| The Privacy of Cellular Telephone Numbers |
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| Six of the seven largest wireless telephone carriers say that they will move forward with a plan to compile a directory of wireless telephone numbers. The Wireless 411 Privacy Act has been introduced in Congress to prohibit wireless telephone carriers from including in a published directory the cellular phone numbers of those subscribers who do not give their consent. More... |
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| Proposed Employment Non-Discrimination Act |
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| Civil rights organizations, as well as many major corporations, have sought the passage of the federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) since 1996. So far, these efforts have been unsuccessful. The legislators who have sponsored ENDA say they have done so because sexual orientation in the workplace is commonplace and unacceptable. The purpose of ENDA is to prohibit intentional sexual orientation discrimination in the workplace. ENDA would accomplish this goal by adding sexual orientation to the list of protected traits or characteristics that presently includes race, national origin, gender, religion, age, and disability.
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| The Use of Drug Detection Dogs |
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| In 2004, the United States Supreme Court surprised some court watchers when it agreed to hear a case involving a question of whether the Fourth Amendment requires reasonable, articulable suspicion to justify the use of a drug detection dog to sniff an automobile during a legitimate traffic stop.
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| The Freedom of Religion in Prisons |
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| The federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 (RLUIPA) says in part that no government shall impose a substantial burden on the religious exercise of anyone confined to a federally-funded government institution, including prisons and jails. RLUIPA requires prisons to accommodate the religions practiced by inmates. The law allows governmental authorities to interfere with religious practices only if they can show a "compelling governmental interest." Often, prison security and discipline have been found to be sufficient reasons to restrict inmates' religious practices.
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| Voter Intimidation |
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| Since the passage of the Voting Rights Act, obvious methods of voter discrimination were replaced by subtler--but arguably more effective--tactics meant to "disenfranchise" minority voters through intimidation. Although historically limited to African-American voters, incidents of voter intimidation are now being reported with greater frequency in Latino communities. Voter intimidation occurs when individual voters or, more likely, a group of voters decide not to vote because they have been threatened or mislead. For example, minority citizens who are eligible to register to vote may be given incorrect information about registration requirements. Voters may be confused or harassed to the point that they do not wish to appear at the polling places.
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