Campus Progress reports about a recent study done by the Cook County Department of Public Health that surveyed 1,718 students at 20 suburban public high schools about health issues. The data released reinforces a need for a comprehensive sexual health education program in Illinois that, in addition to stressing abstinence, teaches medically accurate and age-appropriate information about sexual health.

Responses indicated that 37 percent of teens have had sex—61 percent of African-American teens, 49 percent of Hispanic teens, and 24 percent of white teens.

“As a public health department, we support the need for comprehensive sex education in our schools, and we know we do not have it,” Amy Poore, a spokeswoman for the Department of Public Health, told Campus Progress. “And teens are still engaging in these sexual behaviors.”

Poore said most schools teach an abstinence-only curriculum.

With so many teens engaging in sex, it’s crucial that they learn how to protect themselves, advocates say.

Read the whole thing.

The Huffington Post covers the argument held in a federal appeals court on Tuesday, September 13 over the case of ACLU v. Alvarez. The ACLU of Illinois is challenging the application of Illinois’ Eavesdropping Act to the arrest or prosecution of individuals who make audio recordings of public conversations with police, conversations with police who are performing their public duties in a public place and speaking in a voice loud enough to be heard by the unassisted human ear.

"In order to make the rights of free expression and petition effective, individuals and organizations must be able to freely gather and record information about the conduct of government and its agents -- especially the police," Harvey Grossman, legal director of the ACLU of Illinois explained in a statement. "Organizations and individuals should not be threatened with prosecution and jail time simply for monitoring the activities of police in public, having conversations in a public place at normal volume of conversation."

Read the whole thing.

The ACLU of Illinois appeared before the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals yesterday in our case ACLU v Alvarez. Richard O'Brien, a partner at Sidley Austin, argued the case on behalf of the ACLU, before the Honorable Richard A. Posner, Diane S. Sykes and David F. Hamilton.

Listen to the hearing.