The Illinois State Supreme Court recently struck down the state's eavesdropping law. The ruling came in two cases where the law's requirement of consent of all parties before a conversation could be recorded had been used in some places to prosecute individuals who recorded conversations that were really not private, or involved recording public officials doing their public duties. The Court found the language of the law was too vague and too broad in permitting these prosecutions. Now, members of Illinois General Assembly must pass legislation in order to put an eavesdropping law in place. The ACLU of Illinois has urged the General Assembly to maintain the important privacy protections in the previous law, protections that protect residents of Illinois against broad government intrusion. Ed Yohnka, ACLU of Illinois Communications Director noted the challenge here:

“It’s going to be important in the legislative process to ensure those privacies still remain even while we repair the part of the act the court found to be unconstitutional,” Yohnka said. “Now we go through this process of really needing an eavesdropping act that recognizes the importance of the First Amendment right to gather information but at the same time also protects individual privacy.”

Read the article via The Columbia Chronicle.

The ACLU of Illinois helped to clarify an issue regarding a local woman's First Amendment right to peacefully assemble in a letter to the City of Peoria this week. Shelby Cooper, organizer of the city's first Million March Against Child Abuse was told that she would need to pay for a permit, and would need proof of insurance coverage for her event. She contacted the ACLU who stated in the letter:

“In general, the First Amendment generally bars government from requiring a permit when a group, especially a small one, marches on a public sidewalk in a manner that does not burden pedestrian or vehicle traffic,” the letter stated.

Read the entire story via The Peoria Journal-Star.
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The Illinois Senate Judiciary Committee debated and defeated a resolution, opposed by the ACLU of Illinois, which urged academia to condemn college and university boycotts as a tool to influence policy issues on the international scene. The defeated non-binding resolution called on Illinois college and university presidents to publicly oppose boycotts in an effort to deter any action against Israeli institutions now being promoted on many campuses by pro-Palestinian groups. Introduced by Illinois State Senator Ira Silverstein (D-8^th) the resolution sited the disruptive effects boycotts have on students’ rights to a global education. ACLU of Illinois Legislative Director Mary Dixon sited the U. S. Supreme Court decisions upholding the importance of freedom of association. In her statement on the resolution Dixon said:

A boycott is an important and powerful form of protected expressive association protected by the First Amendment. Speech and nonviolent picketing in support of a boycott encompasses the practice of people sharing common views banding together to achieve a common end, a practice deeply embedded in the American political process. By this collective effort, individuals can make their views known when, individually, their voices would be faint or lost.

Read the rest via Electronic Intifada.