is too powerful to abusive and too much of a threat to america's democratic values the american civil liberties union has proven itself an extremely unreliable and nonobjective characterize or of events so you know your reliance on them says more about where you are coming from than what the facts were we were very happy with how our officers performed they were professionally restrained over months of violence directed at them and the facilities that they were protecting including the people in those facilities and behaved very well as no one is ever perfect we don't expect perfection but they did an outstanding job and part of that unfortunately is shown by the raw number of injuries they suffered over the course of that time while inflicting very few was that was the threat exaggerated president trump said of portland the entire city is a blaze all the time that was aug 31st but it wasn't was it the fire service city's fire rescue service told him that no uncertain terms were not a blaze in portland they said there's a very isolated pocket of demonstrations that have involved fire none of which ha

who criticize the actions of you federal officers cited the use of excessive force the american civil liberties union said in august that your militarized agents use shop shooters to maim people protest as a way and are not cause when routinely attack journalists legal observers and medics sonic weapons and tear gas they didn't spare moms dads veterans nurses or even the city's mayor there was this law enforcement or punishment so 1st of all the characters ations you recited are false in portland alone our officers incurred over 300 injuries meaning we had they were injured not causing injuries and they were very restrained while dealing with violent protests night after night . for weeks on end. with often without the help assistance or support of local law enforcement because the local political officials those same ones i mentioned earlier as encouraging this sort of behavior ordered them to hold back so we used as minimal amount of force as we could to maintain safety and to attempt to quell violence as much as possible you didn't beat a navy veteran for simply asking questions doctors were wont

is too powerful to abusive and too much of a threat to america's democratic values the american civil liberties union has proven itself an extremely unreliable and nonobjective characterize or of events so you know your reliance on them says more about where you are coming from than what the facts were we were very happy with how our officers performed they were professionally restrained over months of violence directed at them and the facilities that they were protecting including the people in those facilities and behaved very well as no one is ever perfect we don't expect perfection but they did an outstanding job and part of that unfortunately is shown by the raw number of injuries they suffered over the course of that time while inflicting very few was that was the threat. exaggerated president trump said of portland the entire city is a blaze all the time that was aug 31st but it wasn't was it the fire service city's fire and rescue service told him that no uncertain terms were not a blaze in portland they said there's a very isolated pocket of demonstrations that have involved fire none of whi

is too powerful to abusive and too much of a threat to america's democratic values the american civil liberties union has proven itself an extremely unreliable and nonobjective characterize or of events so you know your reliance on them says more about where you are coming from than what the facts were we were very happy with how our officers performed they were professionally restrained over months of violence directed at them and the facilities that they were protecting including the people in those facilities and behaved very well as no one is ever perfect we don't expect perfection but they did an outstanding job and part of that unfortunately is shown by the raw number of injuries they suffered over the course of that time while inflicting very few was that was the threat exaggerated president trump said of portland the entire city is a blaze all the time that was august 31st but it wasn't was it the fire service city's fire and rescue service told him that no uncertain terms were not a blaze in portland they said there's a very isolated pocket of demonstrations that have involved fire none of w

is too powerful to abusive and too much of a threat to america's democratic values the american civil liberties union has proven itself an extremely unreliable and nonobjective characterize or of events so you know your reliance on them says more about where you are coming from than what the facts were we were very happy with how our officers performed they were professionally restrained over months of violence directed at them and the facilities that they were protecting including the people in those facilities and behaved very well as no one is ever perfect we don't expect perfection but they did an outstanding job and part of that unfortunately is shown by the raw number of injuries they suffered over the course of that time while inflicting very few was that was the threat exaggerated president trump said of portland the entire city is ablaze all the time that was august 31st but it wasn't was it the fire service cities fire and rescue service told him that no uncertain terms were not a blaze in portland they said there's a very isolated pocket of demonstrations that have involved fire none of wh

lee gelernt is the principal attorney with the american civil liberties union, which has been leading litigation to reunite these falies. he joins me now. lee, welcome back to the "newshour". you and the groups you have been partnering with had already been working to reunite the thousands of kids separated under zero tolerance in 2018. the news broke there have been more kids separated earlier. why has it been much more difficult to reunite those kids with their families? >> yeah, so i think a few things happened. the first thing is that, when we got the injunction in court stopping a t family separation practice, the government told us and the court that there were 2,800 families that had been separated. only later because to have the watchdog report from h.h.s. did we find out about ven months later that there had been potentially thousands morse separated at the beginning of the trump administration under what you had called the secret pilot program. we went back to court. the government said we won't give the names. the judge said, absolutely not, you're giving the aclu those nam

is too powerful to abusive and too much of a threat to america's democratic values the american civil liberties union has proven itself an extremely unreliable and nonobjective characterize or of events so you know your reliance on them says more about where you are coming from than what the facts were we were very happy with how our officers performed they were professionally restrained over months of violence directed at them and the facilities that they were protecting including the people in those facilities and behaved very well as no one is ever perfect we don't expect perfection but they did an outstanding job and part of that unfortunately is shown by the raw number of injuries they suffered over the course of that time while inflicting very few was that was the threat exaggerated president trump said of portland the entire city is a blaze all the time that was august 31st but it wasn't was it the fire service city's fire rescue service told him that no uncertain terms were not a blaze in portland they said there's a very isolated pocket of demonstrations that have involved fire none of which

people were incorrectly removed from the state's voter rolls in 2019, according to the american civil liberties unionllar job and drives a car, actually end up being voter suppression from the point of view of the person who moves a lot, who's low—income, who's working a minimum wage job. those fighting and documenting what they consider voter suppression here say some tactics are deliberate, others just sheer incompetence. but they say these are all signs of a fragile democracy. they consider it a battle worth fighting, because civil rights in this country have come too far to turn back. officials hope 80% of people will vote early or by absentee ballot to reduce the strain on election day. that was pretty easy. my staff, if you were to go around and ask them if they would participate in any sort of voter suppression tactics, i think you would get a resounding "no". i mean, that is not... we've done everything — since 2013, when i arrived, the only thing that we've been focused on is enfranchising voters. in death, the civil rights icon john lewis towers over atlanta. nikema williams is a democratic

200,000 people were incorrectly removed from the state's voter rolls in 2019 acrding to the american civil liberties unionf georgia. >> a lot of the rules that seem to be reasonable to a middle-class person who works a white-collar job and drives a car are -- end up being voter suppression from the point if you of a person who moves a lot, who is low income, was working a minimum-wage job. reporter: those fighting and documenting what they say is voter suppression say tactics are deliberate. others, just sheer incompetence. they say it is a sign of a fragile democracy. they say it is a battle worth fighting biggest civil rights in this country have come too far to turn back. officials hope 80% of people will vote early or by absentee ballot to reduce the strain on election day. >> that was pretty easy. >> my staff, if you were to go around and ask them if they would participate in any sort of voter-suppression tactics, you would get a resounding no. we have done everything since 2013 when i arrived. the only thi we have been focused on is in franchising voters. reporter: civil-rights icon john lewis tower

the american civil liberties union and black voters matter and put out these lists because most of the people purged are voters of color and young people who vote overwhelmingly of course democrat so we are warning people there is a massive racial component to this america still has to deal with this jim crow issue but now it's become partisan and i'm not saying the republicans are trump people i mean that i don't know what's in their minds but i do know that they are working very hard to remove african-americans and young people from the voter rolls and that's that could make the difference in this election they've also gone after 18 americans rising new. voter population and hispanic americans well we're going to be speaking to some. supporters jump sorry get shortly i'm sure but the west wish jump happy recovery from coronavirus greg palast thank you very much. you're very welcome that's it for the show will be back on saturday 53 years to the day the world woke up to live them of the u.s. backed murder of argentine revolutionary dr che guevara you can catch our interviews with che

people were incorrectly removed from the state's voter rolls in 2019, according to the american civil liberties unione reasonable if you're a middle—class person who works a white collarjob and drives a car, actually end up being voter suppression from the point of view of the person who moves a lot, who's low—income, who's working a minimum wage job. those fighting and documenting what they consider voter suppression here say some tactics are deliberate, others just sheer incompetence. but they say these are all signs of a fragile democracy. they consider it a battle worth fighting, because civil rights in this country have come too far to turn back. officials hope 80% of people will vote early or by absentee ballot to reduce the strain on election day. that was pretty easy. my staff, if you were to go around and ask them if they would participate in any sort of voter suppression tactics, i think you would get a resounding "no". i mean, that is not... we've done everything — since 2013, when i arrived, the only thing that we've been focused on is enfranchising voters. in death, the civil rights icon

2017 are still missing, according to a court filing from the justice department and the american civil liberties unionions happened under a pilot program, so they were excluded from a federal ruling that ordered the families torn apart by the trump administration's zero tolerance policy be reunited. deputy director of the aclu immigrants rights project who lee erndt, who has been leading the project, is here. what has been the outcome for these kids? have they been deported? do you even know? >> yes, the parents have largely been deported without their children. there are a couple reasons why we haven't found these families. the first is the government hid this collection of families from us. when he with firwe first got an in 2018, we were told there were hundreds of families that had been separated. we contacted all those families, but we found out not through the government what hid the additional kids from us through the court with a watchdog report that there may have been 700 children separated right before the court hearing. the court was astounded that the government had not come forward with

she knew who had labored as a supreme court lawyer at the supreme court for the american civil liberties union from 1971 to 1980 to get the court to call women equal. this should be ruth's, she said. on decision day justices do not read their whole opinions, which can often run to scores of pages. that morning ginsburg chose to include the her summary reading a reference to justice o'connor's 1982 decision in hogan versus mississippi. o'connor's opinion from 15 years before, for the closely divided court in hogan, ginsburg reminded her listeners, had laid down the rule that states may not close entrance gates based on fixed notions concerning the roles and ability of males and females. end quote. and then ginsburg, the legendary demonstrative justice, lifted her eyes from her text, and paused and meeting the glance of her sister-in-law from across the bench, she thought of the legacy the two were building together and she nodded at sandra day o'connor and resumed reading. [ applause ] it's not me. it's a great story. what inspired me to write it? >> how could you not write it? >> three years a

in related news, the american civil liberties union has sued three federal agencies, including the federal bureau of prisons for documents related to what the aclu called the federal government's "failed response to the spread of covid-19 in prisons in jails." donald trump and joe biden face off this evening in nashville, tennessee, for their second and final debate. the commission on presidential debates says it will mute the microphones of both candidates during parts of tonight's minute program -- 90 minute program after president trump interrupted biden at least 128 times during their first debate. the debate will also feature plexiglas barriers separating the candidates after president trump held the last debate while he was likely infected with coronavirus. on wednesday, president barack obama headlined a drive-in rally or biden in philadelphia, where he blasted trump for failing as president. pres. obama: i did hope for the sake of the country that he might show some interest in taking the job seriously. but it has not happened. he has not shown any interest in doing the work or hel

the justice department and american civil liberties union are leading the effort. >>> a live look atnavirus map. the worldwide number of confirmed cases tops 40 million with more than 1.1 million deaths. in the uk new cases in a single day reached it's highest number yesterday topping more than 21,000 infections. that brings britain's tally to more than 762,000. ireland is now the first european country to reimpose a nationwide lockdown. the restrictions start this evening and will last six weeks with a goal of ending them by christmas. >>> this morning levi stadium is squarely on the other side of the reopening divide. just hours after the state cleared the venue to welcome back a limited number. santa clara threw a block. >> we want to make it claire that super spreader events will not be allowed in the county of santa clara. putting an audience in a stadium in large groups is just asking for trouble. it's like a petri dish. >> today about the health department will update its coronavirus response. the virtual briefing starts at ten. >>> the time is 6:38. swapping out hot dogs for

the american civil liberties union of california and the consumer federation of california have come out against prop 24. ocho phooe ocho phoopponents say it makes s workers wait years to learn confa herbal did information and a state agency to enforce and implement laws that will cost $10 million a year. it has long been a california concern. in 1974 voters added the words safety, happiness and privacy when revised the state's decoloration, of rights. >> liz kreutz reporting. thank you. >>> still plenty of time to vote. go to abc7news.com. we posted an enter acinteractiv showing early voting and ballot dropoff locations. >>> facebook claims it signed up 4.4 million people to mark zuckerberg toted the approvement. they said the numbers could keep growing. online regular station is open and facebook is still running notifications. >>> all right. from boo at the zoo to shopping, the return of tourism in oakland just in time for the holidays. >>> we sent our drew tuma to oakland international airport to see if you can go from the curb to the gate without touching anything . >>> all week

republicans and doing things from a point of view, it is not dissimilar from what we seen with american civil liberties unionhat has a proud history of standing up for speech that it likes in speech that it doesn't, that is long been forgotten in pursuit of an extremely partisan agenda and it reminds me of my early days of reporting when neil munro was at the daily caller they got chased out of the white house grounds by the press corps attacking him because he dared to ask president obama question on when he was bypassing congress to pass the dreamers executive order, how dare they do that, you fast forward a few years and are badgering the president when he's doing the easter egg roll, their palace guards for democratic presidents and their attackers of anybody on the right. liz: stay on this for a second we have former "rolling stone" column, he is pointing out that the so-called progressive journalist were really upset under the obama administration for drone strikes, for surveillance in the players in that was james clapper in john brennan, they were in the intelligence architecture of the u.s. governme

i had been general counsel to the american civil liberties union for several years.avor.e was 96-3 in my my biggest supporter on the judiciary committee was not senator biden, although he was certainly in my favor, but it was orrin hatch. i think today he would not touch me with a 10 foot pole. [laughter] friends, but if it came to a vote on me, i don't think he would be the supporter he was in 1993. with stephenr breyer when he was nominated the next year. this was well into the 90's, a vote in his favor. theas not been that way for four most recent members of the court. on both sides of the aisle. i wish there was a way i could wave a magic wand and put it back to when people were andectful of each other congress was working for the good of the country and not just along party lines. someday there will be great elected representatives who say enough of this nonsense, let's be the kind of legislature the united states should have, and i hope that day will come while i am still alive. susan: ilya, you just published a book on the supreme court. we just heard the late

now, the aclu, the american civil liberties union wanted to challenge the constitutionality of this law. and so they put together and financed a case. they recruited a tennessee high school teacher, a substitute science teacher, young guy named john scopes who agreed to purposefully incriminate himself by making a point of teaching the chapter from their textbook on the theory of evolution and then urging his own students to testify against him, to rat him out, to get him in trouble, so he would be charged with this crime and it would go to trial. so that's exactly what happened. and this turned out to be just an amazing publicity opportunity for the little town of dayton, tennessee. 200 reporters descended on the town in july of 1925. a few thousand spectators from various parts of the south and further afield, if you had walked down the street of dayton in july, you would have seen trained chimpanzees playing on the courthouse lawn, billboards featuring a picture of a chimp drinking the local variety of soda pop. so local merchants were trying to capitalize on this moment in the sun.

in immigration news, attorneys with the american civil liberties union working to identify families that were separated at the u.s.-mexico border say they haven't been able to find the parents of 545 children in u.s.ustody, most of those parents have already been deported to central america. nbc news reports the aclu and other legal groups were appointed to help reunite children taken from their parents under a trump administration 2017 zero tolerance pilot program which separated over 1000 families. only about half of them have been reunited. a number of the children the government does not know their whereabouts, either. an investigation by "the l.a. times" found that since 2017, at least 265 calls to police reporting physical and sexual violence against asylum seekers inside california's four privately run immigration prisons, were not prosecuted. half of those reports were cases of rape and sexual assault, and the rest were reports of assault and battery. one case involves an asylum seeker from el salvador who was beaten by an immigration and customs enforcement deportation officer i

according to a court filing from the american civil liberties union, two-thirds of those parents separatedlot program of the administration's zero tolerance policy were deported to central america, before the program was halted by executive order. the parents of more than 550 have been contacted. but only 25 may have the chance to return to the states for reunification. joining us now, nbc news correspondent julia ansley. julia, good morning. thanks for being here. this is such a difficult story. what is the administration obligated to do? to find these parents. it seems like they should have some sort of responsibility to figure out how to find them. is there anything they have to do? >> well, it's amazing, kasie, the only responsibility is what has been dictated by this court, this federal court in california. this is the judge that shortly after the executive order in 2018 that ended the family separation, he said, now you need the process of tracking down and reuniting these families. until then, the government made no such promise. trump's executive order didn't say we'll reunite. it

the american civil liberties union has been trying to reunite these families along with the organizationled justice in motion. joining us now is kathleen karen, the founder of -- the executive director of justice in motion. kathleen, thanks so much for being here. it got all of our attention when we saw 545 kids still not reunited with their families. how can that still be the number all these years later? >> well, there was a huge batch of parents that weren't revealed to the aclu and the steering committee members that were court appointed along with kind and women's refugee commission and the law firm paul weiss. these numbers and people were not revealed to us. it wasn't until an internal government report reveal there were 1,000 more families separated, the government refused to hand over the money, the aclu had to sue and get the information and we're searching. >> where have these 545 kids been? >> we are flying to figure that out. justice in motion focuses on what we call the unreachables, the hardest of them to find. so once the rest of the steering committee partners have deter

a filing from the american civil liberties union earlier this week said the lawyers tasked with reuniting the families that were separated at the border were unable to track down the parents of those 445 children. as nbc news correspondent julia ainsley pointed out last night, the president said his administration is, quote, working very hard to reunite those children with their families, but actually, the job has been given away to non-profits who are asking the government for more information to find those parents. and these demands via the court system are the only reason we even know about these children in the first place. president trump and joe biden also had some tough words for each other on the topic of race in america. >> i am the least racist person in this room. >> what do you say to americans who are concerned by that rhetoric -- >> i don't know what to say. i've got criminal justice reform done and prison reform and opportunity zones. i took care of black colleges and universities. i don't know what to say. they can say anything. i mean, they can say anything. it's a very -

two, the american civil liberties union reports roughly two-thirds of parents detained have since been central america. the horrific headline was enough to finally trigger debate over immigration in the last presidential debate thursday. >> do you have a plan to reunite the kids? >> yes, we're working on it very -- we're trying very hard. but a lot of these kids come out without their parents. they come over through cartels and through coyotes and through gangs. >> now they cannot find over 500 sets of those parents and those kids are alone. nowhere to go. nowhere to go. it's criminal. it's criminal. >> let me ask you about immigration, ten seconds -- >> reporters, everything, they are so well taken care of. >> trump says we're working on it and we're trying very hard. not true. those are words. where is the action? where is the plan? because as nbc news reports, the burden has largely fallen on the aclu and other pro bono law firms in the 18 months since a federal judge orders these families be reunited. with me now is the deputy director of the aclu's immigrant rights project. also w

people were incorrectly removed from the state's voter rolls in 2019, according to the american civil liberties union up being voter suppression from the point of view of the person who moves a lot, who is low income, who is working a minimum wagejob. those fighting and documenting what they consider voter suppression here say some tactics are deliberate, others just sheer incompetence. but they say these are all signs of a fragile democracy. they consider it a battle worth fighting, because civil rights in this country have come too far to turn back. officials hope 80% of people will vote early or by absentee ballot to reduce the strain on election day. that was pretty easy. my staff, if you were to go around and ask them if they would participate in any sort of voter suppression tactics, i think you would get a resounding no. i mean, that is not... we've done everything... since 2013, when i arrived, the only thing that we have been focused on is enfranchising voters. a record turnout is expected in this election, but in the world's most famous democracy, full access to voting is not yet the full g

. >> i think it's also a simple of over policing in schools -- the american civil liberties union goes to the supreme court more than any organization and they helped us and they're helping others just today with issues exactly like. that >> will take another question for our -- from our audience here in des moines. >> which student is going to get the cube? >> i have it. hi my name is ulysses, i'm a student here, i'm wondering how you achieve the funds to go to court you mentioned it being four years long. did you pay out of pocket, did you get funding? how did you raise the funds? >> -- a lot of the way that they conduct their cases is through pro bono lawyers in other way in other words -- he was not only good at arguing the case but helping as feel safe and secure which was a problem at the time ticks lot of people were threatening us so that's how we had no many we had a large family, and through the help of the civil liberties union we were able to proceed. >> our lawyer passed way a few years ago but he always added he was a very young lawyer i believe he was 29 years old when h

people were incorrectly removed from the states voter role in 2019, according to the american civil liberties union a white—collarjob and drives a car, are end it being voter suppression from the point of view of a person who moves a lot in low income and working minimum wage job. those fighting it documented what they consider voter suppression hearsay some tactics are deliberate and others just sheer incompetence, but they say these are all signs of a fragile democracy. they consider a battle with fighting because civil rights in this country have come too far to turn back. that's worth fighting. 0fficial some 80% of people will vote early or by absentee ballot. just to reduce the strain on election day. it is difficult but the enthusiasm yesterday suggest they are overcoming the obstacles. stay with us. hello, good evening. the weather is looking fairly quiet, mostly settled over the next few days, not always entirely sunny. we did have some sunshine during today, a beautiful scene in the far north of scotland, but some showers around as well. quite a big threatening clouds showed up in southsea

it's those families that the american civil liberties union says three years later the locations of there joined now by mireya villarreal, cbs news correspondent in dallas. great to have you with us on the programme for this is such a sad story. tell us about these children and how they came to be separated from theirfamilies. and how they came to be separated from their families. we spend a lot of time of the border. was talking about california, arizona and also texas that's predominantly where we saw a lot of this policy taking place. what you're seeing is family units coming over, about three years ago or so. units coming over, about three years ago or so. it was an influx. and a lot of these parents were coming over. usually one parent, usually the mother was crossing over with two or three children at a time. in the midst of them coming across they we re the midst of them coming across they were being separated from their children because this was a deterrent. that would be put in place by the trump administration. obviously, this became a very huge deal in this country. as as wel

reconsider that and they were particularly supported by a small group of people who became the american civil liberties union. they tried to advance their rights. and so there were only about 100,000 socialists. far less than that by this point. i think the number is something in the 20 to 30,000 paying members at this point. he got 1 million votes. some of those people were socialists, but i think an awful lot of those people were actually voting for free speech. >> dave. hi, dave. >> i. how are you on? >> great, thanks. here we are in your town. do you have a question about one of your famous citizens? >> i am a graduate of indiana state university. the same university you are all sitting on. what was the impact on the university at the time -- i was in north india. a normal school. a school of educators. did you have an influence and what part did he take in the development of the university? >> thanks very much. lisa, you? no >> i don't know it's a great question. i do not know if eugene debs had any kind of influence on indiana state in a normal school on that period. i'm curious now to find out. >> syr

work for the prosecution, darrow said he had to be on the other side of the aclu, the american civil liberties union, that begun several years before financed the defense of scopes. one thing that people should know about this. people might have seen the famous movie "inherit the wind" with spencer tracy and the darrow character and frederick march as the bryan character. in fact, unlike what the movie shows you, scopes never went to jail. scopes was basically a -- he agreed to be a defendant because he knew a trial was going to take place somewhere in tennessee. his town of dayton, tennessee, where he taught high school was hurting economically. he wanted to bring business to dayton, tennessee. that's why the trial took place there. >> cameras were allowed inside the courtroom and it was broadcast nagt witionwide on ra. >> not only was it broadcast on the radio and tens of thousands of americans listened to it, it was a courtroom. for bryan to try to defend his christianity and creationism in the courtroom, it was the context of the courtroom and cross-examination that made it so difficult for brya

reconsider that and they were particularly supported by a small group of people who became the american civil liberties union and trying to advance their rights. there were only about 100,000 socialists, actually far less than that at this point, i think the number is in the 20,000 to 30,000 dues-paying members at this point, and he got a million votes. some of those people were socialists, but i think a lot of those people were actually voting for free speech. >> terre haute, indiana. dave? >> caller: how are you all? >> do you have a question about one of your famous citizens? >> caller: i do. i'm a graduate of indiana state university, the same university that you all are sitting on. what was eugene v. debs' impact, on the university at the time, if any? did he have an influence and did he take part in the development of the university? >> thank you very much. do you know? >> i don't know if he did anything with indiana state in that period, but i am curious now to find out. >> syracuse, new york, ralph, go ahead. >> caller: i'm from upstate new york, and i think the problem was that you had at the time e