The Chicago Tribune spoke with ACLU of Illinois Communications and Policy Director Ed Yohnka, about a religious liberty issue in the case of a teacher in the Berkeley, Illinois school district who was denied by her employer her request for a leave of absence to fulfill her pilgrimage to Mecca.

"For many people, their faith defines them," said Ed Yohnka of the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois. "We need to be mindful of that when it comes to making appropriate accommodations."

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Illinois Senator Mark Kirk joined Washington Senator Ron Wyden  in support of a piece of legislation which, if passed, would require judges to obtain permission before using geolocation data to track an individual's whereabouts, OregonLive.com reports. The Electronic Privacy Communications Act (ECPA) was created in 1986 and has yet to be updated since, which enables these kinds of loopholes in the law that continue to infringe on individual privacy.

"The modern equivalent of 'papers and effects' - emails, private social networking posts, what you read and view online - should be protected by a warrant no matter where they're stored. Your cell phone should not be a portable tracking device," the ACLU's Chris Calabrese said, using the legal term the describes a person's personal - and protected - information.

"If police want to know where someone is, either in the past or in real time, they should get a warrant," he said. "The steady advance of technology shouldn't result in the erosion in constitutional rights. Nor should Americans have to choose between protecting their privacy and adopting new technologies."

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The Chicago Tribune posted an article about a different-sex couple in a civil union who applied for health insurance and were denied. The recently passed civil union law does not specify that a couple in a civil union need to be a same-sex couple in order to apply for the same benefits as married couples. The Chicago Tribune spoke with the ACLU of Illinois' LGBT and HIV Project Director John Knight:

"The intent of the law was to allow same-sex and different-sex couples to be provided equality with respect to married couples," Knight said. "I do think it's bad policy in that it sets out discrimination.

"I assume the reasoning is that different-sex couples can get married," Knight added.

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