LOS ANGELES - A U.S. District Court has granted the ACLU of Southern California's motion for summary judgement and held that the presence of the Mojave Desert Cross, a religious symbol, on federal land violated the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

"This is a huge victory not only for the ACLU but also for the First Amendment," said Peter Eliasberg, staff attorney with the ACLU/SC. "Government should not be in the business of advancing one particular religion over another or denigrating one religion or another. Time and time again the courts have held that erecting a permanent religious fixture on federal land violates the United States Constitution. The violation is even plainer here, where the government refused a citizen's request to erect a symbol of another religion in the same area where the Mojave Cross stands."

The Mojave Desert Cross sits on a federal land preserve in southeastern California between the cities of Barstow, California and Las Vegas, Nevada. The preserve encompasses roughly 1.6 million acres of the Mojave Desert. The cross itself is located in a section of the preserve known as Sunrise Rock.

The National Park Service (NPS), the agency that is charged with maintaining the cross, has been on notice about First Amendment violations since 1999 when the ACLU/SC sent a letter threatening legal action if the cross was not removed. In December of 2000, the U.S. House of Representatives added a rider to an appropriations bill that prevented the use of federal funds to remove the cross.

"This is a clear cut First Amendment issue," said Peter Eliasberg. "The display of this cross on federal land is in violation of the Constitution and no amount of maneuvering or grandstanding on the part of Congress will change that."

LOS ANGELES -- In an open letter, the California affiliates of the ACLU are urging State Attorney General Bill Lockyer to take "immediate steps to ensure that intelligence-gathering practices carried out in this state - whether by state, local or federal law enforcement officers - fully respect Californians' state constitutional right to privacy."

The letter comes in the wake of U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft's May 30th announcement that FBI guidelines designed decades ago to prevent abusive and inappropriate intelligence gathering practices were being significantly loosened. The letter was signed by the executive directors of all three California ACLU affiliates, representing 50,000 members statewide. The ACLU states in the letter that some of the practices now permitted under Ashcroft's new federal guidelines violate the right to privacy clause inserted by California voters into the state constitution in 1972.

"In short, California has drawn a line with respect to privacy, political and associational rights that government must not cross even with the best of intentions. Yet, some of the intelligence practices now openly encouraged by the new federal guidelines cross that long-standing state line," the letter says.

The federal government's greatly expanded intelligence operations include Joint Terrorism Task Forces throughout California that include state and local officers working closely with the FBI. The letter explains that officers working with the FBI on these joint operations "deserve immediate warning that state law - not Attorney General Ashcroft - defines what conduct is permissible within California."

"In these uncertain times it is of utmost importance that there be no confusion over potential conflicts between state and federal law," said Ramona Ripston, executive director of the ACLU/SC. "The privacy rights of Californians must be protected; we cannot afford a return to the days when the FBI collected dossiers on thousands of Americans, among them the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., for doing nothing more than expressing their displeasure at government policies."