News & Commentary

The American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas sent a statement to KCTV 5 on the city commission’s vote and decision to create a community oversight board: We applaud the Leavenworth residents and the local community who showed up to make their voices heard in the hours of opposition testimony last night. The current language of the SUP still puts a great deal of trust in CoreCivic’s word, and this goes against the very real concerns for safety and human dignity at this facility we all heard last night. We recognize the difficult position the commissioners are in, but it would also be unfortunate if the amendment was an indicator that they have prematurely made a final decision to allow an ICE detention center to open. If this is the route we are taking, then the task force must have full oversight authority and independent investigatory power over CoreCivic. We caution the City against falling into a trap of CoreCivic’s many overtures of collaboration that it undermines the task force’s independence and its real purpose of accountability and intervention, if and when violations of the conditions occur.

The ACLU of Kansas has testified against the bill, arguing it makes it harder to hold federal agents accountable for misconduct and expands immunity without strengthening oversight.

Originally filed in 2020 by the ACLU of Kansas and the law firm Spencer Fane LLP, the lawsuit argued that troopers routinely relied on drivers’ residency and travel plans to justify prolonged detentions, vehicle searches, and canine sniffs.

Police in Lenexa, Kansas used automated license plate reader (ALPR) technology to pursue a man who wrote a critical op-ed about the police department, according to reporting by Kansas public radio station KCUR. This is a rare public example of exactly the kind of abuse that we’ve long warned against when it comes to mass-surveillance systems like license plate readers. It also comes on the heels of reports about apparent misuse of license plate databases by ICE agents in Minnesota not for legitimate law enforcement purposes but to intimidate observers and protesters, and of a woman who was falsely accused of theft based on data from license plate readers.

The latest ruling serves as the final from a 2020 lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas and Spencer Fane. The suit challenged the legality of Kansas Highway Patrol’s policy of targeting drivers whose vehicles had out-of-state license plates.

Micah Kubic, the ACLU of Kansas Executive Director, called the investigation a wanton and disgraceful abuse of power by Lenexa police. “George Orwell told us about thought crime as a cautionary fable, and this instead seems like an attempt to put it into action,” he said.

Appellate judges deemed Kansas Highway Patrol's practice of targeting drivers from specific states to be unconstitutional.

The case led by the ACLU against KHP is best known for challenging the Kansas two-step, a controversial technique used by troopers to extend traffic stops and eventually search vehicles.

Monica Bennett, legal director of the ACLU of Kansas, said the result was KHP must retrain its troopers to “observe and respect the rights of all people traveling Kansas highways.”