Civil Rights
| Domestic Security: Air Travel |
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| The Transportation Security Administration has said that it plans to use data on June 2004 airline passengers to test its new Secure Flight Program, which is designed to prescreen airline passengers against "watch lists" of suspected terrorists. It is expected that the Secure Flight Program will become fully operational in early 2005. It is also anticipated that current "watch lists" used by individual airlines will be replaced by lists maintained by the Terrorist Screening Center, which is administered by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
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| Due Process and Civil Rights |
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| The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides "due process" and "equal protection" to all Americans. The Fourteenth Amendment prohibits the states from passing or enforcing any law that abridges the "privileges or immunities" of citizens or deprives a person of "life, liberty, or property without due process of law." Put another way, the Due Process Clause protects citizens from interference by a state with most of the rights listed in the United States Constitution.
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| Disparate Treatment in the Employment of the Disabled |
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| Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) prohibits discrimination in the workplace on the basis of an employee or a job applicant's disability. Specifically, the ADA protects a "qualified individual with a disability." In considering a disparate treatment claim by an employee with a disability, courts seek to determine whether the disabled employee was treated less favorably than other employees who were not disabled. More... |
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| Feeding Tube Law Declared Unconstitutional |
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| A Florida woman died nearly two weeks after doctors, under court order, removed her feeding tube for the third and final time. The woman's parents suffered a string of legal settbacks after the removal of the tube, both in state and federal courts, trying to get her feeding tube reconnected. More... |
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| Marriage Protection Act Proposed |
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| As civil rights advocates voiced their disapproval of the federal Defense of Marriage Act and similar state measures, supporters of such laws realized that challenges to the constitutionality of the laws were inevitable. Hoping to avoid these challenges, some federal legislators wrote a bill called the Marriage Protection Act of 2004. In July 2004, the United States House of Representative passed the Marriage Protection Act. As of November 2004, the bill had not yet been passed in the Senate. It is anticipated that proponents of the bill will likely face an uphill battle in the Senate. Civil rights advocates say that if the Marriage Protection Act does become law, it would be the first time that Congress has completely "stripped" all federal courts from considering a federal law. More... |
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