ACLU of Oregon

The Constitution Doesn't Allow Businesses to Discriminate

Submitted by ACLU of Oregon on August 29, 2016 - 4:26pm

by Mat dos Santos, Legal Director

No one should be turned away from a business just because of who they are. When Sweet Cakes co-owner Aaron Klein refused to make a wedding cake for a lesbian couple, he broke Oregon anti-discrimination laws. Discrimination is degrading, and harms not only the individual or targeted group, but society as a whole. Our state has a long-standing tradition of protecting people from businesses that discriminate because Oregonians value fairness and equality.

sign that reads open for business open for all;

And let’s be real, selling a wedding cake doesn’t mean a business owner is endorsing a marriage, or agreeing with everything the customer believes. It simply means they are providing services to the public, and that their business is open to everyone on the same terms. For many of us, this is just the Golden Rule — treating others as we would like to be treated — but, it is also required by law in Oregon and elsewhere.

The Kleins have argued that they should be able to discriminate against same-sex couples and, presumably, anyone else their personal religion disfavors. They say that some of our most fundamental freedoms, the freedoms of speech and religion, give them a license to discriminate.

Freedom of religion and freedom of speech are fundamental rights protected by the Oregon and federal constitutions. But those freedoms don’t allow any of us to harm others.

Oregon Motorcyclist Scores a Win in Discrimination Case

motorcyclists August 19, 2016 - For 14 years, Ron Godwin worked as the chaplain, religious services coordinator, and volunteer coordinator at the Rogue Valley Youth Correctional Facility (RVYCF) in Grants Pass. Ron loved his work and was deeply appreciated by the youth he served, the volunteers he worked with, and his coworkers.

By all accounts, he was a fantastic employee. Ron even received an award for his excellent service, which described him as “the glue” that held the facility together. However, three months later, he was abruptly suspended after being seen riding his motorcycle with members of the Vagos Motorcyle Club and wearing their logo on his jacket. After a brief investigation, the Oregon Youth Authority fired him.

Freedom of speech and association for government employees is an important right protected by the First Amendment. A public employee cannot be fired because he spends his hours outside of the work environment associating with a certain group unless this association is disruptive to the workplace. In Ron’s case, he was fired because of his lawful expression and association related to the Vagos motorcycle club. Nothing suggested his activities did, or were even likely to, disrupt his work.

New Laws Target and Punish the Poor in Oregon

Submitted by ACLU of Oregon on July 27, 2016 - 2:20pm

By Heather Marek, Legal Intern

person with sign In recent years, poverty and homelessness have deepened throughout the country, and Oregon has not been immune. According to HUD, between 2014 and 2015, the number of homeless Oregonians increased nine percent, the third highest increase nationwide. In that same time, Oregon experienced the largest growth of any state in its chronically homeless population: sixty percent. Due to a severe shortage of affordable housing and the high number of residents with no place to call home, Oregon cities including Eugene and Portland have declared a housing and homelessness “state of emergency”.

In Oregon and elsewhere, the response to this crisis has been to further criminalize homelessness, making it against the law to engage in basic life-sustaining activities. Between 2011 and 2014, there was a spike in the number of cities nationwide that outlawed camping (60 percent), sleeping in vehicles (119 percent), sitting or lying down in particular places (43 percent), begging (25 percent), and loitering and vagrancy (35 percent). These laws have been the focus of national and international scrutiny, receiving condemnation by the U.S. Department of Justice, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, and the UN Human Rights Committee.

Anti-Immigrant Ballot Measures Fail to Qualify in Oregon

Submitted by ACLU of Oregon on July 19, 2016 - 4:56pm

By David Rogers, Executive Director

'immigrant rights are civil rights' sign Earlier this year, I told you that we were fighting three anti-immigrant ballot initiatives that were the work of the extremist group, Oregonians for Immigration Reform (OFIR,) and their allies. Today, I am happy to tell you that all three measures failed to qualify for the 2016 ballot.

However, our work is not over. OFIR has vowed to return next election cycle with their anti-immigrant agenda. Through their deep ties to white nationalist groups and funders, OFIR will continue to target immigrant families in Oregon.

First Appeals Court Hearing to Address Mass Surveillance

ACLU Challenges Warrantless "Backdoor" Searches

July 6, 2016 - For the first time, a federal appeals court heard oral argument on the merits in a case challenging the NSA’s warrantless surveillance of Americans’ international communications conducted under Section 702 of FISA, which allows the NSA to engage in warrantless surveillance of Americans who communicate with tens of thousands of targets located abroad.

In 2012, Mohammed Mohamud, a Somalia-born naturalized U.S. citizen, was convicted of plotting to bomb a Christmas tree lighting ceremony in Portland, Oregon. After his conviction, the government belatedly notified Mohamud that it had relied on Section 702 surveillance to obtain his communications without a warrant in the course of its investigation. Mohamud argued that the resulting evidence should have been suppressed and asked for a new trial. His challenge to the surveillance is now on appeal.

The American Civil Liberties Union, American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation have filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the case, U.S. v. Mohamud, and were granted time to argue at the hearing today.

#BlackLivesMatter Tracked by Oregon DOJ with Social Media Monitoring Software

Submitted by ACLU of Oregon on May 4, 2016 - 1:31pm

by Kimberly McCullough, Legislative Director

privacy and tech image As we’ve previously written about, analysts at the Oregon Department of Justice (DOJ) used a tool called Digital Stakeout to surveil people who used over 30 hashtags on social media, including #BlackLivesMatter and #fuckthepolice. Erious Johnson, director of the Oregon DOJ’s own Department of Civil Rights, was scooped up in this illegal dragnet and targeted for a threat assessment which included a review of hundreds of his personal tweets; a memo to Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum flagging him as a potential threat to law enforcement; and an internal investigation into the matter which found that the search was “not in compliance” with state law and revealed a culture of self-reinforcing bias in the Criminal Justice Division of the Oregon DOJ.

Today, I want to take a closer look at Digital Stakeout, the tool the DOJ used to conduct these searches. Digital Stakeout is social media monitoring software (SMMS) that can be used to covertly monitor, collect, and analyze our social media data from Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc. It is part of a rapidly expanding industry that the public knows little about. The goal here is to answer a few basic questions about SMMS: What can the technology do? How widespread is the use of SMMS by law enforcement in Oregon? What privacy concerns does it raise? And how we can protect free speech and privacy moving forward?