Each month, the Bill of Rights Defense Committee recognizes an individual who has done outstanding work in support of civil liberties and the rule of law by honoring her with our Patriot Award. Last June, we were proud to honor Dave Mitchell for his remarkable commitment to the Bill of Rights.

Originally from Newton, MA, Dave graduated from Stanford University in 2009, where he majored in biology with a concentration in political science. While at Stanford, Dave was a member of the Stanford Labor Action Coalition (SLAC), a group that works with students, faculty, workers, and labor unions to defend workers’ rights. Dave also joined Stanford Stands Up, a social justice group that addresses accountability, transparency, democracy, and the right to dissent.

After working in a molecular biology lab in Virginia, Dave realized that he wanted a career more aligned with his passion for civil liberties and labor organizing. He joined the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), where Dave worked on a statewide higher education food service worker organizing campaign in Columbus, OH, and a statewide homecare provider campaign in Madison, WI.

Drawing on his work with Stanford Stands up, Dave sought volunteer opportunities with an organization devoted to civil liberties, which brought him to BORDC. Dave interned for BORDC beginning last August, working diligently on outreach to local coalition partners across the country to build campaigns to stop racial profiling. Dave also contributed twice-weekly posts to the People’s Blog for the Constitution.

Dave is currently a worksite organizer for SEIU food service workers in San Jose, CA, where he represents workers rights and interests. He handles grievances, negotiation, ushers cases through arbitration, and helps ensure the accountability of union leadership to the membership.

BORDC commends Dave Mitchell for his activism in support of civil liberties and the rule of law. He offers a powerful example of how one person can make a difference.

• 9/1, Augusta Free Press, Rights groups urge feds to reject 287(g)
• 9/1, Cheryl Corley, National Public Radio, Often, You Can Film Cops; Just Don’t Record Them
• 9/1, David G. Savage, McClatchy Newspapers, Supreme Court asked to decide whether White House has right to exclude critics from public speeches

This week, Representative Mike Rogers (R-MI) reiterated his belief that Private Bradley Manning should be executed if he is found guilty of leaking thousands of documents to the whistle blower website, WikiLeaks. Suggesting that the crime Pvt. Manning is accused of is tantamount to treason, Representative Rogers went even further. In an interview on MSNBC with Cenk Uygur, Rep. Rogers is asked by Uygur whether a similar approach should have been taken with Daniel Ellsburg:

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Speaking on the eve of Independence Day, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was in Krakow giving a speech on the topic of civil society and the great political developments that have taken place in Poland since the fall of the Soviet Union. While touting the importance of civic activism and political engagement, Secretary Clinton mentioned the importance for all countries to have “a collection of activists, organizations, congregations, writers, and reporters that work through peaceful means to encourage governments to do better, to do better by their own people.” And, unsurprisingly, she included the US in the company of the countries, like Poland, which have historically vibrant and viable civil societies.

However, Secretary Clinton’s speech seemed completely disconnected considering the state of civil society in the US today. Since 9/11, the government’s assault on civil society and American citizens who question the degree to which the Constitution has been undermined have the been the target of intensified surveillance and harassment. In this month’s BORDC newsletter, I reviewed Laura Donohue’s The Cost of Counterterrorism, in which she explores the degree to which federal intelligence agencies have facilitated the surveillance and persecution of those citizens most critical of their activities.

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The SHAC 7, a group of animal rights activists most known for nearly putting Huntingdon Life Sciences (an animal testing research facility) into bankruptcy, have been convicted of terrorism charges purely for their beliefs. A Philadelphia appellate court recently decided that they would not revisit the conviction, which has sparked the SHAC 7 to request the Supreme Court look at their First Amendment case.

The prosecutor in the case, Charles McKenna, has been recently promoted to the head of the New Jersey Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness, and stated that their new focus for anti-terrorism will be on computer profiling. When asked who the targets of this new profiling technology would be, McKenna stated, “Jihad, Crips, extreme animal-rights activists, it’s all the same: people trying to damage the system. We need every trick in the book to avert disaster.”

On Monday, June 14, a conference call took place between representatives of the Equal Justice Alliance (EJA), First Amendment rights groups, and leading legal academics and scholars. The aim was to discuss the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA) of 2006 and the abuses that have marked its enforcement.

The Act itself was passed under questionable circumstances: a suspension of the rules in the House allowed it to be passed by five members of the chamber, and it passed in the Senate by consent, unchallenged by objections.

The abuses of the law are not surprising given that AETA was passed so rapidly through Congress and, as with many other unconstitutional pieces of legislation, most members never read the bill. Had they taken the time to look AETA over, legislators would have found several draconian and unconstitutional clauses. To begin with, all individuals found to cause physical or economic damage to an animal enterprise or any group or individual associated with an animal enterprise are automatically labeled terrorists. Further, AETA is directed at not only those who commit the damaging or interfering act themselves, but also anyone who “causes” such interference to happen.

Despite the act’s attempts to protect First Amendment rights to speech, protest, and assembly with a special set of clauses saying that AETA is not meant to interfere with those rights, enforcement has completely disregarded those clauses.

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The University of Wisconsin at Madison has seen more than its share of political protests and controversial speakers and topics over the decades. Though events and debates have often been feisty and contentious, it has never been the policy of the university to shut down free speech in the name of potential, unspecified security risks—until now. This week, the university decided that a forum with antiwar speakers including Cindy Sheehan was too risky to run due to “security concerns”—not an encouraging precedent for those concerned about free speech.

In the words of the UW Campus Antiwar Network:
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• 3/17, Stephen Lendman, Dissident Voice, America’s Secret Prisons
• 3/16, Jeff Kaye, Fire Dog Lake, U.S. Revokes Visa of Irish Anti-Renditions Activist
• 3/16, Jeremy Pelofsky and James Vicini, Reuters, Holder defends criminal trials for 9/11 suspects
• 3/16, Los Angeles Times, An Obama secret: They’re rejecting more Freedom of Information requests than those secretive Bush folks

• 2/10, Sahar Aziz, alt.muslim, Another red scare?
• 2/10, Clive Stafford Smith, Guardian (UK), Binyam Mohamed: A Shameful Cover-Up
• 2/9, Billy Corriher, Jurist, Attorney General is correct to insist on civilian trial for Abdulmutallab
• 2/9, Karen Gullo, Bloomberg, Court Blocks Disclosure of Telecom Lobbying Records
• 2/9, A. Barton Hinkle, Richmond (VA) Times-Dispatch, Obama Takes a Blue Pencil to the Bill of Rights

In March 2005, three Denver citizens were ejected from a George W. Bush speech for having a “No Blood for Oil” sticker on their car.

Rejecting a suit by two of the attendees, Alexander Young and Leslie Weise, claiming their free speech rights were violated, the 10^th US Circuit Court of Appeals’ last week upheld the Bush administration policy of excluding attendees from presidential events based on their political viewpoints.

The two plaintiffs were represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, which said Monday it was considering its options, which might include appealing to the Supreme Court.

In a dissenting opinion Judge William Halloway called the court’s decision “severely misguided and relying on precedents that have no bearing on the questions presented in this case.”

“It is simply astounding that any member of the executive branch could have believed that our Constitution justified this egregious violation of plaintiffs’ rights,” Halloway said.

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