News & Commentary

The ACLU is raising concerns about the abuse of automated license plate reader (ALPR) technology in the wake of a disconcerting story out of Kansas. The technology, which has been described as a tool for mass surveillance, was used by police to track a man who had published an opinion piece critical of the police department in a local paper, and who was subsequently suspected of putting up anti-ICE posters around town a few days before the op-ed was published.

The American Civil Liberties Union on Sunday released a statement condemning Kansas lawmakers for overriding gubernatorial vetoes last week, arguing the measures represent a sweeping attack on the rights of Kansans.

Micah Kubic, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas, said procedural steps taken this year weren’t always about issues or bill substance, and there was no need to move quickly. “In many of these instances, they have the votes to support the things they want to do,” he said. “They’re doing it hastily just to be able to be out of there in X days. It is an active choice to decide to approach the process, and it is not ordained by the rule, by the law, by the Constitution or by God. It is simply the way they have chosen to approach the question.”

The bill’s passage has drawn opposition from groups like the ACLU and the Kansas Press Association, who says the bill will violate First Amendment rights. Critics say the vague writing of the bill will lead to legal battles over its enforcement.

“These new provisions break down the boundaries that exist between local and federal operations. They expose agencies in our state to federal civil rights litigation and it’s all for the goal of targeting immigrants in our community,” Logan DeMond, the director of policy and research for ACLU Kansas, said. “This is a direct attack on due process. There are serious constitutional concerns with this legislation. It’s not just an attack on immigrants. It is an attack on all of our rights.”

The ACLU of Kansas testified in January that such methods could lead to the disenfranchisement of people who are otherwise eligible to vote. In his testimony before the Kansas legislature, ACLU of Kansas director of policy and research Logan DeMond said that “voter inactivity must never be treated as evidence of ineligibility.” He warned that people facing housing instability, who live in rural areas with limited mail access and those who simply choose not to vote could get “swept into purge processes, especially when combined with unreliable address or database matching.” “These bills are part and parcel of the illegal and dangerous attempts nationally to subvert our democracy and to dismantle our fundamental constitutional protections against government overreach and state violence,” said ACLU of Kansas Executive Director Micah Kubic about the laws’s enactment.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas in 2017 analyzed the legal liability of local law enforcement when they operate under the 287(g) contracts for ICE. Because they are free to disregard detainers, those agreements have not been found in court decisions to be a defense for unlawful detention, the ACLU said, listing lawsuits. “Jailers cannot evade responsibility for unlawful detention by claiming the federal government required them to hold the person on an immigration detainer,” ACLU’s report said.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas last month warned that the state’s legislature is attacking elections and voter rights “from a multitude of directions.” The group called HB 2587 a “shell bill,” noting that it was originally drafted for an unrelated purpose. And in fact, the bill’s title is: “Authorizing a licensed private psychiatric hospital to maintain a stock supply of emergency medication kits for pharmaceutical emergencies.” Micah Kubic, the ACLU of Kansas’s executive director, claimed in a press release last month that the state’s politicians were eroding “Kansans’ ability to vote by obstructing voter registration, shifting deadlines, restricting mail-in voting, sharing sensitive data, fabricating the issue of widespread fraud in Kansas elections, and assigning blame to noncitizens. Legislators have opted to do all this before key primary and general elections in Kansas, giving county clerks and voters virtually no chance to adapt to or even understand these changes.”

The ACLU of Kansas has sued to block SB 244, though a district court judge denied a temporary restraining order and the case is not set for another court date until late September. By then, Kansas’ Aug. 4 primary will have passed, and Kansas elections officials will have already printed ballots for November, with actual voting soon to get underway. It’s not clear that any good voting options will exist for those targeted by SB 244.