News & Commentary

Drone regulation was at the forefront of Lobby Day 2014, the ACLU of Connecticut's annual legislative event, at the state Capitol on March 18.Kade Crockford, director of the ACLU of Massachusetts Technology for Liberty Project, explained the challenges to privacy presented by government surveillance via cameras mounted on drones. David McGuire, staff attorney for the ACLU of Connecticut, briefed participants on the drone regulation bill pending before the legislature as well as three other legislative priorities. They were:A bill requiring support the regulation of police officers in schools through mandatory memoranda of understanding, requiring schools to specify what offenses will be handled internally as disciplinary matters and what will be handled by the police as a criminal matter.A bill requiring police to accept complaints from civilians, an initiative prompted by a 2012 report by the ACLU of Connecticut showing that many police departments in the state create barriers that discourage members of the public from filing complaints of police misconduct.A bill to reform the sentencing of juveniles. The legislation would end the practice of sentencing people to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for crimes committed before the offender was 18 years old and would require parole hearings for juvenile offenders serving sentences of 10 years or longer.Participants in the event, co-sponsored by the Council of American-Islamic Relations in Connecticut, were encouraged to lobby their legislators on those issues.

The winners of the 2013 First Amendment High School Essay Contest are:

Holding police accountable and protecting the rights of immigrants were the main issues at the annual Lobby Day organized by the American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut on March 26, 2013.The event drew people to the state Capitol to learn about four bills on the legislative agenda this session and how to lobby their legislators on those and other matters. The four bills would set standards for how police departments accept complaints about officer misconduct; protect privacy by requiring police to discard license plate scan data; set training and reporting standards for police deployment of Tasers; and set guidelines for police on when to hold people on immigration detainers under the federal Secure Communities program.The session was sponsored by the ACLU of Connecticut, the NAACP of Connecticut, the Connecticut State Missionary Baptist Convention, the Connecticut Immigrants' Rights Alliance and SEIU Local 32BJ. Andrew Schneider, executive director of the ACLU of Connecticut, welcomed the co-sponsors and their members and told them that as the courts have become increasingly hostile, the ACLU has found that legislative advocacy s another means to defend and advance civil liberties.Lobbyist Betty Gallo of Betty Gallo and Co. explained to the crowd that her efforts to pass civil rights legislation could not succeed without their help because legislators respond to their constituents' concerns. "People talking to their legislators makes legislation pass," she said. "It is so valuable."Dr. Boise Kimber, president of the Connecticut State Baptist Missionary Convention, compared the group gathered for Lobby Day to Gideon's Army in the biblical account. "We can win this fight. We can win it if we stick together and if we stay together," he said. "Our voice can be heard and will be heard."The Connecticut branches of the NAACP and the ACLU have worked together on many issues, including opposition to red light cameras and support for guidelines for the use of Tasers by police, Scot X. Esdaile, president of the NAACP of Connecticut, told the crowd. "The NAACP and the ACLU, our job is to protect people, he said. "We are the vanguard of people in the community."Matt O'Connor, Connecticut District Political Director at SEIU Local 32BJ, spoke about immigration reform and the importance of limiting responses to detainers under the Secure Communities program. Secure Communities instructs police to notify the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency of each arrest and to hold people when ICE requests it. The bill would allow police in Connecticut to honor those detainer requests only when the subject is suspected of a serious crime."The time is now for immigration reform. The time is now for a path to citizenship," O'Connor said. "Let's get it done this time."Ana Maria Rivera of the Junta for Progressive Action introduced a personal story about Secure Communities, told by Jon Lugo of Unidad Latina en Accion. Lugo introduced Ahin Suarez, who was brought to the United States at the age of 15 and was turned over to ICE on a detainer request after a routine traffic stop. He now faces deportation to Mexico without his family.Secure Communities, Lugo said, is "destroying a lot of families."After learning about the legislation and hearing tips about how to talk to their legislators, members of the audience set out to do some lobbying at the Legislative Office Building."The fact that so many people, some missing a day of work, took the time to travel to the Capitol to listen to these stories and attend this training shows their passion for these issues," said Isa Mujahid, field organizer for the ACLU of Connecticut and the organizer of Lobby Day. "They are committed to working for a better society and I hope their elected officials are paying attention."

There could be no more important victory for civil liberties in Connecticut than repeal of the death penalty, which the governor signed into law even before the legislative session ended Wednesday.But there were many other successes, from legalizing medical marijuana to blocking red light cameras.The death penalty repeal, which replaces capital punishment with a sentence of life imprisonment, is not retroactive, which means the 11 men now on Connecticut's death row will remain there. It was also amended to require a level of solitary confinement that the ACLU of Connecticut believes to be unnecessary and potentially counterproductive. (S.B. 280)"This is a huge victory. There will be no new death penalty cases in Connecticut, no perpetuation of a system that was proven over and over again to be racially biased and prone to error," said Andrew Schneider, executive director of the ACLU-CT. "The bill was not perfect but it was a historic and critical advance in civil rights in our state, the result of decades of hard work."There were many other significant victories, as well.Red light cameras. Year after year, the ACLU of Connecticut has led successful fights against red light cameras, which violate the right to due process and threaten privacy while enriching the private companies that own them. This year ACLU-CT organized a coalition, launched a media campaign, created a website (stopthecameras.org), brought in experts to testify before the legislature, held a rally and with the help of its members kept the pressure on legislators with a blizzard of evidence that red light cameras are dangerous and ineffective. Supporters of red light cameras failed to line up enough votes in the state House of Representatives to bring the bill to a vote before the session ended. (H.B. 5458)Medical marijuana. With a doctor's prescription, seriously ill people in Connecticut will now have the alternative of marijuana to relieve their suffering. In supporting the bill, the ACLU of Connecticut joined a host of public interest groups, health care professionals and ordinary people who were being denied the most effective treatment for their symptoms. After lengthy debates in both houses, the legislature agreed and Gov. Dannel P. Malloy has said he will sign the bill. (H.B. 5389)Racial profiling. The legislature passed revisions to the Alvin W. Penn Racial Profiling Prohibition Act to enforce the collection of traffic stop data by Connecticut police departments. Most notably, the new law transfers the responsibility for collecting and reporting on the data from the underfunded African American Affairs Commission to the state Office of Policy and Management. Unfortunately, other important changes sought by the ACLU-CT were not adopted, including provisions to make the law effective immediately, to remove loopholes that could allow non-compliance and to require law enforcement officers to report perceptions of a driver's religion. The ACLU-CT will continue to monitor compliance with the law and seek changes as necessary. (S.B. 364)Electronic harassment. After hearing testimony from the ACLU-CT and the Connecticut Daily Newspapers Association on a bill that would have made it illegal to "harass or annoy" people on the Internet, the Judiciary Committee let the measure die without a vote. The measure would not offer additional protection to people who are being criminally harassed but would create "a new and powerful way to chill a substantial amount of speech protected by the First Amendment," ACLU-CT Legal Director Sandra Staub testified. (S.B. 456)Voting rights. The legislature passed three measures to expand access to the polls, including a bill that guarantees permanently disabled voters access to absentee ballots (S.B. 214) and another that allows election-day voter registration (H.B. 5024). A resolution to amend the state Constitution to remove all restrictions on obtaining absentee ballots moved forward, but did not receive enough votes to be placed on the November 2012 ballot. If approved by a simple majority in the legislature again next year, it will go on the ballot in November 2014. (H.J. 2) The ACLU-CT supported all three measures because they remove barriers to voting by the elderly, people with disabilities, low-income voters and students.Campaign finance reform. Despite objections from several organizations, including the ACLU-CT and the Connecticut Business and Industry Association, the legislature passed a campaign finance reform bill aimed at Super PACs but written in a way that would restrict the free speech rights of issue advocacy organizations. Efforts to correct language requiring disclosure of donors who contribute to non-partisan organizations fell short, but citing the constitutional objections, Malloy's administration has indicated the possibility of a veto. (H.B. 5556)Public indecency. This bill would have added five years to the sentence of an inmate convicted of public indecency in a correctional institution and would have required the inmate to register as a sex offender. The penalty could have added decades to the sentences of prisoners, at great public expense, and could have been applied to those with psychiatric disorders involving exhibitionism. An amended version passed in the Senate but did not come to a vote in the House. (S.B. 367)The string of successes is encouraging, but there is no shortage of civil liberties issues to address in the next legislative session. Red light cameras and other threats to civil liberties are almost certain to be revived and several digital privacy and police accountability issues remain unaddressed.Time ran out in the recent session on a bill that would have required law enforcement agencies to discard license plate scan data, but prospects look good for the measure to be reintroduced next year. The ACLU-CT wants to ensure that the scans are used only to enforce traffic laws and solve crimes and not for retroactive surveillance to track the movements of innocent Americans. (H.B. 5391)Time also ran out on a bill, passed by the Senate but not taken up in the House, that would have affirmed the right of civilians to take photographs and video of police officers in the public performance of their duties. While the ACLU-CT believes the right to make such recordings is clearly established by the Constitution, the bill would have given unequivocal notice to law enforcement officers that they may not arrest photographers, confiscate their cameras, erase photos or video or otherwise harass people who are exercising their right to record. (S.B. 245)Two more Connecticut residents died in the past six months after being Tasered, bringing the total to at least 11 deaths since 2005. With the increasing use of electronic weapons and new evidence suggesting that Tasers can cause heart attacks, the ACLU-CT will continue to push for minimum training requirements for police officers and mandatory reporting of Taser deployments.The work will continue with the help of the many volunteers, donors and supporters of the ACLU of Connecticut. Thank you for your help. After all, liberty can't protect itself. 

Protecting students' free speech rights and protecting them from each other can be difficult goals to reconcile, according to three experts who spoke Tuesday at the annual Milton Sorokin Symposium.The symposium featured a panel discussion on the topic of "Rights in Conflict: Protecting Kids from Bullying vs. Protecting Free Speech." It was sponsored by the American Civil Liberties Foundation of Connecticut and the University of Connecticut School of Law, and was held in the law school's Starr Reading Room.The panelists examined the effectiveness of laws designed to prevent bullying, the distinctions between the free speech rights of adults and children and the line between intervention and punishment for bullying behavior."Intervention is different from punishment," said Maria Kayanan, associate legal director of the ACLU of Florida. "Anything that smacks of being punitive I think triggers a really hard look at whether it's a violation of the First Amendment, whether a student is being punished for protected speech."Jo Ann Frieberg, a consultant on school environment for the state Department of Education, said adults should always speak up when they see children being mean-spirited but that punitive measures often don't work. "From a best practice standpoint, I would agree wholeheartedly that punishment, whether it's detention, suspension, expulsion, or keeping them in from recess, doesn't do any good," she said. "We're really talking about fostering positive relationships rather than separating them and saying 'We don't want you in school.' "One issue, said Daniel Weddle, a professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law, is overreaction. "The problem with some of these bullying statutes is that they encourage kind of draconian responses to what ought to be teachable moments," said Weddle, a researcher and expert on bullying issues.While Weddle proposed a set of criteria for determining whether off-campus behavior should be addressed by school officials, Kayanan said parents should be in charge of discipline for what happens outside of school. If the behavior is criminal, she said, police should be involved."Do you really want the heavy arm of the state following your child home from school?" she asked.About 100 people attended the symposium and lined up to ask questions afterward. The program, moderated by ACLU of Connecticut past President Don Noel, also featured awards for winners of the annual First Amendment High School Essay Contest, which also addressed questions of bullying and free speech.

The winners were announced and prizes awarded by Jeremy Paul, dean of the University of Connecticut School of Law, at the annual Milton Sorokin Symposium on Tuesday. The symposium is sponsored by the ACLU Foundation and the law school.This year's essay topic was bullying and free speech: A new Connecticut law requires schools to prohibit bullying, including communication that causes “emotional harm.” Explain whether the mandate to stop bullying can be reconciled with the right to freedom of speech and support your argument.Andrew Schneider, executive director of the ACLU of Connecticut, noted that the student essays addressed the same complex and difficult questions that the adult experts on the symposium panel tackled Tuesday. Dean Paul congratulated them for writing at the level of college students.Sam Savitz, the first place winner, participates in the Debate Club, Israel Club, and "We The People" Constitutional Law Competition team at Greenwich High School. His academic interests include foreign languages and political science. Outside of school he is on Greenwich Crew's varsity team and on the board of the local chapter of United Synagogue Youth. He plans to study international relations in college and hopes to have a career in foreign service.Rita Ping Newman, who won second place, is a math and science tutor at the Academy of Information Technology and Engineering in Stamford, a member of the school's debate team and a volunteer at Stamford Hospital. Rita plans to study mechanical engineering and industrial design with the goal of designing disaster relief housing for humanitarian purposes.Olivia Rowley, who won third place, plays alto saxophone and is very active in the Newtown High School band program. She's a member of the marching band, the jazz band, and the pit orchestra. Writing is one of her passions. She will attend Tufts University in the fall, and plans to study international relations and Spanish with the goal of joining the Peace Corps.The essay contest and the symposium are legacies of the Center of First Amendment Rights, which merged with the ACLU of Connecticut in 2008. 

The chance to help repeal the death penalty and advance other important civil liberties issues drew more than 200 people to the state Capitol on Feb. 29 for the ACLU of Connecticut's second annual Lobby Day.The session was preceded by a news conference at which relatives of murder victims called for repeal of the death penalty.After an introduction by ACLU-CT President Andy Schatz, lobbyists Betty Gallo and Joe Grabarz of Betty Gallo & Company, advised the participants on how to talk with their legislators and explained the four key issues on the ACLU of Connecticut's legislative agenda this year. They are:Abolition of the death penalty. The state House and Senate passed repeal of the death penalty two years ago, only to have the bill vetoed by then Gov. M. Jodi Rell. If another repeal bill is passed, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy has said he'll sign it. A close vote is expected in the state Senate.Legalization of marijuana for medical purposes. Sixteen states and the District of Columbia already allow the compassionate use of marijuana for medical purposes and a poll last year found that 79 percent of Connecticut residents support it. A bill legalizing marijuana for medical purposes passed the state Legislature in 2007 but Rell vetoed it. Malloy, however, supports the legislation.Prohibition on the use of traffic cameras. Another push is on to allow red light cameras in Connecticut, a form of taxation by citation that violates constitutional rights and has been shown to be ineffective at improving safety. The ACLU-CT is preparing to fight this measure, once again.Strengthening and enforcement of laws against racial profiling. Since 1999, police departments in Connecticut have been required to report each occasion when they pull a car over, including information about the race of the driver. Compliance has been poor but a review of the available data by The Hartford Courant has shown that people of color are more likely to be ticketed for a given offense than a white person. The ACLU-CT wants to make sure the data is collected and analyzed.After the lobbyists' presentation, participants dispersed to lobby their state representatives and senators at the Capitol and in the nearby Legislative Office Building."We were excited by the turnout and the enthusiasm," said Isa Mujahid, field organizer for the ACLU-CT. "The participants have done great lobbying and we look forward to doing this again next year." 

Students, schools and free speech in the age of the Internet was the theme of the 2011 First Amendment Conference, held Oct. 24, 2011 at Saint Joseph College in West Hartford. The annual conference, sponsored by the American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut, drew students from Conard High School in West Hartford, Stonington High School and the Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts.