LOS ANGELES - A federal judge ruled today that a Palestinian man who came to the United States more than two decades ago seeking a better future should become a U.S. citizen.

The historic case, Barakat v. Arellano, was argued by David Cole for the Center for Constitutional Rights, Ahilan Arulanantham of the ACLU of Southern California, and Carol Sobel and Marc Van Der Hout for the National Lawyer's Guild.

Aiad Barakat, 45, was granted citizenship today after a federal trial in front of Judge Stephen Wilson that concluded today. Barakat is one of the 'L.A. 8,' a group of eight people who were targeted by the government nearly 20 years ago for engaging in political speech and supporting Palestinian right. None of the "Eight" was ever charged with a crime, and a federal court determined that their activity was protected by the First Amendment. But Barakat's application for citizenship was denied based on the same allegations that the government had failed to prove 20 years ago.

Barakat then appealed the government's decision to federal court. Judge Wilson issued his decision Friday.

'I am very pleased. I have waited for this day for almost 20 years,' Barakat said. 'I'm hopeful that the government will quickly issue me a passport so that I can travel back to the Middle East to visit my elderly mother, something I haven't been able to do since to this country.'

Barakat is the first of the 'L.A. 8" to become a citizen.

'This is an historic ruling,' Cole said. 'This case makes clear that the government cannot deny someone citizenship simply based on activity protected by the First Amendment.'

Van Der Hout added: 'We hope the government will not waste even more resources in appealing this important decision. This misguided prosecution has gone on long enough and it's time it ended.'

The government must now issue Barakat citizenship documents.

'We hope the government will take this opportunity to reassess the cases of the other seven people in the L.A. 8 and grant them citizenship as well,' Sobel said.

Barakat lives with his two children in Southern California and works as a contractor.

'Aiad Barakat did nothing more than attend social gatherings and distribute a Palestinian magazine in the mid-1980s, yet the government forced a federal trial to determine whether this father who has lived in L.A. for 20 years, could finally become a citizen and fully participate in our society,' Arulanatham said. 'The answer from the Court today was a big win for Aiad and everyone who supports freedom of speech.'

LOS ANGELES - The U.S. Supreme Court today ruled against whistleblowers, which will silence public employees who have information about governmental misconduct.

"Public employees should be encouraged to report misconduct. This opinion does the opposite and can only cause government employees who are weighing whether or not to expose wrongdoing to decide to remain silent for fear of losing their jobs," said Peter Eliasberg, Manheim Family Attorney for First Amendment Rights at the ACLU of Southern California.

In October, the American Civil Liberties Union submitted a friend-of-the-court brief in the case Garcetti v. Ceballos on behalf of public employees' First Amendment rights to expose corruption on the job. Justices ruled against Ceballos in a 5-4 vote Tuesday.

In his dissent Justice David Souter wrote: 'Open speech by a private citizen on a matter of public importance lies at the heart of expression subject to protection by the First Amendment.'

The decision effectively bars public employees from reporting misconduct to their supervisors or within the chain of command, but does not keep them from reporting such incidents to the media, Eliasberg said.

The case was originally filed in federal court in Los Angeles in March 2000 and centers around an attempt by Richard Ceballos, a Deputy District Attorney in the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office, to expose police misconduct. While working on a criminal case, Ceballos wrote a memo to his supervisors saying that he believed a deputy sheriff had falsified an affidavit used to obtain a search warrant in the case. His superiors decided to proceed with the prosecution. After Ceballos informed the defense counsel about his findings, he was subpoenaed to testify at a hearing to dismiss the case. The judge denied the motion and Ceballos was removed from the prosecution's team.

Ceballos said his removal from the prosecution for reporting his concerns to his supervisors was the first of many acts of retaliation for his whistleblowing: He was denied a promotion, demoted to the rank of trial deputy and transferred from Pomona to the El Monte branch of the District Attorney's office.

"In an age of excessive government secrecy, the Court has made it easier to engage in a government cover-up by discouraging internal whistleblowing," said Steven Shapiro, ACLU National Legal Director.

Justice Samuel Alito cast the tie-breaking vote after the cased was argued twice, once before Sandra Day O'Connor and again after Alito joined the bench.

LOS ANGELES - The three affiliates of the ACLU of California filed lawsuits today against both Verizon and AT&T for their illegal and unconstitutional transfer of private customer information to the National Security Agency.

The lawsuits were filed in state court and seek injunctions stopping the two phone companies from any additional transfers of private customer data to the federal government in violation of the California Constitution's privacy provision and the Public Utilities Code.

Plaintiffs in the case include former Congressman Tom Campbell, journalists Marc Cooper and Robert Scheer, "Law & Order" actor Richard Belzer, the writer of the California Telephone Privacy Act, medical professionals, members of the clergy, computer and security experts and lawyers.

"AT&T and Verizon have systematically and flagrantly violated important state laws that are designed to protect consumers and maintain the privacy of millions of California residents," said Ramona Ripston, executive director of the ACLU of Southern California. "The government has the means to obtain information legally under certain specific circumstances, but it has no license for this overbroad, illegal collection and mining of data."

On May 11, USA Today published a report on a previously undisclosed database of telephone calls created by the National Security Agency from millions of customer records provided by the telephone companies. The lawsuits filed today call on the companies to comply with the law and cease divulging private consumer data to the federal government. California law prohibits telephone companies from providing information including "customer's or subscriber's personal calling patterns, including any listing of the telephone or other access numbers called by the customer or subscriber" to anyone unless the subscriber has consented or pursuant to court order, and the law requires the companies to disclose to customers any information sharing.

The lawsuits note the extreme importance medical professionals share in ensuring their phone calls remain confidential.

"It is essential to good medicine that patients' communications with their doctors be completely confidential," said Dr. Curren Warf, a pediatrician who practices in Los Angeles. "In many cases, adolescents and their families, whom I treat, have private concerns. Having phone companies turn over doctors' phone records is a terrible violation of privacy and a threat to the doctor-patient relationship, which is founded on confidentiality and trust. The law must protect both the content of doctor-patient communications as well as ensuring patients that they can speak with doctors without anyone else knowing about that conversation."

Dr. Robert Jacobson is a technology expert in California who in 1985 helped draft the California Telephone Privacy Act, which was passed with bipartisan support and signed into law by Gov. George Deukmejian.

"The law is clear and it reflects the fact that privacy is important to the people of this state and its business community," Jacobson said. "People expect their private conversations to be private whether they're calling friends, family, church, or business associates.Similarly, business thrives when customers know that their personal information is not being given away without their consent."

Security expert Bruce Schneier warns that data mining is ineffective and sacrifices freedoms:

"Data mining is like searching for a needle in a haystack and the cost is enormous -- not just for the FBI agents running around chasing dead-end leads instead of doing things that might actually make us safer, but also the cost in civil liberties. The fundamental freedoms that make our country the envy of the world are valuable, and not something that we should throw away lightly."

On Wednesday, 20 other ACLU affiliates filed complaints with the Public Utility Commissions in their states or sent letters to state Attorneys General and other officials demanding investigations into whether local telecommunications companies allowed the NSA to gather information about their customers.

"This type of overbroad data collection is especially alarming to doctors, psychiatrists, lawyers, ministers and their clients," said Peter Eliasberg, ACLU/SC managing attorney. "Our society protects privacy and respects doctor-patient, lawyer-client, and minister-parishioner confidentiality. Without a system of checks and balances, the government can monitor any phone call or e-mail it wants, and that abuse of power sends a chilling message to all innocent Americans that our conversations are not our own."