News & Commentary

On Nov. 5, the City of Ferguson was ordered to stop enforcing a policy that was used to prevent protesters from standing still on public sidewalks. The injunction is similar to one entered early last month, which affected St. Louis County Police Department and the Missouri Highway Patrol. The City agreed to entry of today’s order.

On Nov. 4, the American Civil Liberties Union sent a warning letter to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to alert them that an air ban singling out news aircraft is an unacceptable and unlawful abridgement of the rights of the free press. This letter was prompted by recent revelations by the Associated Press that the FAA approved a Temporary Flight Restriction over Ferguson, Mo., on Aug. 12 to prevent media coverage of an unfolding news story.

When a St. Louis City Board of Election judge confiscated Jennifer Florida’s sample ballots at a polling location on Nov. 4, the American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri immediately went to federal court to obtain a temporary restraining order, which was granted by Judge Rodney Sippel. The ACLU of Missouri had filed a civil rights action Friday on behalf of Jennifer Florida, candidate for St. Louis City Recorder of Deeds, to prevent such shenanigans.

ST. LOUIS – When the Supreme Court struck down section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act last year, the federal government recognized marriages of same-sex couples for most purposes. However, the Social Security Administration and the Department of Veterans Affairs were unable to provide certain benefits to married same-sex couples residing in Missouri because of Missouri’s refusal to recognize their marriages. The benefits included social security benefits for surviving spouses and VA home loans for married couples.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri released its report “Caught in the Web of Mass Surveillance” today. It is the product of an extensive investigation into the existing web of surveillance cameras in St. Louis, where a number of entities maintain a hodgepodge of surveillance cameras governed by a variety of internal policies or, in many cases, no policies at all.

On Oct. 14, U.S. District Judge Stephen N. Limbaugh, Jr. entered a consent judgment in the American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri’s challenge to the City of Miner’s unconstitutional ordinances banning loitering, vagrancy and begging. The ACLU filed the lawsuit last December on behalf of a homeless couple who was threatened with arrest by Miner police officers for nothing more than peaceably standing on public property and holding a sign that read “Traveling. Anything helps. God bless.”

Supreme Court Lets Stand Four Appeals Court Decisions Requiring States to Allow Same-Sex Couples to Marry

Law enforcement officials can no longer force peaceful protesters in Ferguson to keep moving on sidewalks when they are breaking no law. Federal Judge Catherine Perry granted a preliminary injunction this afternoon in the lawsuit Mustafa Abdullah v. Saint Louis County et al., regarding the “five-second rule.”

Missouri Circuit Judge J. Dale Youngs ordered that the marriages of 10 couples must be recognized by the state of Missouri. His decision came eight days after hearing the oral arguments in Barrier v. Vasterling, Missouri’s landmark case filed in February by the American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri on behalf of 10 same-sex Missouri couples.