ACLU
rskloot | May 15, 2009
Earlier this week, the American Civil Liberties Union and several other groups filed suit against Myriad Genetics -- the company that holds the patent on the breast cancer gene. They're hoping to get the breast cancer gene patent revoked, but more than that, they're aiming to stop gene patenting all together.
Today, in my new column in Slate's Double X Magazine, I go into the story of the breast cancer gene and the impact the ACLU claims it's had on science and patient care (a hint: it's not good). I also look at the suit itself, the cases that have come before this one, and what they say…
stcynic | November 16, 2006In the case of Edward Crayton, the man protesting Walmart's pro-gay policies who is being represented by the ACLU, a Federal judge has granted a preliminary injunction allowing him to continue his protests pending the outcome of the case. The case is scheduled to begin January 26th.
stcynic | November 4, 2006Pay attention now, STACLU. The ACLU of Louisiana is defending a Christian man's right to protest outside a Walmart over their pro-gay policies.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana filed a lawsuit Friday on behalf of a man who was chased away from the front of a Wal-Mart store when he tried to protest what he believes is the company's stand on gays.
A Natchitoches police officer told Edwin Crayton to leave on or about Oct. 4 after he stood in front of Wal-Mart with a protest sign that read, 'Christians: Wal-Mart Supports Gay Lifestyles And Marriage. Don't Shop There,' according to…
stcynic | October 31, 2006Nat Hentoff has a column in USA Today about the internal struggle for control of the ACLU's national board going on right now. As I've said in the past, I am firmly on the side of the dissidents who have formed SaveTheACLU and tried to remove the current leadership. In a battle between true civil liberties advocates like Ira Glasser and David Goldberger and the current leadership led by Anthony Romero, count me on the side of the former.
stcynic | October 31, 2006Ah, our old pal Glib Fortuna is back with another ridiculous post in which he demonstrates that fanaticism eliminates all recognition of irony (to say nothing of hypocrisy). He casually claims that "The ACLU's totalitarian impulse is deeply rooted and inseparable from its ideology...". But Glib actively defends a President who claims the authority to disappear American citizens, hold them without ever charging them with anything, without access to an attorney, without the right to a trial guaranteed by our Constitution AND without any right to challenge that detention in court. While calling…
stcynic | October 23, 2006Just when you think STACLU can't get any more ridiculous you come across this post by davef, announcing breathlessly that a - gasp! - Muslim has joined the national board of the ACLU. Laila Al-Qatami of the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee is joining the ACLU board and, apparently, davef thinks that the mere fact that she's Muslim makes her a terrorist. He tries mightily to make this sound like a bad thing, and fails miserably. He begins:
Laila Al-Qatami has long been the spokes person for the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee, an organization with previous ties to the…
stcynic | October 20, 2006I know, that's like figuring out which day Mike Tyson was the biggest jerk on. But I think it might be true. This story tries to tie every bad guy in their universe together in one single narrative - Bill Clinton, the ACLU, Muslim terrorists and separation of church and state. Here's their claim:
A man arrested as a terror suspect for allegedly trying to transport $340,000 from a group tied to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, and who reputedly had connections to Osama bin Laden, helped write the "Religious Expression in Public Schools" guidelines issued by President Clinton during his tenure in…
stcynic | October 19, 2006My only regret about STACLU is not discovering them sooner; their usefulness as blog fodder is virtually unmatched. Only the Worldnutdaily comes close, and for most of the same reasons. They've got two delightfully wacky posts up right now. The first, from jonjayray, may have shattered the world record for most absurd violation of Godwin's law. Not only does he compare an innocuous phrase from a politician to nazi propganda, but to communist propaganda too. At the same time. It all started when he read this article from AP about a new liberal catchphrase. He quotes the following passage from…
stcynic | October 13, 2006Glib has a post at STACLU where he admiringly cites two columns, one by Alan Sears of the ADF and one by Mike Adams. Both of those columns are loaded with ridiculous arguments. The column by Sears is one of the funniest ones you'll read this week, trust me. In attempting to establish the "fury of the Left toward Christians", he cites such influential thinkers as Rosie O'Donnell and Madonna. Because every young leftist I know of gets all their ideas from the material girl. But his conclusions, the ones quoted by good ol' Glib, are just plain silly:
Somehow, the people at the wheel of our…
stcynic | October 11, 2006Our pals at STACLU are quoting a blog post by a lawyer named Ray Kraft, encouraging Congress to pass legislation defining the terms of the Constitution so that the courts can't. Here's Kraft's suggestion:
"But there is a Third Way here - and that is for Congress to debate and define, by legislation, the controversial and undefined terms in the Constitution, such as "an establishment of religion." I cannot find or think of any reason why it would not be within the power of Congress to do so, and it would not require an amendment of the Constitution, so long as the legislated definition was…
stcynic | October 3, 2006STACLU has been busy adding new contributors lately. It appears that they've been seeking out every anti-ACLU crank they can find on the internet and asking them to post there. Unfortunately, the quality of the arguments and the level of intellectual honesty hasn't budged. A new contributor named davef, from Revealing the ACLU, has joined and this post shows it's more of the same. He's upset about an ACLU suit against a school in Tennessee for allowing a group called the Praying Parents to have access to school classrooms to proselytize. And he starts wtih a blatantly false statement:
When…
stcynic | September 29, 2006It's been a couple weeks since Glib Fortuna said something really stupid (or at least since I'd noticed it), which may be a record for him. But he's back with another utterly clueless post about HR 2679. He's accusing the ACLU of being disingenuous for arguing that this bill deprives "citizens" of the ability to recover legal fees in successful establishment clause cases.
To whom do attorneys fees go? Attorneys fees go to attorneys, not "citizens." The ACLU's disingenuousness oozes through this entire release. The fact is, this bill would cut them off from millions of dollars. Their lament…
stcynic | September 26, 2006The New York Times has an article up about Save the ACLU, a new group formed by dissidents within the group who want the current leadership ousted. I am in agreement with them, as I've said many times in the past. Anthony Romero has been a disaster as the ACLU's executive director, though I am still a fan of board president Nadine Strossen. But when Ira Glasser and Wendy Kaminer say something's got to change, I'm going to take notice and listen to them, as should all civil libertarians.
stcynic | September 17, 2006You're gonna love this. STACLU has a new mindless twit posting under the name bullldozetheaclu. Take a look at his first post (at least I assume it is, I've never seen the byline before):
I found a NEW way to
PROTEST THE LEFT!!
Number one... what do commies hate most of all? The Bible, God's Word!
So join me in sending
NEW TESTAMENTS to Iran...
On top of that, in doing so you will be protesting against the Radical Left here in America, who embrace terrorists as freedom fighters, who refer to Islam as the "religion of peace", and make a practice out of persecuting Christians here in America by…
stcynic | September 14, 2006I know, it's not really sound sport to agitate someone this stupid, but I guess I'm just feeding my inner sadist. Here's his latest bit of nonsense, wherein he makes claims that are either false or completely unknowable about the NSA wiretapping program. He is reacting to an ACLU spokeswoman for speaking out against an attempt in Congress to rubber stamp the NSA programs without any further oversight. First, the false claim:
First off, the idea that this is wiretapping is ignorance. The NSA program is a data mining program. They are capturing electronic signals being transmitted from inside…
stcynic | September 11, 2006The Oregon Supreme Court last week reversed a lower court ruling on whether allowing the Boy Scouts to recruit in public schools constitutes unlawful discrimination (see the court's ruling here). It was a fairly technical ruling based upon a narrow reading of Oregon law prohibiting discrimination by public school districts. But that hasn't stopped the Boy Scouts and their supporters from exaggerating and distorting the nature of the decision. In particular, they seem to want this case to mean that scouts must be given access to recruit in schools. The BSALegal site, for example, says:
"Giving…
stcynic | September 8, 2006There are a bunch of bills in Congress right now to update FISA to allow for warrantless wiretaps. The ACLU, naturally opposes this program. That leads Glib Fortuna to posture and preen and call them names, but without a shread of substance in his post. He quotes this comment from a CNS article about these proposals:
"By reforming FISA to permit the necessary and constitutional use of warrantless foreign surveillance renewable for fixed periods of time, Congress can assure that the executive branch has the tools it needs to address 21st Century threats," Alt said, "while providing the…
stcynic | August 30, 2006If a STACLU contributor says something in a forest with no one around to hear it, is it still ridiculous? I couldn't let a day go by without pointing out some stupid statement from them, and this one again occurs in the middle of a post on a subject where I actually agree with them on the substance. Glib posts about this silly situation in Columbus, Ohio where a church group came to a school on a Sunday and "blessed" the school and its inhabitants. The ACLU of Ohio sent a letter to the school principal complaining of it, but it's unlikely anything will actually be done. It's a case they won't…
stcynic | August 30, 2006Remember the story of the couple in Black Jack, Missouri who were told they had to leave town because they weren't married and having three unrelated people living in a home violated zoning laws? The ACLU of Eastern Missouri filed a lawsuit against the city on behalf of the couple and the city council just voted unanimously to rescind its policy and give the couple a housing permit. I guess that's just another instance where the big bad ACLU "bullied and intimidated" a poor defenseless town.
stcynic | August 29, 2006Prof. Volokh has a post about a particularly good brief in a student free speech case, filed by the ACLU of Southern California and partly written by a former student of his. The case involves a student who wrote two opinion pieces for a school newspaper, one of which a "expressed unfavorable opinions about Latino immigrants" and the other of which "repeated numerous unflattering racial stereotypes in support of an argument against affirmative action." The ACLU filed a brief defending the student's free speech rights despite the fact that they are both pro-immigration and pro-affirmative…