The State of Maine Department of Corrections' standards for county jails require that prisoners have the opportunity to have contact visits with family and loved ones--an opportunity to look at a child's face or hold a parent's hand. There are a number of reasons for this policy: human contact is a basic human right, and encouraging prisoners to maintain ties to family reduces the likelihood that they will re-offend. | continue reading

Our basic right to privacy is under attack across the country, including here in Maine. Yesterday, The Guardian newspaper revealed that U.S. government has been secretly tracking the calls of every Verizon Business Network Services customer for at least the past 41 days. | continue reading

In June, the Maine Law Court will hear arguments in an important case about the rights of students to be free from discrimination. The case involves a girl who was denied access to the girl's bathroom at her elementary school because she is transgender. | continue reading

This week, the Portland City Council wisely rejected a number of proposals that would have severely restricted the First Amendment rights of artists in the city's downtown area. The ACLU of Maine expressed substantial concern with the proposals, and we were gratified to see their demise. | continue reading

I started writing this blog post yesterday afternoon, while sitting in the Judiciary Committee hearing room at the Maine State Legislature. I was waiting for the third committee work session on our proposed restrictions on the use of surveillance drones, and I had a plan: any time that I am sitting in a committee hearing waiting for my bill, and I take out my laptop to do work, then my bill comes up almost as soon as my laptop turns on. Sure enough. . . 
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Our colleagues at the ACLU National Prison Project have written a powerful blog post about the torture of a prisoner in Maine. It is worth reading, and the video is difficult to watch but powerful. Here in Maine, the incident has been the subject of on-going reporting by David Hench of the Portland Press Herald.
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For those of us who are lucky enough to get to spend our first year or two after law school working for a judge, the experience invariably shapes our expectations about who a judge is and how she should go about her work. My judge set a high bar (clerks always use the possessive when referring to their bosses). | continue reading

Today, the ACLU of Maine joined colleagues across the country in filing public records requests aimed at uncovering important information about the web of connections between the military and the police. We already know that, in some states, military equipment and tactics are regularly used in domestic interactions with civilians. This development has been driven by federal policies of funneling money, training, and equipment to state and local police departments. | continue reading