The Pittsburgh Police Department displayed an excessive use of force at a demonstration yesterday outside a military recruitment station located near the University of Pittsburgh. Five were arrested, two were hospitalized and several others received injuries as a result of police unwarranted use of Tasers, pepper spray, retracting batons and K-9 units. Two others were issued citations when they complained about police misconduct.

The National Lawyers Guild (NLG) documented a number of types of police misconduct during the OAS protests on June 4 and 5, 2005, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The NLG trained and coordinated Legal Observers to monitor and document police conduct and also worked as part of a legal team, Mobilization for Activist Defense, to set up a legal hotline for activists to use to make reports from the street.

(Washington, DC)—Today Dr. William F. Schulz, Executive Director of Amnesty International USA (AIUSA), released the following statement regarding documents listing Taser International executives, consultants and businesses partners as panelists in the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) TASER study. This discovery reported over the weekend by the Arizona Republic marks the third time in five months that the manufacturer has been linked to "independent" studies:

WASHINGTON -- May 20 -- The National Lawyers Guild Mass Defense Committee, with lawyers from Southern Legal Counsel and the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Florida, filed a lawsuit on May 19, 2005 in the Southern District Federal Court in Florida, seeking to bar law enforcement from enforcing a sweeping security perimeter around the site of the Organization of American States (OAS) General Assembly in early June in Fort Lauderdale, as well as challenging a series of antiquated laws regulating the use of public property for expressive activities.

WASHINGTON -- The American Civil Liberties Union charged today that the FBI and local police are engaging in intimidation based on political association and are improperly investigating law-abiding human rights and advocacy groups, according to documents obtained through a series of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. ACLU affiliates today filed FOIA requests seeking similar documents in ten states.

Today, the City of New York settled the contempt proceedings initiated by New York State Supreme Court Judge John Cataldo on September 2, 2004 when City officials violated multiple release orders Judge Cataldo issued on the afternoon of the 2nd in response to habeas corpus writs filed by attorneys from the National Lawyers Guild and the Legal Aid Society the prior day.

On the eve of the Super Bowl, we as Boston area students call on Mayor Menino to publicly assert the need for Boston Police to protect the health and welfare of anyone who wishes to celebrate a New England Patriots victory in the streets of Boston. Bostonians have been gravely harmed by the police responses to public gatherings of sports fans, and the city must reverse course immediately.

The ACLU has launched a nationwide effort to expose and limit FBI spying on people and groups simply for speaking out or practicing their faith. As a first step, the ACLU and its state affiliates have filed Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests in 10 states and the District of Columbia. They have evidence that the FBI and local police – working through so-called Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTFs) – are spying on environmental, anti-war, political, and faith-based groups.

On Thursday, November 4, the Boston Area Faculty Group on Public Issues, the National Lawyers Guild and the Save Our Civil Liberties (SOCL) Campaign issued a public demand for an immediate moratorium on police use of so-called “non-lethal” and “less-lethal” weapons.

Thursday morning, US authorities issued a federal order to Rackspace ordering them to hand over Indymedia web servers to the FBI. Rackspace, which provides hosting services for more that 20 Indymedia sites at its London facility, complied and turned over the requested servers, effectively removing those sites from the internet.