News & Commentary

We are disappointed. In its one sentence order denying the TRO, the Court has failed to grapple with the substantive free speech and free association issues involved in the closure of web sites devoted to matching like-minded voters with one another for the purpose of discussing politics and voting strategies. California's Secretary of State, Bill Jones, has taken action that could threaten our ability to exercise our Constitutionally guaranteed freedoms on the Internet - action with potentially profound implications for the future of democratic discourse.

LOS ANGELES - The ACLU affiliates of Southern California and San Diego announced today that they will seek a temporary restraining order against California Secretary of State Bill Jones, who threatened criminal prosecution against a voter discussion and strategizing web site called Voteswap 2000. As a result of a letter Jones sent to Voteswap, that web site and two others, including the plaintiff votexchange2000.com, decided to shut down this week rather than run the risk of being prosecuted. The ACLU is also filing the lawsuit on behalf of a prospective voter. The National Voting Rights Institute joins the ACLU as co-counsel in the case.

LOS ANGELES - The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California filed motions today in defense of tenant activists at Lincoln Place, a 795-unit affordable housing complex in Venice, who are being sued by the development companies that own their apartments. Tenants include seniors on fixed incomes, working families, and children. The tenants have been engaged since 1987 in a struggle to stop evictions and to preserve their homes from the owners' plans to demolish them and turn them into condominiums and townhouses. The owners claim that the tenants intentionally interfered with their economic advantage. The ACLU of Southern California maintains that tenants were engaged in Constitutionally protected activities, and that the landlords are seeking to chill their tenants' freedom of speech.

LOS ANGELES - The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California succeeded this week in persuading the National Park Service to respect religious diversity and the separation of church and state on federal land in San Bernardino County, California and to remove a permanent cross over 8 feet tall from the Mojave National Preserve. The cross was plainly visible from the road that runs through the preserve, and the site was not open as a forum forany other form of religious expression, or other speech. The decision on the part of the National Park Service came after months of negotiation with the ACLU of Southern California, culminating in the threat of a lawsuit.

LOS ANGELES - The ACLU of Southern California filed a friend of the court brief on behalf of attorney Tony Capozzola, who represents Marie Elise West, in People v. West. Ms. West is charged with murder and hate crimes after allegedly using her car to run down and kill a Latino man in Van Nuys earlier this year. The gag order prevents Capozzola from discussing the case or related issues with the media.

On Sunday afternoon, the LAPD yet again trampled on the free speech rights of peaceful protesters, legal observers, and journalists at a demonstration of over 1,000 people held at LAPD headquarters in downtown Los Angeles. Ironically, the demonstration was against police brutality. Instead of dealing with the handful of individuals engaged in illegal behavior, the LAPD attacked indiscriminately. The police - who did not declare an unlawful assembly - intervened with a heavy hand and without warning, on horseback and in riot gear, dispersing the crowd by indiscriminately using batons and shooting rubber bullets. Two people who were wearing the brightly colored, clearly marked hats of official legal observers were standing on a public sidewalk when they were rammed by two officers on motorcycles.

LOS ANGELES - In a ringing endorsement of free speech, a federal court judge today made clear that he would issue a preliminary injunction enjoining enforcement of Los Angeles Municipal Code �_ 80.75, which prohibits placing "For Sale" signs in cars parked on Los Angeles city streets. The ruling came in a case brought by the ACLU of Southern California in June 2000 on behalf of Edward Burkow, a man who was fined by the City of Los Angeles in September of 1999 for placing a "For Sale" sign in his white Volkswagen while it was parked on a city street.

LOS ANGELES - Community leaders from the African American community, the Latino community, the disability rights community, the Jewish community, and the civil rights community gathered today at the ACLU of Southern California to debunk the underlying premise of Proposition 38 - that it will help solve the problem of inequality in California schools.

LOS ANGELES 'The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California has received notice from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that it succeeded in challenging the retroactive application of a Prison Litigation Reform Act provision in Chappell v. Dickerson, a civil rights case brought by an inmate at the notorious Corcoran State Prison. The prisoner, Rex Chappell, sued for violation of his constitutional rights and psychological injury after he was deliberately placed in danger by a Corcoran prison guard. The Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA), which became law in 1997, restricts prisoners' civil rights lawsuits for psychological injury to those in which a prisoner can show physical injury.