Top 10 Civil Liberties News Stories of the Week - August 4, 2006 Edition

By Tom Head, About.com Guide

In June and July 2006, the U.N. Human Rights Committee received shadow reports from several U.S. human rights groups in advance of its mid-July meeting in Geneva. The U.N. Human Rights Committee has just issued summary observations in response. Among its recommendations:

• The U.S. government should end its practice of sentencing children to life without parole.
• The U.S. government should acknowledge and end racial disparities in law enforcement, prosecution, and sentencing.
• Given these racial disparities, the U.S. government should not deny voting rights to the 5 million ex-convicts currently living lawfully within the United States.
• In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the U.S. government should make a more serious effort to provide equal access to housing, health care, and education.
• The U.S. government should take more seriously the grave privacy and due process concerns raised by the "war on terror."