 Amid Widespread Protests, Flawed Immigration Bill Stalled Government Flip-Flop: Patriot Gag on Connecticut Librarians Lifted  Gay and Lesbian Rights Episode of ACLU TV Airs Stories of Real Families in Crisis ACLU Sends Monitor to Guantánamo Military Tribunals In the States: Proof of Racial Targeting Revealed in Major Meth Investigation  YOU CAN HELP PROTECT OUR BASIC FREEDOMS ...by joining with over 500,000 card-carrying members of the ACLU. Our rights as individuals -- the very foundation of our great democracy -- depend on our willingness to defend them, and as an ACLU member, you'll be doing your part. Click here to safeguard our Bill of Rights by becoming an ACLU member.  PROOF OF RACIAL TARGETING REVEALED IN MAJOR METH INVESTIGATION
A major police investigation into methamphetamine production unlawfully targeted South Asian convenience store owners and clerks based on race and national origin, according to evidence unveiled last week by the ACLU. The ACLU asked a federal court to dismiss all remaining charges related to the controversial investigation in northwest Georgia, dubbed "Operation Meth Merchant."
According to law enforcement's own records as well as testimony from former investigators and informants involved in Operation Meth Merchant, the investigation intentionally targeted South Asians without any evidence of wrongdoing, while ignoring known white suspects.
Undertaken by local and state police in partnership with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, Operation Meth Merchant was purportedly aimed at convenience store owners and clerks selling legal household products, such as cold medicine, cooking fuel and matchbooks, which police claimed they knew would be used to make the illegal drug methamphetamine.
By the time Operation Meth Merchant was completed, almost 20 percent of the South-Asian-owned stores in the area were indicted, while only 0.2 percent of stores owned by whites or other ethnic groups were similarly accused. All in all, South-Asian-owned stores were nearly 100 times more likely to be targeted.
The charges arising from the investigation relied on the assumption that the South Asian store owners and clerks, most with limited English proficiency, understood slang terms used by police-directed informants during transactions, such as "cook," to mean that the products sold would be used to make methamphetamine.
"They only sent me to Indian stores…they wanted me to say things like ‘I need it to go cook' or ‘Hurry up, I've got to get home and finish a cook'," said an undercover informant in a sworn statement attached to the ACLU's legal papers. "The officers told me that the Indians' English wasn't good, and they wouldn't say a lot so it was important for me to make these kinds of statements."
Additional facts about Operation Meth Merchant may be found here.  Do you know somebody who would be interested in getting news about the ACLU and what we're doing to protect civil liberties? Help us spread the word about ACLU Online -- forward this newsletter to a friend.
| April 13, 2006 
April's Freedom Files episode, "Gay & Lesbian Rights," will introduce America to ordinary people who are fighting for civil rights that most Americans take for granted. Read more about the premiere of The Freedom Files' new episode and how you can get a free DVD copy. 
Amid Widespread Protests, Flawed Immigration Bill Stalled
ACLU affiliates across the country helped to sponsor and organize events for this week's National Day of Action for Immigrants' Rights. Kentuckians in Louisville and Lexington joined the nation on Monday to demand immigration reform.
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| Tens of thousands of people marched this week to pressure Congress to pass legislation that would provide legal protection and a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants. Meanwhile, legislation to reform the nation's immigration laws stalled in the Senate last week. Lawmakers must modify that legislation to better protect privacy, judicial review and due process rights, or the gains agreed to will be undermined by the details.
"Immigration reform should not become the means to undermine the Constitution, nor should it place undue burdens on the American worker," said Caroline Fredrickson, Director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office.
Several proposals in the legislation would expand deeply flawed policies that have already eroded due process and civil liberties and should be jettisoned or overhauled, including:
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NYCLU Executive Director Donna Lieberman and field organizer Rodolfo Estrada led the NYCLU contingent at New York City's immigrants' rights rally at City Hall. The NYCLU co-sponsored the event with more than eighty other New York City community, religious, labor and immigrants' rights groups.
| - Lack of privacy protections in the proposed Employment Verification System: The proposal would require all workers to obtain a federal agency's permission to work, regardless of citizenship or immigration status. All employers would be required to participate in a national employment eligibility verification program.
- The new program would likely use an Internet-based system to check the names and Social Security numbers of all employees -- citizens and non-citizen alike -- against two government agencies' databases. Estimates of implementation costs are at least $11.7 billion annually, a large share of which would be borne by businesses.
- Direct all immigration appeals to one court, perhaps the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. This radical proposal would undermine the rights of immigrants to judicial review. The Federal Circuit Court of Appeals has no experience with immigration, civil rights, or related constitutional claims.
Vigil in Downtown Los Angeles for humane immigration reform cosponsored by the ACLU of Southern California, along with numerous community, faith-based and labor organizations.
|  | - Institute one-judge pre-screening of cases that get to the federal circuit court level: Under this provision, if the judge does not act on a case within 60 days, the case gets dismissed. If the judge does find the case meritorious, that judge would then issue a "certificate of reviewability" that allows the case to be heard by a three-judge panel. Given the high workloads faced by America's federal courts, it is all too likely that many immigrants' appeals would never receive serious review from a judge and would be dismissed without any judicial consideration of their merits.
- Expand the government's authority to detain immigrants suspected of being undocumented mandatorily, expedite their removal and/or indefinitely detain them if they are from a country that will not accept their repatriation.
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Protestors march for immigration reform in Dallas. The ACLU of Texas served as legal observers for record breaking marches in El Paso, Bryan, Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and Austin. The march in Austin, at which ACLU of Texas Executive Director Will Harrell spoke, is reported to be the largest in 20 years.
| When Congress returns from their recess, they need to hear that the people want a fair, open, transparent and achievable process for improving immigration status. These proposals would prevent too many of the 9 million illegal immigrants from successfully navigating the path to being legal citizens.
Immigrants -- legal or undocumented -- play a vital role in society and breathe new life into our economy. The United States is a nation of immigrants, and the unjustified attacks confronting today's immigrants are the same ones that many of our own families faced.
To read more about the immigration debate, go to:
www.aclu.org/immigrants/index.html
Government Flip-Flop: Patriot Gag on Connecticut Librarians Lifted
In a stunning reversal of its claim that national security was at risk, the government has given up its legal battle over a gag order on Connecticut librarians affected by the controversial National Security Letter (NSL) provision of the law. The decision to abandon their opposition to the ACLU's challenge came after Congress voted to reauthorize the Patriot Act.
The reauthorization still allows the FBI to gag NSL recipients and forces courts to rubberstamp FBI decisions. The ACLU fought many of the more extreme measures of the Patriot Act during the course of the reauthorization debate. In a notable victory, the Act no longer denies NSL recipients the right to challenge the law.
Once the necessary court procedures are complete, which may take several weeks, the librarians will be introduced to the public and will be able talk openly for the first time about their objections to secret FBI demands for patrons' library and e-mail records.
"The government's claim that gagging librarians was necessary to protect national security has evaporated now that the political battle is over," said ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero. "The American public should keep this in mind the next time a government official invokes national security in defense of secrecy."
The case was one of two challenges brought by the ACLU in New York and Connecticut to a surveillance power that was dramatically expanded by the Patriot Act. The Patriot Act power permits the FBI to demand, without court approval, records of people who are not suspected of any wrongdoing. Anyone who receives such a demand -- known as a National Security Letter (NSL) is gagged from disclosing that the FBI demanded records.
The government has given up on the specific gag in the Connecticut case, but is pursuing its appeal of the New York decision, which struck down the entire National Security Letter provision as unconstitutional. It argues that the recent changes made by the Reauthorization Act cured any constitutional defects in the law.
In fact, the amended NSL provision still allows the FBI to gag NSL recipients and forces courts to rubberstamp FBI decisions, said the ACLU, which asked the Second Circuit to affirm the decision striking down the law.
More information about the ACLU's challenges to National Security Letters is online at www.aclu.org/nsl.
Gay and Lesbian Rights Episode of ACLU TV Airs Stories of Real Families in Crisis
| This Week on The ACLU Freedom Files:
Gay & Lesbian Rights 
See the TV schedule, watch trailers and get a free DVD of the show by telling your friends and colleagues.
Go to www.aclu.tv. | In April's Freedom Files episode, "Gay & Lesbian Rights" will introduce America to ordinary people who are fighting for civil rights that most Americans take for granted. Children separated from parents, the terminally ill battling illness without loved ones, shared property seized by the state -- these scenarios sound like made-for-TV fiction, but they're real for lesbian & gay families. For example, you'll meet ranchers Sam Beaumont and his late partner Earl Meadows, whose heart-wrenching experience was a real-life Brokeback Mountain story.
When it comes to fighting for equality, nothing is more important than getting more people engaged in this issue. And with the upcoming Freedom Files episode, we have a far-reaching opportunity to educate new audiences with powerful stories that shows the real harm that comes from bigotry and injustice.
We invite you to host a local premiere showing of "Gay & Lesbian Rights." If you do so, the ACLU will send you a free DVD of the episode, along with additional resources. You and your house party guests can watch "Gay & Lesbian Rights" on Link TV on April 13, on Court TV on April 15, or via the web at www.aclu.tv.
Host the episode, tell 5 friends and receive a free DVD of the "Gay & Lesbian" episode.
To find out more about the ACLU's work to advance lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights, visit:
http://www.aclu.org/lgbt/index.html
ACLU Sends Monitor to Guantánamo Military Tribunals
The ACLU is observing the military tribunals that resumed last week at the Guantánamo Bay navy base. The Pentagon is moving forward with the hearings even though the legitimacy of the hearings is currently under review by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Jamil Dakwar, a staff attorney with the ACLU Human Rights Working Group, has been attending the hearings. "The military commissions at Guantánamo are, at best, a legal black hole where detainees are not afforded anything remotely resembling due process," Dakwar said. "The current tribunal system allows abuses of power to go unchecked, and is fundamentally at odds with the U.S. Constitution and international human rights law."
So far, only 10 men have been formally charged with crimes out of about 500 detainees currently being held at Guantánamo. The lack of due process at the camp, and revelations of detainee abuse, have led to calls to close the camp from officials and human rights groups around the world.
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments on March 28 in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, which challenges the commissions established by President Bush as inconsistent with the Geneva Conventions and unauthorized by Congress. The ACLU filed a brief with the Court in January arguing that congressional authorization cannot be presumed in the absence of a clear statement for two basic reasons. First, the commission rules do not guarantee either independence or impartiality, and are therefore deficient under any recognized legal standard. Second, the commissions discriminate against non-citizens in unprecedented fashion.
Dakwar is posting his observations of the tribunal on the ACLU's blog at: blog.aclu.org Privacy Statement
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