Leonard Pitts' syndicated column appeared in The Chicago Tribune about the use of cameras to record police activity in light of the November 18 UC Davis incident, where a police officer doused seated occupy protesters with liberal amounts of pepper spray. He poses the question: what if there had been no cameras to record the incident?

The use of video or audio recorders to record police conduct without prior consent is currently illegal in Illinois. The case of ACLU v. Alvarez seeks to challenge the Illinois Eavesdropping Act -- the law which prohibits citizens from recording public conversations with police in public places. The ACLU of Illinois asserts that it is a First Amendment right to be able to gather information with a recording device, and to be able to disseminate that information to the public.

With regards to the UC Davis incident, in addition to growing concerns over police interactions with occupy protesters over the last couple of months, Pitts writes:

If you are not interfering with police or otherwise breaking a law, what legal or moral pretext do they have to stop you from filming them? Indeed, those who are doing their work honorably — in other words, the majority — should welcome that, as it protects them from spurious claims of brutality, just as it protects citizens when the brutality is real.
That is the moral of this story and the reason we should be thankful cameras recorded what happened at UC-Davis that day. What police did to those students was an absolute crime.

Getting away with it would have been one too.

Read the whole article.

The New York Times ran an article about the use of surveillance cameras in Chicago and the ACLU of Illinois' efforts to foster transparency in the reporting of the city's use of surveillance cameras. Mayor Rahm Emanuel has recently decided to install an additional 1,700 surveillance cameras throughout the CTA, in addition to the 10,000 cameras the ACLU of Illinois had estimated in a report released in February.

Andrew Koppelman, a Northwestern University law professor, said, “It is not to argue that Emanuel is wrong, especially in areas where crimes are likely. But limits are crucial, and the costs of knowing you’re being watched can outweigh the benefits.”

Limits sought by Adam Schwartz, senior lawyer for the A.C.L.U. of Illinois, include disclosing the number of cameras and promulgating rules on when a camera operator can use zoom, facial recognition or automatic tracking capabilities.

Read the entire article.

Wonderful news! Foster children in Illinois will continue to be placed in safe, loving homes based on their individual best interests - not the religious tenets of the foster care agency.

We received word late yesterday that Catholic Charities dioceses of Springfield and Joliet are voluntarily dismissing their lawsuit seeking to force the State of Illinois to enter contracts for foster care services even though they violated the law by refusing to place foster children in homes headed by gay or lesbian couples.

The ACLU of Illinois intervened in the suit, Catholic Charities v. Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS), to defend the rights of children in the care of DCFS, as well as the interests of a lesbian couple with a civil union who plan to become foster parents.

We know this fight is not yet over - legislators have already filed ill-conceived proposals for the 2012 session seeking to permit religious foster care agencies to discriminate against couples with civil unions.

But for today - the children in the care of DCFS will be placed in the best homes available, and qualified lesbian and gay couples with civil unions will not be discriminated against by state contractors. It is a victory worth celebrating.