“American Civil Liberties Union” on The Daily Caller

Noted author Paul Kengor has unearthed declassified letters and other documents in the Soviet Comintern archives linking early leaders of the ACLU with the Communist Party. (more)

It’s Christmastime, so the ACLU is doing what it does best — hounding public officials to turn observance of this Christian (and federal) holiday into a winter solstice thingy — or else. (more)

The federal government has repeatedly violated legal limits governing the surveillance of U.S. citizens, according to previously secret internal documents obtained through a court battle by the American Civil Liberties Union. (more)

As the executive director of the Association for Airline Passenger Rights (AAPR), as well as a passenger who has personally experienced just about every security screening technique employed by our federal government — including enhanced full-body scanners and aggressive pat-downs, to name a few – I feel compelled to address the recent TSA flap. (more)

Frank Woodruff Buckles was born in Missouri 109 years ago. He is a national hero and the last living American veteran of World War I. But as we observed this Veterans Day – a day conceived as a celebration of the end of that bloody war – there was no national monument to honor Mr. Buckles and 5 million other Americans who served our nation in uniform then. The sole National Monument to World War I has been destroyed by vandals, and the Obama administration refuses to allow its replacement, even by private citizens, even at private expense. (more)

PHILADELPHIA – A civil liberties group filed a federal lawsuit Thursday challenging the use of “stop and frisk” searches by Philadelphia police, alleging that the policy is violating the rights of blacks and Latinos who have done nothing wrong. (more)

Under constituents’ heat to deal with corruption exemplified by the multiple-count indictment of former Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D), Illinois legislators on Oct. 15 approved placing a recall of governors law on the November 2 ballot. (more)

Grambling State University is in a dispute over its prohibition of “disruptive or offensive” emails, which includes bans on all “joke emails” and offensive comments regarding “hair color.” These intrusions, along with prohibitions on political and religious discourse, have caught the ire of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Louisiana and the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), which have called for an immediate renunciation of the policy and denounced it as illegal. (more)

The DISCLOSE Act, a campaign finance bill that forces organizations that run political advertisements to reveal their funding sources, would not take effect until after the November midterm elections if passed, New York Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer said Wednesday.

Republicans blocked the bill in July, and Schumer said he hoped the change in the bill’s date of enforcement would sway at least one Republican vote, which is needed to block another filibuster. (more)

An Obama administration policy allowing U.S. border officials to seize and search laptops, smart phones and other electronic devices for any reason was challenged as unconstitutional in federal court Tuesday. (more)

The city of Dubai has become a major Middle Eastern commercial center.  It also has been called the Middle East’s “shopping capital.” (more)

Last March, when the Supreme Court was about to hear arguments over the Washington D.C. gun ban, President Obama made it clear that he felt the Second Amendment was an individual right, but one he believed was subject to local limitation.  He used the old “fire in a crowded theatre” argument to suggest that the same was true of the First Amendment, implying that virtually all of our unalienable rights could be limited by regional laws and plain old common sense. (more)

A group of human-rights lawyers filed a lawsuit on Tuesday challenging a federal regulation that restricts their ability to provide legal services to certain terrorism suspects. At the same time, they unveiled broader plans to contest the Obama administration’s decision to authorize the military and the C.I.A. to kill a United States citizen suspected of ties to Al Qaeda. (more)

The ACLU on Thursday excoriated President Obama for continuing the Bush administration’s strictest national security policies, including indefinite detention, military commissions and a “targeted kill” program that authorizes the government to take out suspected terrorists anywhere. (more)

Two of the summer’s most controversial local immigration laws have just been rendered almost useless because of the threat of impending lawsuits. (more)

As state forensic scientists savor their success in using DNA to nab the alleged Grim Sleeper, a federal court is considering shutting down a DNA collection program the state says has helped solve several violent crimes. (more)

Three prominent civil rights organizations have abruptly ended their partnership with the Boston public schools to create a new system to assign students to schools, concerned that the process is moving too slowly and has left out the public. (more)

I was recently speaking with one of my teachers from high school, reflecting on her summer reading assignment, JFK’s Profiles in Courage.  If you have never read the book, it can be summarized quite simply in that it follows the actions of statesmen throughout the history of our country that took serious resolve and unwavering confidence.  That’s not to say that these individuals who were profiled did not face fear in their hearts, fear for their jobs, and possibly fear for their lives.  Fear is an emotion and it is understandable to have felt such emotion when placed in the situations that these men were embroiled. (more)

This small Nebraska meatpacking town has joined Arizona at the center of a national debate about illegal immigration after voters approved a ban on hiring or renting property to illegal immigrants, but an expected court challenge could keep the measure from ever taking effect. (more)

ATLANTA- In the roughly six weeks since she was arrested for driving without a license, the case of Jessica Colotl, an illegal immigrant and college student in suburban Atlanta, has become a flashpoint in the immigration debate. (more)