ACLU works to represent the rights of Californians

How can supporting human rights, individual rights, the 1st and 4th Amendments, and lobbying to outlaw costly capital punishment be Socialistic, Communistic, or anti-American? Some folks refer to the ACLU as though it were a pariah that that was against everything that just, humane, and supported by our Constitution. To the contrary the ACLU has been a staunch advocate for justice, equality, and constitutional adherence.
The ACLU publishes a seasonal newsletter that outlines many of their key projects. The following are issues that appeared in the “Spring 2011” newsletter that are at the forefront of some present day ACLU advocacy:
The ACLU has been a fervent advocate for abolishing California’s costly, inhumane, unjust, and ineffective death penalty. Our state faces a $20 billion plus budget shortfall; ending capital punishment is estimated to save the state approximately $1 billion over 5 years. By converting California’s 710 death sentences to permanent imprisonment, we would insure that each of those death row prisoners would remain in prison with absolutely no possibility of parole, and would be accountable to victim’s families through work and restitution to them.
In a quest to purchase drugs for lethal injections, the ACLU uncovered that the State of California had to go to the UK to find a source for 521 grams of lethal injection drugs. The California Department of Corrections paid a total of $36,415 for these imported drugs that were not available in the U.S. Included in the purchase price was $20,000 in fees, with the explanation of $10,000 in fees blacked out. Last year the CDCR paid only $1,210 for injection drugs purchased in the U.S.
States with the death penalty actually have a higher murder rate; capital punishment has not proven to be a murder deterrent. When do we ever hear of an affluent person being put on death row? Very seldom as capital punishment falls primarily on the poor, mentally handicapped, people color, and those who can ill afford expensive private legal representation. O J Simpson is the “poster boy” that proves that expensive legal advice coupled with sloppy state prosecution is the perfect equation for getting away with murder. ACLU staff attorneys have filed Freedom of Information Act requests for more records from the FDA and Customs and Border Protection to trace exactly where the drugs came from and the highly irregular process used to obtain them. The question begs what other secretive, deceptive, and irregular behavior are state officials employing?
The Tehama-Trinity Chapter of the ACLU and The North State Tea Party Alliance teamed up to protect First Amendment rights. The city of Redding attempted to impose new restrictions on when, where, and how residents may hand out leaflets in front of the public library. The unholy alliance of the “Tea Party” and the ACLU proved successful, with the help of a Tea Party activist Tim Pappas, who is also Shasta’s public defender. Recounted Yost the ACLU representative, “We explained our belief that speech is for everyone, regardless of whether one agrees with their point of view. Everyone listened with interest and respect. There seemed to be lots of agreement”.
“California has some of the best laws in the country to protect students who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT), or who are perceived to be. The unfortunate reality is that anti-LGBT harassment is still far too widespread. Schools don’t always have tools or knowledge to adequately protect students from bullying, harassment, and discrimination”.
A tragic case in point is Seth Walsh who was a sweet intelligent, 13 year old boy, who loved his family and was also gay. He endured years of bullying, harassment, and verbal abuse in school. Last September as a result of desperation he hanged himself from a tree in his family’s backyard. After nine days on life support he died. After Seth’s death his family contacted the ACLU to perform an investigation of the local school and board of education. The school was urged to take immediate proactive action to remedy the destructive environment of LGBT harassment. In a national survey, nine out of ten LGBT students reported being harassed at school. According to the most recent California Healthy Kids Survey, 12 percent of seventh graders and 10 percent of ninth graders reported being harassed based on their actual or perceived sexual orientation.
The ACLU is co-sponsoring a new bill in the California Legislature (Seth’s Law) which would strengthen existing state laws by requiring every school district to “Create strong and clear anti-harassment programs, if they don’t have them already”. Passing laws is a positive first step, but without programs to reculturate fearful and ignorant people, human rights progress will not be meaningful.
The ACLU recognizes that with more advancement in internet technology, that users of these technologies become mindful of the inherent risks to personal privacy. In addition, the ACLU also is a strong public advocate for First Amendment rights in the alternative media as well as internet blogs and social networks such as Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook.
The ACLU recommends the following ways to upgrade our much needed privacy protections:
• Holds a conversation among industry leaders, the public, and speech and privacy advocates to reinforce the idea that the Internet is a necessary and powerful platform for free speech that benefits all Californians.
• Ensure that companies doing business in California comply with laws requiring them to inform customers about sharing their personal information with other companies.
The ACLU is supporting SB 602, the Reader Privacy Act, in order to safeguard reader privacy in the digital age. This law would help insure that the government and third parties cannot access our private digital reading records without proper justification.
California has the dubious honor of being the world’s leader when it comes to locking up its residents. The state’s budget for corrections now outpaces university spending. California’s criminal justice system, based on independent studies, has proven to be largely ineffective, unfair, and racially discriminatory. In addition, locking people up for non-violent crimes is way too costly and is a poor choice of human resources. Revenge and retribution are not civil or rational solutions to anti-societal behavior.
The ACLU makes the following recommendations to improve the criminal justice system:
• Stop sending non-violent offenders to prison. Tax payers could save millions of dollars by not incarcerating non-criminal drug users. Drug use should be seen as a misdemeanor, medical disability, not a felony.
• Emphasize rehabilitation. Transfer part of expensive incarceration costs to local jurisdictions for drug treatment programs and skills development.
• Ease the way for people with past criminal convictions to move forward and lead positive lives-to find jobs. People who are incarcerated typically are poor, hopeless, undereducated, and suffer emotional disabilities. Having the stigma of being a criminal only adds another unneeded burden of successful integration into society.
• Support efforts to provide services to all victims of crime, even those with felony convictions. This means that many crime victims are deprived of basic support services such as grief counseling or minimal financial or educational support.
• Issue guidelines to regulate police surveillance and intelligence gathering that targets individual or groups engaged in political or religious activities. This will help to reduce racial or religious profiling, or targeting political activists.
• Investigate and begin to remedy patterns of police misconduct in California. The attorney general has the authority to intervene in cases of police departments or officers engaging in misconduct, excessive force, or false arrests.
The ACLU has also set guidelines for immigrant rights. Procedures and guidelines would be set to ensure that racial and ethnic profiling, or excessive and prolonged detainment would be greatly reduced.
It is important that every Californian be they LGBT, an Internet user, or one voicing dissent that their constitutional, individual, and human rights be respected and upheld. Society prospers as a whole when every individual can be the best they can be without censorship, harassment, injustice, and discrimination. It is advocacy groups such as the ACLU that work for our collective behalf for those noble ends.