News & Public Affairs
ACLU lays out its legislative goals for 2009 listen
01/13/09 Mitch E. PerryWMNF Drive-Time News Tuesday Listen to this entire show:
Tags: ACLU, politics, legislative agenda
As the 111th Congress begins its work this week, the ACLU today listed its legislative goals on a nationwide conference call this morning.
Yesterday, Barack Obama's transition team announced plans to close the prison detainee camp at Guatanamo Bay immediately, though what they will do with those prisoners still housed there is unknown.
Caroline Frederickson, director of the ACLU’s Washington Legislative Office, said that is one of their goals as well. On a nationwide conference call, s...
Be the first to commentACLU's Pheneger on Detainee Abuse Report listen
12/12/08 Seán KinaneWMNF Drive-Time News Friday Listen to this entire show:
Tags: human rights, ACLU
A Senate Armed Services Committee bipartisan report released yesterday has confirmed that top Bush-administration officials are responsible for the country’s “abusive” interrogation techniques.
Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Air Force General Richard Myers, the former chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, were among the top-level architects of abuse of detainees at prisons at Guantanamo Bay, Afghanistan, and Abu Ghraib in Iraq.
The 19-page unclassified executive summary...
Be the first to commentACLU to celebrate Universal Declaration of Human Rights listen
12/09/08 Mitch E. PerryWMNF Drive-Time News Tuesday Listen to this entire show:
Tags: Human rights, ACLU
This week, the cities of Tampa, St. Petersburg and Sarasota have issued proclamations honoring human rights in honor of the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaratin of Human Rights.
On Wednesday, the ACLU of Florida and Studio@620 will commemorate the event with a Poetry Slam at The Globe Coffee House in downtown St. Petersburg at 7 p.m. That’s at 532 First Ave. N.
Be the first to commentACLU begins voter registration outreach campaign listen
09/15/08 Mitch E. PerryWMNF Drive-Time News Monday Listen to this entire show:
Tags: Voting rights, ACLU, FRRC
The Florida Rights Restoration Coalition (FRRC) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Florida today launched a voter registration outreach campaign targeting people with past felony convictions whose rights have been restored, as well as those who are unsure of their civil rights status.
The campaign comes on the heels of seven years of work educating the public about rights restoration and attempts to get the word out to re-enfranchised voters – a job at which the FRRC says th...
Be the first to commentFRRC fights for ex-felon's voter rights
08/04/08 Concetta DeLucoWMNF Drive-Time News Monday Listen to this entire show:
Tags: FRRC, ACLU, voter's rights, civil liberties
Over the weekend, the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition (FRRC), a non-partisan group committed to reforming voting rights for ex-felons, held its statewide annual convention at Stetson University’s College of Law in Tampa. The group is campaigning to make the process for disenfranchised felons to obtain their rights more efficient and effective by pushing for an amendment on the statewide ballot that would automatically restore suffrage.
Florida has recently been one of only three state...
Be the first to commentIndependent Review Commission on Jails meets listen
08/01/08 Jamie KidderWMNF Drive-Time News Friday Listen to this entire show:
Tags: ACLU, jail abuse, Independent Review Commission on Jails, civil liberties, criminal justice
Today in Tampa, the Independent Review Commission on Jails held its 10th meeting at the County Center. The commission was established earlier this year to investigate allegations of abuse in the Hillsborough County jail system after the release of a video showing a quadriplegic man being dumped from a wheelchair at the Orient Road Jail.
Mike Pheneger is chairman of the Greater Tampa chapter of the ACLU. He stood before the panel today and discussed his concerns with the sudden escalation o...
Be the first to commentPalm Beach schools sued over minority graduation rates listen
03/31/08 Seán KinaneWMNF Drive-Time News Monday Listen to this entire show:
Tags: education, graduation rates, ACLU, civil rights
Low graduation rates, especially among minority students, in the School District of Palm Beach County have led to a lawsuit filed earlier this month by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Muslima Lewis is a senior staff attorney with the ACLU of Florida and director of their Racial Justice Project.
Today, WMNF spoke with Lewis about the lawsuit and about the high school graduation rates in Palm Beach County and in Florida.
Learn more:
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Be the first to commentACLU meeting focuses on racial justice listen
03/12/08 Jamie KidderWMNF Drive-Time News Wednesday Listen to this entire show:
Tags: ACLU, Race, Felon's Rights, Education, Civil Liberties
The Tampa ACLU held a meeting on racial justice at the John F. Germany Library in Tampa yesterday. The speakers touched on subjects pertaining to racial injustice, such as felon disenfranchisment and educational inequality.
The Florida ACLU is one of the fastest growing ACLU affiliates in the nation, with local chapters in Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, Tampa, Gainsville, Jacksonville, Tallahassee and Pensacola.
The Tampa chapter of the ACLU has been involved with a number of events in the area...
Be the first to commentIncidents prompt review of Orient Road Jail listen
03/10/08 Seán KinaneWMNF Drive-Time News Monday Listen to this entire show:
Tags: Independent Review Commission on Jails, David Gee, Orient Road Jail, Al Higginbotham, ACLU
During the last month, the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office has faced allegations of abuse of jail inmates by detention deputies. In response, Sheriff David Gee has formed an 11-member panel to investigate the Sheriff’s Office and conditions within the county’s jails. Today was the first meeting of the Independent Review Commission on Jails.
The most famous case of abuse is the first that came to light, in a video published on the internet in early February. Silent surveillance video f...
Be the first to commentACLU weighs in on intelligent design listen
12/21/07 Seán KinaneWMNF Drive-Time News Friday Listen to this entire show:
Tags: ACLU, intelligent design, evolution, April Griffin, Candy Olsen, Board of Education, education
Florida’s Board of Education will be instituting new teaching standards for science next fall. As WMNF has reported this month, the proposed Sunshine State Standards for science have been praised as a vast improvement over the current standards.
The emphasis on teaching evolution has motivated some proponents of the idea of "intelligent design" to lobby for the inclusion of that concept in the science standards.
Last Friday, the ACLU of Florida wrote a letter to the state Board of Educ...
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