Civil Liberties

Norm Siegel, candidate for Public Advocate, has a new website and a new Youtube video:

For those who aren't familiar with Norman Siegel, he has been defending the Civil Liberties of Americans decades. From his website:

Norman Siegel, raised in Brooklyn, has been an advocate for New Yorkers throughout his 40 year career. He has been a leader in the fight for freedom, justice, and equality for all, issues that have pulled at our city’s fabric for too many generations.

Norman Siegel began his career as a civil rights/civil liberties lawyer when, following his graduation from Brooklyn College and New York University Law School, he joined the American Civil Liberties Union's Southern Justice & Voter Law Project in 1968. There, he was co-counsel in numerous lawsuits challenging the systemic exclusion of blacks and women from juries in various counties in South Carolina, Florida, Virginia and Alabama. Two voting rights cases in which he was involved are :

Hadnott v. Amos (U.S. Supreme Court case allowing 89 mainly black candidates to run for political office in Alabama), and

The saga of government intrusion into the private lives of government workers continues. Congress is now taking up the issue of Homeland Security Presidential Directive #12, a directive intended to, quite reasonably, standardize ID cards in government facilities to include contractors and students.

I introduced the issues surrounding the implemtation of Homeland Security Presidential Directive #12 (HSPD #12) in Sept. of 2007. I discussed the way implementation of this directive requires a government employee to sign away their Constitutional Rights, allowing the government free access to their medical records, financial records, etc. I discussed the potential anti-gay aspect of one part of the process, the so-called "Suitability Matrix." And I published a resignation letter from a woman who had been an employee at NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) for more than 30 years but resigned over the intrusive implementation of HSPD #12. Since then I have updated you on the ups and downs of the court case filed by some NASA employees. Currently there is an injunction preventing implementation of HSPD #12 at JPL pending an appeal, but where my wife works, the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in Manhattan, implementation continues. My wife has been told that all employees and contractors (she's a student) will be processed soon at GISS. For my wife it is a race between her finishing her Ph.D. and moving to a non-NASA job and the slow pace of the NASA bureaucracy demanding she sign away her rights to the government.

Big Kick Off Fundraiser for Norm Siegel for Public Advocate

Monday, February 25th, 2008, 6pm to 8:30pm

Cafe Deville
103 Third Avenue (at 13th Street)
NYC

My wife and I, along with nationally known verified voting crusader, Marjorie Gersten, already hosted a fundraiser for Norm Siegel...so maybe we can claim the real kick off fundraiser...

Norman Siegel is the ideal candidate for NYC Public Advocate. In essence he has been our public advocate for decades, having been head of the NY Civil Liberties Union, defending the rights of NYC protestors against the 2004 Republican Convention, defending the rights of Critical Mass bicyclists, fighting destruction of Harlem neighborhoods, etc.

You can read more about my impressions of Norman Siegel here.

And you can attend this big, big fundraiser and meet the man himself:

You are cordially invited to join State Senator Eric Adams, Sally Regenhard, Council Member Hiram Monserrate, Carmela Pickney and Ira Glaser in celebration of the 2009 candidacy of Norman Siegel for Public Advocate.

The 2008 Kick Off Fundraiser for Norman will be at Cafe Deville, located 103 Third Avenue (at 13th Street). Tickets range in price: $50 (Suggested Minimum), Advocate $100, Supporters $150, Sponsors $250, Patrons $500, Benefactors $1000, Angels $4950.

Go read the amazing homage written in the Wall Street Journal by his father :

When an unarmed journalist is killed, we are reminded of both the freedoms that we treasure in our society, and how vulnerable we all are to forces that threaten those freedoms.

But this still does not explain the attention given to Danny's tragedy. After all, 30 other journalists were killed in 2002, and 118 journalists have been killed in Iraq alone since that war began.

The shocking element in Danny's murder was that he was killed, not for what he wrote or planned to write, but for what he represented -- America, modernity, openness, pluralism, curiosity, dialogue, fairness, objectivity, freedom of inquiry, truth and respect for all people. In short, each and every one of us was targeted in Karachi in January of 2002.

It's not a touchy feely homage, but a reminder that Daniel Pearl's blood is in all our hands, especially the media :

One of the things that saddens me most is that the press and media have had an active, perhaps even major role in fermenting hate and inhumanity. It was not religious fanaticism alone.

This was first brought to my attention by the Pakistani Consul General who came to offer condolences at our home in California. When we spoke about the anti-Semitic element in Danny's murder she said: "What can you expect of these people who never saw a Jew in their lives and who have been exposed, day and night, to televised images of Israeli soldiers targeting and killing Palestinian children."

At the time, it was not clear whether she was trying to exonerate Pakistan from responsibility for Danny's murder, or to pass on the responsibility to European and Arab media for their persistent de-humanization of Jews, Americans and Israelis. The answer was unveiled in 2004, when a friend told me that photos of Muhammad Al Dura were used as background in the video tape of Danny's murder.

[...]

The Pakistani Consul was right. The media cannot be totally exonerated from responsibility for Daniel's murder, as well as for the "tsunami of hate" that has swept the world and continues to rise.

Go read the whole thing.

Today an appeals court in California handed a bunch of NASA scientists a victory that is a victory for the civil liberties of all Federal employees and contractors. At stake was the privacy of all NASA scientists and contractors and potentially all Federal employees and contractors. It all stems from a reasonable attempt by Homeland Security to standardize the procedure for obtaining ID cards that allow access to Federal facilities (Homeland Security Presidential Directive #12). The method of implementation required even low-risk employees and contractors (including my wife, a grad student studying climate) to sign a blanket waiver giving the Federal government permission to investigate all aspects of a person's private life, including finiancial and medical records, or risk losing the right to enter their place of employment with the government.

One of the first places where this was aggressively implemented was NASA. Just as my wife, working in a NASA facility where no sensitive research is done, was informed she will have to sign away her rights to get an ID, NASA scientists at the Jet Propulsion Lab filed a lawsuit to block implementation of the directive. Today that lawsuit bore fruit. Please read on.

Some of you may have been following the long story of a threat to my wife's civil liberties thanks to Homeland Security. The original diaries (which got LOTS of attention, being picked up by the Huffington Post and boosting the morale of some NASA scientists involved) can be found here:

The Republican Party, the party that used to want to "get government off our backs" has led America to becoming one of the most intrusive governments in the world. We now rank right down with China and Russia as leading the world for surveillance of civilians, according to Privacy International. I should note that the study does not cover every nation, merely the EU and 20 non-EU nations including America.

Privacy International, based in London, was formed in 1990 by more than 100 human rights organizations to defend personal privacy. Here's what they have to say for themselves:

For almost twenty years Privacy International (PI) has vigorously defended personal privacy. We have campaigned across the world to protect people against intrusion by governments and corporations that seek to erode this fragile right. We believe that privacy forms part of the bedrock of freedoms, and our goal has always been to use every means to preserve it. Our campaigns are often controversial, but they always respect the primacy of truth and principle.

PI is the oldest surviving privacy advocacy group in the world, and was the first organisation to campaign at an international level on privacy issues. Its antecedents stretch back to 1987, at which time the organisation’s founders started to build an international network in response to mounting concern across the world over the changing nature and magnitude of privacy violations.

Awhile back I wrote a three part series on an attack on civil liberties that has started with NASA (including my wife), the Bureau of Land Management and the Department of Education, but in theory affects all Federal employees and all contractors with access to Federal facilities. (Part III with links to parts I and II can be found here). I should note that this series was one of our most read series of articles ever, even getting the attention of mainstream media and raising the morale of the NASA employees involved.

The gist of the attack on Civil Liberties is something called Homeland Security Presidential Directive #12. In itself it is reasonable, merely mandating a more uniform way of issuing ID badges to people with access to Federal facilities. But the method of implementation in essence treats ALL Federal employees as people working on projects of a sensitive nature for Homeland Security. The process of issuing ID badges requires ALL Federal employees (though the implementation has been spotty so far) to sign a waiver allowing the Federal government to investigate ANY aspect of their life if they deem necessary with no due process (outlined in Part I and III of my series), and has aspects that in theory bars all gays from Federal employment, something that is a part of the process but has not been applied against gays to date as far as I know (this is covered in Part II of my series). For more details, please read my earlier series.

Just yesterday I delivered the bad news that a judge (a Bush appointee) denied the request of NASA scientists for protection against invasion of their personal privacy by the Federal Government. I mentioned that the case was under appeal. Those who have been following this story will know that this case directly affects my wife, who will also be required to waive her rights if she wants to work at a NASA facility even though none of the work she does is sensitive.

Well, in this case, the courts moved fast. The appeal has been successful and the Ninth Circuit Court has issued an injunction against the oppressive implementation of Homeland Security Presidential Directive #12. I received this news mere minutes ago:

PRESS RELEASE
Date: October 5, 2007

Re:
Nelson, et. al. v. National
Aeronautical and Space Agency, et. al.

NINTH CIRCUIT ISSUES INJUNCTION AGAINST NASA AND JET PROPULSION LABORATORY’S UNCONSTITUTIONAL REQUIREMENT OF INVASIVE BACKGROUND INVESTIGATIONS

Today the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals entered an emergency injunction against the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The Court ruled that NASA could not require Jet Propulsion Laboratory scientists and engineers holding non-sensitive positions to sign waivers of their privacy rights. If the Court had not issued this injunction, thousands of scientists would have had to choose between waiving their privacy rights and keeping their jobs. The plaintiffs filed suit in United States District Court for the Central District of California against NASA, the Department of Commerce and the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) on behalf of a class of JPL employees who are being required to waive their privacy rights and submit to an unconstitutional intrusive background investigation in order to retain their jobs with JPL. The plaintiffs include highly placed engineers and research scientists at JPL who have been involved in critical roles in NASA’s most successful recent programs, including leading engineers and scientists on the Mars Exploration Rovers program.

In the ongoing case of my wife (and all other NASA employees and theoretically all Federal employees) vs. Homeland Security (see earlier entries for details: Part I (overview); Part II (the Suitability Matrix); Part III (the resignation letter)), the civil liberties of Federal employees just got dealt a setback. A judge just denied the case of 28 employees of NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab to get court protection from excessively intrusive personal background investigations:

Media Advisory

JPL Employees vs Caltech, NASA and Department of Commerce
Homeland Security Presidential Directive 12

For Immediate Release Oct 3, 2007

JPL Employees to Appeal Negative Ruling by Judge

Employees at Caltech's Jet Propulsion Laboratory will file an emergency motion on Thursday to appeal a federal district court's decision that denies them the court's protection from excessively intrusive personal background investigations ordered by NASA for all JPL employees.

During the hearing in his Los Angeles courtroom on Monday, Judge Otis Wright said he was inclined to issue a limited temporary injunction before October 5 in the case of the 28 JPL employees who filed suit against Caltech and NASA over the detailed personal investigations associated with issuing new identification badges for access to the JPL facility. None of the 28 employees do any classified work.

Many of your followed my series on my wife's battle with the implementation of Homeland Security Presidential Directive #12 (Part I here).

Part of the story is a court case filed by employees at NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab to block parts of this implementation. Today there has been a media advisory in this case:

JPL Employees vs Caltech, NASA and Department of Commerce
Homeland Security Presidential Directive 12

For Immediate Release Oct 1, 2007

Federal Judge Indicates He May Issue Temporary Limited Injunction

Judge Otis Wright suggested he may issue some form of a limited temporary injunction in the next few days in the case of 28 employees of Caltech’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory who filed suit against Caltech and NASA for over-intrusive background checks that are being conducted in association with issuing new identification badges for access to JPL.

Judge Wright set a hearing on the question of a permanent injunction for October 19, at 3:30 PM in Courtroom 11 of the United States Courthouse in Los Angeles.

The judge said he had particular concerns about a question regarding drug use that employees had to answer on United States Office of Personnel Management Form
Sf85.

In addition to the 28 plaintiffs, hundreds of JPL employees have taken issue with the background checks. Caltech attorney Mark Holscher conceded in court that only 4100 of JPL’s 7500 employees and contractors have begun to fill out the forms.