Big Brother: Government-Run Middle School Forces Kids to Scan Their Fingerprints

Scanning students’ fingers hits a nerve
Biometric data for school cafeteria raises privacy issue
THELMA GUERREROStatesman Journal
October 24, 2007
With the federal government lagging behind on its plans to implement the use of electronic passports, identification cards and driver’s licenses, biometric vendors are targeting a new market: schools.
But the use of biometric technology in schools, such as a system being used by Stayton Middle School’s cafeteria, has some parents and privacy advocates condemning the move as outright Orwellian.
“This is biometric data collecting,” said Jann Carson, the associate director of the American Civil Liberties Union in Portland. “It’s the ‘Big Brother’ theory. The last thing we should do is teach parents and their young children to be casual about turning over personal data, like a fingerprint, just for the sake of speeding up a lunch line.”
Feeling the lunchtime crunch, Stayton Middle School administrators last month installed a finger-scanning system to help expedite the cafeteria meal line.
To implement the new lunch account system, students’ prints were scanned into a scanner to help identify them.
Jack Adams, the superintendent of the North Santiam School District, said the system does not take a student’s actual fingerprint.
“It’s a string, not a fingerprint,” Adams said. “It’s three mathematical pieces of information taken from a student’s finger. It’s stored on the school computer and can’t be used in any other way.”
But some parents are opposed to the finger-scanning of minors in schools. They say they’re concerned that the prints their children register with the school could be stolen, misplaced or used for a form of fraud that hasn’t even been invented.
Britta Hamshar of Stayton is one of those parents.
When Hamshar’s 10-year-old daughter came home from school Sept. 24 and said she had been fingerprinted for the cafeteria’s new account system, the mother was angry.
“They say it’s not a fingerprint, but it is,” Hamshar said. “I don’t know that hackers won’t be able to steal my daughter’s fingerprints in the future.”
Keith Butler, the district’s director of technology, has heard the complaints.
“Some of the parents are worried the government will be able to access their kids’ prints,” Butler said. “But what they don’t realize is that the actual image of the fingerprint is discarded and all that’s used is a number.”
The middle school’s new scanner plots points on a fingerprint and then converts those points to an encrypted number, he explained.
That number is used to verify a student’s account, he added.
Rather than using an ID card, entering a pin number or paying cash, students simply press their finger or thumb on an infrared scanner to be matched to their lunch account.
School officials say the new system saves time for the cashiers because they don’t have to write everything down and can just push a button if a child forgets his or her lunch money for the day.
They also say the system allows parents to pre-pay for student lunches and gives privacy to students who receive free or reduced meals.
But critics say that while the scanners may help improve the efficiency of a school cafeteria, it still is an ink-less way of collecting fingerprints.
Steve Moon, the marketing director of MealTime, a Portland firm that sold the finger-scanning system to the school, rejects that argument.
“All those fears and concerns are based on misinformation,” Moon said. “The data can’t be used to re-create a fingerprint or by police to identify a student.”
It’s not known how many schools in Oregon use the finger-scanning system because the federal government does not require school districts to report their use, an official with the Oregon School Board Association said.
But Moon estimates that MealTime has sold the system to at least 60 to 70 schools in Oregon.
Lillie Coney, meanwhile, says she’s concerned that biometric vendors are using semantics to convince schools that a person’s fingerprint image is stored as mathematical points only.
“All biometrics are mathematical points,” said Coney, an associate director with the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a research group in Washington, D.C., that focuses public attention on emerging civil liberties and privacy issues.
“Now we’re seeing schools use the language of marketers who sell this type of technology to convince parents there’s nothing to worry about,” she said. “Schools should be skeptical of an industry that creates this technology and which then says the data can’t be used in other ways.”
Stayton Middle School’s data is kept on a self-contained database at the district office, Butler said.
However, Coney worries that with technological advances, someone could use the information in five or 10 years to recreate a child’s fingerprints.
“In the final analysis, the print information collected from these students is only as secure as the database in which that information is stored,” Coney said. “And no database is immune from attackers.”

http://www.statesmanjournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071024/NEWS/710240447

City hall accuses Christians of politics

City hall accuses Christians of politics

Honors Buddha but fights back against faithful
Posted: October 23, 20071:00 a.m. Eastern
© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com
One of the religious Buddhist cloth paintings displayed in Bloomington city hall
The city attorney in Bloomington, Ind., has accused a group of Christians of using their beliefs as a “political tool” for next month’s city elections.
City attorney Kevin Robling told WRTV in Indianapolis he thought it was a “shame” for the Christians, who objected to the city’s promotion of Buddhist religious articles without any balancing Christian items, to act this way.
“We’ve got an election in 18 days,” he told the station. “I think what you’ve got is a group of people who are using their religion as a political tool.”
However, he did not explain how such beliefs could be converted into a “political tool” or create a political impact, nor did he get agreement from the Christians, who have objected to the city’s promotion of the Buddhist display as part of its publicity for a coming visit from the Dali Lama.
The group of Christians last week, as WND reported, took a stone sculpture of the 10 Commandments to city hall and placed them there in order to include Christianity with Buddhism in the religious beliefs being promoted by the city.
City officials took them down immediately, describing that act as a violation of the First Amendment, because the Christians did not have permission to place the limestone sculpture there. They also described the Buddhism display as art and culture, not religion.
Indianapolis resident Shirley Douglas told the station the Buddhist display is “totally religious in nature.” And a lawyer who has offered the group preliminary guidance said an option would be for the group to ask the city to provide the same accommodations for Christian information as it provided for Buddhism, and see the results.
Bloomington Mayor Mark Kruzan
A WND request for comment from Mayor Mark Kruzan wasn’t returned.
But Amy Bernitt, one of the group objecting to the Buddhist display, told WND the group would review their advice and decide soon how to proceed, because they don’t have any inclination to let the issue drop.
“We clearly feel that we’re being discriminated against. We clearly feel that the city is breaking the First Amendment promoting one religion over another,” she said.
The lawyer, who is affiliated with the Alliance Defense Fund, told WND that while she is not formally representing the group at this time, her advice has been to make a request for the same public display of Christian items as that given to Buddhism.
“Something in keeping with what the city allowed the Tibetan Cultural Center to do,” she said, noting that with the display, it appears the city has opened a “limited public forum” and now is not allowed to discriminate against any religion.
A city official told the Christians that she had decided the items were art, not religious, as part of the city’s rejection last week of the request for equal time for Christian symbols and representations.
The dispute arose over a display of Buddhist items in Bloomington city hall. The 10 Commandments tablets were delivered and set up by a volunteer team of Christians after city officials refused to respond to the group’s multiple telephone and e-mail requests about the procedure used to erect the Buddhist display.
At the installation of the Christian symbol, according to the local Herald Times newspaper, Jim Billingsley read a statement explaining what was going on.
“These commandments are our symbol of peace, and we want to include them with the city’s display to promote religious enlightenment. We want to be clear that we do not agree with the ideology of the Dalai Lama or Buddhist beliefs – we are Christians and believe in one God, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,” he said.
Deputy Mayor James McNamara was in attendance, but declined to participate, telling Bernitt he had been assigned to observe the situation.
He denied the city promotes one religion over another, saying instead the display of the statues of Buddha and the other religious artifacts are, in fact, “cultural.”
Bernitt said the Ten Commandments also are cultural, and artistic, since they were carved from limestone, for which the Bloomington area is famous.
Kruzan earlier told the newspaper the Ten Commandments weren’t being allowed because the installation “followed no process and does not constitute a work of art.”
In his announcement promoting the Buddhist display, Kruzan said there would be a ceremony “with His Holiness, the 14th Dalai Lama” at the Tibetan Cultural Center.
“We look forward to His Holiness’ visit and this special ribbon cutting event, which will be open to the public,” he said.
The display, according to the city, features photographs and craftwork of Tibet. “Also on exhibit are religious cloth paintings or thangkas and photographic scrolls featuring images of Tibet,” the city said.
There also is a “Peace Tree” in city hall, where the public “is invited to write their ‘peace wishes’ on the paper strips and tie them to the tree branches,” the city announcement said.
The Christians simply said that those actions opened the door to all religious materials, and their beliefs have just as much right to space in city hall as the Dalai Lama’s.
Michael Douglas, a pastor at Pentecostal Faith Assembly, told the newspaper he wants an equal voice for his beliefs. “He (Dalai Lama) lost his voice in his country, (we) don’t want to lose our voice in our country,” he said.
In an e-mail, Billingsley told WND that in addition to the promotional display about Buddhism, the city is placing Dalai Lama banners on city street poles and publishing articles about the philosophy of Buddhism in a city funded magazine.
He said the installation ceremony for the Ten Commandments was brief.
“I read a brief statement on the importance of the Ten Commandments being the bedrock on which our city and nation’s cultural and legal foundations stand,” he wrote. “We then proceeded to take two stone tablets of the Ten Commandments (each about 2 ft. tall and 1 ft. wide) and a table inside city hall and placed them right in front of the city’s religious display of Buddhism.”
“Shortly after we left, the city had the Ten Commandments removed. There is an obvious endorsement of one religion, and the deliberate exclusion of another going on here by Bloomington’s city government,” he said.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=58285

Illegal Alien’s DUI sentencing questioned by liberal ACLU

Alien’s DUI sentencing questioned
Friday, October 5, 2007
By Steven Hepker%%par%% shepker@citpat.com — 768-4923%%par%%
When police stopped Luis Gonzalez-Mireles for drunken driving Dec. 18, his blood-alcohol level was more than twice the legal limit.
His arrest and conviction were unremarkable, but his sentence and resulting appeal were rare for Jackson County.
A team of lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union on Thursday asked a Circuit Court judge to, essentially, invalidate his 93-day jail sentence. Defense attorneys contend District Judge Joseph Filip unfairly penalized the 21-year-old Ann Arbor man as an “undocumented” alien.
Assistant Prosecutor Jerrold Schrotenboer said judges have latitude in sentencing based on past criminal acts, and thumbing one’s nose at immigration laws for seven years is an illegal act.
Circuit Judge Chad Schmucker said he would rule on the appeal in three or four weeks. If his comments Thursday are any indication, Schmucker seemed to indicate the three-month sentence was out of whack for the misdemeanor.
“I have never seen where a first-time offender got the maximum,” Schmucker said. “Nobody gets any time for first-time offenses, do they?”
Both prosecutors and the probation department recommended no jail time at sentencing May 17. But Filip, citing years of living as an illegal alien, sentenced Gonzalez-Mireles to 93 days on his guilty plea.
Michael Steinberg, an ACLU attorney, said Filip showed a bias against illegal aliens, sentencing Gonzalez-Mireles on a potential federal violation rather than on the drunken-driving misdemeanor.
He asked Schmucker to remand the case back to District Court for a proportionate re-sentencing.
“It must go before another judge,” Steinberg said.
Schrotenboer said that if Schmucker decides the penalty was too harsh, he should send it back to Filip with an order to make the sentence fit the crime. Judges should trust that other judges will follow court orders, Schrotenboer said.
On June 19, acting on a motion, Schmucker issued a bond allowing Gonzalez-Mireles out of jail. Some type of action against the defendant at the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service is pending, officials said.

http://www.mlive.com/news/citpat/index.ssf?/base/news-22/1191593130156880.xml&coll=3

US Supreme Court to Hear Voter ID Case

Supreme Court to Hear Voter ID Case
Tuesday, September 25, 2007 10:46 AM
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to decide whether voter identification laws unfairly deter poor and minority Americans from voting, stepping into a contentious partisan issue in advance of the 2008 elections.
The justices will hear arguments early next year in a challenge to an Indiana law that requires voters to present photo ID before casting their ballots. The state has defended the law as a way to combat voter fraud.
The state Democratic party and civil rights groups complained that the law unfairly targets poor and minority voters, without any evidence that in-person voter fraud exists in Indiana.
Courts have upheld voter ID laws in Arizona and Michigan, but struck down Missouri’s. In June, the Georgia Supreme Court threw out a challenge to that state’s voter ID law but sidestepped a decision on whether the requirement was constitutional.
The Indiana law enacted in 2005 was upheld by a federal judge and by the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago. Before the law’s passage, an Indiana voter had only to sign a poll book at the polling place, where a photo copy of the voter’s signature was kept on file for comparison.
“The purpose of the Indiana law is to reduce voting fraud, and voting fraud impairs the right of legitimate voters to vote by diluting their votes,” Judge Richard Posner said in his majority opinion.
But in a dissent, Judge Terence Evans said, “Let’s not beat around the bush. The Indiana voter photo ID law is a not-too-thinly veiled attempt to discourage election-day turnout by folks believed to skew Democratic.”
The voter ID challenge was among 17 new cases accepted by the court in advance of the start of its new term on Monday.
The cases are Crawford v. Marion County Election Board, 07-21, and Indiana Democratic Party v. Rokita, 07-25.

http://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/supreme_court_voter_ID/2007/09/25/35460.html

Federal Judge says Ten Commandments Display Can Stay at Courthouse Despite ACLU’s Challenge

Judge: Ten Commandments Display Can Stay
Wednesday, September 19, 2007 7:56 PM
PIKEVILLE, Ky. — A courthouse display featuring the Ten Commandments can stay, a federal judge ruled, rejecting arguments that it endorses religion in violation of the constitution.
The “Foundations of American Law and Government” exhibit at the little-used Rowan County Fiscal Court in the rural, eastern Kentucky town of Morehead came under fire in 2001, when the American Civil Liberties Union’s state chapter sued.
The display also includes the Mayflower compact, the Declaration of Independence, the Magna Carta and the Bill of Rights. The ACLU argued the display amounted to state-sponsored religion.
In his ruling released Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Karl Forester said the display “does not have the effect of endorsing religion.” He cited a virtually identical display in Mercer County that was upheld by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
In the Morehead case, the ACLU sued Rowan County in 2001, more than two years after the Ten Commandments were posted with the other documents in the Fiscal Court.
Mathew Staver, founder of Liberty Counsel, a conservative legal defense organization based in Orlando, Fla., called Forester’s ruling part of a trend.
“The tide is turning against the ACLU’s war on the Ten Commandments,” Staver said in a statement Wednesday. “Courts are returning to common sense recognition of the historical role of the Ten Commandments and its influence on American law.”
David Friedman, general counsel for ACLU of Kentucky, said the courts are charged with the tricky task of determining whether government displays of the Ten Commandments are for secular, educational purposes or for promoting religion.
“On the ground, everyone knows what’s going on: (County officials) want to put the Ten Commandments up,” Friedman said. But “proving that is hard.”

http://newsmax.com/us/ten_commandments/2007/09/19/34085.html

ACLU, Muslims Sue FBI Over Records

ACLU, Muslims Sue FBI Over Records
Sep 18 07:48 PM US/EasternBy GILLIAN FLACCUSAssociated Press Writer
SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) – The ACLU and Muslim advocacy groups sued the FBI and the Justice Department on Tuesday, alleging that authorities failed to turn over records detailing suspected surveillance of the Muslim-American community.
The complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana, alleges that the FBI has turned over only four pages of documents to community leaders, despite a Freedom of Information Act request filed more than a year ago.
The request sought records that described FBI guidelines and policies for surveillance and investigation of Muslim religious organizations, as well as specific information about FBI inquiries targeting 11 groups or people.
The lawsuit states that all the plaintiffs—who include some of the most prominent Muslim leaders in California—have reason to believe they have been investigated by the FBI since January 2001.
“It sends a message that Muslim-Americans have been, and continue to be, cooperating with law enforcement, but they’re concerned there might be a disproportionate focus … on their religious practices,” said Ranjana Natarajan, an ACLU attorney.
One plaintiff, Shakeel Syed, said that his organization and others have spent three years building a relationship with the FBI but that the agency’s resistance to the request was troubling.
“I think it is in the best interests of the government to come clean and be transparent and forthright,” said Syed, executive director of the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California. “This is a credibility issue.”
FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller said she could not comment on pending litigation but released a statement from J. Stephen Tidwell, the FBI’s assistant director in charge for Los Angeles.
“The FBI does not investigate individuals or groups based on their lawful activities, religious or political beliefs,” Tidwell said.
A message left for the Department of Justice after business hours was not returned.
The groups filed an initial FOIA request in May 2006, several months after federal law enforcement officials confirmed the existence of a classified radiation monitoring program used in surveillance at mosques, homes and businesses.
The FBI responded to the request first by saying it couldn’t identify any records that met the criteria requested. After an appeal, the agency turned over four pages that dealt with the Council of American- Islamic Relations and Hussam Ayloush, the council’s executive director for Southern California.
Those documents dealt with a suspected hate crime at a mosque that the council had reported to the FBI and a conversation Ayloush had with an FBI agent about cooperating with federal law enforcers, Natarajan said.
She said she believes there are many more records because each plaintiff has been interviewed by the FBI or stopped at airports for questioning. The FBI, in its responses, indicted it searched only files that hold information on active criminal investigations instead of more general files that could encompass surveillance activities, she said.
Ayloush, who said he is questioned by federal agents every time he flies internationally, said he had hoped the FOIA request would help him determine why he is stopped.
“Either … we’re being stopped because we’re Muslims—which is morally wrong—or that the government must have some erroneous info linked to me that I need to be able to clear,” he said.
The government has 60 days to respond to the lawsuit.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8RO68HO0&show_article=1

Maryland High Court Upholds Marriage As A Man-Woman Thing

Maryland High Court Upholds Marriage As A Man-Woman Thing
Maryland’s highest court Tuesday upheld a state law defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman, ending a lawsuit filed by same-sex couples who claimed they were being denied equal protection under the law.
A divided Court of Appeals ruled that Maryland’s 1973 ban on gay marriage does not discriminate on the basis of gender and does not deny any fundamental rights, and that the state has a legitimate interest in promoting opposite-sex marriage.
The decision essentially sent the gay-marriage issue back to the legislature, where lawmakers on both sides of the debate predicted a flurry of activity in the next session.
“Our opinion should by no means be read to imply that the General Assembly may not grant and recognize for homosexual persons civil unions or the right to marry a person of the same sex,” Judge Glenn T. Harrell Jr. wrote for the four-judge majority, which also included Judges Dale R. Cathell, Clayton Greene Jr. and Alan M. Wilner.
Chief Judge Robert M. Bell and Judge Lynne A. Battaglia dissented. Judge Irma S. Raker wrote a separate dissent but also concurred with the majority, in part.
Plaintiffs in the lawsuit were quick to condemn the ruling.
“I think history will hold them in contempt,” plaintiff Lisa Polyak said of the judges. “To create a legal solution in a vacuum that doesn’t recognize that the constitution is there to support the people is to create an ignorant and irrelevant solution.”
But Delegate Don Dwyer, R-Anne Arundel, said the court was right to allow the legislature to decide the legality of gay marriage.
“I think it was the legitimate response,” Dwyer said. “They did as other states have done and ordered the legislature to act.”
Dwyer, one of the General Assembly’s most conservative members, said he plans to introduce a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, as he has three times in the past, “to make sure we have the insurance to make sure this will not come up again in the future.”
Sen. Richard Madaleno, D-Montgomery, who is gay, said he plans to introduce a bill to allow same-sex marriage. He also expects a proposal to create civil unions.
“I think we’ll have a lengthy discussion next session about what the options are for legal recognition for gay people,” Madaleno said.
The ACLU of Maryland, which provided legal representation for the plaintiffs, said the fight for gay marriage in Maryland would continue.
Many of the plaintiffs have children, and they argue that their families are being denied the stability and legal protection that comes from having married parents.
Lisa Kebreau, 39, and her partner, Mikki Mozelle, 31, who live in Riverdale, have three children – ages 17, 2 and 20 months.
“We really wanted them to understand how normal and good their family is – that their family is just like any other family,” Kebreau said.
Nine same-sex couples and a gay man whose partner died filed a lawsuit in 2004 against court clerks who denied their applications for marriage licenses. Baltimore Circuit Judge M. Brooke Murdock in January struck down the law defining marriage as a union between one man and one woman, but the state immediately appealed.
Murdock’s ruling was put on hold during the appeal and never took effect – unlike in Iowa, where same-sex marriage was legal for less than 24 hours last month. Massachusetts is the only state where gay marriage is legal, but nine other states have approved spousal rights in some form for same-sex couples – California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Oregon, Vermont and Washington.
ACLU staff attorney David Rocah said the civil-rights organization would focus its efforts in Maryland on the legislature, noting that California has twice passed a law that would legalize gay marriage. Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed the first bill and has promised to veto the second, which was passed this year.
“There’s no denying that this is a bitter disappointment, but we continue to believe that the law is on our side and that justice is on our side,” he said.

http://www.wmal.com/Article.asp?id=476362&spid

Democrat Judge Appointed by Bill Clinton Strikes Down Part of Patriot Act on Request of ACLU (an organization founded by Communist Party members)

Judge Strikes Down Part of Patriot Act
Thursday, September 6, 2007 10:00 PM
A provision of the Patriot Act that requires people who are formally contacted by the FBI for information to keep it a secret is unconstitutional, a federal judge ruled on Thursday.
U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero sided with the American Civil Liberties Union, which brought the lawsuit and argued that an FBI letter requesting information — called a National Security Letter — is effectively a gag order but without the authorization of a judge.
The FBI tells people who receive the letters to keep them secret, but recipients can challenge the secrecy order in court under a 2006 congressional amendment to the NSL law.
The law says judges must defer to the FBI’s view that secrecy is necessary, undermining the judiciary’s check on the power of the executive branch, the ACLU said.
In a written ruling issued on Thursday, Marrero said the gag order violated the First Amendment guarantee of free speech and was unconstitutional.
Marrero based his ruling on the seriousness of the potential intrusion on privacy and on “the significant possibility of a chilling effect on speech and association — particularly of expression that is critical of the government or its policies.”
The U.S. Attorney’s office in Manhattan is considering an appeal, a spokeswoman said.
Government lawyers had argued that the FBI’s need to ensure that targets remained unaware of an investigation outweighed the free speech rights of NSL recipients.
The ACLU brought the lawsuit on behalf of an unidentified Internet access company that received an NSL.
The company filed suit in April 2004. In September 2004 Marrero found the NSL gag violated free speech rights and struck it down as unconstitutional.
The government appealed the ruling, but Congress amended the NSL provision in its reauthorization of the Patriot Act last year before an appeals court could hear the case.
The revised NSL provision — allowing the gag to be challenged in court — was then sent back to Marrero.
APPEAL EXPECTED
The FBI dropped its demand for information from the Internet company a year ago, but the gag remained in place.
“The decision reaffirms that the courts have an important and constitutionally mandated role to play when national security policies infringe on First Amendment rights,” said Jameel Jaffer, an ACLU lawyer who argued the case.
Marrero prohibited the Justice Department and the FBI from issuing NSLs but delayed enforcement for 90 days pending an expected appeal by the government or congressional action.
The ACLU says more than 143,000 NSLs were issued between 2003 and 2005.

http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/patriot_act/2007/09/06/30543.html

Appeals court upholds ban on Bible distribution to fifth-graders

Appeals court upholds ban on Bible distribution to fifth-graders
By JIM SALTERAssociated Press Writer
Aug 22, 2007 – 12:05:56 CDT
ST. LOUIS (AP) — A federal appeals court on Tuesday upheld a lower court ruling that prohibited the distribution of Bibles to grade school students in a southern Missouri school district.At issue was a long-held practice at South Iron Elementary School in Annapolis, 120 miles southwest of St. Louis, in which Gideons International representatives came to fifth-grade classrooms and gave away Bibles. A U.S. district judge issued a temporary injunction, and a three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis agreed the classroom distribution should be prohibited.Parents of some students first raised concerns about the Bible distribution in 2005. That fall, the school board voted 4-3 to allow the distribution to continue, even though then-Superintendent Homer Lewis, at the urging of the district’s insurance carrier and attorney, suggested an end to the practice. A day after the vote, the Gideons came to the school and distributed Bibles to both fifth-grade classrooms.The American Civil Liberties Union filed suit in February 2006 on behalf of four sets of parents, asking that the district be stopped “from further endorsement of religion.”All four sets of parents are Christian, said Tony Rothert, legal director of the ACLU office in St. Louis.“Their objection is they don’t want the school telling their children what their religious beliefs should be,” Rothert said. “They believe that should be done at home with the family.”Rothert said the ACLU is asking the district court to issue a permanent injunction banning the Bible distribution program.Mathew Staver, president of Liberty Counsel, a conservative law group based in Florida that represented the school district, said the appeals court ruling concerned a practice no longer in place.Staver said the district’s current policy allows people or groups to distribute literature — with approval from the district — before or after school or during lunch break, but not in the classrooms. The new policy is open to religious groups beyond the Gideons, he said, and is the subject of a pending court ruling at the district court level.“That policy we will vigorously defend because we believe it’s a constitutionally sound policy,” Staver said. “It will provide for others, including the Gideons, the right to distribute literature.”The district in Iron County has fewer than 500 students and just two schools — the grade school and South Iron High School. The rural county sits in the heart of the nation’s so-called Bible Belt and includes dozens of churches.Gideons International, based in Nashville, Tenn., distributes more than 63 million Bibles worldwide each year, according to the organization’s Web site. A spokesman did not return a phone call seeking comment.

http://www.dailyjournalonline.com/articles/2007/08/22/news/doc46cc53c7eeb12817226695.txt

ACLU and Islamofascist Lose Case – Padilla Is Convicted in Terrorism Case

Padilla Is Convicted in Terrorism Case
Aug 16 02:37 PM US/Eastern

By CURT ANDERSON

Associated Press Writer
MIAMI (AP) – Jose Padilla was convicted of federal terrorism support charges Thursday after being held for 3 1/2 years as an enemy combatant in a case that came to symbolize the Bush administration’s zeal to stop homegrown terror.
The Chicago native was once accused of being part of an al-Qaida plot to detonate a radioactive “dirty bomb” in the U.S., but those allegations were not part of his trial with two co-defendants.
Padilla, Adham Amin Hassoun and Kifah Wael Jayyousi face life in prison because they were convicted of conspiracy to murder, kidnap and maim people overseas. All three were also convicted of two terrorism material support counts that carry potential 15-year sentences each.
U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke set a Dec. 5 sentencing date for all three defendants.
The three were accused of being part of a North American support cell that provided supplies, money and recruits to groups of Islamic extremists. The defense contended they were just trying to help persecuted Muslims in war zones with relief and humanitarian aid.
Padilla was first detained in 2002 because of much more sensational accusations. The Bush administration portrayed Padilla, a U.S. citizen and Muslim convert, as a committed terrorist who was part of an al- Qaida plot to detonate a radioactive “dirty bomb” in the U.S. The administration called his detention an important victory in the war against terrorism, not long after the Sept. 11 attacks.
The charges brought in civilian court in Miami, however, were a pale shadow of those initial claims. That was in part because Padilla, 36, was interrogated about the plot when he was held as an enemy combatant for 3 1/2 years in military custody with no lawyer present and was not read his Miranda rights.
Padilla’s attorneys fought for years to get his case into federal court, and he was finally added to the Miami terrorism support indictment in late 2005 just as the U.S. Supreme Court was poised to consider President Bush’s authority to continue detaining him.
Padilla had lived in South Florida in the 1990s and was supposedly recruited by Hassoun at a Broward County mosque to become a mujahedeen fighter.
The key piece of physical evidence was a five-page form Padilla supposedly filled out in July 2000 to attend an al-Qaida training camp in Afghanistan, which would link the other two defendants as well to Osama bin Laden’s terrorist organization.
The form, recovered by the CIA in 2001 in Afghanistan, contains seven of Padilla’s fingerprints and several other personal identifiers, such as his birthdate and abilities to speak Spanish, English and Arabic. Padilla’s lawyers insisted the form was far from conclusive and denied that he was a “star recruit,” as prosecutors claimed, of the support cell intending to become a terrorist. Padilla’s attorneys said he traveled to Egypt in September 1998 to learn Islam more deeply and become fluent in Arabic.