ACLU Releases Presidential Transition Plan to Restore Civil Liberties

[G_j]

http://www.aclu.org/transition/

ACLU Releases Presidential Transition Plan to Restore Civil Liberties

Barack Obama will become chief executive of a nation that has been greatly weakened - in particular, our freedoms, our values, and our international reputation have been greatly undermined by the policies of the past eight years.


> Ask President-elect Obama to restore the America we believe in
Presidents have enormous power not only to set the legislative agenda, but also to establish policy by executive order, federal regulation, or simply by refocusing the efforts and emphases of the executive agencies. The new president must use all of these tools to restore our freedoms and move the country forward.

Doing so will require determined action in the face of inevitable opposition. It will require conveying to the American people why grants of unchecked power do not actually make us safer, and why Americans must stand firm in protecting the values that at our best we have always represented and defended at home and around the world.

It will not be easy to undo eight years of sustained damage to our fundamental rights. But it can be done.

This paper lists many of the actions that the new president should take in order to decisively signal a restoration of American values and a rejection of the shameful policies of the past eight years.

The first year of any new administration is crucial and sets the stage for what will follow. The new President needs to hit the ground running and to make full use of that first crucial year.

We have grouped needed actions into those that the new president should take on day one, in the 100 days and then the first year. Those actions include executive orders as well as mandates or directives from the president to his cabinet secretaries and agency heads.



(go to link for details on each individual item)

PART 1 - DAY ONE
Stop Torture and Abuse
Close Guantánamo and Restore the Rule of Law for Detainees
End and Prohibit the Practice of Extraordinary Rendition

PART 2 -
FIRST 100 DAYS
1. Warrantless spying.
2. Watch lists.
3. Freedom of Information - Ashcroft Doctrine.
4. Monitoring of activists.
5. DOJ's Civil Rights Division.
6. Real ID Act.
7. Abortion gag rule.
8. Ban all workplace discrimination against sexual minorities by the federal government and its contractors.
9. Death penalty.
10. "Faith-based initiatives."

PART 3 - FIRST YEAR RECOMMENDATIONS
Torture and Abuse
Guantánamo
Extraordinary Rendition
Spying on Americans
Monitoring of activists
Real ID Act
Watch lists
Financial watch lists
Employee databases
Secure Flight
Harmonize privacy rules
Civil Liberties Oversight Board
DNA databases
Freedom of Information
FOIA ombudsman
Scientific freedom
Signing statements
Presidential documents
Federal websites
DOJ politicization
Overclassification
Death penalty
Human rights treaties
Mutual Legal Assistance Treaties
'Special Administrative Measures' for prisoners
Prisoner communications
Crack/Powder Sentencing
Medical marijuana
Discrimination against sexual minorities with federal dollars
The Civil Rights Division
Other Agencies' Civil Rights Enforcement
Federal Racial Profiling
Affirmative action
Rights of the disabled
School harassment based on sexual orientation and gender identity
Benefit plans covering domestic partners
Same-sex couples under Medicaid
Discrimination against sexual minorities in adoption and foster care
Discrimination By the Federal Government and Federal Contractors Against People with HIV
Political protest
Media Consolidation
Network neutrality
Online censorship of soldiers
Fleeting expletives
World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO)
The faith-based initiative
Broaden the mandate of the Special Counsel for Religious Discrimination
Local immigration enforcement
Immigration raids
ID theft prosecutions
Deportation to nations that torture
Detention standards
Expedited removal
Board of Immigration Appeals
Single-sex education
Fair housing for domestic violence victims
Discrimination remedies
Home health care workers
Global gag rule on abortion
Abortion restrictions
Emergency contraceptives
Regulations on birth control and religious refusals
Abortion clinic violence
Affordable birth control
The shackling of pregnant prisoners

[midnight]

1. Thank you to the ACLU for being the voice of the people.....

The list should of never been allowed to accumulate such horrific abuses if our elected officials were working for us, and not their biggest spenders.

[siligut]

2. There is hope.

Seeing a list like this really brings into light the insidious way our rights have been stomped on.

I particularly believe this, “It will require conveying to the American people why grants of unchecked power do not actually make us safer, and why Americans must stand firm in protecting the values that at our best we have always represented and defended at home and around the world.”

[jwirr]

3. Very good. Those are the things we need back to once again call

ourselves true Americans.

[jody]

4. How ACLU counts to ten, “1,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10”

ACLU POSITION

Given the reference to "a well regulated Militia" and "the security of a free State," the ACLU has long taken the position that the Second Amendment protects a collective right rather than an individual right. For seven decades, the Supreme Court's 1939 decision in United States v. Miller was widely understood to have endorsed that view.

The Supreme Court has now ruled otherwise. In striking down Washington D.C.'s handgun ban by a 5-4 vote, the Supreme Court's 2008 decision in D.C. v. Heller held for the first time that the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to keep and bear arms, whether or not associated with a state militia.

The ACLU disagrees with the Supreme Court's conclusion about the nature of the right protected by the Second Amendment. We do not, however, take a position on gun control itself. In our view, neither the possession of guns nor the regulation of guns raises a civil liberties issue.

Shameful that ACLU does not support the most basic civil right, that of self-defense that government is obligated to protect as an enumerated right in the Bill of Rights to our Constitution.

[G_j]

5. wait a minute

aren't there millions of privately owned guns in this country?


edit:
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSL2834893820070828

U.S. most armed country with 90 guns per 100 people
Tue Aug 28, 2007 1:57pm EDT

By Laura MacInnis

GENEVA (Reuters) - The United States has 90 guns for every 100 citizens, making it the most heavily armed society in the world, a report released on Tuesday said.

U.S. citizens own 270 million of the world's 875 million known firearms, according to the Small Arms Survey 2007 by the Geneva-based Graduate Institute of International Studies.

About 4.5 million of the 8 million new guns manufactured worldwide each year are purchased in the United States, it said.

"There is roughly one firearm for every seven people worldwide. Without the United States, though, this drops to about one firearm per 10 people," it said.

India had the world's second-largest civilian gun arsenal, with an estimated 46 million firearms outside law enforcement and the military, though this represented just four guns per 100 people there. China, ranked third with 40 million privately held guns, had 3 firearms per 100 people.

Germany, France, Pakistan, Mexico, Brazil and Russia were next in the ranking of country's overall civilian gun arsenals.

..more..

[jody]

7. And your point is? n/t

[G_j]

6. k