Comprehensive immigration reform has been a hot button issue for decades in this country. Immigration policy forces politicians and citizens alike to weigh economic and security concerns against humanitarian interests.
The current administration has approached this issue with an emphasis on “security first” regarding immigration policy, looking to slash immigration to the United States. Measures including the “travel ban,” the proposed border-wall with Mexico, and pledges to deport millions of undocumented immigrants all raise questions on how to balance keeping America safe from terrorism while still being a “nation of immigrants.”
Please join us for our next Jonathan Samen Hot Buttons, Cool Conversation event as we examine the Immigration Debate: Balancing Security and Compassion. This event is co-sponsored by Vilna Shul, Boston's Center for Jewish Culture.
- Matthew Segal, Panelist | Matthew Segal has been legal director of the ACLU of Massachusetts since 2012. Leading a team of civil rights lawyers, he has litigated cases that halted the Muslim ban, overturned 21,587 wrongful convictions and protected cell phone location data. Previously, as an assistant federal defender, Matt led to hundreds of exonerations and re-sentencings.
- Rodrigo Saavedra, Panelist | Rodrigo Saavedra is the Memory Program Director at the Ayni Institute, which focuses on creating a more reciprocal world through the development of training and research for social movements and preserving the wisdom and traditions of indigenous communities from around the world. A DACA recipient and community organizer, Rodrigo has appeared in major nationwide news outlets.
- Jessica Vaughn, Panelist | Jessica Vaughan serves as Director of Policy Studies for the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington, DC-based immigration research institute. As an expert on immigration policy and operations, she educates policymakers and agencies on immigration topics. She has been widely published in the media, and has testified before Congress several times.
- Julia Preston, Moderator | Julia Preston is a Contributing Writer at The Marshall Project, a non-profit journalism organization focusing on criminal justice and immigration. She previously worked at The New York Times as the national correspondent covering immigration. Ms. Preston was a member of The New York Times staff that won the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for reporting on international affairs, for a series that revealed the corrosive effects of drug corruption in Mexico.
About Hot Buttons
Hot Buttons, Cool Conversations, JCC Greater Boston’s acclaimed discussion series, brings together distinguished scholars, artists and activists to engage in unique exchanges around controversial and difficult subjects. Renowned panelists are led by expert moderators through respectful and thought-provoking discussions on issues of concern to the Jewish community and beyond.
The 2019 Season: Moral Responsibility
This season puts moral responsibility under the microscope, exploring the pivotal role our conscience plays in shaping the community. We look at how our moral compass guides our worldview and our acceptance of others, as well as how it dictates our laws. By examining our moral responsibility across a diverse set of issues, we’ll seek answers to critical questions that define us – not just as a community, but as people in a constantly and rapidly changing world.
Event Date
Tuesday, January 8, 2019 - 7:30pm to
Wednesday, January 9, 2019 - 8:45pm
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JCC Riemer Goldstein Theater
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Leventhal-Sidman JCC
333 Nahanton Street
Newtom, MA 02459
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Tuesday, January 8, 2019 - 9:00pm
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Blog by Carol Rose, Executive Director, ACLU of Massachusetts
The First Amendment right to record the police is a critical check and balance for people living in a free, open, and democratic society. It promotes the free discussion of governmental affairs as well as protects the democratic process. And for some communities, it’s a vital tool for uncovering, if not deterring, police misconduct.
But Boston-based civil rights activists Eric Martin and René Pérez were afraid to record the police. Under a state wiretap law passed in 1968, known as Section 99, it is a crime to secretly record private individuals and government workers, even those on duty like police officers. Since 2011, the Boston Police Department has applied for a criminal complaint against at least nine people for secretly recording police officers performing their duties in public, and the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office has opened numerous case files based on this felony charge as well.
Because of this fact, although Martin and Pérez often feared for their safety when openly recording police officers in public, they also knew recording secretly could subject them to arrest and prosecution. Caught between safety concerns and fear of punishment, they often chose not to record at all.
But that’s about to change.
Two years ago, the ACLU of Massachusetts filed a lawsuit, Martin v. Gross, on behalf of Martin and Pérez, arguing that they have every right under the First Amendment to secretly record police officers carrying out their duties in public. This week, a federal court agreed.
Taking photographs, video, and audio in public spaces is a constitutional right — and that includes law enforcement officials carrying out their duties. The defendants in this case argued that they could lawfully apply Section 99 to prevent individuals from secretly recording police officers performing their duties in public. In her recent ruling, Judge Patti B. Saris of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts called that application of the wiretap law unconstitutional.
The court explained that police officers have “diminished privacy interests” when performing their job in public, while the public has a constitutionally protected interest in newsgathering, information-dissemination, and monitoring the conduct of law enforcement officials. The parties must now submit proposed language for an order implementing the court’s decision by January 10.
The ACLU of Massachusetts has long championed the right to record the police in the public performance of their duties. In another ACLU case, Simon Glik openly recorded Boston police officers when they treated a man too roughly on the Boston Common. Glik himself was then arrested for his constitutionally protected behavior. In 2011, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit unanimously affirmed that he had a First Amendment right to record the police carrying out their duties on the Boston Common.
Although the fact pattern in Glik happened to involve an open recording, the First Circuit did not so limit its First Amendment ruling. Judge Saris’ ruling evokes Glik’s protection of both the open and secret recording of police officers performing their duties in public, reiterating that “the First Amendment’s protection for information-gathering has special force with respect to law enforcement officials who are granted so much discretion in depriving individuals of their liberties.”
In recent years, the exercise of this First Amendment right has changed the public’s understanding of encounters between police officers and the public. Time and time again, people’s recordings of police interactions have started national conversations about police reform and accountability, from Eric Garner to Philando Castile to Sandra Bland. As the Trump administration welcomes a new attorney general who opposes Obama-era police reform and civil rights work, all of us play an increasingly important role in keeping the local police in check.
This week’s decision will help ensure that we have the tools to do so.
Learn about the case
Date
Friday, December 14, 2018 - 5:00pm
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Blog by Kade Crockford, director of the ACLU of Massachusetts Technology for Liberty Program.
Last night, the Cambridge City Council unanimously voted to approve an ordinance requiring community control over police surveillance. Under the ordinance, City agencies including the police are required to seek City Council permission before buying, acquiring, or otherwise using new surveillance technologies. The City Council must also approve a policy to govern the use of each technology. Agencies are required to submit for Council approval all existing technologies, as well as surveillance impact assessments outlining the estimated costs and benefits of adopting the tools.
The passage of the ordinance last night was the culmination of over two years of work by the ACLU, Cambridge residents, the City, and members of the City Council. The ACLU is especially grateful to Mayor Marc McGovern and his chief of staff Wil Durbin for their leadership and stewardship of the ordinance over the years.
At the Council meeting last night, Councilor Craig Kelley suggested some modifications to the ordinance, some of which were accepted on a voice vote. The changes that took effect last night are outlined in bullet points 1, 2, and 4 in Councilor Kelley’s letter to the Council. Besides those small changes, this November 2018 version of the ordinance is the one that became law last night. Once the Council Clerk has posted the final ordinance online, we will post it here.
The ordinance takes effect nine months from the day of its passage. We at the ACLU look forward to working with the City of Cambridge in 2019 to implement the ordinance to ensure the City’s use of surveillance technology happens in a democratic manner, with the knowledge and participation of the public, and with robust elected official oversight.
Cambridge’s ordinance is the second passed by a Massachusetts City Council in 2018. In September, the Lawrence City Council passed a similar law.
Learn more about community control over police surveillance
Date
Tuesday, December 11, 2018 - 3:00pm
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