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Let Viviette Vote

Ryan, May 11, 2012 - 4:45pm

At 93, Viviette Applewhite is the proud grandmother of five college-educated grandchildren. She has been voting since Kennedy. New voter ID laws in Pennsylvania could prevent her from exercising her fundamental right to vote so the ACLU of Pennsylvania and partners are suing to overturn the law. The plaintiffs are asking the Commonwealth Court to issue an injunction blocking enforcement of the law before November's election. | continue reading

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Know Your dot Rights

Ryan, April 27, 2012 - 5:09pm
Last night, the House passed the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (or CISPA). One of CISPA’s most disturbing features is that it allows the military, including agencies like the NSA, to collect records of Americans’ everyday Internet use. You’re probably wondering what you can do to halt any other advancement towards a surveillance state.
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Punishing the Poor

Ryan, April 17, 2012 - 5:33pm
When my mother was my age, she found herself unexpectedly a single mother of three small children. Having relied on my father for financial support, she no longer had the capacity to care for three children without public assistance. For my mother, steeped in Maine values of independence, hard work, and self-reliance, it was extraordinarily difficult and embarrassing to ask for help even though she desperately needed it. A suspicionless drug test would only have compounded the humiliation. 
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The Distress of Solitary Confinement

Ryan, April 6, 2012 - 4:23pm

Yesterday, our Legal Director Zach Heiden noted that Maine reduced its prison population in solitary confinement by over 70% in 2011. That’s a welcome statistic. In this podcast, Brian Nelson turns that statistic into a personal story about the shock of being released after 23 years in solitary confinement and how everyday occurrences are enough to cause panic.

 
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Let People Vote

Ryan, March 30, 2012 - 4:30pm
When voters turn out in record numbers, do you smile for democracy or try to beat back “undesirable” voters? Hopefully the former, but that’s clearly not the case for everybody. After 2008’s record voter turnout, 34 states have introduced legislation to limit voting.
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Invading Privacy through Facebook

Ryan, March 21, 2012 - 5:14pm
As a general rule, I do not friend anybody on Facebook I haven’t at least met in real life. I view my Facebook world as a technological extension of my actual social network. I use Facebook to help build and maintain relationships, share videos, and see what bits of news and wit are circulating among my friends.
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Access to the Ballot

Ryan, March 9, 2012 - 6:19pm
The video in this link features Laura Murphy of our Washington Legislative Office talking about the voter suppression laws around the country. Two things stood out to me about this—the first is her note that these laws disproportionately impact low-income, racial and ethnic minorities, the elderly, students and disabled voters. Secondly, the video shows a map of states where voter suppression laws are taking place. | continue reading
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Mass Incarceration: The New Jim Crow

Ryan, February 24, 2012 - 5:17pm
At our national staff conference, I briefly met Inimai Chettiar, an Advocacy & Policy Council for the ACLU.  We didn’t chat long enough for me to hear her the story she describes here, but no doubt she was reeling from that experience
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