LOS ANGELES - In a unanimous vote last night, the City Council of West Hollywood passed a resolution regarding the civil liberties dangers of the USA PATRIOT Act, the first Southern California city to join a growing movement across the nation of local jurisdictions voicing dissent and exploring ways of responding locally to USA Patriot's civil liberties threats. Twenty-six other cities and counties have passed such resolutions, including Oakland, Denver, and Detroit, in part of a national movement led by the ACLU and other groups.

The City of West Hollywood was also one of 5 cities in the nation to address the issue of library privacy explicitly in its resolution and has instructed city librarians to notify patrons about the impact USA PATRIOT has on the privacy of patron records, including Internet searches. Librarians across the country have been expressing concern about the ways in which the PATRIOT Act compromises patrons' privacy.

'Libraries should be a bastion of intellectual freedom,' said Ramona Ripston, 'but when federal law enforcement authorities have the power to conduct secret searches, then everyone's intellectual freedom is compromised.'

'Your library card should be your passport to a world of your own, a private world, and your librarian should be the trusted custodian of that privacy. But changes in federal law have altered that basic understanding,' said Ripston. 'In the cold war, we saw that libraries across the nation were visited and searched; people with foreign-sounding names were automatic suspects. Unfortunately, we've returned to that era under Attorney General Ashcroft.'

Since 9/11, library patrons have far fewer protections against privacy violations. Business records, including library records, are subject to searches authorized by secret courts, and librarians are prohibited from informing individual patrons whose records are seized. In addition, searches of library Internet use records potentially expose all library patrons to law enforcement scrutiny.

The City of West Hollywood also instructed its Public Safety staff to review all of the ways in which the city can ensure the First Amendment rights of its residents.

'The First Amendment provision of the West Hollywood resolution is critical,' said Ripston. 'So many of the provisions of the PATRIOT Act chill freedom of assembly, freedom of speech, and even, potentially, the free exercise of religion. When government agents spy on domestic groups, as they are authorized to do now, individuals take real risks in participating in dissent. Likewise, mosques or other religious establishments may, as a result of Attorney General Ashcroft's power grab, be targeted with domestic surveillance.'

LOS ANGELES - Today, a coalition of civil liberties and advocacy groups including the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, Iranian American Lawyers Association, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Muslim Public Affairs Council, Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Asian Pacific Legal Center, the Progressive Jewish Alliance, People For the American Way, and the Japanese American Citizen's League called on the Department of Justice to scrap the flawed and misguided INS Special Call-In Registration program or, at the very least, to extend the deadlines for registration so that the regulations in the program can be corrected.

The coalition's statement comes on the heels of the arrest and detention of hundreds of Arab and Iranian men who voluntarily reported to the INS to be fingerprinted, photographed and interviewed by the December 16 registration deadline for National's of Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan, and Syria. Deadlines are approaching for 15 additional countries that were recently added to the INS list.

'An immense number of law-abiding individuals have been unjustly detained and imprisoned in unacceptable and inhumane conditions as a result of this registration process,' said Kayhan Shakib, president of the Iranian American Lawyers Association. 'As other communities confront upcoming registration deadlines, we want them to be aware that the basic principles of fairness and equity are not being upheld.'

'The actions undertaken by the INS only serve to underscore the fact that some people in the Administration still don't understand the values we are all fighting to protect,' said Ramona Ripston, executive director of the ACLU of Southern California. 'This is the United States of America; we have to remember that many of these people came to this country fleeing political and religious persecution. What kind of message are we sending them?'

According to reports from family members and lawyers, some detainees have been held in facilities where there is not enough room to move, walk or sleep, and some have been denied food and necessary medicines. There are also concerns that even people believed to be in compliance with immigration regulations are being detained.

'This INS roundup is confused, ineffective and deceptive,' said Salam Al-Marayati, executive director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC). 'It is clear these measures erode our freedom, yield no enhanced security, and serve to damage America's global image.'

'Despite our collective desire for security, and despite our current fears, we must not allow ourselves to repeat the shameful excesses of the past,' said Ken Inouye, vice-president of public affairs for the Japanese American Citizen's League. 'Rounding up immigrants based on nothing but their religion or national origin shows only that we have not learned from ourmistakes and is inconsistent with the core values of our Constitution.'

'This flawed operation seems to be repeating the problems of other mass detentions by the federal government,' said People for the American Way California Deputy Director, Marcos Barron. 'It singles out people for different kinds of treatment based on their ethnicity and national background, and it is carried out with excessive secrecy, which prevents oversight and accountability.'

LOS ANGELES - The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California and the National Center for Lesbian Rights today filed suit on behalf of Ashly Massey, an eighth grader in Banning, California who was forced to sit in the principal's office during physical education class after the gym teacher heard that she was a lesbian.

The lawsuit states that the school's actions violated Ashly's constitutional right to equal protection, and her rights under the Student Safety and Violence Prevention Act of 2000, a new California law that prohibits discrimination against public school students on the basis of sexual orientation.

'This is a clear case of discrimination,' said Martha Matthews, ACLU/SC Bohnett Attorney. 'Ashly did nothing wrong, but she was denied access to a public school class, and forced to sit in the office day after day.'

Courtney Joslin, staff attorney at the National Center for Lesbian Rights, added that 'even if students are uncomfortable sharing gym class with someone of a different sexual orientation, the school does not have a right to discriminate. Instead, the school should educate students on getting along with others in an increasingly diverse society.'

Soon after the gym teacher heard that Ashly was a lesbian, she called Ashly's mother to inform her that there was a problem with Ashly being in the girl's locker room because of Ashly's sexual orientation. Ashly's mother asked the gym teacher if her daughter had misbehaved. The teacher reported that Ashly had not acted improperly, or made any inappropriate comments to other students. Ashly's mother asked the teacher to call her again if there were any future problems.

Ashly's mother never received another call from the gym teacher. When Ashly showed up for gym class the next day, she was told that she would no longer be allowed in gym class and to go to the principal's office instead. For the next week and a half, Ashly sat in the principal's office during the time she was supposed to be in gym class. During this time, no school official ever met with Ashly or her mother to discuss the situation. Ashly's humiliating ordeal ended only when her class schedule was changed for unrelated reasons.

'It wasn't right for the school to discriminate against me because of my sexual orientation,' said Ashly Massey, plaintiff in the lawsuit and student at the time of the incident. 'I'm hoping this inspires other people to take a stand when they feel they haven't been treated right or when they see someone treated unfairly.'

'It's not right for anybody to have to go through this,' she added.

Ashly's complaint, filed in federal court in Riverside, asks for damages and for an injunction requiring the school to develop policies, teacher training and other measures to ensure that students do not suffer similar discrimination in the future.