News & Commentary

Yesterday marked the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom and Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech.

Thursday morning, Chelsea Manning came out as a transgender woman. Following her announcement, a military spokesman stated that the Army will not provide gender affirming healthcare for Ms. Manning, which raises significant constitutional concerns. The national ACLU writes:

One of the ACLU's largest and most pressing issues is the problem of overincarceration, and we are focused on criminal justice reform and the reduction of recidivism. Most people interested in such things have heard of the term "the revolving door." This proverbial door symbolizes the perpetual cycle for convicted people through the phases of our flawed justice system: get caught, receive your sentence, do time, leave jail with little financial, emotional or education support, repeat the behavior, etc. This revolving door assures that from the very moment that the judge pronounces you guilty (or even before that) your chances of returning to jail or prison increase by a staggering 43% within the next three years according to a 2011 study. This is simply not an acceptable statistic for a nation, and only contributes to other dismal statistics such as prison costs, unemployment and homelessness. Our judicial system cannot continue as it has, while people continnue to cycle through jails and prisons.

In response to Federal Judge Shira Scheindin’s August 12th ruling finding the NYPD’s use of stop-and-frisk unconstitutional, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg wrote an opinion piece in the Washington Post. In the article, he accused Judge Scheindlin of “brazen activism” and claimed that stop-and-frisk was an invaluable crime fighting tool that had significantly contributed to New York City’s recent drop in crime.

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

Today, the U.S. has the highest incarceration rate of any country in the world. With over 2.3 million men and women living behind bars, our imprisonment rate is the highest it’s ever been in U.S. history.  At the ACLU, we cheered Attorney General Eric Holder's long overdue acknowledgement on Monday that this addiction to incarceration was ineffective and unsustainable.  It's about time we hear a top level government official call our bloated prison system broken.  We understand, however, that it's going to take tremendous work to undo the damage that so called "war on drugs" and "tough on crime" policies have caused.

We went into the 126th Legislature with a plan: to bring Maine's privacy laws up to speed with advancing technology. To that end, we proposed a 5-bill privacy package with bipartisan sponsorship. And while it was an uphill battle the whole way, we were successful in winning privacy protections and standing up for the 4th Amendment! 

Yesterday, we saw an unprecedented move towards criminal justice reform nationwide. In his address at the 2013 annual meeting of the American Bar Association, United States Attorney General Eric Holder called for “significant actions to recalibrate America's federal criminal justice system", asserting that mass incarceration “at the federal, state and local level is both ineffective and unsustainable.” The transcript of his speech can be found here. Some of the highlights include:

Today, a federal judge ruled that the New York Police Department’s stop-and-frisk practices are unconstitutional. The ACLU’s affiliate in New York has been on top of this issue for years, and the data they’ve compiled clearly shows that this is not just a minor problem. Innocent New Yorkers have been subjected to police stops and street interrogations more than 4 million times since 2002, and nearly nine out of 10 who were stopped-and-frisked were completely innocent.