Weekly News Update — March 12, 2013

Posted on March 12, 2013

This week in Chicago civil liberties news:

WHEN WE DON’T WANT TO RANK NUMBER ONE: Chicago tops the list of cities where police abuses costs the taxpayers millions, according to last week’s AlterNet article by John Knefel.

INVESTIGATING POLICE MILITARIZATION: ACLU National has launched an investigation into the militarization of state and local police departments across the country, writes Huffington Post’s Radley Balko.

NIXING FOIA ON STATE ATTORNEYS?: A proposed bill could prevent state attorneys from being subject to Freedom of Information Act Requests, writes Chicago Reader’s Michael Miner.

PEEKING BEHIND BARS: The Chicago Reporter’s Angela Caputo writes about her year long struggle to obtain public records from Cook County about the criminal justice system and sentencing, and some preliminary discoveries in Monday’s article.

CIVIL RIGHTS & GUN OFFENDER REGISTRIES: WBEZ’s Judith Ruiz-Branch reports on the civil rights issues raised by the widening of Chicago’s gun offender registry in last Friday’s article.

TALKING ABOUT RACE & SCHOOL CLOSINGS: Progress Illinois reports that 9 out of 10 students facing school closures are black, in last Thursday’s article.

NAMING  A NEW CIVIL LIBERTIES HERO: A Northwestern professor argues that Aaron Swartz is the next of our generation’s civil liberties heroes, according to the Chicago Reader’s Deanna Isaacs.