[UPDATE BELOW] An NYCLU legal observer was arrested during an OWS march in front of an MTA building in Lower Manhattan yesterday. This reporter was standing 20 yards north of the incident and didn't witness the arrest, but videographer Tim Pool captured Deputy Inspector Johnny Cardona speaking forcefully to the legal observer, then pulling her into the street by her arm to be arrested. Cardona is best known for punching protester Felix Rivera-Pitre in the face for seemingly no reason at a demonstration on October 14 of last year. more ›

Since 1991, the NYPD has gotten permission from landlords to patrol the hallways of NYC apartment buildings in high-crime areas, as part of a crime-fighting tactic now called Operation Clean Halls. In some Clean Halls buildings, cops conduct floor-by-floor sweeps, called "vertical patrols," engaging in what critics call an overly aggressive enforcement strategy. Now the NYCLU and other groups have filed a class action lawsuit against the city to get the NYPD to stop the program, alleging that Clean Halls violates the rights of residents of those buildings and their guests, who are mainly black and Latino New Yorkers. more ›

The NYCLU has analyzed the locations of the 684,330 people who were stopped and frisked by the NYPD last year and has determined the top 10 neighborhoods where the tactic was used the most. Precincts in East New York and Brownsville came in first and second on the list, with 31,100 and 25,167 people stopped respectively. The only Precinct in Manhattan that made the list was the 23rd in Harlem. “My community doesn’t have one of the highest rates of crime,” Councilmember Melissa Mark-Viverito told the Daily News. That's strange, considering the NYPD only targets high-crime areas and would never, ever racially profile. more ›

It isn't just teachers getting arrested in our schools. According to new data released by the NYPD [PDF], an average of five students were arrested every day in the city's school system last fall, and nine more were issued summonses. Things look especially bleak for black students who, despite comprising only 29 percent of the student population made up 60 percent of the arrests (add in Latino students and the number climbs to 90 percent). The news led Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, to again point out that "If the Bloomberg administration is truly serious about helping young men of color succeed, then they must address these disparities and focus more attention on educating children—not arresting them." more ›

Reporters questioned Mayor Bloomberg today about the recent AP report that the NYPD was keeping tabs on Muslims at universities like Yale and UPenn, and the Mayor unapologetically defended the practices. "We have to keep this country safe. This is a dangerous place. Make no mistake about it," Bloomberg said, according to a transcript by the Daily News. Asked to comment on the reports that an undercover NYPD officer went on a whitewater rafting trip sponsored by a Muslim Student Association, Bloomberg replied, "I have no idea. The only whitewater rafting I’ve done I did with my daughter. I don’t think she had a lot of information that I was interested in." more ›

As the Times reports today, drones aren't just for indiscriminately killing foreign enemies and civilians anymore: real estate agents, feral hog-killers and Hollywood directors are all realizing the potential of unmanned aerial vehicles. Camera-equipped UAVs can cost as little as $300 and be controlled from an iPhone, and we're about to see a lot more of them. On Tuesday President Obama signed a law that forces the FAA to "allow police and first responders to fly drones under 4.4 pounds" at an altitude of under 400 feet. This is "good" news for the NYPD, which first asked the FAA about acquiring their own drones in December of 2010. more ›

Brookfield Properties had no legal right to force Occupy Wall Street protesters out of Zuccotti Park in November, the NYCLU argues in a legal brief made public yesterday. The civil liberties group intends to file an amicus brief in support of a demonstrator named Ronnie Nunez, who was arrested when he refused to leave Zuccotti Park after the NYPD raided it on November 15th. According to the NYCLU, Brookfield had no legal authority to exclude people from the public space, which Brookfield is legally required to keep open to the public 24/7. From the filing: more ›

Joseph Midgley, a volunteer for Picture the Homeless, represents four of the 684,330 stops initiated by the NYPD in 2011. "I have been stopped and frisked four times and each time I have been standing in public places," he told a crowd of reporters gathered at City Hall this afternoon. "I've been questioned by the police and asked if I had anything illegal on me. To which I replied, 'no.' My pockets were still searched. Nothing illegal was found. I was never charged. Never even given a ticket on all four occasions. This form of discriminatory policing is outrageous and it must stop. Not tomorrow, not next year, but today." more ›

Apparently the Supreme Court's decision is not good enough to the NY State Legislature when it comes to allowing religious groups to worship in city schools. Last June, the U.S. Second Circuit of Appeals ruled that NYC public schools can prohibit religious services, and the Supreme Court refused to hear the case, letting the Second Circuit's decision stand. But, still, the State Senate will consider a bill to allow religious services in schools. And the NYCLU wants to remind lawmakers why it's a terrible idea. more ›

The NYCLU has filed a lawsuit with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on behalf of a group of NYPD detectives who say the department's elite Intelligence Division is racist. The lawsuit alleges that the NYPD "has chosen to cloak promotions in secrecy and give the all-white high level supervisors who run the Intelligence Division unfettered discretion to handpick white detectives for promotions over more qualified African American detectives." Black detectives also claim there is a so-called "secret list" from which white officers are promoted within the division. more ›

Less than two days after the NYCLU demanded that Brookfield Properties remove the barricades preventing the public from easily accessing Zuccotti Park, the property management company has done just that. Earlier this evening, the barricades were removed and stacked off to the sides, permitting visitors to enter the park wherever their heart's desire, instead of the narrow security checkpoints. FREEDOM! But with freedom comes responsibility; according to one occupier, "Brookfield Security said unless we do something stupid the park will remain open!" more ›

14 Muslim leaders have fired off a sternly-worded letter to Mayor Bloomberg announcing their intention to boycott his annual interfaith breakfast on Friday, which brings together religious and political leaders from all over the spectrum for a friendly coffee klatsch. At issue is a damning series of articles in the Associated Press detailing the NYPD's targeting of Muslim communities for surveillance. Commissioner Ray Kelly has firmly denied this, telling the City Council, "We don't do it ethnically, we do it geographically. We don't racially profile, we follow leads wherever those leads take us." The NYCLU, however, calls it a "rogue domestic surveillance operation," and in November hundreds of Muslims demonstrated outside police headquarters. more ›

According to new data released by the NYPD [pdf], an average of one student is arrested every day in the city's school system, and three others are issued summonses. During summer school from July through September, four students each day are arrested, and 94% of those arrested are black or Latino, and 83% are male. "The data raise concerns about black students being disproportionately arrested in the city's schools," Donna Lieberman, the executive director of the NYCLU says in a release. "If the Bloomberg administration is truly serious about closing the achievement gap, then they must address this disparity and focus more attention on educating children—not arresting them.” more ›

As if the NYPD's habit of stopping and frisking anyone and everyone officers find suspicious weren't controversial already, new police data makes it look like the police department is on track to break last year's record-breaking stop and frisk stats. In 2010, the NYPD made 601,055 street stops (up 4.3 percent from 2009) and in the first six months of this year alone the police used the tactic 362,150 times. Sadder, in the Bronx, at least, 91 percent of those stopped and frisked between April and June were male and 92 percent were black or Hispanic. Profiling much? more ›

Tasers, or "Conducted Energy Devices," are an increasingly popular method of "non-lethal" force in police departments across New York State, as well as being trusted companions at the ballgame. However, according to a new report [pdf] from the NYCLU, "police officers are using Tasers in inappropriate, irresponsible and downright deadly manner." As the saying goes: shoot 50,000 volts of electricity into somebody's chest first, ask questions later. more ›

In late August, the Associated Press published an exposé about the NYPD's partnership with the Central Intelligence Agency to spy on Muslims in NYC. Unsurprisingly, the NYCLU is challenging the partnership in court, and yesterday filed a motion to determine whether the spying operation violates an existing court order—the Handschu Guidelines, which are named after a 1971 plaintiff in a lawsuit against the NYPD accusing them of violating the constitution while investigating political groups. more ›

Yesterday, Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy asked for a preliminary injunction to bar 37 gang members from a two-mile square "safety zone" in Wyandanch. Levy said, "Gangs ... have a propensity to take over school yards and street corners. They do not own those streets, the people of the community own those streets," and the injunction would prohibit gang members from wearing "gang colors, making gang signs or even gathering on corners or in parks," Newsday reports. more ›

If you're one of the NYPD's lucky stop-and-frisk customers this year (183,326 and counting!) the police is giving you a slightly less opaque reason as to why they roughed you up. New forms that officers fill out following a stop include a "Reason for Force Used" field that gives officers the choice of checking a box that describes the situation leading up to the rough stop. The choices are: "suspect reaching for suspected weapon" (like this innocent teenager), "suspect flight," "defense of self," "defense of other," and "overcome resistance." If those don't quite paint a nuanced picture of what happened, there's always the classic "other" box that allows the officer to jot down why you were worth their time. Presumably this is to save room on the form so they don't have to print both "brown" and "black." more ›

Last year, when the NYPD broke its previous all-time-high record for stop-and-frisks with a sensational 601,055 street stops, many fans thought there was no way they could top one in 2011! But Coach Ray Kelly's NYPD dream team is on track for yet another champion stop-and-frisk season this year! Police have stopped and interrogated over 161,000 innocent New Yorkers in the first quarter of 2011, and at this rate they'll easily crush last year's record with over 700,000 stops. But will the NYPD's bitter rivals—the wild card underdog New York Civil Liberties Union [NYCLU]—steal their thunder in the playoffs? more ›

Remember those nifty electronic fingerprinting machines that the NYPD debuted in September to fingerprint people on the scene of a crime? Probably not, because the cops usually flash that Men In Black thingy in your face afterwards. But the concern at the time was: what happens to the fingerprints after they're gathered if you're not charged with a crime? more ›

As we've frequently noted, teenagers, as a whole, comprise an unruly, dangerous mob that continues to threaten the every fabric of our society. We ban them from public spaces, we install sonic devices that drive them away with frequencies only their ears can hear, and we crack down on them for peddling candy on mass transit. But let's face it: teenagers are a symptom, not a cause. To nip this menace in the bud, schools have been suspending elementary students in record numbers, according to a new NYCLU analysis. more ›

Break out the bubbly, precinct captains; the NYPD has broken its previous record for the number of stop and frisks in a single year! NYPD officers made 601,055 street stops in 2010, the first time that number has topped the 600K mark, according to public records obtained by the AP. It's an increase of 4.3% from the previous record of 575,304, set in 2009—a year that saw an uptick of 8% from the short-lived 2008 record of 531,159. Our back of the envelope calculations suggest that by now the NYPD has probably done at least one stop and frisk for every NYC resident. Of course, some are frisked more than others! more ›

Does your job have the right to track your whereabouts with GPS without your knowledge? Even if they're tracking you to try and prove that you are lying to them? That's the question at the core of a new lawsuit brought forth by the NYCLU on behalf of former Department of Labor employee Michael Cunningham who was fired from his $115,000 per year job as director of the staff and organization development based on information gained from a GPS tracker that had been placed on his family BMW. more ›

On the eve of the ninth anniversary of the September 11th attacks, over 2,000 New Yorkers gathered downtown to show their support for the controversial Park 51 community center and mosque. Organized by the NYCLU and the New York Neighbors for American Values coalition, gatherers were encouraged to wear white and carry American flags, but no signs of protest. Instead, gatherers listened to music and thoughts from faith leaders and city officials. Vigil organizer Peter Hogness told NY1, "To me this says I love New York because it is diverse, because we have the whole world in New York and we treat everybody equally." more ›

Last month a right-wing group threatened the MTA with a lawsuit in order to get their ad against the "Ground Zero" mosque onto city buses. Now the ACLU and NYCLU have chimed in with their own ad, seen here, supporting the Islamic community center proposed for Park Place. The ad will start appearing on buses on September 20th. Last month, the ACLU and NYCLU joined more than 100 groups in forming New York Neighbors for American Values, a coalition "devoted to the core American values of religious freedom, diversity, and equality that has supported the right of the community center to be built in its proposed location." The group will be holding a vigil tonight near Park51, on the eve of the planned 9/11 protest outside the site of the proposed mosque. more ›

At a rally at City Hall yesterday, the NYCLU joined Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries and state Senator Eric Adams to announce new bills that would ban the NYPD's practice of saving personal data of than 100,000 people who are stopped, questioned, frisked, and then released each year. The legislation comes on the heels of an NYCLU class action lawsuit against the city, which would force the NYPD to seal all personal records of people who were stopped and frisked but whose cases "ended either in dismissal or only the payment of a fine for a noncriminal violation." Yesterday Adams (he of the Stop the Sag crusade) compared the NYPD's stop and frisk fever to Arizona's illegal immigration law: more ›

More than 85% of people stopped and frisked by the NYPD are released without an arrest or summons. But regardless of innocence, the NYPD has been keeping a database of personal information on more than 100,000 people who are stopped, questioned, frisked, and released each year. Today the NYCLU has filed a class action lawsuit [pdf] to get the NYPD to seal all personal records of people who were stopped and frisked, were arrested or issued a summons, and whose cases "ended either in dismissal or only the payment of a fine for a noncriminal violation." The lead plaintiffs are two NYC residents who were stopped and frisked by police officers but subsequently cleared of any wrongdoing. In this video, they explain what happened: more ›

Yesterday we reported that the New York Civil Liberties Union filed a complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on behalf of Yadiris Rivera, who was fired from her job for wanting to pump breast milk during the work day. The Daily News is reporting that her employer, Medical Imaging of Manhattan (an Upper East Side mammography center), is denying the charge. Colleen O'Brien, who is named in the complaint, told the paper the company is "offended by these false allegations." more ›