LOS ANGELES, Calif. - A new report commissioned by the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California shows that black and Hispanic residents are stopped, frisked, searched and arrested by Los Angeles Police Department officers far more frequently than white residents --dramatically demonstrating that the LAPD must do more to eliminate bias from its policing.

The report, authored by Professor Ian Ayres, an economist and law professor jointly appointed at Yale Law School and Yale School of Management, is based on a fresh analysis of the LAPD's own data. The report concludes that the racial disparities aren't explained by differing crime rates in predominantly black or Latino neighborhoods, or the likelihood that a search of a person of color will yield evidence of a crime.

'The results of this study raise grave concerns that African Americans and Hispanics are over-stopped, over-frisked, over-searched and over-arrested,' Ayres said in his report. 'These stark statistics'_give a numeric lens for the lived experience of '_driving while black - or '_driving while Hispanic.''

Ramona Ripston, executive director of the ACLU of Southern California, said that 'the Los Angeles Police Department has taken several significant steps in recent months to address racially biased policing. However, as this analysis of data provided to us by the department shows, there's a lot more that should be done. We look forward to working with the department to institute improved training and other procedures that will keep the LAPD moving toward the goal of eliminating any bias in its work.'

In 2006 the LAPD released a study by the Analysis Group that examined the post-stop actions of its officers. That study -- based on 810,000 field data reports completed by LAPD officers nearly every time they stopped a vehicle or pedestrian between July 1, 2003 and June 30, 2004 -- concluded that when analyzed division by division, there was no consistent pattern of racial disparities across all divisions or races.

The LAPD provided the data on which the Analysis Group's 2006 report was based to the ACLU/SC, pursuant to a request under the California Public Records Act. At the request of the ACLU/SC, Ayres re-examined the data and found severe racial disparities, even after he controlled for crime rates and a host of other factors.

'This study shows that people of color in Los Angeles have a markedly different experience with LAPD. They're subjected to stops, frisks and searches more often than can be justified by crime patterns in different neighborhoods,' said Peter Bibring, a staff attorney for the ACLU/SC.

Ayres also found questionable assumptions and limitations in the methodology of the Analysis Group's report, and developed new ways of examining the data for evidence of whether it reflected racial profiling. Among his conclusions:

• African Americans and Hispanics were more than twice as likely to be ordered out of their vehicles than whites, and were vastly more likely to be frisked, asked to submit to a search, searched and arrested. These disparities remained statistically significant even when Ayres controlled for crime rates, poverty rates and other demographic information about the area where each stop occurred.
• Although African Americans and Hispanics were more likely to be frisked or asked to submit to a consensual search, officers were actually less likely to discover evidence during these frisks or searches. Ayres observed, 'It is implausible that the higher frisk and search rates were justified by higher minority criminality, when these frisks and searches were less likely to uncover weapons, drugs or other types of contraband.'
• Individual officers who arrested disproportionately more African Americans generally also arrested disproportionately more Hispanics.
• Racial disparities in arrest rates for stopped African Americans were smaller when the stops were conducted by African American officers.

In recent months, the LAPD has made revisions to its protocol of racial profiling investigations, and has considered additional anti-bias training. The ACLU/SC applauds this recent attention, but recommends that the LAPD take additional steps, including giving the civilian Inspector General real-time oversight of racial profiling complaint investigations, and the power to send them back to the department to be improved if necessary. The ACLU/SC also believes that the LAPD should conduct regular analyses of the data on stops that it already collects, to identify officers or units with unjustified racial disparities, and that improved anti-bias training should be provided departmentwide.

Such measures, along with improved training, early warning systems and complaint procedures, could make the department a model for rooting out racially biased policing.

CHICAGO - Congress and the Bush White House overstepped their constitutional authority and violated the rights of millions of customers when they passed and approved legislation granting sweeping immunity to telecoms that collaborated in illegal spying. That assertion is contained in a court filing today by three California affiliates and the Illinois affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, along with other interested parties in cases consolidated in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The ACLU lawsuits filed on behalf of dozens of plaintiffs - including renowned Chicago journalist Studs Terkel, former California Congressman Tom Campbell, journalist Robert Scheer and actor Richard Belzer -- challenge the unlawful collaboration of major telecommunications' companies - including AT&T - with the Bush administration's warrantless dragnet surveillance of electronic communications and records.

'Under our constitutional system, Congress and the Executive Branch do not determine whether actions taken by the Executive violate basic constitutional rights,' said Harvey Grossman, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois and co-lead counsel for the cases combined in the San Francisco court. 'Since Marbury v. Madison, we have recognized that only a court can determine the meaning of the Constitution - it is simply not a power granted to the Congress and the President.'

This filing is in response to passage of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Amendments of 2008, which mandate that courts dismiss any cases against AT&T or other telecommunications' companies if the Attorney General chooses to file a secret certification attesting that the executive branch told the phone companies that the surveillance was lawful. Under the immunity provisions, the federal court does not determine whether the spying was in fact legal, but only that the representation of legality was made by the executive branch. The Attorney General has filed such a certification in these cases. This certification, according to the ACLU, is not surprising, since the Attorney General argued for immunizing the telecoms -- in public statements and in testimony before Congress -- before the law was passed.

'It's hard to believe that the Attorney General, who argued that immunity must be granted, has fairly and completely weighed the interests of our clients,' said Ann Brick, staff attorney for the ACLU of Northern California. 'He has asked the court to dismiss their cases without determining whether any constitutional rights were violated.'

The brief filed today argues in its 1972 'Keith' decision, the Supreme Court ruled that domestic security surveillance requires prior judicial approval in the form of a warrant. The effect of the new immunity law is to overturn Keith and to dispense with this judicial gate keeping, and instead to substitute the opinion of the executive branch that the spying is lawful. Thus, the Congress and the White House have unconstitutionally encroached on the well-recognized authority of the courts to determine when a constitutional violation has occurred.

'Instead of changing the law as is its prerogative, Congress simply attempted to substitute a Bush administration interpretation of the Constitution for established law,' said David Blair-Loy, legal director of the ACLU of San Diego and Imperial Counties. 'This creates a clear and unquestionable violation of our fundamental principle of separation of powers.'

Another area of grave constitutional concern for the ACLU is the FISA Amendments overly-broad grant of authority to the Attorney General to censor what materials drawn from the government's certification can be released in a public decision. The ACLU brief notes that under the First Amendment - and separation of powers required by our Constitution - only a court, not the Attorney General or Congress, can determine what information can be presented in a decision related to a civil proceeding.

'There is a critical First Amendment right to ensure that the public can access materials filed with our courts,' said Peter Eliasberg, managing attorney of the ACLU of Southern California. 'Courts must decide what materials can be kept from the public, not a political appointee like the Attorney General, who may be more interested in protecting a particular administration than the public's right to know.'

The ACLU/SC has launched a public education campaign to fight misinformation about the rights people with felony convictions have to vote. Get the facts and know your rights: California residents who have finished their sentences and parole do have the right to vote. Individuals on probation also can vote. All you have to do to restore your rights and take back your voting power is to register to vote by Oct. 20th at the post office or DMV. Click here to download a quick guide, and click here to download a complete toolkit. For more information, visit Every Vote Counts.