Labor Day, an American tradition since 1894, celebrates the worker by giving all of us a day of rest.  Not all workers are treated equally under the law however.  Pay discrimination is still a persistent problem in the United States.  The statistics nationally are that women make on average 77 cents for every dollar a man makes.  Not just women, but everyone in a woman worker's household, suffers from these lost wages.  Let's celebrate Labor Day by dedicating ourselv | continue reading

Kudos to reporter Mal Leary of Capitol News Service for uncovering a query from a finance company to the Bureau of Consumer Credit Protection asking advice about placing GPS devices in financed vehicles.  The good news is that Maine state legislators from both sides of the aisle -- Democrat Elizabeth Schneider and Republican Chris Rector -- agree with the MCLU that this practice violates our fundamental right to privacy. | continue reading

Yesterday I toured the Maine Correctional Center, meeting with center administrators, medical staff and prisoners for a total three and a half hours.  Superintendent Scott Burnheimer and his staff were really great in taking the time to explain all aspects of the program, and they led us on a tour that included all areas of the prison.  This is part of an MCLU effort to visit all Maine’s state prison facilities and some of the jails over the next  couple of months to increase our understanding of con | continue reading

On Friday, I went to the Maine State Prison to meet with the prisoners who are members of the NAACP Prison Chapter.  The NAACP Prison Chapter is a well-organized, well-run group with over fifty members who asked me thoughtful questions over an hour and a half of questioning about prisoners' rights, the law, and possibilities of reform.  Prisoners spoke of being maced and then not given showers for days.  They spoke of being prescribed medication by a prison doctor but then deni | continue reading

We are celebrating at the MCLU offices today! A federal judge just ruled that Proposition 8, the California ballot initiative banning same-sex couples from marriage, violates the United States Constitution. You can read the decision here:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/35374462/Prop-8-Ruling-FINAL | continue reading

A very important case filed by the national ACLU and the Center for Constitutional Rights today.

Rights Groups File Lawsuit To Allow Challenge To Targeted Killing Without Due Process - | continue reading

Yesterday was a full day for the MCLU.  In the morning, we joined 28 other states andWashington, DC in filing a Freedom of Information Act request to the FBI to learn more about racial and ethnic mapping by the agency.  Then, in the evening, we were at the Portland Planning Board to secure final approval for our clients, a group of Afghan Muslims, to be able to have a masjid in the city of Portland.  The MCLU's work to protect racial and religous diversity encompasses both national and local issues.
| continue reading

Today's disclosure of 92,000 pages of documents from the war in Afghanistan could be a watershed moment in the nine-year old war, if people and our elected officials take the time to read the documents.  The reports show in detail, for example, what the New York Times calls the "omnipresence of drones in Afghanistan, the Air Force’s missile-toting Predators and Reapers that hunt militants."  The documents go on to describe incidents in which civilian | continue reading