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.

WASHINGTON - The Senate Intelligence Committee announced that it is rushing forward with a markup of Patriot Act reauthorization legislation Thursday, but that the session will be behind closed doors.

Some of the most extreme parts of the Patriot Act are set to sunset, or expire, at the end of this year unless Congress reauthorizes them. When lawmakers passed the Patriot Act just 45 days after 9/11, they included these sunsets because they knew that some provisions shouldn’t be made permanent. The committee will be reviewing legislation involving the sunsets and other key parts of the Patriot Act that impact civil liberties.

Members of Congress have until the end of the year to review and modify the Patriot Act, but some lawmakers hope to steamroll the entire process through Congress in the next few weeks. This closed-door markup is an indication that some in Congress are trying to rush through legislation, and keep the public in the dark.

The following can be attributed to Anthony D. Romero, ACLU Executive Director:

“One reason that people across the political spectrum are concerned about the Patriot Act is that so much of it is shrouded in secrecy. Many provisions are implemented secretly, and the government has kept secret key information on how it is being used. Now, lawmakers are trying to keep legislation to reauthorize the Patriot Act secret as well.

“Nearly 400 communities, included seven states, have passed resolutions calling on lawmakers to bring the Patriot Act in line with the Constitution. Instead of addressing these legitimate concerns, and reviewing the act in daylight, some in Congress would rather hide behind closed doors away from public scrutiny. The Patriot Act has been the subject of heated debates in recent months-in Congress, in the media, and in households around the country. There is no good reason for the mark-up and vote on this public law to be kept secret from the public.”

For more information:

http://www.aclu.org/patriotact

IMMEDIATE ACTION NEEDED! GRASSROOTS ACTION ALERT

Urge the U.S. Senate to reverse its decision to debate the Patriot Act behind closed doors on Thursday!

PROBLEM
The Senate Intelligence Committee has scheduled a meeting to mark-up and vote on legislation to expand the Patriot Act and make it permanent, this Thursday, May 19. But the meeting will be closed to the public, cutting you and all constituents out of the political process.

WHY IT MATTERS
Debate about the amending or expanding the Patriot Act should be held in full public view. Americans are concerned about controversial provisions of the Patriot Act that place ordinary citizens at increased risk of having their homes as well as records about their health, their wealth, and the activities of their daily lives secretly searched. The Thursday Committee debate and vote constitutes an effort to disregard our legitimate concerns and move toward reauthorizing the Patriot Act in its entirety, without full open, public debate.

WHAT YOU CAN DO
Contact the Senate Intelligence Committee staff directly at 202-224-1700. Urge the Committee to:

Hold any and all meetings to debate and vote on Patriot Act reauthorization with full access by the American public.
Contact your U.S. Senators and Representatives and urge them to:

Support the bipartisan SAFE Act, now before Congress, which would maintain government authorities necessary to keep Americans safe from terrorism and help ensure appropriate checks on that power to protect our fundamental liberty.
Call Committee Members at the Capitol Switchboard: 1-877-762-8762
Members of the Committee include:

Pat Roberts-KS
John D. Rockefeller, IV-WV
Orrin Hatch-UT
Mike Dewine-OH
Carl Levin-MI
Diane Feinstein-CA
Christopher Bond-MO
Ron Wyden-OR
Trent Lott-MS
Evan Bayh-IN
Olympia Snowe-ME
Barbara Mikulski-MD
Chuck Hagel-NE
Jon Corzine-NJ
John Warner-VA
Saxby Chambliss-GA

For more information visit:

www.checksbalances.org
or
www.aclu.org/patriot

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.

ALBUQUERQUE - The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of New Mexico sued the Albuquerque Public Schools (APS) today for failing to properly notify parents of their option to prohibit public schools from directly sending their children’s contact information to military recruiters.

The ACLU claims that the school district’s current practices violate students’ privacy and due process rights, as well as provisions in the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

“Not all parents want their children to be plied with mailings and phone calls pushing them to enroll in the military,” said ACLU Executive Director Peter Simonson. “At a time when people who enter the military face the very real prospect of going into battle, parents should have the right to control what the US Department of Defense knows about their children and how easily they can recruit them to become soldiers.”

Karen Meyers, a volunteer attorney for the ACLU said, “We sent letter after letter to the APS administration asking them to comply with the privacy protections in the No Child Left Behind Act. They responded by creating a form for parents, but didn’t fully address our concerns about the timing of the issuance of notice to parents. It’s important to get notice to parents that their children’s information is being disclosed in a timely fashion, in order for parents to be able to respond. We hope this lawsuit will finally clear this up.”

“It wouldn’t surprise me if upon learning of this lawsuit many parents will find out for the first time that their children’s contact information is going straight to military recruiters, courtesy of the Albuquerque Public Schools,” Meyers said.

The complaint was filed in the Second Judicial District Court in Bernalillo County by ACLU of New Mexico Staff Attorney George Bach, ACLU of New Mexico Co-Legal Director Maureen Sanders, and Cooperating Attorney Karen Meyers with Aguilar Law Offices, P.C.

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.