The American Civil Liberties Union testified before a key House subcommittee today on the need for comprehensive reform of the USA Patriot Act. Three troubling provisions of the Patriot Act are currently up for renewal this year and will expire on May 27 without congressional action. Since it was rushed through Congress just 45 days after September 11, the Patriot Act has been misused and abused by law enforcement to infringe on the privacy of innocent Americans.

“By expanding the government’s authority to secretly search private records and monitor communications, often without any evidence of wrongdoing, the Patriot Act has violated our most basic right – the freedom from unwarranted government intrusion into our private lives – and thwarted constitutional checks and balances,” said Michael German, ACLU Senior Policy Counsel and former FBI Special Agent, in his testimony. “Under the Patriot Act, the government has the right to know what you’re doing, but you have no right to know what it’s doing.”

The provisions of the Patriot Act that are due to expire next month are the John Doe roving wiretap provision, which allows law enforcement to conduct surveillance without identifying the person or location to be wiretapped; Section 215, or the “library records” provision, which allows the government to gain access to “any tangible thing” during investigations; and the “lone wolf” provision, which permits surveillance of non-U.S. persons who are not affiliated with a terrorist group. All three provisions lack proper and fundamental privacy safeguards.

Read the full press release.

Read the ACLU's full testimony.

According to an article in the Windy City Times Thursday, Gay Rights Advocates have declared dead Senate Joint Resolution Constitutional Amendment SC0016, which would have amended the Illinois constitution to define marriage as between a man and a woman and thus effectively barred same-sex marriage in Illinois. The American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois (ACLU) was among the advocates following the amendment.

ACLU's communications director, Ed Yohnka told WCT that the apparent defeat of the amendment means that, " the efforts by some members of the Illinois general assembly to advance a constitutional amendment that would write discrimination into the Illinois constitution has been stopped this year. On the heels of the adoption of civil unions in Illinois and the wide-ranging public support for civil unions, Illinois was not going to turn the clock back twenty years and pass the amendment. "

According to Yohnka, what he identified as "larger public attitude shifts across Illinois and the country" in terms of greater acceptance of same-sex marriage meant that the amendment was a "non-starter" from the beginning. Expanding on that point, he said that, "You see legislators who will propose some sort of legislative activity who are really not doing so with the expectation that it will pass, but they get a press release or it fills the needs of some narrow constituency in their district."

Wednesday, 9:30 a.m., Springfield - In an extremely swift hearing this morning, the House Agriculture Committee again passed legislation, sponsored by Representative Senger that regulates provision of women's reproductive health care in Illinois - seeking to regulate abortion out of existence. The committee passed an amendment to HB 2321 (which now replaces HB 3156) that would place unnecessary,discriminatory and burdensome regulations on clinics that provide abortion services.

Despite impassioned testimony from the ACLU of Illinois' executive director Colleen Connell, the committee passed the amendment without any questions - and without any debate. The fight now moves to the House floor.

Download the Fact Sheet. Track the Bill. Read the Full Text.