shield the legal memorandum from public scrutiny.

In its ruling released late Tuesday, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals stated that, “we cannot allow the Department to make public use of the Memorandum when it serves the Department’s ends but claim [a] privilege when it does not.”

In the past, dozens of local police officials and law enforcement organizations have spoken out against state and local participation in immigration enforcement, saying that it would jeopardize their relationships with immigrant communities and divert local law enforcement resources from the more important job of trying to control crimes against people. As former Montgomery County (MD) Police Chief Charles Moose told a Washington radio station in May 2002: “This movement by the federal government to say that they want local officers to become INS agents is against the core values of community policing: partnerships, assisting people, and being there to solve problems.”

Other groups represented by the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project and the NYCLU in this case are the National Council of La Raza, New York Immigration Coalition, American Immigration Lawyers Association, National Immigration Law Center, National Immigration Forum, National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild, National Employment Law Project and Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition.

The case is National Council of La Raza et al. v. Department of Justice. Attorneys for the groups are Lucas Guttentag, Lee Gelernt and Jadwat of the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project, Michael J. Wishnie, an ACLU cooperating attorney in New York, Christopher Dunn of the NYCLU and Linton Joaquin of the National Immigration Law Center.

TheSecond Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision is online at: http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFree.cfm?ID=18391c=206.

City puts DWI seizures on hold
Source: AP

ALBUQUERQUE – Albuquerque has delayed enforcing an ordinance that allows it to seize the vehicles of people arrested on drunken driving charges.

The American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico sued over the ordinance and sought a preliminary injunction to stop it from going into effect as planned May eleventh. The city decided the same day not to enforce the ordinance pending a hearing.

ACLU director Peter Simonson says he just wants to make sure drunken drivers are proven guilty before they are punished.

After a hearing today – State District Judge Theresa Baca approved an order that continues the agreement not to enforce the ordinance until both sides can file legal responses in the lawsuit.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Wednesday, May 11, 2005
ALBUQUERQUE – Today the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of New Mexico filed legal challenges in state court against two different “vehicular nuisance” ordinances recently signed by Albuquerque Mayor Martin Chavez.

One law empowers the City to take away a person’s automobile upon arrest for a first-time DWI offense. The second allows the City to fine car owners if their automobiles are videotaped running red lights by stoplight cameras, even if the owner is not driving the car at the time. Both laws punish people for owning or driving cars that the City has declared ‘public nuisances.’

“The ACLU deplores the human tragedies caused by drunk driving and running red lights,” ACLU Executive Director Peter Simonson said. “However, the City has created a system whereby everyone who is accused of these crimes is automatically considered guilty. That’s not fair and it’s not constitutional. People deserve their day in court. The Mayor has been quite candid in saying that he is using the nuisance laws to get around that.”

Regarding the vehicle seizure law, ACLU volunteer attorney Ousama Rasheed said, “Simply because an officer thinks a person was drunk, families will be deprived of perhaps their only means of shuttling kids to school and getting to work on time. Before the City makes such a dramatic intervention in families’ lives, we think it should give people a chance to defend their innocence in court.

“We’re not saying, ‘don’t punish drunk drivers.’ We’re saying, ‘prove they are guilty first.’”

The ACLU cited similar due process concerns with the “red-light” ordinance. “Just as in the vehicle seizure law, the City is declaring vehicles ‘public nuisances’ in order to ‘leap-frog’ normal trial procedures and go right to the punishment phase,” said ACLU Staff Attorney George Bach. “They are stretching the legal definition of ‘public nuisance’ far beyond its intended bounds. We understand that the City finds going to court a time-consuming process, but no one ever said fairness and justice were easy.”

A hearing date for the ACLU’s motion for a preliminary injunction to stop the enforcement of the vehicle seizure ordinance has been set for Tuesday, May 17. Staff Attorney George Bach and ACLU volunteer attorneys Ousama M. Rasheed, and Roger I. Smith with Frechette & Associates filed that case. The complaint against the red-light camera ordinance was filed by Bach and ACLU volunteer attorney Alexandra Freedman Smith. Both cases will be heard by State Court Judge Theresa Baca.

See 13 photos from the ACLU-NM 2005 Annual Meeting.
Photos by Ossy.

Dear Friends:

Thank you for all of your work this past legislative session in reaching out to your elected officials by taking action for or against legislation impacting our civil liberties in New Mexico.

PRIVACY
Representative Danice Picraux’s Genetic Protection bill was signed into law. We will continue to educate New Mexicans about the need for stronger privacy protections for consumers and return to the state legislature with both a Financial bill and RFID Tag bill in 2007.

CHOICE, MARRIAGE, CURFEW, and VOTER ID
We were successful in keeping bad legislation on the issues of Reproductive Choice, Marriage Equality, and Teen Curfew from getting passed. An acceptable Voter ID bill was passed that does not require registered voters to show their ID at the polls.

DEATH PENALTY
We did not repeal the death penalty as hoped this session. We will continue to work in coalition on this issue.

IMMIGRATION
After intense deliberation, the New Mexico state legislature passed Senate Bill 103, requiring state and local police to have suspicion of criminal activity before questioning immigrants about their immigration status. Unfortunately, Governor Bill Richardson vetoed this bill, despite the support it enjoyed from a broad spectrum of interests, including advocates for domestic-violence victims, members of the Albuquerque City Council, district attorneys, and Santa Fe police.

In place of SB 103, the Governor issued an executive order that seeks to cover similar policy grounds as the vetoed bill, prohibiting state police from questioning victims of crime about their immigration status or investigating people whose only crime is that they are suspected of residing in the United States in violation of federal civil immigration law.

We hope that the governor’s executive order will create opportunities for the ACLU and our immigrant allies to work with the New Mexico Department of Public Safety to ensure that state police are only involved in immigration issues that arise out of standard criminal investigations. Any other intervention by police needlessly terrorizes immigrant residents of our state and diminishes the prospects of creating crime-free neighborhoods.

SANTA FE - The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of New Mexico sued Chaves County Sheriff’s deputies yesterday for brutalizing two young men at a home in Roswell two years ago.

Michael Gustamantes and Ramon Garcia allege that officers Barry Dixon, Danny Moore, and Mike Wood shot them at close range with pepper ball rounds, beat and choked them while they were lying on the ground and restrained by handcuffs.

“This is an example of wanton abuse and willful disregard for the public’s safety,” said ACLU Executive Director Peter Simonson. “Sheriff’s deputies essentially ambushed Miguel and Ramon. They didn’t announce themselves. Miguel was shot twice in the back,” said Simonson.

The youth claim that the assault was unprovoked following a verbal dispute with a neighbor that had ended with a handshake to resolve the disagreement. Officers followed the youth into a nearby house where they shot randomly into a room full of people who had gathered for a graduation party.

The sheriff’s department charged Garcia with resisting, evading or obstructing an officer, but the charges eventually were dropped.

“The only motivation for those charges was to cover up and excuse the injuries that the officers inflicted upon Ramon. Ramon wasn’t fleeing law enforcement officers. He was running to save himself,” said Simonson.

The complaint filed on behalf of the young men by ACLU of New Mexico Cooperating Attorneys Art Nieto and Michael Doyle seeks damages for excessive and unnecessary force, false arrest and imprisonment, malicious prosecution, assault and battery, and malicious abuse of process.

Censorship. Misinformation. Indoctrination. Parents don’t associate these words with their children’s education, and taxpayers don’t expect such practices to be funded by millions of federal dollars. Yet when President Bush proposed a $39 million increase in federal funding for abstinence-only-until-marriage sex education in his 2006 budget, he asked Congress to do just that. If the president gets what he asked for, the federal government will throw nearly $206 million in the next fiscal year into programs that a growing body of evidence shows are ineffective at best, and dangerous at worst.

Truth. Accuracy. Responsibility. The Responsible Education About Life (REAL) Act, introduced last week by lawmakers in both houses of Congress, is the antidote to unproven, misleading, and harmful abstinence-only sex education. Federal abstinence-only programs must focus exclusively on abstinence and are often prohibited from discussing contraceptives except to emphasize their failure rates. REAL programs would teach that abstinence is the only sure way to avoid pregnancy or sexually transmitted infections, but they would also include information about how to use contraceptives to prevent pregnancy and infection. In addition, REAL would require funded programs to provide age-appropriate and medically accurate information and to refrain from using taxpayer dollars to preach religion, a constitutional safeguard that many abstinence-only programs fail to provide.

In the current political climate, the chance that this commonsense legislation becomes law: 0. The chance that abstinence-only programs get a substantial increase: 100.

In a budget that includes the deepest cuts to domestic spending in two decades, including huge reductions to health care programs for the poor, food stamps, and research on chronic diseases, what’s responsible about increasing funding for ineffective abstinence-only education?

According to the most recent statistics, 822,000 15-19 year old women got pregnant in 2000, and each year, approximately 9.1 million 15-24 year olds are infected with sexually transmitted infections, including one-half of all new HIV infections. A growing body of evidence shows that most abstinence-only programs do not help teens delay having sex, and some show evidence of increasing risk-taking behaviors among sexually active teens.

On the other hand, evidence shows that comprehensive programs that provide information about abstinence and effective use of contraception can help delay the start of sexual activity and increase condom use among sexually active teens. Yet there is currently no federal program dedicated to comprehensive sex education. Averting the dollars misspent on abstinence-only education to start-up a comprehensive sex-ed program would be the responsible choice.

Leaving the effectiveness question aside, what about truth and accuracy? A recent review of federally funded abstinence-only curricula prepared by Representative Henry A. Waxman (D, CA) found that more than two-thirds of the programs reviewed distort information about contraceptives, misrepresent the risks of abortion, blur religion and science, promote gender stereotypes, and contain basic scientific errors. Backed by no credible evidence, one curriculum wrongly asserts that 5 percent to 10 percent of women who have abortions will become sterile. Another incorrectly suggests that HIV can be contracted through exposure to sweat and tears. Yet, when lawmakers attempted to add a medical accuracy requirement to one stream of federal abstinence-only funding, the effort fell on deaf ears.

The American Civil Liberties Union knows all too well about the blurring of the line between religion and science in abstinence-only curricula. In 2002, the ACLU successfully sued the Louisiana Governor’s Program on Abstinence for using federal dollars to support religious activities, including Christ-centered theater skits, religious youth revivals, and gospel radio shows. The governor’s program agreed to settle the case and was later ordered by the court to closely monitor the activities of all funded programs and to stop using public money to “convey religious messages or otherwise advance religion in any way.” Despite this agreement, problems persist. Just last month, the ACLU asked a federal court to hold the governor’s program in contempt for using their state-sponsored abstinence-only website to proselytize; a hearing is scheduled in the case next month.

Defending his budget, Bush rightly asserted, “A taxpayer dollar ought to be spent wisely or not spent at all.” In continuing to fund abstinence-only education and in further asking for an increase in spending, the Bush administration has shown that it is not interested in spending wisely or responsibly. When it comes to protecting America’s youth, REAL is clearly the wise choice. Unfortunately, under Bush’s spendthrift approach to sex education, it is precisely America’s youth that will continue to pay too high a price for government irresponsibility.

by Louise Melling, Director of the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project

May is National Teen Pregnancy Prevention Month.

The NM Teen Pregnancy Coalition and the NM Department of Health Family Planning Program will hold a press conference to update the state on the status of teen pregnancy in New Mexico.

This year’s event will be held at the Albuquerque Hispano Chamber of Commerce on May 6, 2005 from 9:00 am to 10:00 am at 1309 Fourth Street SW. We will present the final information on which counties are on target to meet the Challenge 2005 goal of reducing teen pregnancy by 20% in their county.

Please Join Us!

For more information, please call the NM Teen Pregnancy Coalition at 505-254-8737

***MEDIA ADVISORY*** ***MEDIA ADVISORY*** ***MEDIA ADVISORY***

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Wednesday, April 27, 2005
ALBUQUERQUE – At 10 a.m. on Saturday April 30th the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of New Mexico will host a panel discussion entitled “Abstinence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder: Faith-based Funding and the Assault on Reproductive Freedom” at the University of New Mexico Student Union Ballroom C in Albuquerque.

WHAT: The meeting begins with the ACLU of New Mexico Annual Report, delivered by Executive Director Peter Simonson. A keynote address and panel discussion will follow examining the implications of faith-based funding in New Mexico for religious liberty and reproductive choice. Suggested $10 donation.

WHO: Keynote Speaker: Julie Sternberg, Attorney, National ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project. Her work at the Project focuses on the intersection of religion and reproductive health issues. She led the project’s successful lawsuit challenging the misuse of taxpayer dollars to promote religion in abstinence-only education programs in Louisiana.

Panelists:

Eve Espey, MD,MPH – Associate professor on faculty in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at UNM; specializing in the field of family planning.

Tara Ford - Co-director of Pegasus Legal Services for Children and Cooperating Attorney with the ACLU of New Mexico.

Andy Schultz – President and Managing Director of the Rodey Law Firm. First Amendment Religious Freedom Law expert and Cooperating Attorney with the ACLU of New Mexico.

Jane Wishner - President of the Southwest Women’s Law Center and Cooperating Attorney with the ACLU of New Mexico.

WHEN & WHERE: Saturday, April 30, 2005. Registration begins at 9:30 a.m. The program is from 10:00 a.m. to noon. University of New Mexico Student Union, Ballroom C. From I-25 take the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr./Central Ave. exit. Go east on Central about a mile. Turn left into the second entrance into UNM at the light at Stanford.

ACLU-NM: Events - 2005 Annual Meeting
The American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of New Mexico invites you to our 2005 Annual Meeting panel discussion:

“Abstinence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder:
Faith-based Funding and the Assault on Reproductive Freedom.” Details…

The UNM Humanist Society - The Humanist Society of NM - ACLU-NM

Present

The True Meaning of Church/State Separation

A talk by Edward Tabash, JD, Civil Rights Attorney

Friday, April 22, 3:30 pm
UNM Student Union Building, the Acoma Rm

Saturday, April 23, 10:00 am
UNM Law School, Rm 2406

Edward Tabash is a civil rights attorney and chair of the National Legal Committee for Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, as well as chair of the First Amendment Task Force of the Council for Secular Humanism.

Tabash graduated Magna Cum Laude with a B.A. from UCLA in 1973 and earned his Juris Doctorate from Loyola Law School of Los Angeles in 1976. He is the son of an Auschwitz survivor, an orthodox rabbi, and has passed from beliefs in Judaism and Christianity to New Age mysticism to becoming a staunch advocate for atheism and minority rights for nonbelievers.

– free admission –
call 292-4375 for more info.

SANTA FE—The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of New Mexico asked Federal Court Judge Martha Vásquez to declare the City of Hobbs in “substantial non-compliance” with a Court-endorsed agreement requiring the Hobbs Police Department to stop discriminating and to uphold constitutional rights of African Americans.

The motion also asks the court to initiate contempt proceedings for the City’s failure to address a previous finding of non-compliance by Judge Vásquez.

“This is the second time in four years that we’ve had to go back and ask the Court to order the Hobbs police to do what they promised to do in the settlement agreement,” said ACLU-NM Executive Director Peter Simonson. “ACLU-NM will keep going back to court until the department stops discriminating and starts respecting the constitutional rights of African Americans.”

ACLU-NM cooperating attorneys Richard Rosenstock and Daniel Yohalem filed a class action suit on behalf of African-Americans in Hobbs alleging race discrimination and unconstitutional actions in the police departments including 1) searches without warrants, 2) unlawful arrests and traffic stops, 3) the use of excessive force, and the filing of false criminal charges.

In 2001, a settlement was reached that resolved many of the claims against the Hobbs police, and that required the police to take certain remedial actions.

In 2003, the ACLU-NM went to Court asking Federal Judge Martha Vásquez to order the City of Hobbs to comply with the agreement. At that time the Judge agreed that the police had disregarded the terms of the agreement and in 2004 ordered the city to comply, extending the agreement by twelve months.

NEW YORK – The American Civil Liberties Union today applauded the termination of the “MATRIX,” a controversial interstate information sharing program that combined government and private-sector data and made the results available to law enforcement officials across the nation.

“Another major assault on privacy has been turned back, thanks to the thousands of Americans around the country who helped us to fight this program,” said Barry Steinhardt, Director of the ACLU’s Technology and Liberty Project. “In state capitols across the nation, in police headquarters, and in media newsrooms, the message was heard loud and clear: the Matrix program is not consistent with the American tradition that innocent citizens be ‘left alone’ by their government.”

In a press release issued Friday afternoon, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, which spearheaded the program, announced the program’s shutdown. In 2003, a top Florida police official told the Washington Post that the program was so powerful that it was “scary” and that “it could be abused. I mean, I can call up everything about you, your pictures and pictures of your neighbors.”

“We at the ACLU feel proud to have led the effort against this program,” said Steinhardt. “This may be the biggest victory for privacy since we and our allies from across the political spectrum shut down Total Information Awareness,” he added, referring to a Pentagon program run by Admiral John Poindexter that, like the Matrix, would have combined information from disparate sources and then combed through it using computer algorithms to search for allegedly suspicious behavior. Congress, alarmed about TIA’s Orwellian nature, shut it down in 2003.

“We’re under no illusions that the long and hard fight against the growing surveillance society has been won,” said Steinhardt. “Even here, part of the Matrix program will apparently continue to be available to individual states. But it is worth pausing to celebrate an important victory in that battle. These are major programs that have been shut down, and their termination should give heart to everyone who supports the fight to make use of technology without giving up the privacy we’ve always enjoyed here in America.”

For more information on the program, go to www.aclu.org/matrix.

We believe that Governor Bill Richardson over-stepped his bounds in granting a half-day leave today to all state employees in remembrance of Pope John Paul II.

“Over the last few days our office has received numerous complaints from people who objected to the state using taxpayer dollars to recognize a world figure who is chiefly religious in his meaning and importance,” said ACLU-NM Executive Director Peter Simonson. “In fact, several of those people identified themselves as state employees. The governor should know that his order offended many New Mexicans–some because they deplore government involvement in religion; others because they know that their religious leaders will never get equal treatment.”

Simonson said that his organization consulted with local and national civil rights experts to determine whether the Governor’s order violated constitutional guarantees of church-state separation and was vulnerable to legal challenge. He said there was no consensus on the legal merits of such a case, but “all of the attorneys we spoke with agreed that the order abridged the constitutional principle that government should not be seen as endorsing a particular religious perspective.”

Governor Richardson’s order complements a national presidential order to lower U.S. flags to half-mast in remembrance of the Catholic leader.

“We don’t take issue with the symbolic gesture of lowering the flag,” Simonson said. “But giving people a half-day off is an extraordinary measure. The State of New Mexico has never shut down on behalf of a world leader who has died. Not for Ronald Reagan. Not even for Yitzhak Rabin after he was assassinated for signing a peace agreement between Jordan and Israel.

“All that distinguishes the Pope from these noteworthy world figures is his religious importance. Even if the governor claims that his order is not intended to recognize the Pope for that purpose, I dare say most New Mexicans will interpret it otherwise. In the court of common sense, the governor has pulled a quick one on the Bill of Rights.”

SANTA FE – Governor Bill Richardson signed a genetic protection bill into law yesterday which will ban discrimination based on a person’s genetic code in employment, housing, and credit.

Representative Danice Picraux sponsored H B 183: The Genetic Privacy Act, which sailed through the House with a vote of 65-0 and the Senate with a vote of 38-0. This win is a culmination of years of commitment and advocacy for genetic protection on behalf of Representative Picraux.

“We applaud the New Mexico State Legislature and the Governor for recognizing the importance of providing safeguards against genetic discrimination by passing this cutting edge legislation,” said ACLU of New Mexico’s Executive Director Peter Simonson. “The genetic revolution has a vast range of potential implications for American life. New reproductive technologies are profoundly affecting the lives of women and children and represent new categories of reproductive choices, and biotechnology is transforming health care, insurance, employment, and the criminal justice system, and raises profound legal issues associated with genetic discrimination, privacy and intellectual property,” added Simonson.

The ACLU nationally and in New Mexico is a leading advocate for strong privacy laws. On August 21, 2004, the ACLU of New Mexico hosted a Data-Privacy Conference in Santa Fe that sparked a groundswell of interest on privacy issues in our state.

A coalition of organizations, led by the ACLU, committed to protecting privacy supported several bills this legislative session. Some of these groups include the New Mexico AARP, BioLaw Group, Foundation for Open Government, League of Women Voters, New Mexico Press Association and others.

This law recognizes that it is a violation of civil liberties for employers, landlords, or financial institutions to base important life decision of an individual upon genetic traits of a particular race, religion, alienage, sex or other group because it would have disparate impact upon that group

Decisions should be made on the basis of individual ability and character, not on the basis of stereotypes or generalizations about the groups to which an individual belongs. The fact that some, or even a majority, of the members of a particular group have a particular genetic trait does not mean that all members of the group have that trait.

Fellow Patriot,

Congress is beginning to debate the Patriot Act’s flaws and needs to hear from you today. As commmitted defenders of our nation’s core values, we need to urge Congress to fix these flaws and help ensure the preservation of our liberty.

I have included below a draft letter that you can edit and send to your Members of Congress. Please tell them why you, as a conservative American, have serious reservations about many of the Patriot Act’s provisions.

In the coming days you will hear the administration talk about the benefits of the Patriot Act. We agree that much of the Patriot Act is necessary to provide law enforcement with the resources they need to defeat terrorism, but we remain very concerned that some of its provisions go beyond that mission and infringe on the rights of law-abiding Americans, in ways that raise serious constitutional and practical concerns. For example, Section 213 of the Patriot Act allows government agents to secretly search through people’s homes and businesses and seize their personal property without notice for days, weeks, months or perhaps ever.

The emergence of international terrorism on our shores cannot be allowed to dissolve the carefully constructed structural foundations for preserving our liberty that are required by the Constitution, that very document our soldiers have sacrificed and continue to sacrifice their lives to defend.

Even Attorney General Gonzalez, in his recent testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, recognized that at least some provisions in the The USA PATRIOT Act might need to be changed. But this will not happen unless you become involved and help us in this critical task.

Please send the letter below to your Members of Congress and start asking them to fix the Patriot Act. Only by standing up for our rights can we preserve them.

Sincerely,

Bob Barr

Chairman, Patriots to Restore Checks and Balances

http://www.checksbalances.org

——————————————————

You can use the following letter to compose an email to your members of Congress. You can find their websites and contact information on the www.House.gov website or the www.Senate.gov website.

As your constituent, I urge you to support fixes to the Patriot Act, such as the SAFE Act. This legislation was recently introduced and would protect those checks and balances that have made America the foremost defender of individual liberties in the world.

I believe that America is stronger than many think. I believe that our political system can still maintain our security while maximizing the freedoms that are our birthright. The SAFE Act would fix several provisions of the Patriot Act, including those authorizing secret search warrants and an overbroad definition of domestic terrorism, which could sweep in political protesters.

I also believe Congress should resist the current push to eliminate the expiration provisions in the 2001 counterterrorism law known as the USA Patriot Act. Congress should use the debate about the sunsets as a springboard into a broader discussion about the health of checks and balances post-9/11. This broader discussion should include the expansion of federal surveillance authority with minimal or non-existent judicial review.

We need a discussion about whether the courts adequately supervise the federal government’s surveillance authority and whether the FBI is focusing its investigative resources on terrorists, instead of on everyone else. Government data mining shrinks the zone of privacy that people have traditionally enjoyed and airport security measures that intrude on passenger privacy might not be the most effective ones.

Once again, I urge you to oppose renewal of the sunset provisions in the Patriot Act. I also urge you to support legislation, such as the SAFE Act, that would fix problems in the Patriot Act.

Attorney General Gonzales will lead off a series of Senate and House hearings starting Tuesday into provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act that expire Dec. 31.

He will be the opening witness before the Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday and will kick off a House Judiciary Committee session Wednesday reviewing whether 16 provisions that expand government surveillance designed to catch terrorists should be extended, dropped or strengthened.

That will be followed by eight House Judiciary subcommittee hearings lasting into May, ending with a full committee session.

The reauthorization debate will pit civil libertarians against the administration, which wants the surveillance provisions extended or changed to give law enforcement more power. Without elaboration, Gonzales said last month that law enforcement might need more authority. “Part of the debate about reauthorization is whether additional tools can be added to the arsenal,” he said.

Privacy advocates and civil libertarians oppose more tools for eavesdropping or domestic spying, although they back most sections of the law aimed at curbing foreign terrorist activity.

Within weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Congress rushed the bill to President Bush, who signed it into law. Since then, critics have complained that the law allows the FBI to search library records without notifying individuals.

But under fire, the Justice Department told House Judiciary Chairman Sensenbrenner in September 2003, that no library records had been searched.

Lining up against added government powers is an alliance of conservative and libertarian groups headed by former Rep. Bob Barr, R-Ga. In a March 22 letter to Bush, the group urged him “to reconsider your unqualified endorsement of the most intrusive, unchecked powers temporarily granted by the act.” The organization – Patriots to Restore Checks and Balances – is asking Congress to oppose some sections of the bill not expiring.

For example, it wants to strike “sneak and peek” authority that allows government agents to secretly search homes and businesses – but delay giving advance notice as was the case under the prior law. Authority to collect personal information, including library books, medical information, goods and firearms that might be relevant to terrorism or secret intelligence activities also is opposed by pro-gun and libertarian organizations.

“There are few issues that are more important to this committee and the American people than protecting our citizens’ precious civil rights and civil liberties while continuing the battle against terror,” said Judiciary ranking member John Conyers, D-Mich.

ABQjournal: Udall Bill Would Alter Civil Liberties Board
Rep. Tom Udall, D-N.M., has co-authored a bill that would make independent a board that currently oversees the federal government’s use of anti-terrorism powers, to make sure the government does not annihilate the very freedoms America is fighting to protect. (more…)

Assembly Permit Rules Drafted
By Jim Ludwick and Dan McKay
Journal Staff Writers

The city is working with the American Civil Liberties Union to loosen the requirements for getting a permit to hold gatherings, parades and picketing.

The proposal is intended to make it easier to get a permit when one is needed, said Assistant City Attorney Gregory Wheeler, who wrote much of the proposal at the request of Mayor Martin Chávez.

The bill gives the mayor or his agent authority to deny a permit but to authorize the event for a different date, time or location. It also establishes an appeals process.

Chávez said the restrictions are reasonable and could be necessary to protect public safety.

Involvement of the ACLU is meant to avert problems with a sensitive issue— the constitutionally guaranteed right to peaceable assembly and free speech.

Larry Kronen, ACLU cooperating attorney, said details are still under negotiation, even though a draft has been introduced to the City Council.

He said he’s “optimistic that we’re going to have something in finalized form that we can all live with, that won’t abridge any constitutional rights.”

The draft says there’s a need for “content-neutral prior restraints” on the time, place and manner of demonstrations. It would replace the city parade ordinance, which dates to the 1970s.

That ordinance requires a permit for any demonstration that occupies public property. Applicants must go before a committee that meets every other Monday, Wheeler said.

The new proposal would require a permit for demonstrations on public property only for those likely to require a street closure. It also would allow applicants to ask the mayor for an expedited review.

“This ordinance considers that, really, there are things that happen that are flashpoints, and organizers can’t anticipate them” far in advance, Chávez said.

Wheeler said the proposal stemmed from the city’s experience with protests at the beginning of the Iraq war.

Under the procedures approved in the 1970s, “it took too long to get a permit if a person wanted to respond to a rapidly evolving public issue,” he said.

Councilor Michael Cadigan— who, like the mayor, is an attorney— said it’s a good idea to loosen restrictions.

“Making sure our ordinance is as compliant with current Supreme Court law as possible will probably reduce the amount of litigation the city has to defend,” he said.

The proposal deals with marches, demonstrations or processions that could interfere with the flow of traffic. It would cover meetings, demonstrations, picket lines, or gatherings of more than 25 people— if they result from prior planning and would interfere with traffic.

It wouldn’t apply to funeral processions, employees picketing or students participating in educational activities.

In some cases, applicants would have to pay for police protection. There would be no charge at demonstrations that are “for the sole purpose” of free speech protected by the First Amendment.

When a permit is denied, the applicant can seek an appeal through an administrative hearing officer.

Judge’s decision supports city’s gay marriages
Ruling cites ‘no rational purpose’ for opposition
By Jo Stanley, Staff Writer

A San Francisco judge’s ruling that state laws prohibiting same-sex marriage were unconstitutional gave the gay marriage movement a significant legal win Monday while outraging conservative opponents, who promised legal challenges as well as a political fight at the ballot box.

If upheld on appeal, Superior Court Judge Richard Kramer’s ruling could set the stage for gay couples in the nation’s most populous state to wed, joining only Massachusetts in having such a right.

The decision also raises the possibility of a proposed constitutional amendment banning gay marriage in the state. The proposed amendment could easily become one of the most fiercely fought California measures since Proposition 187, which sought nine years ago to deny undocumented immigrants many public services including an education.

Robert Tyler, attorney for the conservative Alliance Defense Fund, said he expected that the judge’s action would lead to a national countermove.

“This ruling has essentially put rocket fuel underneath the movement for a federal marriage amendment,” Tyler said. “The people of America have spoken time and time again, as we saw in the last election.”

The City was found to be in defiance of state law last winter and was ordered to stop marrying gay couples, with the state Supreme Court declaring more than 4,000 marriages void but failing to address whether gay marriage was unconstitutional.

The City Attorney’s Office then teamed up with the National Center for Lesbian Rights to overturn two state laws — one passed in 1977 and a 2000 voter-approved amendment to that law — that defined marriage as between a man and a woman.

Kramer’s 27-page ruling said same-sex couples had been singled out for special restrictions in violation of equal-protection rights guaranteed to all under the state constitution.

He also found that there was “no rational purpose for limiting marriage in this state to opposite-sex partners.”

The judge brushed aside claims that procreation was a legitimate reason for state government to say who could and could not wed, noting that many heterosexuals marry who cannot or do not wish to have children, or that it was sufficient to argue that male-female marriage embodies tradition.

Liberty Counsel president Mat Staver, a Florida-based attorney representing a state conservative group called the Campaign for California Families, said he was shocked by Kramer’s finding and planned to appeal as soon as it becomes final.

“The ruling is ludicrous,” he said. “The institution of marriage is one man and one woman.”

For San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera, whose staff has been slugging through legal documents and hearings since last spring, the judge’s words were sweet.

“What really comes through is the focus on justice,” he said, adding that he saw “every reason” to believe that Kramer’s ruling would stand up to appellate scrutiny.

“It may take 20 or 30 years before we canonize this decision as an important one,” said constitutional law scholar Bradley Joondeph of Santa Clara University. “Ultimately, popular opinion is what matters. The courts historically have very limited ability to effect social change.”

A year ago, a Los Angeles Times poll reported less than a majority of Californians supported same-sex marriage but more than 50 percent opposed the idea of a federal constitutional amendment that would effectively ban gay weddings.

Others statistics have shown that a strong majority in the state favors upholding the same rights through domestic partnerships — a stance Judge Kramer said smacks of the “separate but equal” status conferred to black schools in the South before the U.S. Supreme Court struck down segregation.

Two bills now before the California Legislature would put a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage on the November ballot.

Assemblyman Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, has a revived same-sex marriage bill making its way through the Legislature, with support expected in committee review this spring and a vote on the floor in June.

“It’s important,” Leno said, “that we move forward legislation so that our critics cannot say this is just the work of activist judges.”

Bonnie Eslinger contributed to this report.
—–
Conservatives want voter approval on issue By Bonnie Eslinger, Staff Writer

Monday’s San Francisco court ruling that it is unconstitutional to limit marriage in California to strictly heterosexuals has precedence in two other state rulings that had vastly different outcomes: Massachusetts and Hawaii.

In November 2003, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court declared the state’s prohibition on same-sex unions to be unconstitutional, and in May 2004 the state became the first to legalize gay marriage

However, in 1993 Hawaii’s Supreme Court also ruled that the state didn’t have “a compelling reason” for their anti-gay marriage law, but Hawaii voters thought otherwise. In 1998, before the high court could issue a final ruling — voters pre-emptively passed a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.

Following Monday’s ruling in San Francisco, several conservative organizations in California said they were ready to take their appeal to the voters.

Liberty Counsel president Matt Staver, representing the conservative Campaign for California Families, said the state’s size makes it an influential battleground. He expects voters in California and other states to be outraged and motivated by the ruling.

“It will send a message loud and clear to other states that they need to amend their constitutions to preserve marriage,” Staver said.

Similar outcomes as the one in Hawaii occurred in Alaska, in 1998, and Oregon, in 2004, in which political battles over gay marriage were won in the courts, but ultimately lost at the ballot box.

Additionally, following Hawaii’s ruling, then-President Bill Clinton signed into law the Defense of Marriage Act, which allows states to create their own marriage laws, but denies federal recognition of same-sex marriages and permits states to refuse to recognize gay unions performed elsewhere.

Since Massachusetts legalized gay marriage in November 2003, more than 35 states have introduced legislation to maintain the traditional definition of marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

Vermont began offering “civil union” status in 2000, which offers marriagelike benefits without granting the matrimonial moniker.

Outside of the United States, gay marriages are permitted in Belgium and the Netherlands. Most recently, Canada’s Supreme Court unanimously declared same-sex unions constitutional, and a bill in support of gay marriage is currently before the House of Commons.

E-mail: beslinger@examiner.com

SB 103: the “NO FEAR” bill
Limiting state funding for enforcement of federal civil immigration law

Explanation of bill

SB 103 would limit state and local law enforcement agencies from using funds, personnel, and other resources to detect or apprehend people whose only crime is that they are suspected of residing in the US in violation of federal civil immigration laws. This bill does not prevent police from investigating immigrants who are suspected of crimes or of contacting the federal immigration service to report criminals who are believed to be undocumented.

Why shouldn’t NM police enforce federal immigration laws?

Fear of being deported deters immigrants from reporting crime to police, making our communities less safe.

SB 103 would lift the pall of fear that stops immigrants from contacting police when they are victims of crime or when they witness crimes happening in their own communities. The bill would have the greatest benefits for immigrant victims of domestic violence who are otherwise trapped in violent relationships with nowhere to turn for protection. In immigrant-dense communities like Albuquerque, Santa Fe, and Las Cruces, policies like SB 103 are essential to effective ‘community policing.’

Immigration laws are too complex for state police to enforce without extensive training.

Simply to verify immigration status, officers must be thoroughly familiar with dozens of different types of immigration documents, including student, special employment, and family reunification visas. Many immigrants are in the process of legalizing and do not carry visas or green cards but documentation that nonetheless authorizes temporary legal residence. To properly train local police to identify these documents and screen for fraudulent identification requires significant resources and expertise.

New Mexico can’t afford to divert scarce police resources into federal law enforcement activities.

In recent years, staffing shortages have caused the Albuquerque Police Department to downgrade the priority of some domestic violence calls and cut back on officer investigations of automobile thefts. New Mexico already subsidizes federal civil immigration law enforcement activities by providing jail facilities for immigration holds and detention.

State and local police enforcement of federal immigration laws promotes racial profiling.

According to the Federal Hispanic Law Enforcement Officers Association, “because police are ill equipped to determine who has violated a civil immigration law, some will inevitably stop and question people of certain ethnic background, who speak certain languages, or who have accents when speaking English.”

Doesn’t federal law require state and local police to enforce civil immigration law?

No. Illegal entry into the US is a federal court misdemeanor. By NM Supreme Court ruling, a NM peace officer can arrest for a misdemeanor (without a warrant) only if “he has probable cause or reasonable grounds to believe that the offense has been committed in his presence.”

Illegal residence in the US is a violation of civil not criminal law. If state and local officials had authority to enforce federal civil laws, they might also be expected to enforce the Clean Air Act, federal antitrust laws, the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and bankruptcy laws, among many others.

Section 133 of the Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibly Act of 1996 authorized the US Attorney General to enter into agreements with local police agencies to enforce immigration laws, but nothing in federal law mandates that a local department do so. Enforcement of civil immigration laws is not a condition of any federal funding for state and local police.

What about preventing future terrorist attacks?

All of the perpetrators of the September 11th terrorist attack entered the United States legally on temporary business, tourist, and student visas. Between 1997 and 2001, the 19 hijackers submitted 24 applications and received 23 visas (National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, i.e. the “9/11 Commission”). Several of the hijackers had passed through immigration and customs inspection multiple times prior to the attack.

Many New Mexicans oppose state funding for civil federal immigration law.

In 2004, a coalition of New Mexican organizations, community members, and public officials passed municipal resolutions in Albuquerque and Santa Fe against funding civil federal immigration law enforcement. In New Mexico, Sheriff Darren White, the NM Sheriff’s and Police Association, the Albuquerque Chapter Hispanic American Police Commander Officers’ Association, and the Chicano Police Officers’ Association are on record stating their opposition to the proposed federal CLEAR Act which if passed, would have required state and local police to do the work of federal immigration officers.

Supporting Organizations

ACLU-NM
ACORN
Albuquerque Rape Crisis Center
Catholic Archdiocese of New Mexico
Catholic Charities of Central New Mexico
Community Health Partnership
COPE, Inc.
Enlace Comunitario
Esperanza Shelter For Battered Families
Home for Women and Children
NM Center On Law and Poverty
New Mexico Municipal League
New Mexico Women’s Agenda
Peanut Butter and Jelly
Roswell Refuge for Battered Adults
Somos un Pueblo Unido
The Healing House

Supporting Law Enforcement

Espanola Chief of Police, Richard Guillen
Santa Fe Chief of Police, Beverly Lennen

Law Enforcement Opposition to Federal Immigration Enforcement by Local Police
Executive Summary
by
Beverly Lennen, Chief of Police
Santa Fe Police Department, SFNM
January 12, 2005

BACKGROUND:

In 1999 the Governing Body for the City of Santa Fe passed a Resolution declaring a policy of non-discrimination on the basis of a person’s national origin and immigration status. The Resolution identifies the City of Santa Fe as a multi-cultural community which celebrates the diversity of its citizens, one in which all persons are welcomed with respect and dignity. It was further resolved that no municipal resources will be expended to identify or apprehend any non-citizen solely on the basis of immigration status, unless otherwise lawfully required to do so.

Based upon this resolution, many immigrants have chosen to relocate to our city in order to seek better lives and provide for their families. These individuals have become an integral part of our community and provide vital services for a city that is primarily dependent upon tourism and gross receipts taxes for survival. Many families participate in community service beyond their employment, thus contributing to the well-being of the entire community.

The Santa Fe Police Department has entered into partnerships with several local Immigrant advocacy groups and participates in the local Immigration Task Force. The initiatives were developed to foster relationships and trust, and more importantly to provide outreach to the immigrant community with a goal of reducing crime and increasing public safety for all residents and visitors.

POSITION:

Implementation of Federal legislation such as the CLEAR Act could seriously erode these efforts and public safety, as well. If local police are mandated to enforce civil immigration rules, it is highly unlikely these partnerships or the exchange of information regarding criminal activity will continue. Immigrant victims of crimes such as domestic violence and rape will be rendered unable to report these crimes, and the perpetrators will go unchecked.

There is also a potential that such enforcement can lead to allegations of racial profiling, which would have a devastating effect for a department known for protecting the rights of all, in such a traditionally diverse community.

Other serious concerns relate to the amount of training and staffing required to properly enforce immigration law. Our police department is properly focused on reducing crime in our community, collaborating with other law enforcement agencies to reach national and state homeland security goals, and building regional relationships to meet the daily demands on law enforcement. Federal and state grant funding has become scarcer, local demands have grown, and more of the burdens are placed on local government to maintain public safety, thus placing law enforcement in an untenable position. The added burden will quickly overwhelm most local agencies, who are struggling to meet current needs.

As the Chief of the Santa Fe Police Department and a member of the New Mexico Municipal Chiefs of Police Association, I am opposed to the proposed Federal CLEAR Act and any other effort to burden municipal agencies with additional responsibilities as they relate to the enforcement of Immigration Law. A letter signed by Mayor Larry Delgado and I has already been sent to the New Mexico Congressional delegation, and I support those resolutions/bills already prepared, on a local, county, and state level to oppose such legislation.

Law Enforcement Opposition in Border States to Federal Immigration Enforcement by State and Local Police

New Mexico
Santa Fe Police Department, Chief Beverly Lennen
“As the Chief of the Santa Fe Police Department and a member of the New Mexico Municipal Chiefs of Police Association, I am opposed to any effort to burden municipal agencies with additional responsibilities as they relate to enforcement of Immigration Law.”
(by Executive Summary, 1/12/05)

Espanola Police Department, Chief Richard A. Guillen
“I support this legislation, we do not have the resources or manpower to enforce immigration laws, our contacts with immigrants is strictly for criminal investigations. “
(“legislative endorsement 1/11/05)

Arizona
Pima County, Sheriff Clarence Dupnik
“As a general rule, I wouldn’t want our people certified as having the authority of a Border Patrol officer.”
(“Officials wary of border policing,” Arizona Daily Star, 8/1/02)

Santa Cruz County, Sheriff Tony Estrada
“We will assist all law-enforcement agencies if someone has been identified as being wanted, but we won’t go out and look for these people who are here illegally.”
(“Immigration proposal has many fearing racial profiling,” El Paso Times, 10/9/03)

South Tucson Police Department, Chief Sixto Molina
“We don’t have the time and the personnel to be immigration agents. Murderers, rapists, robbers, thieves and drug dealers present a much bigger threat than any illegal immigrant.”
(Tucson Citizen editorial, “Immigration role not for local police,” 10/15/03)

Tucson Police Department, Chief Richard Miranda
“I do not believe it is appropriate to allocate the limited resources of the Tucson Police Department to the issue of immigration control. We have worked hard to build bridges and establish partnerships with the diverse population of our city. I believe that taking on the additional role of enforcing immigration laws would jeopardize those relationships and create unneeded tension in our community.”
(“Expansion of foreigner arrest plan is feared,” Arizona Daily Star, 7/12/02)

Law Enforcement Opposition in Border States to Federal Immigration Enforcement by State and Local Police

California
California Police Chiefs’ Association, President Rick TerBorch
“It is the strong opinion of the California Police Chiefs’ Association that in order for local and state law enforcement organizations to be effective partners with their communities, it is imperative that they not be placed in the role of detaining and arresting individuals based solely on a change in their immigration status.”
(letter to Senator Feinstein, 9/19/03)

Anaheim Police Department, Spokesperson Mike Hildalgo
“We have enough problems just doing our routine calls and investigating the everyday things. This would put additional burden on us that we probably wouldn’t be able to handle.”
(“Immigrants Worried, Coe Pleased,” Orange County Register, 4/4/02)

Los Angeles Police Department, Public Information Officer Grace Brady
“People without legal rights would not be willing to speak up or would be frightened of police if we did [begin enforcing civil immigration laws].”
(“Value, Legality Debated as Local Police Become Immigration Cops,” Hispanic Link Weekly Report, 6/9/03)

Texas
Arlington Police Department, Chief Theron Bowman
“We can’t and won’t throw our scarce resources at quasi-political, vaguely criminal, constitutionally questionable, not any other evolving issues or unfunded mandates that aren’t high priorities with our citizenry.”
(“2 Chiefs Oppose Immigration Role,” Dallas Morning News, 4/5/02)

El Paso Municipal Police Officers’ Association, President Chris McGill
“From a law-enforcement point of view, I don’t know how productive it would be to have police officers ask for green cards. It’s more important that people feel confident calling the police.”
(“Immigration proposal puts burden on police,” El Paso Times, 10/9/03)

Dallas Police Association, Senior Cpl. Glenn White, President
“The strain on local police already is enormous, and to ask us to arrest and detain immigrants is something the federal government needs to address by funding the INS some more and hiring additional personnel.”
(“U.S. May Let State, Local Authorities Enforce Federal Immigration Laws,” Dallas Morning News, 4/3/02)
Law Enforcement Opposition in Border States to Federal Immigration Enforcement by State and Local Police

Garland Police Department, Officer Steve Dye
“Even if they’re here illegally, they still have rights. They should call the police and report [crimes]. They are residents. We serve them like any other residents.”
(“Non-English speakers may face questionable business dealings,” Dallas Morning News, 8/27/03)

Houston Police Department, Spokesperson Silvia Trevino
“The INS handles immigration. We handle crime.”
(“Local police may get role in immigrant law,” Baltimore Sun, 7/9/2003)

Houston Police Officers Union, Hans Marticiuc, President
“It’s very difficult in the immigration communities to get information from folks, and if there’s a fear of being reported to the INS because of illegal status, then it just makes our job that much more difficult and it makes the city have that much more criminal activity.”
(“Houston police stick to hands-off immigrant policy,” Houston Chronicle, 3/3/2003)

San Antonio Police Department, Chief Albert Ortiz
“Any time we get mandates and more work without a commensurate amount of resources, something has to suffer. One of the beauties of living in San Antonio is we have a lot of diversity and we seem to pull together. If that [mandate] happens, we’d really have to think very hard about where it would be on our priority list, and if it would even be a priority…We’ve tried so very hard for years to build bridges to all segments of our community. This would be a setback in that regard.”
(“Sheriff, Top Cop Blast INS Proposal,” San Antonio Express News, 4/5/02)

Waco Police Department, Chief Alberto Melis
“I worry that there are people who don’t ask for help because they have fear of the police.”
(“Waco Police Chief Asks Immigrants Not to be Afraid to Report Crimes,” Waco Tribune-Herald, 4/15/02)

ABQjournal: Death-Penalty Repeal Lives
By Kate Nash
Journal Capitol Bureau

SANTA FE— The Senate Rules Committee voted 4-2 Monday for a measure to repeal the death penalty in New Mexico and replace it with life in prison without the possibility of parole.

The bill (HB 576) is headed to the Senate Judiciary Committee and then, if advanced, to the full Senate.

Proponents of the measure say innocent people have been sentenced to death and later exonerated and that the penalty is often given disproportionately to minorities. They’ve tried for years to repeal the penalty in New Mexico.

“There are no rich people on death row,” said Rep. Gail Beam, D-Albuquerque, the bill’s sponsor. “Those sentenced to death are primarily people of color.”

Sen. Kent Cravens, R-Albuquerque, voted against the measure, saying New Mexico has been judicious about applying the penalty.

“I think effectively we pretty much have abolished the death penalty in New Mexico,” Cravens said.

Two people are on death row in the state. The last execution here— the only one in more than four decades— was in 2001. New Mexico is one of 38 states with capital punishment.

Cravens and other lawmakers said they struggled with the topic.

“This really is about as philosophical of a split you could have in life. … It’s very, very, very difficult for us to have to come in here and make up our minds,” Cravens said.

The full House on a 38-31 vote approved the same measure earlier this session. However, Gov. Bill Richardson has said he supports the death penalty, as long as proper safeguards, such as DNA testing, are in place.

Opponents say murderers deserve to have their lives taken if they kill others.

Andrea Vigil, whose husband, Carlos, was murdered in 1999 a half block from the state district courthouse in Santa Fe, spoke in favor of Beam’s measure.

“Our system tries to tell the victims’ families that once they get to the courtroom or death chambers, that everything will be OK. This is certainly not true, at least it wasn’t for me,” she said.

Bernalillo County Sheriff Darren White, whose grandfather was murdered, spoke against the bill. He said death is an appropriate penalty.

“For some of the horrible scenes I’ve seen in my career, it is a just punishment for what these people are capable of.”

New Mexico Residents: Urge your State Senator to Support Repeal of the Death Penalty

The death penalty is a seriously flawed system which costs more than life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, does not serve as a viable deterrent, and risks executing innocent people. The New Mexico legislature is currently considering a bill (HB 576) that would repeal the death penalty in New Mexico.

Every state that has studied its death penalty system has found it to be more expensive than life without parole. The most comprehensive death penalty study, conducted by Duke University, found that the death penalty costs North Carolina $2.16 million more per execution than a non-death penalty murder case with a sentence of life imprisonment.

The New Mexico legislature should support this bill and stop the unfair and discriminatory use of the death penalty.

Take Action! Urge your Senator to vote for death penalty repeal.

The death penalty costs more than life in prison. If the death penalty is repealed individuals can be sentenced to life in prison, which costs less than a death sentence. Furthermore, eliminating the death penalty and replacing it with victims’ services will provide tangible benefits to victims of crime.

Capital punishment is not a deterrent. When police chiefs were asked to rank the factors that, in their judgment, reduce the rate of violent crime, they ranked the death penalty as least effective. Politicians who preach the desirability of executions as a method of crime control deceive the public and mask their own failure to identify and confront the true causes of crime. According to FBI statistics, states without the death penalty consistently have lower homicide rates than states with the death penalty.

The death penalty risks executing innocent people. Our court system is not perfect: no matter how hard we try, there will always be error. Since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, 118 innocent people have been freed from death row. During that same time 949 people have been executed, which means for every 8 people executed, 1 innocent person is freed from death row. It is highly likely that some of those people who were executed were also innocent.

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ACLU Asks Development Secretary Homans
to Retract Statement

Albuquerque—Today the ACLU of New Mexico sent a letter to the Secretary of the NM Department for Economic Development Rick Homans requesting that he retract a directive prohibiting all departmental employees from visiting the capital on their own time during the current legislative session. The ACLU’s letter reads, “It is our opinion that the directive imposing a blanket ban on employees, as private citizens and on their own time, from contacting legislators or appearing in a public forum to advocate for their personal beliefs on matters of public concern violates protections of free speech and free association under the federal and state constitutions.”

The letter was copied to the Office of Governor Bill Richardson and includes a request under the Inspection of Public Records Act for “any written policies that dictate what employees of the Economic Development Department may and may not do with regard to contact with legislators and other venues for public expression.”

“We understand perfectly the requirement that employees obtain the Secretary’s approval before visiting the legislature in their capacity as departmental employees,” said ACLU-NM Executive Director Peter Simonson. “However, their freedom cannot be restricted in their capacity as private citizens. The Secretary’s authority does not reach that far.”

A copy of the ACLU-NM’s letter accompanies this release.

###

Peter G. Simonson

Executive Director, ACLU of New Mexico

PO Box 80915 | Albuquerque, NM 87198

Tel: (505) 266-5915 | Fax: 266-5916

ABQjournal: Senate Says Notify Parents Before Underage Abortion By Deborah Baker, The Associated Press

SANTA FE — The Senate, after heated debate, voted to require parents to be told when their underage daughters seek abortions.

The bill, which went to the House on a vote of 29-10, requires the notification of a parent — and a 48-hour wait after that — before an unmarried girl under 18 could get an abortion.

If the girl didn’t want a parent notified, she could go to court and get a judge’s authorization for the procedure.

The bill had not been on the Senate’s voting agenda for Monday. Instead, its supporters used a parliamentary maneuver to “blast” it out of the Judiciary Committee, where it was awaiting a hearing.

Sen. Kent Cravens, R-Albuquerque, who sponsored the measure, said that “a family making this decision together” is preferable to a girl making it on her own.

“All the bill is asking .. is to put parents back in the driver’s seat,” Cravens said.

But opponents said the legislation ignored the plight of girls from troubled families — including those raped by their fathers — who could be in jeopardy if their parents were told.

And they said it would result in an increase in illegal abortions.

Sen. John Grubesic, D-Santa Fe, who voted against the bill, criticized the “arrogance and chauvinism” he said was exhibited on the Senate floor, which he said functioned “like a good old boys’ club.”

“We didn’t value women enough to spend the time to look at this bill carefully” in committee, he said. Instead, he said, the message was “we control you and we will make decisions for you.”

Sen. H. Diane Snyder, R-Albuquerque, complained that she was put in a difficult position politically by the legislation.

She said it would drive young women to “backroom abortionists” or set them up to be beaten by their parents.

But she said if she voted against it, a more conservative Republican would likely defeat her in the next primary election. Because her district wouldn’t vote for a far-right candidate, however, the GOP nominee would likely then be defeated by a Democrat. Snyder said keeping the seat Republican was more important than opposing the bill, which she voted for.

Dauneen Dolce, executive director of the Right to Life Committee of New Mexico, said she was optimistic that the bill could pass the House if it reached the floor for a vote.

“We think we have enough time now to be able to do what we need to do in the House,” Dolce said.

The Senate has voted in the past for similar legislation — most recently in 2002, when supporters tried to get it to the desk of Republican Gov. Gary Johnson before he left office. The bill, however, was bottled up in the House.

A spokesman for Democratic Gov. Bill Richardson, who described the governor as generally pro-choice, said the governor hadn’t seen the legislation and would not comment on it.
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The parental notification bill is SB126.
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Track SB126
PARENTAL NOTIFICATION ACT
Sponsor: Kent L. Cravens
Current Location: House Intro

TEEN CURFEWS:

Legal and Practical Problems

Changing the NM Children’s Code will not clear the way for teen curfews

In A.C.L.U. of New Mexico v. City of Albuquerque, 1999-NMSC-044, 128 N.M. 315, 992 P.2d 866, the New Mexico Supreme Court struck down Albuquerque’s teen curfew ordinance based on provisions in the Children’s Code, but never ruled on the constitutional claims. There is good reason to believe that a strictly constitutional challenge to a state curfew law would succeed, given that teen curfew laws recently have been struck down on constitutional grounds in Washington state, Connecticut, New Jersey, Indiana (Hodgkins v. Peterson, 355 F.3d 1048 (7th Cir. 2004)).

In her special concurrence to the New Mexico Supreme Court’s decision in A.C.L.U. of New Mexico v. City of Albuquerque, Justice Petra Maes advocated “an alternative approach to that taken in the majority opinion. That is, [she] would address the issue on constitutional grounds.” Id., 1999-NMSC-044, 128 N.M. 315, 992 P.2d 866.

Curfew laws interfere with parental rights

A long line of cases has established the view of the courts that “child-rearing is the role of parents, not impersonal political institutions.” Assessing the Scope of Minors Fundamental Rights: Curfews and the Constitution, 97 Harvard L. Rev. 1163, 1178 (March 1984). Based on their encroachment on parental rights, teen curfew laws were overturned in New Jersey (Betancourt v. Township of West New York, 769 A.2d 1065 (N.J. Super.App.Div. 2001)), and Indiana (Hodgkins v. Peterson, 355 F.3d 1048 (7th Cir. 2004)).

Curfew laws violate both the 1st and 4th Amendments

The proposed curfew bills place the burden on minors to prove that their presence in the public domain is justified under one of the “Exceptions” listed in Section 5. Police officers are given discretionary power to cite minors without establishing probable cause that minors are actually in violation of the law.

In Hodgkins v. Peterson, 355 F.3d 1048 (7th Cir. 2004) the Seventh Circuit overturned Indiana’s curfew law partly on these grounds observing, “If a police officer stops a seventeen-year-old on the road at 1:00 a.m., and the teen informs the officer that she is returning home from a midnight political rally, the officer need not take the teen at her word nor attempt to ascertain whether she is telling the truth. Lacking first-hand knowledge that the juvenile indeed has been participating in First Amendment activity, the officer is free to arrest her and leave assessment of the First Amendment or any other affirmative defense for a judicial officer.”

Curfew Laws are ineffective in reducing crime

Most juvenile crime occurs during non-curfew hours, peaking between 2:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. Albuquerque Police Department statistics show for the period 1991-1994 that less than 25 percent of juvenile crime takes place during the proposed curfew hours. A study in Verona, Connecticut showed that only 7 of 410 youth cited for curfew violations from 1995 to1998 were actually committing crimes.

ABQjournal: Bill To Abolish Death Penalty Heads to House
By Deborah Baker
The Associated Press

SANTA FE— A bill to abolish the death penalty in New Mexico flew through a committee Wednesday and headed to the House floor for a vote.

The measure (HB 576), which replaces capital punishment with a sentence of life in prison without parole, passed the House Judiciary Committee on a 6-3 vote.

It’s the first time the full House will vote on a death penalty repeal since opponents geared up about eight years ago to try to overturn the law. Similar repeal bills have reached the Senate floor a couple of times but failed— most recently in 2001 by one vote.

House Judiciary Committee members voting for the bill were Reps. Gail Beam, D-Albuquerque, Mimi Stewart, D-Albuquerque, Tom Swisstack, D-Rio Rancho, Al Park, D-Albuquerque, Hector Balderas, D-Wagon Mound, and Teresa Zanetti, R-Albuquerque.

Voting against it were Chairman Joseph Cervantes, D-Las Cruces, and Reps. Terry Marquardt, R-Alamogordo, and Gloria Vaughn, R-Alamogordo.

There are two men on New Mexico sentenced to death, and the repeal— if it were enacted into law— would not affect their sentences.

The Judiciary Committee passed the bill with no debate, following a long public hearing at which it heard testimony on both sides of the issue from murder victims’ families and their advocates.

Pat Songer of Albuquerque said her son was murdered in Florida in 1983 and his killer is still awaiting execution in that state.

“This knowledge has brought us neither healing nor closure,” she said.

If and when the execution is carried out, “his death will not ease our pain, nor will it honor our son,” she added.

“Revenge is an emotional response, not justice. The taking of a life by anyone … is murder; it is not justice,” said Leah Popp, whose niece was murdered near Santa Fe in 1997.

But Patty March of Albuquerque, who works with New Mexico Survivors of Homicide, said she attended the execution of Terry Clark in 2001 with the mother of Clark’s victim, 9-year-old Dena Lynn Gore, and with a young woman whom Clark had been convicted of raping when she was a child.

“I know firsthand from the families they have a great relief,” said March, whose son was murdered in 1995.

Clark’s execution by injection was the first in New Mexico since 1960.

Another opponent, Donna McNevin, said a repeal would amount to “a green light to continue to murder.”

McNevin’s father, Estevan Vigil, was killed in 1988 by his wife, Janet Vigil, whose life sentence— 30 years— was commuted by Gov. Bill Richardson in December after she had spent 15 years in prison.

The governor “chose politics over justice,” McNevin said. “Life does not mean life. There are too many loopholes.”

But Rep. Beam, the sponsor of the repeal legislation, countered that her bill would ensure that murderers would spend the rest of their lives in prison with no possibility of parole.

“We can make our communities safer by locking people up for the rest of their natural lives,” Beam told the committee.

“We cannot make mistakes if we’re going to kill people,” said Albuquerque lawyer Randi McGinn. And yet, she added, “the system isn’t perfect.”

So lawmakers must decide either to accept that innocent people will be killed or to abolish capital punishment, she argued.

Beam and other repeal supporters argue that the money New Mexico spends on the death penalty— which they estimate could be as much as $2.5 million annually— should be spent instead on services for the families of murder victims.
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UPDATE Tuesday, March 1, 2005
ABQjournal: House Approves End of Death Penalty by Kate Nash, Journal Capitol Bureau

SANTA FE – A measure to abolish New Mexico’s death penalty is headed to the Senate after the House on Monday voted 38-31 to repeal capital punishment.

The measure, sponsored by Rep. Gail Beam, D-Albuquerque, would replace the death penalty with life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Beam and other supporters now turn their focus to winning support from senators and Gov. Bill Richardson.

Here is the 38-31 vote by which the House approved a measure Monday to abolish the death penalty.

Voting yes were five Republicans and 33 Democrats. Voting no were 23 Republicans and eight Democrats. Not voting or excused was one Democrat.
(more…)

ABQjournal: Committee OKs Same-Sex Marriage Ban By David Miles, Journal Capitol Bureau

SANTA FE— A Senate committee on Tuesday approved a bill defining marriage as being between a man and a woman while also endorsing one that would extend the same legal rights that spouses have to domestic partners.

The marriage measure (SB 597), which would appear to provide a legal barrier against same-sex marriages, cleared the Senate Public Affairs Committee on a 6-2 vote.

The domestic partner bill (SB 576) was endorsed by the same committee on a 5-4 vote.

Both measures head to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

A House bill (HB 445) defining marriage as being between a man and a woman was tabled last week by the House Consumer and Public Affairs Committee.

Clergy members testified on both sides of the Senate version of the marriage measure on Tuesday.

Michael Naranjo, senior pastor of Rock Christian Fellowship in Española, said he supported defining marriage as a contract between a man and a woman, saying marriage is a “fundamentally American value.”

Rabbi Marvin Schwab of Temple Beth Shalom in Santa Fe said his congregation voted for a resolution opposing legislation defining marriage as only between a man and a woman.

Schwab said he and his wife do not feel threatened by the notion of same-sex marriages.

“We do not feel that our marriage is under attack and therefore needs defending,” Schwab said.

Same-sex marriages were put in the spotlight in New Mexico last February, when then-Sandoval County Clerk Victoria Dunlap issued more than 60 marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Attorney General Patricia Madrid later declared the licenses invalid.

Sen. William Sharer, a Farmington Republican who sponsored the measure, said the issuance of marriage licenses to same-sex couples last year caused confusion about the matter. “This simply attempts to clarify the issue,” he said.
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Track SB597
MARRIAGE DEFINED
Sponsor: William E. Sharer
Current Location: Senate Public Affairs Committee

Track SB576
DOMESTIC PARTNER RIGHTS & RESPONSIBILITY ACT
Sponsor: Cisco McSorley
Current Location: Senate Public Affairs Committee

Track HB445
MARRIAGE DEFINED
Sponsor: Gloria C. Vaughn
Current Location: House Consumer & Public Affairs

ABQjournal: Youths Want Curfew Legislation Put to Bed
By Martin Salazar, Journal Staff Writer

Highland High School student Kirbie Platero doesn’t think police should have the right to stop her just because she’s out late.

She and about four dozen other youths showed up at the Capitol last weekend to rally against legislation that could lead to youth curfews throughout the state.

“I don’t want to be one of those being harassed just because I’m young looking and out past 11,” said Platero, a 15-year-old Albuquerque resident.

At issue are two pieces of legislation— HB 471 and SB 645— that would give municipalities and counties the authority to impose curfews between midnight and 5 a.m. for those younger than 16. Both bills are pending in committees.

State Rep. Al Park, D-Albuquerque, introduced the curfew legislation in the House.

“No good can come from kids being out at 2 a.m.,” Park said during a phone interview. He said young people often feel invincible.

“There’s a lot of dangers out there, and I think we need to make sure we protect our children,” he added.

Albuquerque Mayor Martin Chávez has been pushing for a curfew for years.

He ran for office in 2001 pledging to seek one for youngsters. A curfew was approved in 1994 when he was previously mayor, but it was thrown out in court on the grounds that it conflicted with state law governing juveniles.

Chávez recently said he’s optimistic the current session of the Legislature will change state law to clear the way for a curfew. A city ordinance in Albuquerque will follow, he said.

Saturday’s protest was sponsored by the SouthWest Organizing Project Youth Rights Campaign.

Karlos Schmieder, the group’s communications organizer, said that while he understands the impulse to protect young people, the curfew isn’t the way to do it.

Among the problems with such a law, he said, is it often leads to racial profiling. The Florida Supreme Court, he said, struck down two curfews because Latino youths were being pulled over disproportionately.

“It’s really hard to tell how old people are,” he said.

Jonathan Ramirez, a 13-year-old Albuquerque resident, said parents— not lawmakers— should make the call on their children’s curfew.

Alan Garcia said he thinks the legislation is a good idea.

“It keeps them out of trouble,” said the 19-year-old Albuquerque resident.

The proposed legislation, called the Curfew Enforcement Act, outlines four exceptions for any local government curfews that are adopted. Curfew penalties wouldn’t apply to:

• Young people who are involved in activities authorized by a school or religious or community organizations;
• Those out late because of work;
• Youths who have parental permission;
• Those who are out because of an emergency.

Journal Staff Writer Jim Ludwick contributed to this report.
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Track
HB471
CURFEW ENFORCEMENT ACT
Sponsor: Al Park
Current Location: House Government & Urban Affairs

Track SB645
CURFEW ENFORCEMENT ACT
Sponsor: William H. Payne
Current Location: Senate Public Affairs Committee

Policy #239

The Death Penalty

The ACLU opposes the death penalty because it denies equal protection of the laws, is cruel and unusual punishment, and removes guarantees of due process of law. The death penalty is so inconsistent with the underlying values of our democratic system – the pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness – that the imposition of the death penalty for any crime is a denial of civil liberties. The Union believes that past court decisions to the contrary are in error, and will seek the repeal of existing laws imposing the death penalty and reversal of convictions carrying a sentence of death.

The existence of the death penalty for crimes results in discrimination against the poor, the uneducated, and members of minority communities. Its imposition as the result of racial bias is easily demonstrated by the statistics on executions from 1930 to the present.1 The greater likelihood of its imposition upon the poor is demonstrated by unimpeachable statistical analysis and arises among other things from the obvious fact that the financially able accused of a crime may employ legal counsel and compensate them fully for the extensive efforts necessary to pursue the many remedies available to those under penalty of death. But the poor, although they too have the right to counsel, have only that counsel which is volunteered, or which is compensated by the state. It is unrealistic to believe that such counsel, while dedicated, can give the kind, range, and detail of service given by counsel compensated at the usual rate paid our most competent lawyers.

Thus, in the case of the death penalty, the punishment does not fit the crime. It is, in fact, a constitutionally prohibited denial of equal protection of the law because it results – regardless of the written provisions of statutes permitting it – in imposition of the death penalty almost exclusively upon society’s most disadvantaged members.

The Union also believes that contemporary ideas of the significance of human life make imposition of the death penalty cruel and unusual punishment, which is prohibited by the Constitution. To retain the theory that the death penalty is not cruel is to ignore the persistence of individual and collective conscience which says that death imposed by the force of the state is the ultimate cruelty upon the person whose life is taken. General public abhorrence of the death penalty is revealed by the prohibition or narrow limitation of capital punishment in statutes, and by the frequent reversal of guilty verdicts for technical errors which to laymen and lawyers both seem simply to reflect the courts’ apprehension that to permit the judgment to stand would result in the ending of a life.

The irreversibility of the death penalty means that error discovered after the penalty has been imposed cannot be corrected. One who suffers the death penalty, and subsequently is found to have been improperly convicted, has been denied due process of law. Moreover, because jury panels in capital cases are selected partly on the basis of a belief in the death penalty, the state is protected against a jury biased against capital punishment, but the defendant is not protected against a jury biased in favor of it. So too does the existence of the death penalty have a deleterious effect on the administration of justice. The incentive of a capital conviction acts as a spur to the use of unfair or even lawless methods by police and prosecutors, to which is added blatant and emotional coverage by the mass media, all combining to make a fair trial impossible. [Board Minutes, October 2-3, 1976, April 4, 1965; News Release, June 21, 1965.]

The following resolution was proposed by the 1985 Biennial Conference. Because the specific funding recommendation had been approved separately as part of the ACLU’s 1986 budget, and because, according to the ACLU Bylaws and New York non-profit corporation law, only the Board can approve expenditures, the Board did not formally act on the Biennial proposal. However, it authorized placement of the Biennial text in the Policy Guide. This resolution states:

We currently face a crisis in the representation of death-sentenced inmates, particularly in the Southern states. There are over 1,500 persons currently on death row, more than half in the South. 200-250 persons are being added to death row each year. 44 executions have occurred under post-Forman statutes, and the pace is rapidly accelerating.

ACLU policy on capital punishment vigorously opposes the death penalty because it denies equal protection of the law, is cruel and unusual punishment and because its application is inconsistent with fundamental guarantees of due process of law. Our policy further recognizes that the death penalty is disproportionately inflicted on the poor and minorities.

As the policy recognizes, one of the fundamental problems with imposition of the death penalty is that affluent persons accused or convicted of a capital offense may employ legal counsel and compensate them fully to pursue all available legal remedies, including post-conviction remedies. The poor, on the other hand, must rely on court-appointed counsel to represent them at trial and on direct appeal. Yet in all but a handful of Southern states, no provision is made for providing counsel to death sentenced inmates after the mandatory direct appeal. Inmates in most Southern states must rely on volunteer counsel to prosecute their constitutional and statutory rights, or forgo those rights. The number of volunteer attorneys within these Southern states is fast becoming exhausted.

In order to effectuate the principles of this policy, the ACLU must continue its commitment to ensure that all death sentenced inmates are adequately represented. Creative strategies are necessary, such as convincing State Bar Associations, State Supreme Courts and law schools of their responsibilities and persuading such groups to establish programs to provide representation to death sentenced persons. Until adequate programs to provide representation to death sentenced persons are established, the ACLU must expand its currently limited efforts to recruit volunteer attorneys.

In order to effectuate the principles embodied in this policy, the ACLU should provide salaried staff attorneys in regional back-up centers to recruit volunteer attorneys, provide technical assistance and advice, monitor the cases and case law, and provide logistical support such as the provision of case records and decisions by appellate courts. In addition to providing back-up assistance to volunteer attorneys, such a program of volunteer representation will serve as a focal point and catalyst in creating long term institutional approaches to the provision of counsel to death sentenced persons.

It is therefore resolved that the national ACLU commit itself to ensuring adequate post-conviction representation for death sentenced inmates by:

1) establishing two death penalty litigation back-up centers, one located in the 11th Circuit states, and another in the 5th circuit. The national ACLU shall commit minimum funding of $45,000 annually to each of these centers for two years beginning September 1, 1985. Both centers will be available to assist with attorney recruitment and technical support for death penalty representation outside those circuits;

2) strongly urging all affiliates to assist in the recruitment of cooperating attorneys to handle the death penalty cases in the crisis areas;

3) affirming its commitment to opposing the death penalty through sufficient funding of the Capital Punishment Project to support lobbying projects against reinstatement and expansion of the death penalty and to engage in vigorous public education efforts around the country;

4) the national ACLU and its affiliates shall work toward enactment of legislation in their respective states to insure qualified counsel are appointed to represent capital sentenced defendants. [Board Minutes, January 25-26, 1986]

The continuing number of persons being sentenced to death and the ever increasing number of persons being executed, particularly in the South, demand a continuing and forceful ACLU role in death penalty issues. Therefore, the Biennial Conference urges the National Board to maintain adequate and continuing funding for the Fifth and Eleventh Circuit Capital Punishment Litigation Projects and to reaffirm the Union’s national efforts in opposition to the death penalty in the post-McClesky era. [Board Minutes, October 17-18, 1987.]

1. Of the 3,859 persons executed for all crimes since 1930, 54.6% have been black or members of other racial minority groups. Of the 455 executed for rape alone, 89.5% have been non-white. As census data clearly reveal, blacks in American society have consistently represented approximately 10% of the United States population. (Source: Bureau of Prisons, National Prisoner Statistics, Bulletin No. 45, Capital Punishment 1930-68, August 1969.) Of the 392 persons on death row on August 1, 1977, 50.8% were non-white, continuing the classic pattern of racially discriminatory imposition of the death penalty. (Source: Deathrow Census, August 1, 1977, National Coalition Against the Death Penalty.)

ABQjournal: Same-Sex Marriage Bill Has Strong Support in Senate By Kate Nash, Journal Capitol Bureau
SANTA FE – With one of two so-called Defense of Marriage bills voted down by a House committee this week, Equality New Mexico lobbyist Linda Siegle is optimistic that efforts to define marriage as between a man and a woman won’t become law this session.

“We’re really pleased to see that many legislators don’t want to codify discrimination,” she said after the House Consumer and Public Affairs Committee on Tuesday tabled a measure to outlaw same-sex marriage sponsored by Rep. Gloria Vaughn, R-Alamogordo.

But members of the Senate seem warmer to the idea, and 28 of 42 senators have signed onto another bill that would prohibit same-sex marriages.

“I think it will make it through the Senate,” said Sen. William Sharer, a Farmington Republican who is sponsoring the measure, SB 597.

“Whether or not it will make it through the House, I don’t know,” he said.

As of Friday, a committee hearing had not been set for Sharer’s measure. The bill has been referred to the Senate Public Affairs Committee and the Senate Judiciary Committee. There is about a month left in this 60-day session.

Under Sharer’s one-page bill: “Marriage is contemplated by the law as a civil contract between a man and a woman for which the consent of the contracting parties capable in law of contracting, is essential.”

Bill supporters say the state needs to be clear that marriage should be between two people of the opposite sex. Opponents, who rallied 200 strong this week in the Rotunda against the measure, call it mean-spirited and discriminatory.

Other marriage-related bills have been introduced this session by Republicans, including measures to require pre-divorce counseling and to fund more marriage and relationship classes. Supporters who held a press conference on those bills earlier this week were quickly surrounded by gay- and lesbian-rights advocates.

A 2004 Journal poll showed that 62 percent of registered voters surveyed would oppose a state law allowing same-sex marriage. Meanwhile, 49 percent said they would oppose a state law allowing same-sex civil unions.

Gov. Bill Richardson generally supports same-sex civil unions but opposes gay marriage. Civil unions allow same-sex partners many of the same benefits, rights and protections available to married couples.

Richardson voted for a federal Defense of Marriage Act when he was a congressman. A spokesman said this week he will consider any legislation that makes it to his desk.

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Track SB597
MARRIAGE DEFINED
Sponsor: William E. Sharer
Current Location: Senate Public Affairs Committee

See also ABQjournal: N.M. Gay Marriage Debate Continues

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ABQjournal: Use Death Penalty Appeals Money To Aid Families By Pat Songer, Albuquerque Resident

Imagine getting a call one day with the news of the murder of a beloved family member. Now imagine that the court system, the media and politicians in your community focus on how to treat the murderer while little attention is placed on helping your family cope with the harsh realities of losing a loved one.

Unfortunately, this is not an imaginary situation for murder victim family members here in New Mexico or around the country.

The day my son Jeffery was killed, the violence of it was overwhelming. I, and everyone around me— family, friends, and colleagues— were shocked. The experience was devastating.

In that moment, my family needed help to cope with the tragedy, trauma and loss. Later, we needed a little help to rebuild our lives. That’s why I believe that we should replace the death penalty in New Mexico with life without the possibility of parole, and use the millions of dollars the state would save to support and expand services for the families of victims.

Convicted murderers deserve the toughest of sentences and our communities require the best protection— murderers must never be allowed to kill again. But the death penalty isn’t the only, or best, way to do that.

Recent studies and stories make it clear that our capital punishment system is fundamentally flawed. A murderer does not receive the death penalty based solely on the heinous nature of the crime. Being sentenced to death more often depends on where you live, your race or ethnicity, if you can afford a private attorney, or whether a plea bargain for a lesser sentence can be negotiated.

Worse, more than 115 people have been released from death row, exonerated: that is about one out of every eight people actually executed.

Spending our precious state resources on such an error-prone system is poor public policy to say the least. Especially when the vast sums of money poured into death penalty cases can be better spent on services for murder victim family members and law enforcement.

And I say this as a Republican.

Families need help to heal, to cope with our loss, to manage reduced family income and to pay unplanned court and funeral expenses. We also require employment protections so that we can actively participate in court proceedings and other aspects of the criminal justice process.

The proposed Catastrophic Crime & Family Restitution Program would fund a model “homicide survivors program” that offers grief counseling, services for children, funeral assistance, crime scene cleanup and emergency funds; it would establish a Crime Victim’s Hotline; would enact a new Catastrophic Family Leave Act to grant unpaid leave for victims’ families when they must take time from work to attend court; would establish tuition waivers for the children of murder victims at state colleges; and would replace the death penalty with true life without parole.

Today, my son’s murderer sits on Florida’s death row awaiting an execution I oppose. More killing is not what I want surrounding Jeffery at the end of his story. We must choose hope, and the future, not death. New Mexico can, and should, lead the country by example. It is time to focus on the survivors and not the killers. As one who knows the pain of murder, I believe we must replace the death penalty with life without parole.

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Track SB136
CRIME VICTIMS REPARATIONS FOR HOMICIDE
Sponsor: H. Diane Snyder
Current Location: Senate Finance Committee

Track HB358
CRIME VICTIMS REPARATIONS FOR HOMICIDE
Sponsor: Al Park
Current Location: House Judiciary Committee

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ABQjournal: Medical Marijuana Bill Clears Senate Committee By Deborah Baker, The Associated Press

SANTA FE— A Senate committee on Friday unanimously endorsed a measure to allow the medical use of marijuana under a program run by the Department of Health.

The Public Affairs Committee heeded the pleas of people with cancer, AIDS and other illnesses to approve the legislation.

“If this bill gets passed, it will be a blessing to so many of us,” said Essie DeBonet of Albuquerque, who suffers chronic nausea from her AIDS medications.

The bill would have to clear the Judiciary Committee before it reached the full Senate for a vote.

The Health Department would license producers to provide the marijuana, which would be grown in secure facilities. Patients whose doctors recommended it would apply to the department and, if approved by a review board of doctors, be registered to possess the drug.

It would be restricted to patients with cancer, glaucoma, multiple sclerosis, certain spinal cord injuries, epilepsy and HIV-AIDS.

The bill’s sponsor, Senate Judiciary Chairman Cisco McSorley, D-Albuquerque, said marijuana can help some seriously ill patients keep food down and, therefore, gain strength.

“In effect, this gives some people one last chance,” he told the committee.

Fred MacDonald, a disabled U.S. Navy veteran with spinal cord injuries and multiple sclerosis, said he splits his time between Seattle and Albuquerque, where he has family.

Washington is one of 10 states that allows the use of marijuana as a medicine, and he has a doctor’s recommendation for a powdered form of the drug that he takes in tea.

“If I come (to Albuquerque) to spend the holidays with my family, I run the chance of being arrested,” he said.

Prodded by former Gov. Gary Johnson, a Republican who supported drug law changes, the Legislature has considered medical marijuana before, but it has never passed both houses.

The state had a medical marijuana program more than 25 years ago that was linked to a research project, but it eventually lost its funding.

The medical marijuana bill is Senate Bill 795.

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Track SB795
LYNN PIERSON COMPASSIONATE USE ACT
Sponsor: Cisco McSorley
Current Location: Senate Public Affairs Committee

Clovis News Journal: Serving Eastern New Mexico and West Texas
Battle brewing over devilish stickers
By Mike Linn: CNJ news editor
mike_linn@link.freedom.com

Stickers on a Clovis man’s car portray cartoon images of bare-breasted female devils in sexually compromising positions. And the images have caught the attention of Clovis police.

Officials have charged 31-year-old Dean Young, the owner of a yellow Ford Focus displaying the images, with distribution of sexually oriented materials to minors. The charge is a misdemeanor carrying a maximum punishment of 364 days in jail and $1,000 fine. Young is scheduled to appear in magistrate court on the charges in the next few weeks.

Young in turn has notified the American Civil Liberties Union, which is considering representing Young; an ACLU spokesman said Young’s First Amendment rights may have been violated.

Officials at the ACLU said they’ve never seen the stickers — one on each side of the car near the rear window, each about 4 by 6 inches wide — but based on the police report said they doubt the stickers violate the law.

“I’ve never heard of anyone getting a ticket for a sticker on a car,” said Peter Simonson, executive director of the ACLU of New Mexico. “Unless the stickers are directly and immediately inciting people to violence — that’s the only way the Supreme Court has said that free speech can be somehow limited.”
(more…)

Richardson’s Election Package Includes Voter ID
By Deborah Baker
The Associated Press

SANTA FE— With the legislative session half over, Democratic Gov. Bill Richardson has proposed a package of election changes that includes a requirement for voters to present some identification.

Republicans who have pushed voter ID for several years welcomed his endorsement of the concept but criticized his plan as too weak. The governor announced his election initiatives on Wednesday, flanked by the attorney general and secretary of state, who helped him develop them.

House Voters and Elections Chairman Edward Sandoval, D-Albuquerque, said the bill was “basically a template” that may be altered or combined with other proposals from lawmakers.

Richardson said his proposals “will make New Mexico’s election process more accurate and timely, will make voting more user-friendly, and will restore the public’s confidence in the results.”

A voter would have to verbally give election officials a name, the last four digits of a Social Security number and a birth year, or else show documentation that could include a photo ID, utility bills, government checks or paychecks or tribal ID.

“The voter ID proposal is nothing more than a wink and a nod. It’s not substantive; we need to do a lot of work on it in committee,” said Rep. Justine Fox-Young, R-Albuquerque.

The bill requires voting machines by the end of 2006 to have “a verifiable and auditable paper trail"— a record that election officials could use to check the veracity of a machine count.

That could mean using paper ballots that are fed into scanning machines, or it could mean retrofitting electronic voting machines— including touch-screen machines— with some sort of digital devices.

Secretary of State Rebecca Vigil-Giron said about 1,100 voting machines in the state must be replaced anyway because they don’t meet federal standards enacted in 2002.

Other election reforms— such as same-day registration and greater uniformity in voting machines— will be studied after the session by an interim committee headed by House Speaker Ben Lujan, D-Santa Fe.

Attorney General Patricia Madrid urged that task force to study ways to prevent absentee ballot fraud, an area she said wasn’t addressed in the legislation presented Wednesday.

Other provisions in the bill:

• County clerks could begin feeding paper absentee ballots into electronic voting systems to tabulate the votes five days before the election, although the count wouldn’t be done until 7 p.m. on election day.

• Voters could drop off their absentee ballots at polling places on election day or vote at the polling places if their absentees were unused.

• Groups that collect absentee ballot applications would have to turn them over to county clerks within 24 hours or on the next business day.

• The secretary of state would issue rules for the handling of provisional ballots, and discrepancies in middle initials, suffixes and addresses would not necessarily disqualify them.

Photos from a few recent events (Thanks to OSSY).

Flickr: Photos from ACLU-NM (all 40 photos)

Patriots fundraiser (8 photos)

2004 awards dinner (14 photos)

Albuquerque Chapter formation meeting (8 photos)

There will be two showings in Albuquerque of the film “Unconstitutional: the War on Our Civil Liberties” on the evening of Thursday February 17th.

7pm 2/17 “Unconstitutional” at the Albuquerque Center for Peace and Justice, 202 Harvard SE (at Silver). Part of the “People Before Profit” film series. For more info, call 268-9557. [There will be 2 public speakers at the Peace & Justice film showing. One will talk about the lawsuit involving the anti-war protesters and Joyce Briscoe will give a legislative update.]

8pm 2/17 “Unconstitutional” at the UNM SUB Ballroom. For more info, call 231-4893 or email aclu@unm.edu. – Beth Kaimowitz

ABQjournal: Measure Would Ease Up on Illegal Immigrants
By Deborah Baker
The Associated Press

SANTA FE— Illegal immigrants in many communities are afraid to go the police for fear of being deported, say supporters of legislation aimed at turning that around.

“If we have people living next door to us who can’t go to the police, it puts all of us in danger,” said Diane Wood, a lobbyist for the American Civil Liberties Union.

The Senate on a 21-20 vote on Wednesday endorsed an ACLU-backed bill that bars state and local police from enforcing federal immigration laws.

It prohibits the use of police personnel or resources on people whose only crimes are immigration violations.

Critics of the bill— which was opposed by all the Senate’s Republicans and two Democrats— said it made no sense to hamper law enforcement in a post-9/11 world.

Noting that illegal immigrants can obtain driver’s licenses in New Mexico, Sen. Rod Adair, R-Roswell, contended that the latest proposed change would “permanently set ourselves up as a rogue state haven for those whose only goal is to hurt our people.”

“I think it’s very bad public policy and a very dangerous precedent to set,” agreed Sen. William Payne, R-Albuquerque.

The bill’s supporters said the goal of the bill, which went to the House, is to make immigrants— many of whom live in households where there are both documented and undocumented people— more willing to turn to police for help, to report crimes and to be witnesses in criminal cases.

“We want them to feel like they’re not going to be deported, or that police are not going to ask them about their immigration status,” said Marcela Diaz, executive director of Somos Un Pueblo Unido, an immigrant advocacy organization in Santa Fe.

Albuquerque and Santa Fe have passed similar ordinances.

The bill’s sponsor, Sen. Richard Martinez, D-Española, said New Mexico’s under-funded, understaffed law enforcement agencies shouldn’t have to divert their resources to immigration issues.

There already are plenty of laws— occupational safety laws, clean air laws and anti-discrimination laws, for example— that local police aren’t expected to enforce because they’re not trained or financed to do so, other supporters said.

“This is not a terrorist bill. It’s a bill about human rights, treating people like human beings,” Martinez said.

The police-immigrant bill is SB103.
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Track SB103
LOCAL ENFORCEMENT OF FEDERAL IMMIGRATION LAWS
Sponsor: Richard C. Martinez
Current Location: House Intro

V.B. Price: Looking out for No. 1

Random drug testing, surveillance systems eroding our privacy
By V.B. Price / Tribune Columnist
February 7, 2005

Who’s looking out for you in the public realm these days? And how can you tell?

There’s a simple standard for judging. It has to do with money.

Public-interest organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union and many consumer and environmental groups don’t make a dime looking out for your interests. They’re motivated by service in pursuit of the common good.

Does that sound idealistic? At the state Legislature this year, the ACLU isn’t flogging its products - it doesn’t have any. It’s keeping its eye on such miserable little evils as “radio frequency identification devices” that will soon be attached to virtually everything you buy.

It’s questioning the constitutionality of random drug testing of public officials. When your elected representatives become targets for obsessive anti-drug intrusions without probable cause, it can’t be too far down the line until you’re targeted too.

It’s supporting a genetic privacy act that won’t allow the wonders of genetic science to be corrupted into a screening device for employers and insurance companies that might use such information as a basis for genetic prejudice, barring you from jobs and health care.

The ACLU is supporting Albuquerque Democrat Rep. Mimi Stewart’s House Bill 215, which would protect consumers’ privacy by requiring removal of radio frequency identification devices when people leave stores. These devices are “an item-tagging technology with profound societal implications,” the ACLU-N.M. says. “Used improperly, RFID has the potential to jeopardize consumer privacy, reduce or eliminate purchasing anonymity and threaten civil liberties.”

The devices are microscopic computer chips with antennae that are attached to products. They are already being used in big discount-store warehouses. They’re great for inventorying. But they can, and probably would, be used to create what the device’s developers call a “pervasive global network” in which average people’s movements could be easily kept track of through the devices on the products they buy and be stored in databanks.

The ACLU thinks Senate Bill 20, which would create random, voluntary drug testing of public officials, is unconstitutional, permitting a high-tech drug search without probable cause. The voluntary nature of the tests is a smoke screen. Public officials “effectively would be forced to submit to testing under threat that their written reasons for refusing to take tests would be broadcast on a public Web site,” the ACLU argues.

House Bill 183, introduced by Rep. Danice Picraux, an Albuquerque Democrat, would prevent companies from discriminating against someone because of his or her genetic makeup, for health or other reasons. Imagine if health insurance companies could have access to your “genetic fingerprint” and disqualify you from coverage because you had a gene that predisposes you, but does not automatically cause you, to have a particular disease. They could reduce their risks to almost nothing, while increasing ours in unimaginably grim ways.

Who’s looking out for you? The people who are asking hard questions, not the folks with the hard sell.

There is legislation being introduced in New Mexico that has profound possibilities of positively effecting the future of retail sales and privacy. New Mexico is the first state to consider such legislation. The bill is addressing the introduction to the retail enviroment of RFIDs-Radio Frequency Identification Devices. RFIDs are TINY chips that will soon be embedded in EVERY product you purchase. Similar to Bar Codes and UPCs, they will initially be promoted (by Walmart, etc.) to increase efficiency and productivity. They are already being used in warehouse situations and in tracking things on the battle field in Iraq. What is of concern for privacy in the future, is the ability these devices will give to retailers, insurance companies, credit card companies and the government to collect data on every purchase you make. These things will follow you home and sit on your shelves. Placed on a bottle of vodka, or aspirin or prescription medication, they could tell your health insurance company how frequently you finish that bottle or how many bags of chips you consumed in a period of time.
This GOOD legislation will require retailers to post a notice at the entrance of their stores that they are using this technology and require that the RFIDS be removed or deactivated as they leave the store. Eventualy, as you shop at Wal-Mart or where ever, with your shopping cart full of RFID’d products, you will simply push your cart out though a “reader” and your credit card will automatically be billed. Sounds cool and futuristic. It IS futuristic, but not cool. These RFIDs may be something you want placed in the ear lobe of your favorite pet or on the back side of your child’s tooth, but not on every single item sitting on your kitchen, pantry, bedroom or garage shelf. Please read the brief info. on it below and call ASAP. The legislation has been introduced. It is HB 215 and has been referred to House Consumer and Public Affairs Committee and then to House Judiciary Committee. If you have contacts in Silver City, they could contact Rep. Dianne Hamilton asking for her support. If you have contacts in Hobbs, they could contact Rep. Keith Gardner. They need to call (not enough time for writing)
CALL—505-986-4300. Regardless of where you live, please call YOUR legislator and voice your support for this legislation. New Mexico is the first state to introduce this consumer protection legislation and could be the model for this legislation around the country.
Thank, Dimid Hayes, Nova Brokers
Dimid Hayes
dimid@cnsp.com
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Track HB215
REMOVAL OF RADIO FREQUENCY ID TAGS
Sponsor: Mimi Stewart
Current Location: House Consumer & Public Affairs

HB 183: Genetic Privacy Act
would ban discrimination based on a person’s genetic code, (Representative Danice Picraux) effectively preventing employers from making hiring and promotion decisions on the basis of one’s genetic makeup.

Genetic Screening is the screening of individuals for abnormalities of inherited genetic traits. It is a procedure utilized by individuals, employers, and the government for a variety of purposes including assistance in making reproductive decisions and determining the need for medical treatment for newborns, making employment decisions and carrying out research in such areas as workplace safety and hazardous substances. The term genetic screening does not apply to the forensic use of genetic information ("genetic fingerprinting").

The confidentiality of the results of genetic screening raises important privacy concerns, which involve the potential abuses of the results of genetic screening, as well as the frequency with which certain genetic characteristics occur in discrete racial or ethnic groups.

It is a violation of civil liberties for employers to base employment related decisions upon genetic traits associated with a particular group (such as a particular race, religion, or sex) for several reasons. Employment decisions should be made on the basis of individual ability and character, not on the basis of stereotypes or generalizations about the groups to which an individual belongs. The fact that some, or even a majority, of the members of a particular group have a particular genetic trait does not mean that all members of the group have that trait.

Employment decisions based upon genetic traits of a particular race, religion, alienage, sex or other group invariably would have disparate impact upon the group. It is discriminatory for an employer to refuse to employ, to dismiss, or to affect adversely the terms and conditions of an individual’s employment on the basis of genetic information about the individual.
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Track HB183
PROTECTION OF GENETIC PRIVACY
Sponsor: Danice Picraux
Current Location: House Consumer & Public Affairs
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HB 215: Radio Frequency Identification Right to Know Act
(Representative Mimi Stewart)
would protect consumers’ privacy by requiring removal of radio frequency identification tags on consumer goods at point of purchase; also requiring limits on business release of nonpublic personal information.
Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is an item-tagging technology with profound societal implications. Used improperly, RFID has the potential to jeopardize consumer privacy, reduce or eliminate purchasing anonymity, and threaten civil liberties.

What are RFID tags? Tiny computer chips connected to miniature antennae that can be affixed to physical objects. In the most commonly touted applications of RFID, the microchip contains an Electronic Product Code (EPC) with sufficient capacity to provide unique identifiers for all items produced worldwide. When an RFID reader emits a radio signal, tags in the vicinity respond by transmitting their stored data to the reader. With passive (battery-less) RFID tags, read-range can vary from less than an inch to 20-30 feet, while active (self-powered) tags can have a much longer read range. Typically, the data is sent to a distributed computing system involved in, perhaps, supply chain management or inventory control.

The developers of RFID technology envision a world where RFID readers form a “pervasive global network” It does not take a ubiquitous reader network to track objects or the people associated with them.
For example, when a consumer purchases a product with an EPC-compliant RFID tag, information about the consumer who purchased it could be added to the database automatically. Additional information could be logged in the file as the consumer goes about her business: “Entered the Atlanta courthouse at 12:32 PM,” “At Mobil Gas Station at 2:14 PM,” etc. Such data could be accessed by anyone with access to such a database, whether authorized or not.
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Track HB215
REMOVAL OF RADIO FREQUENCY ID TAGS
Sponsor: Mimi Stewart
Current Location: House Consumer & Public Affairs

SB 20: ELECTED OFFICIALS DRUG TESTING ACT

Randomly testing public officials for drugs threatens
Constitutional guarantees of privacy and free speech

No “probable cause”: A drug test is a high-tech variety of “search,” not unlike a police officer entering a home to hunt through a person’s belongings. To be constitutional, such a search requires evidence that gives “probable cause” to believe that the person has taken illegal substances. To conduct a search or drug test without meeting the probable cause standard would violate the 4th amendment guarantee that searches and seizures be “reasonable.”

No “special need”: The courts have allowed government-sponsored random drug testing under very narrow circumstances—specifically, where drugs or alcohol could impair an individual’s ability to perform a job that directly implicates the public’s health or safety (e.g., bus drivers, operators of heavy machinery). Absent such “special needs” (or probable cause) no legitimate interest is served by broadly testing people.

Privacy under the 14th Amendment: Although SB 20 describes the proposed drug tests as “voluntary,” legislators effectively would be forced to submit to testing under the threat that their written reasons for refusing to take tests would otherwise be broadcast on a public website. This raises a second privacy concern that legislators would be compelled to disclose private reasons for not wanting to have the results of a drug test publicly aired. Drug tests would reveal the presence of most any foreign chemicals, including drugs that the legislator may be taking for legitimate medical reasons, and that he or she would not want revealed to the government, much less the public at large.

A survey by the National Institute of Drug Abuse found that 20 percent of the labs surveyed mistakenly reported the presence of illegal drugs in drug-free urine samples. Unreliability also stems from the tendency of drug screens to confuse similar chemical compounds. For example, codeine and Vicks Formula 44-M have been known to produce positive results for heroin, Advil for marijuana, and Nyquil for amphetamines.

Coerced speech: The 1st Amendment not only prohibits the government from censoring speech, but it also prohibits the government from forcing speech. The requirement that legislators divulge, in written form, their reasons for refusing to submit to a drug test would violate this principle.

Political retaliation: Although SB 20 describes the selection of legislators for drug testing as “random,” it would effectively empower the Secretary of State to target political officials who are of the “wrong” political persuasion or oppose legislation favored by the Secretary of State. This raises a secondary free speech concern that legislators would be censored by fear of political retaliation.

The ACLU of New Mexico believes that SB 20, if written into law, would be vulnerable to challenges under the 1st, 4th, and 14th Amendments, as well as parallel provisions under the New Mexico State Constitution.
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Track SB20
ELECTED OFFICIAL DRUG TESTING ACT
Sponsor: Steve Komadina
Current Location: Senate Rules Committee

Contact your legislators to support SB103. Senator Richard Martinez is introducing the bill with co-sponsors:

Sen Ben Altamirano, Sen Pete Campos, Sen Carlos Cisneros, Sen Mary Jane Garcia, Sen. Phil Griego, Sen Linda Lopez, Sen Lidio Rainaldi and Sen. Nancy Rodriguez.

Call the Roundhouse 505.986.4300.

SB103 will be heard in the Senate Public Affairs Committee at 9:00 a.m. Friday morning in room 321 of the Roundhouse.

For more information on SB103, review the 2005 legislative section of this website.

Joyce Briscoe
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Track SB103
LOCAL ENFORCEMENT OF FEDERAL IMMIGRATION LAWS
Sponsor: Richard C. Martinez
Current Location: Senate Judiciary Committee

Marriage equality for gay and lesbian couples is a civil right

1. Marriage is a commitment. It is about sharing, love, trust, and compromise. Two adults who make this personal choice to form a life-long commitment should not be denied the right to marry just because they are gay or lesbian.

2. Gay and lesbian Americans are American citizens who pay taxes and protect our communities as fire fighters, police officers, and by serving in the military, and therefore desire the same rights and protections as other Americans.

3. Denying gay and lesbian couples the right to marry takes away legal rights in pensions, health insurance, hospital visitations, and inheritance that other long-term committed couples enjoy. We should end this discrimination.

4. Today we look back, almost disbelieving, on the time when many Americans did not tolerate marriage between Catholics and Protestants, or between blacks and whites. Unfortunately, our laws continue to deny the right to marry to adults just because they are gay or lesbian.

5. We are not asking people to change their religious beliefs. There are many things about modern society that religious organizations do not endorse. For example, we did not ask the Catholic church or other religions to accept divorce or birth control when they became legal in this country.

Federal Marriage Amendment

1. The federal marriage amendment is messing with the Constitution. It is unnecessary, unwise, and political.

2. With all the many problems that Congress needs to address, it is unbelievable that some in Congress are spending time and resources to amend the U.S. Constitution to make a pronouncement about marriage.

3. The U.S. Constitution is not the place to change morality every time someone in Congress has an idea about what the morality should be.

4. This Amendment takes away existing legal protections, under state and local laws, for committed, long-term couples, such as hospital visitation rights, inheritance rights, pension benefits, and health insurance coverage among others.

Voter Photo Identification Requirements
Barrier to Voting

 Disenfranchisement As with the other methods of disenfranchisement in our history, such as literacy test and poll taxes, the photo identification requirement would present another barrier to voting and have a chilling effect on voter participation. There are voters who simply do not have identification and requiring them to purchase identification would be tantamount to requiring them to pay a poll tax.

Financial means A disproportionate number of racial and ethnic minority voters, seniors, homeless people, as well as voters with disabilities, do not have identification or the financial means to acquire it.

 Undue and potentially discriminatory burden The Federal Elections Commission noted in its 1997 report to Congress that photo identification entails major expenses, both initially and in maintenance, and presents an undue and potentially discriminatory burden on citizens in exercising their basic right to vote.

 Photo identification requirements present obstacles for our country’s youngest voters, students. At least 1.5 million college students are currently attending school out-of-state and many of them do not have documentation or a photo ID that displays a local address. Many students have numerous roommates and move multiple times during the course of their college career which makes it difficult to have photo identification with a current address.

Beyond this, many students live in dormitories or room with others and have no utility bill in their name. Voter participation among young adults is already low and has steadily declined since 1972. Imposing additional barriers could further decrease student participation in the political process.

 Only 7 cases of voter registration fraud were prosecuted in the last 10 years. While it has been suggested that the purpose for imposing identification requirements is to ensure integrity in the voting process, there has been no evidence to suggest that voter fraud is a national problem that merits federal legislation. According to statistics from the Public Integrity Section of the Department of Justice only 7 cases of voter registration fraud were prosecuted in the last 10 years. No cases were brought in the seven years following the passage of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993.

On the 32nd Anniversary of Roe v. Wade: A Question of Whose Moral Values

January 21, 2005

by Louise Melling, Director of the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project

Louise Melling

PRESS

Broad Coalition of Advocates Implores U.S. Department of Justice to Add Pregnancy Prevention to National Protocol for Treating Rape Survivors

RELATED FACT SHEETS

Abstinence-Only Education

Public Funding for Abortion

Laws Restricting Teenagers’ Access to Abortion

Keep on Marching: What You Can Do To Protect Reproductive Freedom

CONGRESSIONAL UPDATES

On Roe’s 32nd Anniversary, Anti-Choice Gains
in the Senate Create New Challenges for Reproductive Freedom

Following one of the closest and most contentious elections in recent memory, pundits across the country identified “moral values” as the social fault line dividing America. Two and half months later, as President Bush begins his second term and as we celebrate the 32nd anniversary of Roe v. Wade – the landmark Supreme Court decision recognizing abortion as largely a private matter – we would do well to revisit the question of abortion and more broadly of women’s reproductive health care and ask, “Whose moral values?” For just as reproductive health care is much broader than abortion, the assaults on reproductive rights reach far and wide and play no part in a moral nation.

What is moral, for example, about spending millions of taxpayer dollars on programs that deny teens who become sexually active the information they need to protect themselves from pregnancy and sexually transmitted infection? Since 1997, Congress has allocated well over half a billion dollars for sex education programs that exclusively focus on abstinence and censor information that can help young people make responsible and healthy decisions. There is no conclusive evidence that these programs work, though there is evidence that they deter sexually active teens from using appropriate protection. How is it moral to deny teens information that can help prevent pregnancy and save lives?

What is moral about denying a rape victim assistance to prevent a pregnancy resulting from an assault? A recent study published by the American Civil Liberties Union shows that in 8 out of 11 states, less than 40 percent of emergency-care facilities regularly provide emergency contraception (EC) on-site to rape survivors. EC is the form of birth control which when taken within days of unprotected intercourse reduces the risk of pregnancy by as much as 89 percent. If emergency facilities offered EC, up to 22,000 pregnancies that result each year from rape could be prevented. Yet, in releasing the first-ever national protocol for treating sexual assault victims, President Bush’s Justice Department excluded any mention of EC. Whose moral values are served by denying rape victims the option of preventing pregnancy?

What is moral about denying a pregnant woman coverage for an abortion her doctor says she needs to protect her health? Medicaid, the federally funded health services program for the poor, does exactly that. While providing coverage for a range of medically necessary services, the government limits abortion coverage to cases where a woman’s pregnancy is the result of rape or incest or if her life is in jeopardy. It will not pay for an abortion if a woman’s health is threatened. What is moral about forcing a poor woman to choose between paying for an abortion she needs to preserve her health and paying for food, shelter, and other basic necessities for her family?

Indeed, what is moral about forcing a woman to continue a pregnancy when she is unable to care for a child? When she doesn’t feel ready to become a parent? When she wants to finish high school? The underlying question in all of the above scenarios is: What is moral about the government interfering in one of the most private decisions a person can make – whether or not to have children? Most Americans believe that abortion should remain legal. Almost all of us can identify circumstances in which we believe abortion is a moral choice, and other circumstances in which it is not. When is abortion moral for you? That is the private question. The public question is: Who will draw the line?

The ACLU’s report, Preventing Pregnancy after Rape, is available online.

ACLU-NM’s Board of Directors has seven (7) positions open for election in 2005.

All members in good standing of the ACLU-NM are invited to run for election. Board member serve terms of 3 years.

Candidates may be nominated by the nominating committee or by petition of any ten affiliate members or any chapter board of directors, provided there is attached to such petition a signed statement expressing the nominee’s willingness to serve if elected, and provided such petition is filed with the affiliate office not later than February 4, 2005.

To be nominated, candidates must submit statements of qualification and interest for publication in the affiliate newsletter, the Torch, no later than 5:00 pm on January 28, 2005 to: ACLU-NM, P.O. Box 80915, Albuquerque, NM 87198. Or fax to 505-266-5916.

Please limit your statement to about 250 words.

December 15, 2004
Re: Response to Ned Cantwell’s “Ned reads today from Litigious, 12:04″ www.ruidosonews.com

Dear Editor:

Mr. Cantwell’s editorial “Litigious 12:04” (a not very flattering and frankly not very clever fictional account of two ACLU members, David and Abraham as ‘Jesus patrol agents’” conspiring to file lawsuits to stop every traditional holiday ritual from light parades to coloring Easter eggs) is demeaning, disgusting and demagoguery of the worst kind. Mr. Cantwell has the right to say what he pleases and he has numerous times. However, when wise and learned men practice bias and prejudice, permission is given to those of meaner and lesser ilk to do far worse. I, like most, appreciate a funny story, but Mr. Cantwell’s mocking editorial condemns those of Jewish faith (Abraham and David are very popular Jewish names), derides those who fight for freedom of religion (ACLU) and ignites prejudice against those who may not be of the “Christian faith”.

To set the record straight, the position of ACLU-NM is that we oppose public officials using their governmental authority to tell citizens that one religion and its rituals are more important than all others or that the belief in a god may or may not exist. In drafting the United States Constitution, our countries’ founders aimed to make sure that the beliefs of the minority can not be suppressed by the ideals of the majority. They saw this as the cornerstone of democracy and as an essential condition of freedom. John F. Kennedy, on June 11, 1963, said it well when he said “this nation was founded by men of many nations and backgrounds. It was founded on the principle that all men are created equal, and the rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened.”

ACLU has consistently, courageously, and vigorously fought to preserve the Constitutional rights of every person. In particular, ACLU and its members have sought full and complete compliance with the First Amendment of the United States Constitution which states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peacefully to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.” ACLU is dedicated to protecting the rights guaranteed to all people in our Constitution and Bill of Rights. Those who think that the ACLU only defends “a select few” at one end of the spectrum should consider the following:

In 1999, the ACLU fought for Congressional passage of the “Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act.” The Act, which passed in 2000, protects people from discrimination because of their religious belief. The ACLU’s Coalition Partners in this effort included the Baptist Joint Committee, the Family Resource Counsel (a stalwart of the so-called “Christian right”), the Christian Legal Society, and Christian denominations ranging from Catholic to Mormon to Seventh Day Adventists. In 2002, the ACLU joined with the Reverend Jerry Farwell in a successful federal court challenge of Virginia’s ban on charters of incorporation for churches. Earlier this year, we fought valiantly to protect Rush Limbaugh’s right to privacy. We simply believe that every person should receive and be guaranteed the rights set forth in the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

There is no more sacred American value than the one that says the government can’t tell us what to think. We don’t want them telling us what political party to belong to, what religion we have to be, what god to worship or not to worship, what to say, to read or to watch. We don’t want the government in our homes, tapping our phones, opening our mail, stopping us just because our skin is darker than others, or inciting one group to act against another. Government has its place but we want to preserve, as I think most of you do, our individual liberties. ACLU stands for our liberty and fights to preserve it every day. It is a great irony that when a person’s liberty is about to be taken, he or she turns to the organization ACLU, which so often in the past they have defamed, for protection of that liberty.

We do not ask for an apology from Mr. Cantwell, we only suggest that a wise and learned person should respect the great tradition of liberty we have in this country and not demean those who have suffered in far too great a number for far too long and mock an organization that seeks to protect the very liberties that give him the right to mock us.

Respectfully,

Gary C. Mitchell
President of the Board of Directors, ACLU-NM

Since 9/11 and the start of the war on terror, the American Civil
Liberties Union (ACLU) has been one of the leading voices in the fight
for the protection of civil liberties. They have taken on cases when no
one else would touch them, cases involving foreign nationals living in
our country whose rights were violated in the early round-ups post 9/11,
or cases where law enforcement infiltrated groups of U.S. nationals in
our soil, only because they disagreed with our government’s policies.
Most recently they have been in the news for making public a series “of
U.S. Navy documents that reveal that abuse and even torture of detainees
by U.S. Marines in Iraq was widespread.” Bill Moyers speaks with
Anthony Romero, executive director of the ACLU, who will talk about life
amidst an ongoing war on terror and the delicate balance between
protecting civil liberties and national security.

Show is on KNME 5 at 9pm Friday and 8am Sunday.
www.pbs.org/now

The ACLU-NM: 2004 Bill of Rights Dinner is SOLD OUT! Thank you to everyone who purchased tickets, tables and ads.

From: Matt Howes, National Internet Organizer, ACLU

Congress continues to use the proposed intelligence reform legislation to provide cover for some of the worst anti-immigrant provisions in the last decade. These repressive provisions attack the courts’ ability to provide oversight over immigrant proceedings, allow the government to work with oppressive foreign governments against asylum seekers and stipulate new ID requirements that limit even legal immigrants’ ability to get driver’s licenses.

Although the 9-11 Commission did not say the government needed to target immigrants, this bill would expand the government’s ability to deport more people without a hearing. It would also allow the government to seize people who may have entered the United States outside the system in the last five years and throw them into a so-called expedited deportation process without the right to a lawyer or to at least make their case in court.

The government would – with no check or balance on its powers – be allowed to decide whether an individual is allowed to stay or be sent to another country, even ones like Libya, North Korea or Iran, as long as those governments **promise** not to engage in torture. And if for some reason the government cannot deport you, this Republican legislation would allow the Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security to put you in jail for the rest of your life without any ability to go to court to appeal your imprisonment.

Take Action! Urge Congress to oppose these radical and mean-spirited provisions.

Click here for more information and to take action:

http://www.aclu.org/ImmigrantsRights/ImmigrantsRights.cfm?ID=16842&c=22

UNCONSTITUTIONAL is a new, hour-long documentary from Robert Greenwald – one of the most prolific and progressive producers in Hollywood – in conjunction with the ACLU. This new film, written, directed and produced by Nonny de la Peña, details the shocking way that civil liberties of American citizens and immigrants alike have been infringed upon, curtailed, and rolled back since 9/11 and the USA Patriot Act.

New Mexico will be holding a screening of Unconstitutional on October 25 in Albuquerque.

Learn more (including a preview)

Thursday, September 30, 2004 7:00 PM

“Reading Your Rights” is a 26-minute documentary about the Tattered Cover Bookstore’s successful fight against a search warrant demanding the names of books purchased by a customer. Board members of ACLU NM will offer comments and answer questions following the viewing.

At Bound to be Read (click link for address and phone number)

This is the summary from www.factcheck.org (which seems pretty even-handed in its efforts). FYI. Any responses? (use comment link below) mjh

The American Civil Liberties Union is running an ad alleging that the USA Patriot Act allows authorities to search homes “without notifying us . . . treating us all like suspects.” That’s not exactly true.

Actually, notice still has to be given to the subject of such a search, eventually. And far from treating us “all” like suspects, the Department of Justice reports seeking only 47 such “sneak-and-peek” warrants in the law’s first 17 months.

“Sneak-and-peek” searches are now easier to get, legal in all jurisdictions, and the law contains no practical limit on how long authorities can delay notifying the subject of a search. But contrary to the impression left by the ad, they aren’t new: some federal courts allowed them prior to the USA Patriot Act.

Full article plus links to ad, Patriot Act text and other links: http://www.factcheck.org/article.aspx?docid=259

Here is a link for National ACLU Meetup Day. There are actually no ACLU meetups happening this month in NM. In order to get one going in a particular city, you will need to visit the site after the next Meetup day: (more…)