DENVER — A harassment charge has been dropped in the case of a 35-year-old Colorado man who faced prosecution for displaying his middle finger to a Colorado State Patrol trooper. The State Patrol said in a statement late Friday that it asked that the case be dropped. The American Civil Liberties Union had argued that while the gesture may be have been rude, it amounted to protected free speech. Read full article > >

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Harassment charge dropped against man who gave Colorado state trooper the finger

The American Civil Liberties Union has taken up the cause of a Maryland man who was forced to cough up his Facebook password during a job interview with the Department of Corrections in that state.  According to an ACLU letter sent to the Maryland Department of Corrections , the organization requires that new applicants and those applying for recertifications give the government “their social media account usernames and personal passwords for use in employee background checks.” The ACLU calls this policy “a frightening and illegal invasion of privacy” and I can’t say that I disagree. Keep in mind that this isn’t looking at what you’ve posted to a public Twitter account; the government agency here could look through private Facebook messages, which seems a lot like reading through your mail, paper or digital. While it’s not surprising that some employers might want to snoop in your social media life, it strikes me as a remarkable misapprehension of what Facebook is to think that it should be wholly open for background investigations. Legally, things are probably more complex, but it seems commonsensical that carte blanche access to your communications should be off-limits. The case also shows a downside to Facebook’s scale. It stands to reason that the bigger they get, the more that employers and others concerned with the age-old enterprise of covering their asses will feel the need to know what their employees are up to on the service. That alone isn’t going to derail the Facebook juggernaut, but it might slow down people’s engagement on the site as they realize maybe a private, unknown email account is a better way of sending sensitive messages. Here’s the Maryland man, Officer Robert Collins, describing what happened in his specific case.

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Should Employers Be Allowed to Ask for Your Facebook Login?

The American Civil Liberties Union says new documents show “unjustified homicide” of detainees and raise concerns about conditions at U.S.-run prisons in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay.

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ACLU: Unjustified homicide of detainees

The American Civil Liberties Union says new documents show “unjustified homicide” of detainees and raise concerns about conditions at U.S.-run prisons in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay.

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ACLU: Unjustified homicide of detainees

A decorated flight nurse who had been dismissed under the “don’t ask, don’t tell” military policy, will be reinstated with the U.S. Air Force, the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington announced Tuesday.

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Major reinstated after ‘don’t ask’ ouster