Often when the government tries to suppress information about its surveillance programs, it cites national-security concerns. But not always.

In 2008, a few years after the Bush administration's warrantless-wiretapping program was revealed for the first time by the New York Times, Congress passed the FISA Amendments Act. That act authorizes the government to engage in dragnet surveillance of Americans' international communications without meaningful oversight. As we've explained before (including in our lawsuit challenging the statute), the FISA Amendments Act is unconstitutional.

In 2009, we also filed a Freedom of Information Act request to learn more about the government's interpretation and implementation of the FISA Amendments Act. Last November, the government released a few hundred pages of heavily redacted documents. Though redacted, the documents confirmed that the government had interpreted the statute as broadly as we had feared and even that the government had repeatedly violated the few limitations that the statute actually imposed.

Two weeks ago, as part of our FOIA lawsuit over those documents, the government gave us several declarations attempting to justify the redaction of the documents. We've been combing through the documents and recently came across this unexpectedly honest explanation from the FBI of why the government doesn't want us to know which "electronic communication service providers" participate in its dragnet surveillance program. On page 32:



There you have it. The government doesn't want you to know whether your internet or phone company is cooperating with its dragnet surveillance program because you might get upset and file lawsuits asserting your constitutional rights. Would it be such a bad thing if a court were to consider the constitutionality of the most sweeping surveillance program ever enacted by Congress?

(Originally posted on the Blog of Rights.)

ACLU of Illinois' Board president Jill Metz was featured in a recent edition of the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin for her work in passing the new civil union legislation:

Even though she is not a registered lobbyist, Metz came down to Springfield on numerous occasions last year to help lobby for the bill in her capacity as the ACLU's board president.

She talked to lawmakers, was on hand for legal questions and was involved in the ACLU's polling and patch-through phone campaign. She also called upon her clients and other members of the LGBT community to share their stories with lawmakers.

"She was able to reach out to constituents all across Illinois to make contacts with legislators," said Rep. Greg Harris, D-Chicago, who sponsored the civil unions bill in the Illinois House of Representatives.

Over the past few years that Harris has been pushing the measure, he has worked closely with Metz and the ACLU. He said he specifically relied on Metz for her legal insight.

"Because her practice touched on a lot of issues that were related to the bill, she was able to help us to fine tune the language," Harris said, adding that the subject of his bill was "Uncharted territory" for lllinois.

While Metz played an integral role within the ACLU's efforts to pass the civil unions bill, Harris said she has done so much more in her Career for the LGBT community.

"She is a fierce advocate for equality and justice," he said of Metz, who was inducted in 2006 into the Chicago Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame.

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According to a Tribune story posted online today, Lauren Grey is, in all aspects of her life, a woman. Her driver’s license reflects that, as does her name, her Social Security information and her appearance.

Still, her Illinois birth certificate says she’s a man.

She has requested that it be changed and provided a supporting affidavit from the doctor who performed breast augmentation and facial feminization surgeries on her.

But, according to a lawsuit filed on behalf of her and other transgender people this week by the American Civil Liberties Union, the state has denied her request, saying transgender people in Illinois must have “genital reformation surgery” in order to have their birth certificates changed.

“I live as a female, I feel female and everybody treats me that way, but this document doesn’t reflect that,” Grey said. “I know that’s not me, but I can’t do anything about it.”

The class-action lawsuit was filed Tuesday naming Damon Arnold, head of the Illinois Department of Public Health, as the defendant. The suit claims that for years the state would change people’s gender on their birth certificates even if they had not had any form of genital surgery, but that the policy seemed to change “in or about 2005.”

“They’re now saying it has to be genital surgery,” said John Knight, director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Project at the ACLU of Illinois. “We think gender reassignment surgery involves other kinds of surgery, not just genital surgery. The state’s statute leaves it to the doctor to decide what surgeries are required for the gender to be changed.”

Many medical professionals who work with people in the transgender community agree that gender is more a factor of what gender a person identifies with than the person’s anatomy.

In other words, if a person with male genitals lives as a woman and perhaps undergoes some gender reassignment surgeries, that person’s gender is female, regardless of whether the genitals are operated on or not.

“Living in a particular gender is what really determines it, regardless of surgeries,” said Randi Ettner, an Evanston-based clinical and forensic psychologist specializing in gender conditions. “Genitals don’t make a person who they are. We don’t check a person’s genitals before we make a decision of whether we’re talking to a man or a woman.”

Grey, who was a client of Ettner’s, began sex reassignment treatment in 2001, though she says she has identified as a woman since childhood.

“I was a little boy but that’s not how I felt,” Grey said. “As I was growing up, I had to really look at people and understand them so I could figure out how I was supposed to act. I don’t think I figured out about being transgender until I was in high school and I saw it on ‘Oprah,’ and I said, ‘Oh my God, that’s me, that’s what I am.’”

Though she was able to change her name and her gender on her Illinois driver’s license and with the U.S. Social Security Administration, Grey said her requests to change the gender on her birth certificate have been denied. This made it impossible for her to get a passport that identifies her as a female, and also has caused problems with her work as a graphic designer.

She and a business partner applied for Women’s Business Enterprise certification with the federal government, but were denied because Grey’s birth certificate says she is male.

“It’s embarrassing,” Grey said. “It doesn’t represent who I am.”

Ettner said she has had clients who, prior to 2005, were able to get their birth certificate gender changed without having genital surgery. Since then, she said, she has had clients besides Grey who have been denied because genital surgery had not been performed.

“Every individual requires individual treatment,” Ettner said. “A medical requirement that a whole class of people has to adhere to seems so contrary to how medical care should be provided. It’s problematic to make a requirement that everybody needs to follow a certain medical trajectory.”

And, she said, a person’s inability to obtain a birth certificate that accurately reflect that person’s gender identity can cause significant emotional harm.

“A person whose entire life has involved the pain of not feeling whole or authentic, this is sort of the galvanizing document,” Ettner said.