civil rights

Maricopa County (Ariz.) Sheriff Joe Arpaio tweeted this morning that he’d met with Vice President Joe Biden, who was in Phoenix fundraising for Democratic members of Congress who could face tough Republican challengers in 2010. Biden was also touting the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
Curiously, the meeting was not listed on the vice [...]

TPMDC’s Christina Bellantoni reports on a wild scene over at the Cannon House Office Building, following Rep. Michele Bachmann’s (R-Minn.) anti-health care reform Tea Party on the Capitol steps, after which attendees were encouraged to storm congressional offices and confront representatives.
U.S. Capitol Police arrested 10 people this afternoon after the Capitol Hill Tea Party crowd [...]

Winning his freedom was a big step for Mohammed Jawad, reportedly the youngest prisoner at Guantanamo Bay until he was released in August. But Jawad, who two U.S. judges have said was tortured in U.S. custody, is still suffering from the effects of his treatment during seven years in custody without charge, according to a [...]

This seems almost too weird to be true, but Wired reports that on Oct. 1, federal agents seized the computers, manuscripts and pickaxes of an anarchist social worker in Queens, N.Y., claiming he violating anti-rioting laws on Twitter.

The possibility prompts fervent opposition from Republicans, who say the 9/11 terrorists should never be allowed anywhere on U.S. soil, let alone in a civilian U.S. court.

Unhappy that the federal government took away some of his powers to enforce immigration law, Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Arizona last week cited a non-existent law to support his claim that he can continue to arrest illegal immigrants on the street anyway, The Arizona Republic reports.
Under the controversial 287(g) program, Arpaio had been allowed to [...]

Zachary Roth has a short write-up on Michael Zak, the amateur historian who wrote the “Heroes” section of the new GOP.com, which focuses to a confusing degree on obscure 19th century black Republicans. Zak’s involvement with the site was no secret — he is credited at the bottom of the biography pages — but I’m [...]

Jesselyn Radack at Daily Kos slams The Washington Post for its editorial yesterday praising the Senate Judiciary Committee for its highly compromised Patriot Act reform bill. “The Post turns a blind eye to the vast amount of civil liberties protections Senate Democrats and the Obama administration gave up at last week’s Patriot Act markup, instead [...]

Looks like Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Ariz., has lost some of his authority to arrest people he suspects are illegal immigrants. Under the controversial 287(g) program of the immigration law, Arpaio was one of many local sheriffs who were empowered to enforce federal immigration laws. Comments he’s made to the Arizona Republic, however, [...]

The Senate today voted to confirm Thomas E. Perez to be Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division at the U.S. Department of Justice. The nomination has been pending without action in the Senate for more than four months due to Republican opposition. The final vote today was 72 to 22.