ACLU of Massachusetts Executive Director Carol Rose addesses some of the misconceptions about a recent court case filed by the ACLU challenging patents on individual’s genetic codes.

One of the scariest moments experienced by all too many of us is the call from our doctor saying that we should come in for additional cancer screening.

So imagine how Newton mother Lisbeth Ceriani felt when her doctors told the 42-year-old breast-cancer survivor and mother of an 8-year-old that she should be tested for the ovarian cancer gene, only to learn that a private corporation, Myriad Genetics, owns the patent on the gene in question (the BRCA gene) and was charging more for diagnostic testing than Ceriani could afford to pay.

Fortunately for Ceriani and the rest of us, a Federal judge this week upheld a lawsuit filed by the ACLU and the Public Patent Foundation challenging the government practice of granting patents to corporations that try to capture and “own” the DNA in our bodies.

The decision is good news not only for women at risk for breast and ovarian cancer, but also for men who carry the gene mutation that raises their risk for prostate, pancreatic, and other types of cancer. Since 20 percent of all human genes have already been patented and may be affected by the Court’s ruling, the decision also offers hope for new research and access to treatment for people afflicted with Alzheimer’s disease, muscular dystrophy, colon cancer, asthma and other illnesses.

The ABJ reports on new scanners police will be using in the area. However, while they acknowledge civil liberties concerns over the new technology, they only present opinions from those supportive of the technology.

Police throughout Northeast Ohio are getting some new ”bionic eyes” to help catch criminals.

The Summit County Emergency Management Agency/Division of Public Safety is buying 15 mobile license plate readers to hand out to sheriff’s offices and police departments in nine counties.

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Civil liberty concerns

Wherever the mobile license plate readers have popped up, so has some anxiety about ”Big Brother” technology moving in and civil liberties being violated. Law-enforcement officials dismissed those concerns, though, noting that law-abiding citizens have nothing to fear.

While the system might help catch criminals, it also could be used to exonerate people, they said.

”We’re looking at license plates anyway,” Summit Sheriff Drew Alexander said. ”We’re just doing it with the human eye.”

He said he likes the system because it can improve safety during traffic stops by alerting officers immediately to a potential problem.

”It gives that officer a little bit of an edge he needs,” he said.

The ACLU recently asked the Governor and state Bureau of Motor Vehicles to stop enforcing a recent policy that may exclude the homeless and many others from getting a state ID.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio office in Cleveland wants the state to cease requiring proof of residence from anybody applying for a driver’s license or state identification.

In a written statement, the ACLU said the orders by Gov. Ted Strickland and Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles policy could have “disastrous consequences” for people either homeless or living in temporary housing.

“These individuals often have no access to utility bills, government documents or other papers that the BMV now requires,” the ACLU wrote. “A state ID is essential for most people who have run into hard times to get back on their feet.”

The BMV says state law is that the agency may provide licenses only to persons who are “residents” or “temporary residents.”

Invasive and possibly ineffective body scanners will be implemented soon in Columbus and several other airports around the country.

If you plan to fly from Port Columbus when the weather warms up, there’s a good chance you’ll have to step into a full-body scanner first.

The airport expects to receive at least two full-body scanners by late spring or early summer to enhance its security screenings.

Airport officials are awaiting final confirmation and further details from the Transportation Security Administration, which will pay for and operate the scanners. Columbus had been put on a list by the TSA last year to receive the full-body scanners, said Rod Borden, chief operating officer of the Columbus Regional Airport Authority.

TSA spokesman Jon Allen said the 150 body scanners the TSA has already secured are manufactured by Rapiscan and cost $160,000 apiece. They will be distributed across the country in coming months.

State lawmakers have still not come to a resolution on whether young people who sext will be charged with as sex offenders. While the ACLU supports not charging underage people with felonies, we advocate that this should not be a matter for criminal courts, but for education of students and parents.

A Warren County state representative is concerned a bill crafted a year ago to address “sexting” between minors has not passed the legislature.

State Rep. Ron Maag, R-Lebanon said he’s reached out to state Rep. Tyrone Yates, D-Cincinnati, who chairs the House Criminal Justice Committee, on Substitute House Bill 132, which would make the creation, exchange and possession of nude materials between minors by a telecommunication device a first-degree misdemeanor.

The bill would not rule out the possibility of a felony charge, which could be reserved for cases where the true intent of the crime is malicious.

The ABJ praises the Ohio Supreme Court over their recent ruling requiring police to obtain a warrant before they search someone’s cell phone.

Justice Judith Lanzinger put the challenge in four words: ”Cell phones defy categorization.” Yet the courts must plunge into the task, anyway, seeking to draw clear distinctions and critical boundaries involving police searches and seizures in criminal investigations. On Tuesday, Lanzinger, writing for a 4-3 majority of the Ohio Supreme Court, delivered a careful argument, and the majority landed where it belonged. It upheld the Fourth Amendment principle protecting an individual’s reasonable expectation of privacy.

The decision stemmed from a drug case. A woman taken to the hospital after a drug overdose agreed during questioning by police officers to call her drug dealer. Police officers soon arrested the dealer, and in doing so, confiscated his cell phone, eventually recovering call records and phone numbers. A jury convicted the dealer for trafficking in cocaine and other charges. He received 12 years in prison.

The defendant appealed his conviction, arguing that the trial court erred in failing to suppress the evidence found on the cell phone. The court of appeals upheld the conviction. A 2-1 majority sided with the trial court, reaffirming the view that a cell phone is essentially a closed container and thus subject to search during a lawful arrest.

The Ohio Supreme Court issued a wonderful ruling yesterday affirming that police officers must have a warrant before they search a person’s cell phone.

Police can’t examine the contents of a suspect’s cell phone without a warrant, a divided Ohio Supreme Court ruled yesterday in a first-of-its-kind case over privacy and technology.

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The American Civil Liberties Union, which filed a friend-of-the-court brief supporting Smith’s position, contends that as cell phones become more like personal computers, the data they hold should be protected from unreasonable intrusions.

“There is so much information that we keep in our cell phones,” ACLU of Ohio lawyer Carrie Davis said yesterday. “It is not a simple telephone. Because of that, people have an expectation that the information they keep will be private.”

Lanzinger’s majority opinion was joined by Chief Justice Thomas J. Moyer and Justices Paul E. Pfeifer and Maureen O’Connor.

The Blade discusses recent revelations about the Transportations Security Administration’s practices in the wake of the 9/11 attacks and War on Terror.

AFTER 19 hijackers commandeered four airliners with box cutters and crashed three of them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in 2001, improving security at U.S. airports became a top government priority. The problem: It sometimes seems as if a modern-day version of the Keystone Kops was put in charge of the operation.

Further questions about the competence at the federal Transportation Security Administration have been raised by reports that the agency posted closely guarded secrets about passenger screening practices online for the entire world to peruse.

An old version of a 93-page TSA operating manual put on the Internet, inadvertently, officials say, spells out procedures and technical details for screening operations, metal detectors, and explosive detection systems at U.S. airports.

Critics and supporters debate a new initiative by Columbus city officials to install security cameras in several neighborhoods.

As Columbus moves forward with plans to monitor neighborhoods with security cameras, civil libertarians warn that the costs — both to privacy and pocketbooks — might outweigh the benefits.

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But with few exceptions, studies of camera surveillance in the United States and England haven’t found a statistically significant impact on crime rates. Criminals simply move to nearby areas without cameras, experts caution.

“All it really does is give people the illusion of safety,” said Gary Daniels, who heads the American Civil Liberties Union’s regional office in Columbus.

More information about the illegal University of Akron DNA collection policy from the Buchtelite, the University’s student newspaper.

A new policy at the Universiy of Akron has spurred controversy around the nation and has some questioning its legality.

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Michael Brickner, a spokesperson for the American Civil Liberties Union, said that he feels the policy is blatantly illegal and violates federal laws, such as the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act and the Americans with Disability Act.

GINA, which prohibits employers from collecting genetic information from employees and making employment decisions based on it, was signed into law May 21, 2008.

“We want to come out and just say, ‘this is illegal,’” he said.

Brickner explained that even though the university has not done any DNA testing, leaving the policy on the books is an open window for other universities to use the same policy.

“Bad ideas travel quickly,” he said.

Brickner said that ACLU is focusing on convincing the university to get rid of the policy immediately.

The ABJ rightfully points out the many flaws in the University of Akron’s new policy that unlawfully requires job applicants to turn over DNA for a criminal background check.

A new policy on DNA testing as part of employment background checks was quietly adopted in August by the board of trustees at the University of Akron. Good thing greater attention arrived soon enough. The resignation of faculty member Matt Williams in protest and pressure from the American Civil Liberties Union have triggered a much wider discussion of the deeply flawed policy.

No other employer in the country requires new hires to submit to a DNA test, according to the ACLU. That’s for good reason. While criminal background checks are fairly standard in higher education, the swab-for-a-job plan at UA represents a unique and unwarranted intrusion into personal privacy and raises potent discrimination issues.

Lawyers for the ACLU say acting on such a requirement would immediately trigger legal challenges based on anti-discrimination provisions in the Americans with Disabilities Act and on privacy rules in the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. Later this month, a new federal law specifically barring employers from requiring DNA samples will go into effect.

The ACLU draws attention to a troubling provision in Ohio Senate Bill 77 that would allow DNA collection of anyone arrested for a felony. While the ACLU opposes this part of the legislation, it supports other aspects such as increased access to DNA testing for convicts, and reforms of interrogation practices

A justice reform bill endorsed by Gov. Ted Strickland and passed by the Senate designed to prevent wrongful convictions also includes a controversial measure to expand the collection of DNA samples to those arrested on felony charges.

Currently, Ohio only takes DNA from people convicted of felonies and violent misdemeanors.

Law enforcement groups support the expansion, saying it gets violent offenders off the street quicker and prevents future crimes.

But others say DNA collection before conviction crosses the line, especially because the bill does not address what happens if a person isn’t convicted.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio opposes the measure, saying it poses a “myriad of civil liberty risks” including violating a person’s constitutional protections against illegal search and seizure, is ripe for abuse and is an invasion of privacy.

“This is certainly troubling,” said ACLU staff lawyer Carrie Davis. “There is no useful purpose of collecting DNA after arrest to avoid wrongful convictions and it poses all kinds of civil risks.

“Collecting DNA from all arrestees is a search and there should be some process, a court order or warrant, for a search,” Davis said.

ACLU of Ohio Associate Director Gary Daniels talks about the dangers of cameras that collect license plate numbers and the room for abuse that may occur.

Are they cutting-edge tools in the war on crime and terrorism? Big Brother in a box? Or maybe a little of both?

Area police are excited about the possibilities offered by the automated license plate reader, a camera with a scanner mounted in a housing on selected police cruisers. The reader takes pictures of motorists’ license plates while police are on patrol, scans the numbers and instantaneously compares them to a database of plates associated with stolen cars and wanted criminal suspects. An alarm goes off inside the cruiser if the computer finds a match.

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But civil libertarians and privacy rights watchdogs say the readers are a step toward a surveillance society in which everyday activities of law-abiding citizens are catalogued by authorities.

“It’s something we’ve been following,” said Gary Daniels, a spokesman for the Ohio American Civil Liberties Union in Columbus. “We’re quickly getting to the point where Americans are very uncomfortable about infringements on what they see as their right to privacy.”

The ACLU held a press conference today to help inform others on the rights of students in school, particularly when they are using technology such as cell phones and internet.

The ACLU of Ohio has sent letters to school administrators throughout the state as a preemptive strike against harsh punishments and criminal charges against students for non-threatening Internet postings and cell phone use.

Instead, the civil liberties group is urging school officials to consider ways to educate teens about safe and respectful use of new communications technologies and to refrain from issuing discipline when students’ actions are conducted after school and away from classrooms.

“What a student does on his or her own time in the context of speech isn’t something that the school can touch, under the First Amendment,” said Brian Laliberte, a former deputy attorney general and attorney in Columbus.

ACLU Staff Counsel Carrie Davis discusses some of the problems with neighborhood watch groups and how they can sometimes unintentionally cause others to unfairly be subject to police scrutiny.

Cruise down the tree-lined streets of the Old Oaks neighborhood on a summer evening and know this: Someone is watching you.

It might be Richard Vickers, who records your license plate number in a notebook as he retrieves gun shell casings from the sidewalk while out on his nightly walk. Or it might be Doug Motz, who alerts via text message: “Watch out for the green van lurking in the alley.”

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Carrie Davis, staff council for the American Civil Liberties Union in Ohio, says block watch members who aren’t trained by police should be cautious of overstepping legal boundaries.

“You have a right to observe what’s going on in the street, but that doesn’t give you a right to go peer in your neighbor’s window,” Davis says.

The Dispatch gets it right, until the very end. While RFID chips are a terrifying prospect, a national ID card poses severe challenges to Americans’ privacy rights.

The federal government ought to re-evaluate the identifying technology that is embedded into passports and passport cards and that states are beginning to include in driver’s licenses. As some technology experts have pointed out, radio-frequency identification tags, or RFID, could lead to surreptitious tracking and present the danger of identity theft.

After the terrorist attacks on 9/11, the federal government started issuing passports and passport cards with these tags, which contain a person’s name, nationality, sex, date of birth, place of birth and digitized photograph.

The tags make travel documents more difficult to forge, and they also add convenience: Remote readers at the borders can scan them from several feet away and keep lines moving smoothly. When an RFID reader emits a radio signal, nearby tags automatically transmit their data to the reader.

Clevleand’s Hopkins Airport will be one of a few airports to test invasive full body scanners as part of its new security program.

The next time you go through airport security at Hopkins, you might be asked to go through a whole body image scan…that can see beneath your clothes. The machines seem like something out of science fiction.

You go into a little booth and stand still. In another room, a Transportation Security Administration official gets a picture of your body — It’s kind of a cross between an X-ray and a nude photo……revealing any metallic or non-metallic threats.

Use of the machines here is just a test for the next 30-60 days. After that, the TSA will look at how well they worked, and how passengers reacted. They’re also optional–you can still get the traditional pat-down if you’d prefer.