Aclu

Accusing the federal Department of Veterans Affairs in Los Angeles of not doing enough to help homeless veterans, the ACLU of Southern California is calling for an investigation into the VA's stewardship of its Westside campus, which includes leasing land for use as private tennis courts. In letters to VA Secretary Eric K. Shinseki, the U.S. Department of Justice and state Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris, ACLU attorney Peter J. Eliasberg supported a request by the Metabolic Studio, a charitable activity of the Annenberg Foundation that said the VA was not abiding by terms of an 1888 deed that created the West L.A. campus.

Now, Egypt's future Re " 'Hope for the future,' " Feb. 12 What is the future for the Egyptian people? I am reminded of Benjamin Franklin's response to the woman who asked him as he emerged from the constitutional convention in Philadelphia, "What do we have?" He replied: "A republic, madam, if we can keep it. " That will now be the challenge for the Egyptian people. America has survived many challenges, wars and even a civil war. The democracy we cherish can get pretty messy at times, yet the Star Spangled Banner still waves, the hope lives on and the dream has never died.

Before a crowd of 800 in a Beverly Wilshire Hotel ballroom, a series of prominent figures from politics, entertainment and law are taking the podium to praise the career of Ramona Ripston, Los Angeles' tough-talking doyenne of civil liberties. Ripston is about to retire after nearly 40 years as executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, so she is subject to a little ribbing. One speaker tells how Ripston recovered from a stressful meeting by power-shopping through Saks Fifth Avenue.

A civilian jail monitor said she witnessed two Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies treat an inmate like "a punching bag," unjustifiably beating him as he lay unconscious for at least two minutes, according to a court declaration filed Monday by the ACLU. The representative for the civil liberties organization was at Twin Towers jail for an unrelated meeting with another inmate when, according to her declaration, she heard thuds from outside the room she was in. Through a window, she said, she saw two deputies punching, kicking and Tasering an inmate.

Under a settlement agreement announced Thursday, California students will have new protections against being charged fees for a public education that is required by law to be free. The tentative resolution of a lawsuit filed against the state in September does not establish a legal principle ? public education already was supposed to cost nothing for parents. But it does provide a framework for informing students and parents of their rights, enforcing the rules and penalizing transgressors.

A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge tentatively approved significant changes to the "last hired, first fired" rules that govern teacher layoffs to keep campuses with young staffs from bearing the brunt of budgetary cutbacks in the nation's second-largest school district. The preliminary decision addresses a ground-breaking court challenge to layoffs that devastated the staffs of three middle schools during job cuts over the last few years in the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Civil rights attorney Hector Villagra will succeed Ramona Ripston as executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, the organization announced Monday. Villagra, the group's legal director, identified an increasingly anti-immigrant environment as the ACLU's biggest challenge in the defense of individual rights. He also said he expected to make a priority of extending the group's advocacy to the underserved and the vulnerable, including African Americans, Latinos, Muslims and the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender communities.

A potentially groundbreaking settlement that could limit teachers' seniority protections would also require instructors at a small number of schools to be judged and rewarded based on their ability to boost the campus' academic performance, according to documents released Thursday. The legal agreement, approved by the city school board earlier this week during a closed-door meeting, was the result of negotiations between the Los Angeles Unified School District and the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups.

Last week, the American Civil Liberties Union challenged in court the Department of Homeland Security's policy of allowing customs agents to seize and view the contents of laptops and other electronic devices without reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing. The lawsuit is a worthy attempt to close a gaping loophole in the protection of personal privacy. But courts so far have been inhospitable to such claims, which is why Congress must act. According to the ACLU's complaint, between Oct. 1, 2008, and June 2, 2010, more than 6,500 travelers — nearly 3,000 of them U.S. citizens — had their electronic devices searched as they crossed U.S. borders under policies promulgated by two Homeland Security agencies: U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.