Judge Blocks most controversial parts of Arizona immigration law

Eric Zimmermann
07/28/10 01:55 PM ET

A federal judge granted an injunction Wednesday preventing Arizona from enforcing the key provisions of a controversial new immigration law.

U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton agreed with the Department of Justice’s argument that certain parts of the law should be put on hold until the courts study and rule on the law.

“There is a substantial likelihood that officers will wrongfully arrest legal resident aliens under the new [law],” Bolton, a Clinton appointee, wrote in granting the injunction. “By enforcing this statute, Arizona would impose a ‘distinct, unusual and extraordinary’ burden on legal resident aliens that only the federal government has the authority to impose.”

The law still goes into effect at midnight tonight, but without the controversial portions struck down for the moment by Bolton.

The most contentious part of the law required police officers who have stopped individuals for other reasons to verify their citizenship if there’s a “reasonable suspicion” he or she is an illegal immigrant.

Bolton halted enforcement of that provision, arguing that it would violate the rights of legal immigrants and citizens who could potentially be detained.

The ruling also granted an injunction against a provision of the law that makes it a crime not to carry proof of immigration status.

The Obama administration brought the suit against the law, which polls show is popular across the country. A spokesman for the White House said the Department of Justice would be commenting on the ruling later Wednesday.

The state law has become a flashpoint in the larger immigration battle, and has helped to ensure the issue will be a hot point of discussion ahead of mid-term elections that Republicans hope will end in their takeover of the House. After Arizona's governor signed the law, it briefly appeared the Congress might take up broad immigration legislation this summer.

While the Arizona law is popular, many Democrats see opposition to it as a way for the party to continue to make inroads with Hispanic voters, who could be key to several House and Senate races this fall. Obama won Hispanic voters handily in 2008, but polls show his popularity with that group has dropped since his election.

Some Republicans quickly blasted the decision.

"The federal government has a right and a responsibility to enforce existing laws, but when they fail to meet that responsibility, we should not stand in the way of the states that take action to respond to the very real threat of border violence, drug cartels and human smuggling," said Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.).

Parts of the law that were kept include a policy against “sanctuary cities” and against a provision penalizing illegal immigrants who solicit employment in public places.

Read the full legislation, S.B. 1070, here.

The legislature later passed a follow-up law declaring that race could not be used as a factor in determining “reasonable suspicion,” and clarifying that police can only question someone during a “lawful stop, detention, or arrest,” not simply “lawful contact.”

This story ws updated at 2:22 p.m. Read More

Government Intrudes On Troops' Privacy

Jon Soltz-Huff-Oct. 9, 2008

Absolutely disgusting. According to a new report from ABC, thanks to the Patriot Act, the government has been listening into phone calls from troops in the middle east, and passing clips of them around the office. Not just that, but the clips are of private moments between troops and their wives and girlfriends.

From ABC:

Faulk says he and others in his section of the NSA facility at Fort Gordon routinely shared salacious or tantalizing phone calls that had been intercepted, alerting office mates to certain time codes of "cuts" that were available on each operator's computer.

"Hey, check this out," Faulk says he would be told, "there's good phone sex or there's some pillow talk, pull up this call, it's really funny, go check it out. It would be some colonel making pillow talk and we would say, 'Wow, this was crazy'," Faulk told ABC News.

Faulk said he joined in to listen, and talk about it during breaks in Back Hall's "smoke pit," but ended up feeling badly about his actions.

Oh, he felt badly? How about I start listening into the phone calls of NSA staff, and posting the best stuff on blogs, so we can all have a laugh.

Asked for comment about the ABC News report and accounts of intimate and private phone calls of military officers being passed around, a US intelligence official said "all employees of the US government" should expect that their telephone conversations could be monitored as part of an effort to safeguard security and "information assurance."

"They certainly didn't consent to having interceptions of their telephone sex conversations being passed around like some type of fraternity game," said Jonathon Turley, a constitutional law professor at George Washington University who has testified before Congress on the country's warrantless surveillance program.

Turley is right, and frankly, the response to ABC from the intelligence official is a disgrace.

Let me tell you something about being in a warzone. It's grueling, it's mentally taxing, it's hot, you see men blown up and losing limbs. For many, the one bit of calm they have is a brief moment when they thought of their wives or girlfriends back home, who they haven't seen for months.

But it was also agonizing. They could see them in their heads, but they couldn't touch them or smell them.

The best troops have is a brief telephone call sometimes. And, yes, it was as close to intimate as they can get. A tiny bit of good amidst the hell of war.

For the government to think that it was acceptable to listen in and pass around troops' most intimate moments, like some high-tech peeping toms, some satellite-powered voyeurs, is one of the greatest insults I can think of to those men and women in uniform sacrificing everything they have for their nation.

It's good that Senator Jay Rockefeller has started an investigation into this. I sincerely hope that he does not stop until everyone who let this happen is accounted for, and their heads roll. And I hope Republicans, who used to be all about limited government, and who swore to uphold our Constitution and Constitutional rights wake up and realize what's happening.

Our troops deserve a lot better from the government they're fighting for.

Crossposted at www.vetvoice.com

McCain will offer more of the same!