This Week in Civil Liberties: Immigration, the Death Penalty, IRS privacy invasions

Each Friday, we’ll bring you updates on the latest civil liberties news from Maine and the nation.

Immigration
Immigration was the hot topic this week for policy makers, civil libertarians, activists, and even Mark Zuckerberg.  The latest news indicates that a bipartisan group of senators aims to unveil an immigration bill as soon as Tuesday. In anticipation of an immigration reform bill, thousands gathered at a rally in Washington D.C. on Wednesday and the ACLU of Maine joined the Maine Immigrants' Rights Coalition for a press conference in Maine as part of a nationwide day of action. As Rachel said in her blog, immigration reform must create a welcoming roadmap to citizenship and protect civil liberties. If you agree, tell your congressional delegation by clicking here.
 
 
The Death Penalty in the News
1) The father of an adult with mental illness wrote this opinion piece about using different calculations for punishment of the mentally ill.

2) One of Florida’s longest-serving death row inmates was executed Wednesday. He was sentence in 1981. Read more here.

3) Texas executed an inmate sentenced in 1990. More on that here.

 
Privacy and the IRS
Last year, the ACLU sent a FOIA request to the IRS asking for records regarding whether or not the IRS gets a warrants to read emails, text messages, and other private electronic communication. The documents obtained suggest that the IRS does not have a uniform, nationwide policy of requesting warrants before it reads electronic communication in criminal investigations. Click here for more details.
 
These documents provide further evidence for the need to update our privacy laws. (For a recent update on potential new privacy laws here in Maine, see yesterday’s blog by Shenna).