:: NEWS COCKTAIL aka BlahBlahBlog ::
"Everything is being compressed into tiny tablets. You take a little pill of news every day - 23 minutes - and that's supposed to be enough." -Walter Cronkite, RE TV news. The Web has changed that for many, however, and here is an extra dose for your daily news cocktail. This prescription tends to include surveillance and now war-related links, along with the occasional pop culture junk and whatever else seizes my attention as I scan online news sites.:: 7.31.2004 ::
:: "A.C.L.U. Board Is Split Over Terror Watch Lists" ::
From The New York Times
via The Lakeland Ledger
By ADAM LIPTAK
The American Civil Liberties Union is in turmoil over a promise it made to the government that it would not knowingly hire people whose names appear on watch lists of suspected supporters of terrorism. Those lists are the very type it has strongly opposed in other contexts.
In April, for instance, the group filed suit to block the use of "no fly" lists of people barred from air travel or subject to heightened scrutiny, saying the lists were often inaccurate and violated the constitutional rights of some people.
The group made the promise not to employ people it knew to be on similar terrorism lists so that it could continue participating in a program that allows federal employees to make charitable contributions through payroll deductions.
That promise, several members of the A.C.L.U. board said, is at odds with the group's core principles and calls to mind an episode in 1940, when the board passed a resolution purging its staff of people who supported communism. With that history in mind, A.C.L.U. officials said, they had made the commitment in name only and did not intend to consult the lists.
"We oppose 'no fly' lists," said Michael Meyers, a member of the group's executive committee. "Now we have a 'no hire' list that we've signed onto. We're in the midst of an organizational cultural crisis of enormous size."
Read more here.
posted by me
:: 8:07:00 PM [+] ::
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