July 2006 (continued)
July 21st: FAIR reports that FEMA is illegally restricting Katrina evacuees' access to the media, ostensibly in an attempt to stave off further criticism of the poorly-managed agency.July 28th: The U.N. Human Rights Committee issues recommendations for changes in U.S. law, in compliance with international human rights treaties to which the United States is a party.
August 2006
August 3rd: Louisiana's Livingston Parish agrees not to segregate public school students on the basis of gender.August 5th: The State of North Carolina establishes an Innocence Inquiry Commission to address potential false convictions.
August 8th: Antiwar blogger Raed Jarrar is forced to change his "We Will Not Be Silent" T-shirt before being allowed to board a plane.
August 10th: The ACLU releases a report documenting widespread horrific abuse of New Orleans prisoners, including nonviolent juvenile offenders, during and after Hurricane Katrina.
August 14th: The Mt. Soledad Easter Cross is transferred to federal jurisdiction, beginning a new round of First Amendment establishment clause lawsuits.
August 15th: The ACLU files a complaint against three pharmacists accused of modifying emergency contraception prescriptions to prevent refills.
August 17th:
- In ACLU v. NSA, a U.S. district judge rules that the Bush administration's controversial "spygate" NSA program is unconstitutional. The case is currently being appealed.
- The new Pension Protection Act grants some federal pension benefits to same-sex couples.
August 21st: The U.S. Border Patrol agrees to a settlement in the case of Bettina Casares, a 37-year-old American citizen and Air Force veteran who was verbally abused, beaten, and illegally detained by Border Patrol agents after returning from an Easter visit with her family in Mexico.
August 22nd: Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-CA) vetoes a bill that would have granted civil remedies to legal residents, including 1.2 million American-born citizens, falsely deported as Mexican illegal immigrants during the 1930s.
August 23rd: Brooklyn satellite TV provider Javed Iqbal is arrested for giving his clients access to Lebanon's al-Manar news agency, which expresses views sympathetic to Hezbollah.
August 24th: The Food and Drug Administration rules that Plan B (levornogestrel), aka emergency contraception, may be sold to adults without a prescription.
August 25th: Swiss scholar Tariq Ramadan, whose visa was inexplicably revoked in July 2004, wins his initial lawsuit against the federal government. His next visa application will be denied anyway.
August 28th: The ACLU files suit against a New Mexico university football coach accused of harassing, and discriminating against, Muslim students.
August 29th:
- Governor Bob Taft (R-OH) signs a bill allowing voter precinct volunteers to impose Jim Crow-style "citizenship tests" on voters whose citizenship status they might be inclined to question (i.e., Latinos--who are disproportionately likely to vote Democratic). The bill does not prevent Taft from being defeated by a landslide in November.
- Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-CA) signs the Nondiscrimination in State Programs and Activities Act, which bans anti-LGBT discrimination in state-funded programs and activities.
August 30th: The NAACP issues a report documenting widespread housing discrimination in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
September 2006
September 1st: A federal judge blocks an anti-Latino ordinance adopted in Hazleton, Pennsylvania.September 6th: In a televised speech, President Bush essentially admits that alleged terrorist detainees have been secretly tortured in CIA prisons.
