The Washington Post reports that what you read and the internet news sites that attract your attention create a bounty of profile material ripe for spying abuse which could be easily thwarted. ACLU principal technologist and a senior policy analyst Christopher Soghoian maintains that media outlets could protect their readers’ privacy by simply activating SSL encryption.

"This is as basic as it gets in privacy," Soghoian argues. "I think many of us would think the government has no business knowing which books you are checking out from the library, and this is the same thing -- they have no business knowing which articles you are reading online."

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The Austin Weekly News reports that an ACLU suit against the Chicago Police Department, filed with the Central Austin Neighborhood Association (CANA), has been reinstated by an appellate court. The case, which had been dismissed last year by a trial court, charges that 911 police response times are slower in African-American and Hispanic neighborhoods than in other sections of the city:

The ACLU says the unequal deployment of officers violates the Illinois Civil Rights Act of 2003 — the law makes it unlawful for government to provide services in a manner that has a disparate negative effect on any racial group.  The ACLU, via a press statement, called the decision a big win for all of Chicago's minority neighborhoods.

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The Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) confessed to under reporting the number of children fatally lost because of neglect or abuse over the last five years. The Chicago Sun-Times reports that a recent DCFS audit revealed 11 more children to date had died since 2009. Testifying before Illinois Senate hearings, DCFS acting Director Denise Gonzales attributed the under reporting due to tracking and reporting errors. For decades, the ACLU of Illinois has represented the interests of children in the care of DCFS and worked to reform the foster care system:

“There’s no excuse for the DCFS system not being able to count accurately the number of children who died,” said Benjamin S. Wolf, an American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois attorney who monitors DCFS under a federal court order. “It’s something we’re going to look at more closely.”

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