News & Commentary

Yesterday, the ACLU of MAINE reached an interim agreement with the City of Portland to allow a group of Afghan Muslims to use a former television repair shop on Washington Avenue to celebrate Ramadan.

“You shouldn’t need a permit to pray,” says Shenna Bellows, Executive Director of the Maine Civil Liberties Union.

Since 2000, it has been the policy of the federal government not to use cookie technology on government websites.  The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is now considering a change in that poli

One of the very first ACLU of MAINE legal cases involved a high school student who was suspended from school for having hair that was too long.  A stern letter from the ACLU of MAINE was all it took to get the student back in school.  Justice Louis Scolnik, one of the ACLU of MAINE’s founders, told me this story once so I would not feel bad about going too long between haircuts.

ATV drivers are citizens with fourth amendment rights too.

Last Thursday, August 6th marked the 44th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act.  Some positive things can certainly be said about the legacy of the

Remember Alberto Gonzales?  

Prior to my work at the ACLU of MAINE, I served as an administrator and sometimes disciplinarian at a public school on the south side of Indianapolis, where I acquired some funny stories such as the day the kindergarteners invented a game involving overturned chairs as vehicles, and some not so funny stories of the challenges of meeting the needs of impoverished, mentally ill students of color. Having worked directly with this population, often as the first response in moments of crisis, I know that this in no way meets the needs of mentally ill students. Funneling mentally ill students or students of color into the juvenile justice system is a deplorable injustice to one of our most vulnerable populations. Read about the ACLU’s ongoing work on the school-to-prison pipeline across the country.

Yesterday's Los Angeles Times reports that Attorney General Eric Holder is "poised to appoint a criminal prosecutor to investigate alleged CIA abuses..."