We need checks on the government’s power -- we needed them when the country was founded, and we need them now -- because the government can and frequently does get it wrong.  And, when the government mistakenly marshals its resources against an individual, it can cause great harm.  That’s why we have a Bill of Rights and why, in particular, we generally require the government to comply with due process before depriving a person of his or her liberty or property.

So it’s no surprise that a federal judge recently ruled with the ACLU of Southern California and against the Orange County District Attorney’s lawless attempt to enforce an anti-gang injunction against individuals who had not been provided the opportunity to prove that the government got it wrong in labeling them gang members. The L.A. Times agreed with us, as well, in its May 29^th editorial on the topic:

May 29, 2011

Earlier this month, a federal judge put the brakes on Orange County Dist. Atty. Tony Rackauckas' reckless attempt to enforce an anti-gang injunction against dozens of men and women who never had the opportunity to challenge his designation of them as gang members.

A judge has ruled that the Veterans Administration violated the First Amendment rights of a veteran who protested the agency’s failure to use part of its West Los Angeles property for the benefit of homeless veterans, it was reported on Friday.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in downtown Los Angeles last year on behalf of Robert Rosebrock.
The 68-year-old Vietnam vet has protested the VA’s land-use policies every Sunday since 2008, along with other veterans.
During the protests, Rosebrock displays the American flag upside down on a fence outside the VA property to protest the proposed conversion of a chunk of the land to a public park.
Police demanded that he remove the flag, and when Rosebrock refused, the police took it down. Previously, VA police had allowed Rosebrock to display the flag right side up at the same site, according to the ACLU.
“Hanging the flag upside down was an important and necessary message for Mr. Rosebrock,” said Peter Eliasberg, the ACLU/SC’s legal director. “He fought to defend the First Amendment, and the court decided correctly that the very right he fought for was violated.”
U.S. District Judge S. James Otero issued his written ruling on Thursday.
A call for comment to a VA spokesman in Washington, D.C., was not immediately returned.
Eliasberg said that for 66 weeks in a row, Rosebrock hung the flag right side up without any interference from the VA police.
However, after he started hanging the flag upside down in June 2009, he was quickly cited six times for “unauthorized demonstration or service in a national cemetery or on other VA property,” according to the ACLU.
Rosebrock also received an e-mail from Lynn Carrier, associate director of the Veterans Administration Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System, which said in part that he and his fellow demonstrators “may not attach the American flag, upside down, in VA property including our perimeter gates.”
The VA eventually dismissed the citations against Rosebrock, but the action of the VA police in removing a flag that Rosebrock had hung upside down made clear the agency’s unconstitutional policy of denying him his free speech rights, Eliasberg said.
http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2011/05/27/judge-backs-war-vets-upside-do...