News & Commentary

2011 was certainly a year in which a number of the issues the ACLU works on really disturbed our blog readers. To sum up the year, we present you with some of the top issues from the past 12 months by taking a look at the most popular blog posts from the National ACLU's Blog of Rights.National Defense Authorization Act  This past year, there was no topic hotter on the Blog of Rights than the National Defense Authorization Act. In May, we blogged about the vote in the House of Representatives on a troubling expansion of war authority. Though the House passed the NDAA with the provision to authorize worldwide war, the Senate Armed Services Committee passed its version of the bill without that provision. Unfortunately, this version did include provisions for indefinite detention.Outraged by indefinite detention provisions that would allow this president—and every future president — the power to order the military to pick up and imprison without charge or trial civilians anywhere in the world, blog readers took action to ask their Senators to vote against the provisions. Despite our efforts, both the House and Senate passed the NDAA with the indefinite detention provisions. As I write this, the NDAA is sitting on the President’s desk. According to reports, the President's advisors are recommending that he not veto this legislation despite earlier promises to do so. We need to tell the President to listen to the American people.FBI: If We Told You, You Might Sue In May we blogged about some documents released to us by the government as part of a Freedom of Information Act request. In the documents, the government explains that it doesn't want you to know whether your internet or phone company is cooperating with its dragnet surveillance program because you might get upset and file lawsuits asserting your constitutional rights.Tennessee Principal's Reaction to GSA T-Shirt Raises the Question: Who's Really Causing the Disruption Here? Blog of Rights readers were also heated about Tennessee Principal Maurice Moser, who threw a fit in school about student Chris Sigler’s Gay-Straight Alliance t-shirt. Opposed to allowing a GSA at the school, Moser charged into Chris's economics class, interrupted the students in the middle of taking a test and ordered everyone except Chris to leave.License Plate Scanners Logging Our Every Move Last month, we found out that the District of Columbia is engaging in widespreadtracking of citizens’ movements using automated license plate readers (ALPRs). It has now become clear that this technology, if we do not limit its use, will represent a significant step toward the creation of a surveillance society in the United States.

Missouri offers survivor benefits to spouses of state troopers who are killed in the line of duty, but excludes committed same-sex partners from receiving those benefits. Glossip is seeking the same survivor benefits provided to opposite-sex partners.

Dear ACLU Supporter,I was incredibly proud when I opened up The New York Times yesterday and saw a major story about two of the people I have the privilege to work with every day here at ACLU headquarters. Here's an excerpt:ACLU Lawyers Mine Documents for TruthIn the spring of 2003, long before Abu Ghraib or secret prisons became part of the American vocabulary, a pair of recently hired lawyers at the American Civil Liberties Union noticed a handful of news reports about allegations of abuse of prisoners in American custody.The lawyers, Jameel Jaffer and Amrit Singh, wondered: Was there a broader pattern of abuse, and could a Freedom of Information Act request uncover it? Some of their colleagues, more experienced with the frustrations of such document demands, were skeptical. One made a tongue-in-cheek offer of $1 for every page they turned up.Six years later, the detention document request and subsequent lawsuit are among the most successful in the history of public disclosure, with 130,000 pages of previously secret documents released to date and the prospect of more."We've got to make sure our people see this." That's the entire text of the email I sent to Anthony Romero, the ACLU's executive director, as soon as I finished reading the article.You see, this isn't just a great story about our brilliant and remarkably determined -- some might even say bullheaded -- legal team. It's a story about you and how a persistent and principled ACLU draws strength from hundreds of thousands of online supporters willing to back us up when we set out to right a wrong.I hope you're as proud to be part of the ACLU as I am right now. Together -- you, our lawyers and the rest of our staff and supporters -- make this historical work possible.Please become a Guardian of Liberty monthly donor today.You deserve to know that, sooner or later, all the hard work we do together will bring about respect for the Constitution and the rule of law. Last week, Attorney General Eric Holder finally ordered an investigation into the Bush torture program.It's not yet the full investigation we need -- one that will follow the evidence wherever it leads and hold high-ranking officials responsible for the incredible abuses you and the ACLU have helped expose. That is where you and the persistence your support makes possible comes in. Because anyone who thinks the ACLU is going to stop before we get to the bottom of this hasn't been paying attention.It is a real privilege to be working to bring about the change our country needs and to do so alongside people like Jameel, Amrit and supporters like you. To read the full story in The New York Times about our work, go here.Thanks for all you do -- and for your ongoing commitment to our work together.